Ecclesiastes 10:3
"Yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool."

As we've mentioned on previous Creation Moments programs, our bodies contain trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi, most of which are harmless. But researchers have now discovered a virus that infects human brains and makes us more stupid. No, we're not making this up.

The ATCV-1 virus is ordinarily found in green algae that inhabit rivers and lakes. So far, scientists have no idea how the micoorganism gets inside the throats of some humans. But this much they do know – it is not contagious and does not adversely affect a person's health. It just makes them 10 percent more stupid.

The irony is that the scientists at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of Nebraska stumbled upon this discovery by sheer dumb luck. They were actually working on an unrelated study into throat microbes. Virologist Dr. Robert Yolken tells us: "This is a striking example showing that the 'innocuous' microorganisms we carry can affect behavior and cognition."

Of the 90 participants in the study, 40 tested positive for the algae virus. Those who tested positive performed worse on tests designed to measure the speed and accuracy of visual processing. They also achieved lower scores in tasks designed to measure attention.

Like a virus that affects our behavior, the sin nature we're all born with makes us "stupid" in the knowledge of God. But God has overcome our fallen sin nature and makes us righteous through the blood of Jesus, poured out for us on the cross.

Notes: "Virus that 'makes humans more stupid' discovered", The Independent, 11/9/14. http://www.cnet.com/news/theres-a-virus-that-makes-you-stupid-scientists-say/. "American Researchers Discover 'Stupidity Virus', Newsweek, 11/10/14. Photo: Courtesy of Kristian Peters. (CC-BY-SA 3.0). Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

In 2008, ABC began hyping the documentary Earth 2100, which predicted that by 2015 New York City would be engulfed by water, flames would cover hundreds of miles, a gallon of gas would cost more than $9 and a gallon of milk $13. The predictions were wildly inaccurate, because they were based on bogus science. New York City is not covered with water, flames cover nothing, gas is $2.75 a gallon, and milk is $3.39. “Seven years later, the network has quietly ignored its horribly inaccurate predictions about 2015. When it comes to global warming claims, apparently results don’t matter for ABC” (“ABC’s ’08 Prediction,” NewsBusters.org, Jun. 12, 2015).

(Friday Church News Notes, June 26, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Psalm 140:7
"O GOD the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou hast covered my head in the day of battle."

Today's Creation Moment is taken from a viewpoint commentary written by Creation Moments Board Chairman Mark Cadwallader.

The date: October 31, 1517. The place: Germany. The event: Martin Luther nails his famous 95 Theses to the Wittenberg church door. Luther was primarily protesting the sale of indulgences, a direct attack on God's free gift of salvation.    

As Luther put it, "If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest expression every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ."

In addition to defending salvation by grace through faith, Luther also saw that the battle was raging over the Bible's account of creation. In his pithy way he told the skeptics, "When Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and whatever is in them in six days, then let this period continue to have been six days. But if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are."

Luther stressed the biblical view that the Word was God's instrument of creation, the Word which spoke things into existence and the Word which became flesh to win our salvation. In raising the text of Scripture to the level of highest authority in all things, Luther's was part of that view which gave birth to modern science – founded in the West by biblical creationists!

Notes: M. Cadwallader, "Where the Battle Rages", 9/27/11.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Professors at some U.S. universities are warning that the earth is entering a new period of extinction. They say that creatures are going extinct at alarming rates. Gerardo Ceballos, lead author of a study by Stanford, Princeton, and Berkeley, says, “We are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event. If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on” (“Earth ‘entering new extinction phrase,’” BBC News, June 20, 2015). The scientists are calling for “intensive conservation,” but this type of thing is ridiculous at multiple levels. First, if life is a product of blind evolution, it has no meaning or purpose. Man would have no more ultimate meaning or importance than a slug. Second, the alleged previous mass extinctions were not man-made, since man did not exist then according to the evolutionary timetable, and could not have been prevented. If evolution is true, some event will eventually destroy the world, whether it be warming, cooling, drought or deluge. Third, man has not shown himself capable of solving any of the world’s big problems, such as war, crime, poverty, disease, and death. Man cannot save himself, let alone the earth. (The first three supposed Mass Extinctions--Ordovician-Sirurian, Late Devonian, Permian-- probably all occurred during the global Flood of Noah’s day. When the bogus evolutionary dating systems are rejected as the fallible “science” they are, these “mass extinctions,” which consist of massive fossil beds, are powerful evidence for the biblical Flood.)

(Friday Church News Notes, June 26, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

More “evangelicals” recently came out in support of the heresy of homosexual Christianity. Influential teacher and author Tony Campolo issued a news release saying, “I am finally ready to call for the full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church.” Though this has been framed by many as a major change of stance, Campolo has long been wishy-washy on the issue of homosexuality, and like the good emerging church leader he is, he is adept at the miracle of facing two ways. For many years he has stated that homosexuality is a birth condition and not a “volitional” matter. When I interviewed Campolo in 2008 at the New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta, he was wearing a rainbow scarf in support of homosexual rights. Campolo’s wife, Peggy, is a national leader of the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists (AWAB), which urges Baptist congregations to receive homosexuals into full membership privileges. At the New Baptist Covenant Celebration, I interviewed an AWAB council member named Kathy Stayton who said that she rejects the first three chapters of Genesis as literal history, does not believe that marriage is a divinely-ordained institution or that homosexual acts, even outside of “committed relationships,” are sinful. The AWAB booth distributed an article by Peggy Campolo entitled “Some Answers to the Most Common Questions about God’s GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered] Children” from the Summer 2000 edition of The InSpiriter. Agreeing with Campolo’s recent statement was David Neff, retired editor of Christianity Today, who said on Facebook, “God bless Tony Campolo. He is acting in good faith and is, I think, on the right track.” Neff told Christianity Today: “I think the ethically responsible thing for gay and lesbian Christians to do is to form lasting, covenanted partnerships. I also believe that the church should help them in those partnerships in the same way the church should fortify traditional marriages” (“Does Campolo Announcement Signal Move,” Christian Newswire, Jun. 12. 2015). (The current senior editor of Christianity Today, Mark Galli, quickly reaffirmed the magazine’s official stance against same-sex “marriage,” though in typical New Evangelical fashion, Galli also stated that they won’t condemn or distance themselves from those who differ.) Neff’s position is impossible to reconcile with two clear teachings of Scripture. First, any sexual relationship outside of holy matrimony is sinful and under God’s judgment (Heb. 13:4). Second, holy matrimony is restricted to a covenant between one man and one woman (Gen. 2:18-24). This was affirmed by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 19:4-6. “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge” (Heb. 13:4). The issue of homosexuality is revealing the apostasy of a large number of “evangelicals.”

(Friday Church News Notes, June 26, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

2 John 1:7
"For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist."

Most people consider Charles Darwin to be the father of evolution. The fact is, someone beat him to it by six hundred years. In the thirteenth century, a Muslim scholar by the name of Nasir al-Din Tusi proposed a theory of evolution that in many ways foreshadowed Darwin's.

Tusi's theory begins with a universe consisting of equal and similar elements. Those elements evolved into minerals and then to plants. From there they evolved to animals, and then to humans. He even put forward the idea that hereditary variability was an important factor for the biological evolution of living things.

This Persian scholar was born in the city of Tus in northeastern Iran in the year 1201. In addition to his work in biology, Tusi was an architect, astronomer, chemist, mathematician, poet, philosopher, physician, physicist and theologian. In all, he is responsible for 150 works, most of which are in Arabic.

Regarding evolution, he considered humans to be the "middle step of the evolutionary stairway." The final step, he wrote, can be achieved through man's will. Tusi was also the first to suggest that not only do organisms change over time but that the whole range of life has evolved from a point when there was no life at all. In other words, life from non-life.

There is one other point of similarity between Tusi's and Darwin's theories of evolution. Both theories are based on the faulty reasoning of man rather than the sure Word of God.

Photo: A stamp issued in the republic of Azerbaijan in 2009 honoring Tusi. Notes: D. Green, The Science Book, p. 121 (DK Publishing, 2014). Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

I don’t worship modern science, but I do thank the Lord for what it has accomplished in medicine. Antibiotics and vaccinations alone have prevented millions of premature deaths. Before vaccinations, small pox caused two million deaths a year. Polio paralyzed 1,000 children a day in America alone. Just 60 years ago, hospital wards were fitted with frightful “iron lung” machines in an attempt to keep children alive after polio had paralyzed their respiratory systems. Whooping cough vaccination is believed to save a half million deaths per year. More than 60,000 still die of whooping cough annually in places where the vaccine is not used. Called the 100 day cough, a person may cough so hard they break ribs. The disease spreads easily. After their infant son died of whooping cough in Australia in March 2015, Greg and Catherine Hughs urged parents to immunize their children so the disease doesn’t spread. Before vaccinations, diphtheria was another fearful cause of illness and death in young children. More than 15,000 died of it in America in 1921. Zero died in 2004. Vaccination also protects from the terrible disease of tetanus, which causes spasms so severe that bone fractures may occur. About 10% of those who are infected die. Tetanus still causes 59,000 deaths per year, but only in those who aren’t vaccinated. Meningitis caused 171,000 deaths worldwide before vaccination. Dr. Paul Offit observes, “Before vaccines, ... rubella (German measles) would cause as many as twenty thousand babies to be born blind, deaf, or mentally disabled; polio would permanently paralyze fifteen thousand children and kill a thousand; mumps would be a common cause of deafness; and a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzaetype b (Hib) would cause hundreds of children to die of suffocation from epiglottitis--no different than being smothered by a pillow. In the developed world, vaccines have completely or virtually eliminated these diseases” (Offit, Do You Believe in Magic? p. 138).

(Friday Church News Notes, June 19, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

1 Timothy 6:20
"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called."

Though evolutionists would have you believe there's a war between science and faith, the very idea of a conflict is preposterous. Creation Moments board member Dr. Donald Clark points out that many of the early modern scientists were Christians – like Galileo, Copernicus and Newton. Because of their faith, they believed in a God of order, and this drove them to look for the order in the universe in the first place.

But how things have changed since then! Today we are told that we must keep our faith out of classrooms and scientific institutions in order to do good science. Nothing could be further from the truth! As Dr. Clark writes, "This is a lie from the enemy of our soul to try to indoctrinate our children to not believe in God. How can you do good science if you do not believe that the stuff you are looking at is ordered and if you believe that it came about from chaos?"

Indeed, why perform any experiments at all if the next time you do it the results will be different? There is no point in it. So while many science professors say we must keep science and faith separate, they themselves can't believe this. Otherwise, they would never go into the laboratory.

According to Dr. Clark: "It all boils down to this: What do you put your faith in – science – which is man’s understanding of the world – or God’s Word? As for me and everyone at Creation Moments, our trust is in God’s Word."

Notes: "War Between Science and Faith?", Donald Clark, Ph.D., 4/30/12.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Speaking in April, Hillary Clinton said that religion must adapt with the times and accept abortion on demand. In her keynote address before the World in the World Summit, Mrs. Clinton bemoaned the fact that “far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care,” saying that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” (“Hillary Clinton says religious beliefs ‘have to be changed’ on abortion,” The Blaze, Apr. 27, 2015). A year ago, Mrs. Clinton told the New York Times that “the Bible was and remains the biggest influence on my thinking.” It is impossible to fathom where in the Bible she finds support for the murder of unborn children.

(Friday Church News Notes, June 19, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Luke 24:31
"And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight."

When Creation Moments posted a story with the headline "Dawkins Becomes a Creationist," many evolutionists reacted in disbelief, saying that one of their own – namely, Richard Dawkins – could never become a creationist. And yet, a scientist and veterinarian by the name of Karen Dawkins was also an evolutionist … until God changed her way of thinking.

In an interview with Creation Moments, she said, "As a product of the public school system, I always assumed that evolution was fact. Majoring in science in college, I began having my doubts about the scientific logic of evolution. The first organism I learned about that was not explainable by evolution was the woodpecker. There is no way it could have evolved with so many specialized organs. It had to have been created with all of its specialized organs all at one time. It still took me about 15 years to come to the conclusion that God created the heavens and the earth in six literal days."

She also told us, "Christianity explains the basics of science. Biology, chemistry, geology, physics and astronomy are all based on an orderly, predictable set of laws. And if life is ruled by these laws, then there has to be One who created those predictable sets of laws."

Today Karen Dawkins feels she has a more complete understanding of the sciences by the revealed Word of God. If such a radical change could happen to her, we can only pray that another evolutionist named Dawkins will come to see Christ as Lord and Creator before it's too late.

Photo: Karen E. Dawkins, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree as well as a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine. She is now teaching science as a homeschooling parent. Notes: Karen Dawkins interview on file at Creation Moments.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

According to the latest statistics, the Southern Baptist Convention is continuing its death spiral, with the largest decline in membership last year in more than 130 years. The SBC lost nearly a quarter of a million members in 2014 and has lost 800,000 members since 2003. The median age is now 54 years old. More than half of the churches baptized no “millennials” (roughly ages 12 to 30). Baptisms declined by 300,000. The convention claims to have about 15.5 million members, but that is a meaningless statistic. Most of these “members” are nowhere to be found. Sunday morning attendance is about 5.6 million, and that includes visitors, and the number of those who attend Sunday evening or mid-week prayer, typically, is much smaller. Ed Stetzer, executive director of LifeWay Research, says the decline actually started in the 1950s (“As Church Plants Grow, Southern Baptists Disappear,”Christianity Today, June 12, 2015). I am not surprised, as I grew up in SBC churches and they were spiritually lukewarm even then. Though there were some outstanding saints in the membership, the leadership and the congregations as a whole were lukewarm at best. At least that is my experience. The leaders were hirelings who were more afraid of man than God, and the people were in love with the world, a thing that God hates. “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

(Friday Church News Notes, June 19, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Isaiah 4:6
"And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain."

It's a sunny, sweltering summer day, and you're looking for a place to park your car. Since you know you'll be gone for several hours, you look for a nice shaded spot so your car will be more comfortable when you return. Or it's a blustery winter day with sub-zero temperatures. This time you park your car where there's as much sunlight as possible so that the sunlight streaming through your windows will heat your car's interior while you're gone.

What you are doing is practicing what scientists call behavioral thermoregulation. Through experience, we learn how to adjust our parking behavior to fit the climate conditions. But did you know that animals and plants also know how to adjust their bodies to help them stay warm or cool?

Insects and reptiles are particularly skilled at this. On a cold day, for example, an insect will adjust its position so that it intercepts as much sunlight as possible. Lizards and snakes bask in the sunlight on cold days, and on warm days seek relief in the shade or by burrowing underground.

Surprisingly, plants, too, know how to adjust their positions. The silk tree, for example, has leaves that it can move into three different positions depending on whether it needs to keep cool or gain heat.

Most likely, somebody taught you where to park your car for maximum comfort. Or you were intelligent enough to figure it out. But it could only have been God who taught the animals and the plants.

Notes: R. Allen, Bulletproof Feathers, p. 121 (University of Chicago Press, 2010). Photo: Courtesy of Blalonde. (CC-BY-SA 4.0 International). Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

In a full-page ad in the Washington Post on June 10, religious leaders asked the Supreme Court not to force same sex “marriage” on the states and vowed not to obey any such ruling. “We implore this court to not step outside of its legitimate authority and unleash religious persecution and discrimination against people of faith. We will be forced to choose between the state and our conscience, which is informed by clear biblical and church doctrine and the natural created order. We will not honor any decision by the Supreme Court which will force us to violate a clear biblical understanding of marriage as solely the union of one man and one woman.” Signers included Baptists, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, including Franklin Graham, James Dobson, Jerry Boykin, Alan Keyes, and Southern Baptist leaders Robert Jeffress and Paige Patterson. In our opinion, any true Christian involved in the advertisement program would have done better to have had some special prayer meetings to beseech God rather than to have disobeyed Scripture by joining hands with unbelievers and heretics in a spiritual matter. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (2 Corinthians 6:14-16).

(Friday Church News Notes, June 19, 2015, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Job 10:18a
"Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb?"

You can thank roving pieces of DNA that you were born rather than hatched from an egg. At least, that's what evolutionary biologist Vincent Lynch and his team at the University of Chicago tell us. Science News magazine brings us the story about roving pieces of DNA that helped early mammals replace egg-laying in favor of giving birth to live young.

These "jumping genes" flipped the switch on thousands of genes, turning off ones that build hard eggshells and turning on genes that allow a fetus to develop in the uterus. Lynch said that the genes that turned on allowed the mother's body to recognize she is pregnant. It then suppressed her immune system so her body didn’t sense the foreign DNA in the fetus and reject it. Animals that become pregnant, he continued, had the evolutionary advantage of carrying their developing young with them, rather than laying eggs in one spot where they'd be vulnerable to predators or unpredictable weather.

What the article fails to mention is that all of this – all of it – is sheer speculation. Can you imagine all of the millions of unaccounted-for changes that would need to take place to go from an egg-laying bird to a mammal that bears live young?

Just as you would expect from a team of evolutionary biologists, their research is built on the premise that evolution is a fact. They never even considered the more believable explanation that some creatures were designed to lay eggs and others were designed to give birth to live young.

Notes: "Pregnancy in mammals evolved with help from roving DNA", Science News, 1/29/15. Photo: Courtesy of HTO. (CC-BY-SA 3.0). Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Throughout much of the 19th century, Sheba, the spice kingdom ruled by a queen in Solomon’s day, was considered mythical by Bible critics. Since then, the evidence for Sheba’s existence in southern Arabia (modern Yemen) has become overwhelming. In the 1950s, Wendell Phillips led the first official archaeological expedition to Sheba’s ancient capital, Marib, and found evidence of a sophisticated, idolatrous society. This month I visited the “Unearthing Arabia” exhibition at the Sackler Museum in Washington, D.C., which displayed some of the artifacts discovered by Phillips. I have also seen ancient artifacts from southern Arabia at the British Museum and the Louvre in Paris, as we describe in the book Bible Times and Ancient Kingdoms. Recently, archaeologists from the University of Oxford found a tomb outside of Marib that is believed to be that of the Queen of Sheba (“Archaeologists Discover Tomb,” World News Daily Report, Feb. 6, 2015). The tomb dates to the early 10th century BC, which is the time of Solomon. It contained the skeleton of a woman adorned with luxurious jewelry, inscribed clay tablets, and vases still containing traces of myrrh and frankincense. Dr. Joseph Lang, head archaeologist of the team, says, “The carbon-dating, the location, the inscriptions, the characteristics of the skeleton and the nature of the artifacts on the site all seem to confirm that the bones are indeed those of the famous queen regnant who visited Solomon. Many of the inscriptions in the tomb refer to ‘Bilqis, mqtwyt of Sheba,’ which means Bilkis, high chieftess on Sheba.’” The skeleton and artifacts have been deposited in the National Museum of Yemen.

(Friday Church News Notes, June 19, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Though I am not a Mark Driscoll fan, having written many warnings about him long before he “fell from grace” (e.g., my 2008 book What Is the Emerging Church?) I have been puzzled at his downfall. He was an extremely popular and influential emerging church leader and the senior pastor of Mars Hill, a multi-campus megachurch in Seattle that he founded, when he resigned under pressure last year. Accusations against him include his dictatorial pastoral methodology, anger issues, crude language, pride, self-promotion, and using church funds to promote his books. Though he has publicly repented of these things, every time he gets a speaking invitation, a small group of dedicated enemies sets up a commotion on social media sites like a bunch of howler monkeys, and they have been successful so far in getting him blacklisted. But it doesn’t appear to me that any of the aforementioned points are the real reason. Dictatorial pastoral methodology, anger issues, pride, and self-promotion are not uncommon to megachurch pastors. As for crude language, the emerging church hero Bono is not only crude, he is actually foul-mouthed and lives an immoral lifestyle, but no one in this crowd is howling at him. As for talking too plainly about sex, many of the megachurches are guilty of this. Looking more closely at the accusations, I suspect that a large part of the issue might be Driscoll’s political incorrectness, particularly his attacks on the unisex society. Consider the points that the howler monkeys raised against Driscoll in their recent successful petition to have him removed from a Hillsong conference in Australia. The points include Driscoll’s “public statements against women in leadership,” his belief that we are living in a feminized nation, his warnings against “feminized men,” and “his ongoing negative attitudes toward women, gender non-conforming men and gay people” (“Petitioning Hillsong: Remove Mark Driscoll from the Hillsong Conference,” www.change.org). This is doubtless the heart of the issue. The howlers in this case are a group of feminists and homosexuals. The unisex movement, which began in earnest in the 1960s, was a major factor leading to the widespread acceptance of homosexuality today. There can be no doubt that it has resulted in the feminization of men and the masculinization of women and has affected American society at every level, including the police, the military, and the churches. When viewed in the context of the history of Western society, there is an intimate connection between the social acceptance of pants on women in the late twentieth century and the acceptance of homosexuality in the early twenty-first. Driscoll was one of the few megachurch pastors (if not the only one) who spoke plainly against unisexuality (though even he didn’t deal with the hot-button issue of unisex clothing). He railed against the sissification of men in his hometown of Seattle and tried to teach the men in his congregation how to be men. Crude language aside, Driscoll was right about the unisex issue and women in church leadership. Howler monkeys on social media sites are trying to destroy freedom of speech and are doing a good job of it. They howl at Chick-Fil-A, Duck Dynasty, Brad Pitt’s mom, anyone of influence who says things they don’t like, particularly something against homosexuality and homosexual marriage. Another group of howlers roars at any scientist courageous enough to enunciate support for any type of “intelligent design.”

(Friday Church News Notes, June 19, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Hebrews 11:6
"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."

See if you can answer the following question from Creation Moments Board Director Mark Cadwallader. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews includes a list of heroes of the faith. Each verse that introduces a faith hero begins with the words "by faith" or "through faith." Can you name the very first one mentioned in Hebrews 11? Also, can you identify why he or she was said to exercise faith?

Most people, of course, say the name of an Old Testament character. Many think it was Abel, who offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. But the right answer is – wait for it – YOU! As a believer in biblical creation, YOU are at the head of the list!

Check out Hebrews 11:3 where it says, "Through faith WE understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

That's right – believers are listed first in the Hebrews 11 "Faith Hall of Fame"! And we are listed there because we understand that God created the worlds through Jesus, the Word. The first faith hero in this amazing chapter are believers down through the ages who believe what God said about His act of Creation.

This means that Christian creationists have a responsibility to exercise the faith we have been given to share the reasons for our faith with others. What have you been doing lately to spread the truth of the gospel and biblical creation?

Notes: Noah was one of the heroes mentioned in Hebrews 11. Painting: by Daniel Maclise (1811-1870).
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

“Hiram Bingham and Asa Thurston were sent to Hawaii by the American Board of Missions on the ship Thaddeus, arriving at Kailua on March 31, 1820. The missionaries not only spread Christianity, but also confronted drunkenness and vice which had been introduced into the islands by sailors, whalers, and convicts from Botany Bay. The missionaries created a 12-letter Hawaiian alphabet and reduced the Hawaiian language to writing. They translated the Bible, began a newspaper, set up schools and churches, and convinced the Hawaiian women to wear dresses. Idolatry and human sacrifice had previously been ended by King Kamehameha II and his Queen mother Ka’ahumanu. Queen Kaʻahumanu and six high chiefs requested to be baptized in 1823. She then banned prostitution and drunkenness, resulting in sailors resenting the missionaries’ influence. Queen Ka’ahumanu helped spread the Gospel in the islands, beginning a ‘Great Awakening.’ She was presented with the newly completed version of the New Testament in the Hawaiian language just prior to her death. Her last words were, ‘I am going where the mansions are ready.’ Chiefess Kapiolani, the cousin of King Kamehameha I, in 1824 defied the volcano goddess Pele by saying a Christian prayer, climbing down into the lava crater and returning unharmed, then eating the forbidden Ōhelo berries. Chiefess Kapiolani praised ‘the one true God,’ proclaiming, ‘Jehovah is my God. He kindled these fires. I fear not Pele. All the gods of Hawaii are vain.’ This courage inspired many Hawaiians to be missionaries to other islands, such as Samuel Kauwealoha, who sailed in 1853 to the Marquesas Islands.” To this report we add the following from Our Fascinating Earth by Philip and Nancy Seff: “Priests, friends, and husband all prophesied a fiery doom for Chiefess Kapiolani. ... The gathering crowds gasped as she threw rocks and a slipper and emptied her washbowl into the sacred crater. ... Alfred, Lord Tennyson later paid homage to the brave queen by immortalizing her in a poem ‘Kapiolani.’ He wrote, ‘Great and greater, and greatest of women, island heroine, Kapiolani, climbed the mountain, and flung the berries, and dared the Goddess, and freed the people of Hawaii!’”

“Christian Missionaries in Hawaii,” Bill Federer, TheMoralLiberal.com

Isaiah 35:5
"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped."

If an infinite number of monkeys sat down at an infinite number of typewriters, eventually one of these monkeys would type Shakespeare's play Hamlet. At least that's what French mathematician Émile Borel proposed in his infinite monkey theorem – an idea that scientists use to assert that given enough time, even evolution can happen.

Now, if anyone ever tosses the infinite monkey theorem in your direction, point out that a monkey has a one in twenty-six chance of typing the first letter correctly. Getting the second letter correct sees the probability rise to 1 in 676. After just the first 15 letters of Hamlet, the chance of getting the next letter right is one in thousands of trillions!

In 2003, the infinite monkey theorem was put to the test at the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom. Researchers put six crested macaques in front of a computer and waited for them to start typing. Occasionally, in between urinating on the keyboard and smashing it with a rock, the monkeys typed out the letter "S" several times before tiring of the experiment.

Despite the sheer absurdity of the infinite monkey theorem, it is still being used to show that complexity can arise from random mutations. In fact, as recently as 1986, evolutionary evangelist Richard Dawkins brought it up in his book The Blind Watchmaker.

It never ceases to amaze us what evolutionists will believe so they can continue in their unbelief. Clearly, the infinite monkey theorem has done nothing but make monkeys out of those who still believe it!

Notes: R. Arp, "Infinite Monkey Theorem," 1001 Ideas that Changed the Way We Think (Atria Books, 2013), p. 643.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

1 Kings 22:30
"And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself, and enter into the battle; but put thou on thy robes. And the king of Israel disguised himself, and went into the battle."

When the South American false-eyed frog is approached by a predator, it behaves in a way that evolution is powerless to explain. It turns its back on the predator.

So how is this a good strategy? In the time it takes to spin around, the frog's back is changing color to look like a pair of large, menacing eyes, complete with black pupils surrounded by blue irises. And it accomplishes this in only one second.

To complete its disguise, the frog raises its rear-end up high and tucks its hind legs underneath his fake eyes so the legs now look like a large mouth. Above the fake mouth appears what looks like a nose. The frog also lifts two toes on each back foot and curls them out so they look like claws.  By moving his legs, the frog’s fake mouth and claws appear to be in motion.

If this trickery doesn't work, the false-eyed frog releases a smelly, sticky substance from glands located inside of the gigantic fake eyes. This final defense tactic is usually enough to scare away all hungry predators.

It should be obvious to anyone with common sense that evolution can't account for this remarkable defense mechanism. After all, if the frog turned around before evolution had given it the ability to transform its back into a pair of menacing eyes, it would have died out long ago. Only scientists with blinded eyes can possibly believe that the false-eyed frog is a product of evolution.

Notes: Science Vs. Evolution, pp. 868-870, Vance Ferrell (Evolution Facts, 2006). http://www.wild-facts.com/2013/false-eyed-frog/. http://www.discovercreation.org/documents/TheFalse-eyedFrog.htm. Photo: Courtesy of Felipe Gomes (Wikipedia).
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

“Radical Hindu nationalists closely aligned to the Indian government warned Christians in Punjab state late last year to prepare to convert to Hinduism ‘or get ready to die,’ according to a complaint before a U.S. federal court. A lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York calls on the U.S. government to designate as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) a radical Hindu organization with close ties to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party. Late last week attorneys filed an amended complaint in a case brought by an advocacy group called Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) against Secretary of State John Kerry. The amended document adds three additional plaintiffs, two Christians and a Muslim, who claim to be victims of a forced conversion campaign carried out by the Hindu group RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or National Volunteer Corps). The three say that threats by RSS radicals determined to forcibly convert minorities to Hinduism have increased since Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won India’s general election last year. Modi, a generally highly-regarded leader whose high-profile visit to Washington last fall was reciprocated when President Obama traveled to India in January, was once a full-time RSS activist, and the RSS is viewed as the BJP’s parent organization. The complaint claims that Kerry ignored an SFJ appeal sent last December urging him to designate RSS as an FTO under U.S. law. It wants the court to issue a judgment declaring RSS to be an FTO, for ‘practicing a fascist ideology and for running a passionate, vicious and violent campaign to turn India into a Hindu nation with a homogeneous religious and ethnic identity.’ ... ‘Prominent leaders of RSS have stated the party’s policy, goal and aim as there won’t be a single Muslim or Christian left in India,’ the complaint says.”

“Radical Hindus to India’s Christians: Convert or Get Ready to Die,” CNSNews.com, June 1, 2015

2 Peter 3:12
"Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?"

Creation Moments and friends of our ministry spend countless hours sharing their faith and the truth of biblical creation on social networking websites. One such creationist, Allen Dunckley, Th.D. recently ran into a person he describes as a radical atheist. The atheist laid down a challenge with these words: "Demonstrate a causal link to why your god needs to exist or does exist."

Dr. Dunckley was quick to respond with a question of his own: "Can you explain to us how is it that the positively charged protons in the nucleus of an atom don't repel each other since it is a fact that like charges do so? By the laws of physics, the atomic nucleus should not exist, yet it does."

He continued: "This fact is consistent with Colossians 1:17 that says, 'by Him (Jesus Christ) all things consist.' 'Consist' is from a Greek word which means 'held together.' So here is demonstrable empirical fact that God exists and that His existence is what holds the very fabric of matter together. So the existence of the material universe is dependent on the existence of the Creator Himself. All that needs to be done to destroy the universe is for God to literally 'let go' of matter and – poof – gone just like the Bible says in 2 Peter 3:12."

As you can see, Christians are using social networking websites to share their faith with people, some of whom live on the other side of the world. Does God want you to join them in declaring God's truth unto the ends of the earth?

Notes: From Allen J. Dunckley's post in the "Creationists Speak Out" page on Facebook, 12/18/14.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

“Dr. Ben Carson is a noted retired neuro-surgeon who has plainly stated in the past his firm belief in the inerrancy of Scripture and the Genesis record. He has officially declared himself a candidate for the U.S. Presidential office. Carson is generally noted for his clear cut rational thinking, his conservative political and religious views and his even handed non-inflammatory responses. In a morning March 2015 TV interview, Carson clearly delineated that he believed that homosexuality is ‘absolutely’ a choice, citing as his evidence that many men enter prison as ‘straight’ heterosexuals, but when they leave the prison doors, they have become homosexuals, a voluntary choice they made during their incarceration. However, the words had hardly come out of Carson’s mouth, than a few hours later, he quickly backpedaled, apologized and retracted his remark after facing pressure from liberals who claimed that the ‘Gay Gestapo’ and ‘Gay Mafia’ was behind his remarks. Carson stated: ‘I realized that my choice of language does not reflect fully my heart on gay issues.’ He claimed that he didn’t know ‘how every individual came to their sexual orientation.’ Carson also declared that he ‘answered a question without really thinking about it thoroughly ... and I deeply regret my statement ... as a human being my obligation is to learn from my mistakes and treat all people with respect and dignity.’ ... The most likely explanation [for the change]? Carson’s campaign managers ‘told him he had to go into immediate damage control if he wants to be president.’ ... Carson said that ‘I’m not going to talk about that issue any more.’ Sadly, Carson’s last words concerning homosexuality are apparently going to be an apology for declaring that homosexuality is a choice, a disappointing stance for religious conservatives who had previously placed high trust in his apparent unwavering stance. In a later further so-called clarification of his stance, Carson wrote on Facebook: ‘While I remain opposed to same-sex marriage, I have and will continue to support recognition of same-sex civil unions. I have and will continue full recognition of same-sex marriage in state jurisdictions where the matter has been approved by a vote of the people or their representatives…’ From a Bible believer’s standpoint, the lesson to be learned is: Don’t put too much hope in so-called conservative politicians. The answer to America’s problems is not politicians but preachers! 2 Timothy 4:2 states, ‘Preach the Word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.’”

“Noted Neuro Surgeon Retracts Strong Moral Stance,” Fundamentalist Digest, June-July 2015

Genesis 1:20a
"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life…"

The long and skinny shrimpfish must surely be one of the strangest sea creatures to come from the hand of a Creator who never ceases to amaze us with His wonders. Of course, evolutionists claim that the shrimpfish is a product of millions of years of evolution. Let's take a close look at this remarkable creature and see for ourselves which view holds water.

Shrimpfish spend their lives in the ocean with their mouths pointed straight down and their tails above them in a vertical stance. Not only do they feed like this. They swim like this, too.

Now if you were to look at a cross-section of most fish, you'd see an oval or a circle. But a cross section of the shrimpfish looks very much like a slice of an airplane wing. Its wider leading edge tapers off to a thinner edge toward the belly. It's an aerodynamic shape that makes it easy for the fish to cut through the water. But let me add that it works only when the fish swims in its natural vertical position rather than head-first like other fish.

Evolutionist Frank Fish – yes, that's his name – notes that the usual fin found on the backs of fish actually moved to join the shrimpfish tail, making it easier for the shrimpfish to turn easily. "They do full pirouettes on their heads," he added. "I'd like to see a prima ballerina do that."

With its many design features, the shrimpfish provides big evidence of creation!

Notes: "That's how shrimpfish roll," Science News, 2/7/15, p. 4. Photo: Courtesy of Thomsonmg2000. (PD).
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Hudson Yards in the west of Manhattan will be America’s first fully integrated smart community. Currently in Phase 1 development, the 17 million square foot project “will track data on air quality, pedestrian traffic, energy production and consumption, and the health and activity levels of workers and residents” (“In New York City and Chicago, the smart city is here,” Business Insider, Jun. 3, 2015). The community is scheduled for completion by the mid-2020s. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the Array of Things (AoT) project “has set out to ‘smarten’ the city by placing sensors everywhere.” In Songdo, South Korea, “sensors track roads, water, waste and electricity, and buildings have computerized access and automatic climate controls.” And Lavasa, India, promises “smart metering, efficient parking and traffic management, a cashless retail experience and a technology supported transportation system.” The relentless move toward globalization and electronic integration is a major sign of the end times. Bible prophecy describes the antichrist’s kingdom as one with the ability to control global finance at the individual level and to observe Middle East events throughout the earth (Revelation 11:9; 13:16-17). “And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves” (Rev. 11:9).

(Friday Church News Notes, June 12, 2015, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)