Job 38:3-5
“Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?”

A novel and sophisticated variation on the old Miller-Urey experiment has seen the artificial design of a new small protein molecule. The molecule uses just two types of amino acids instead of the 20 usually found in proteins. Each amino acid was used six times, making 12 amino acid links in all. The purpose of the synthesis of this peptide was to see if a simple protein-like molecule could have existed before the actual alleged evolutionary development of life on Earth.

One has to note carefully what the researchers say.

“This peptide has several impressive and important features. It contains only two types of amino acids (rather than the estimated 20 amino acids that synthesize millions of different proteins needed for specific body functions), it is very short and it could have emerged spontaneously on the early Earth in the right conditions.”

This last sentence must not go unnoticed. How could such a molecule have emerged spontaneously? The synthesis of the molecule had to use careful reducing conditions because the slightest oxidation would break the molecule apart. So this is what is meant by the “right conditions”. There is no reason to suppose that an early atmosphere on the Earth would be reducing, except that such an atmosphere would be necessary to achieve the sort of molecules that would be required. Even then, there is no reason to suppose this molecule would “emerge spontaneously”. This is wishful thinking, based on a faulty worldview.

creationmoments.com/sermons/how-might-a-protein-have-evolved

“Pyro-terrorism is a weapon Israel’s enemies used since the end of 2016 when the first wave of huge fires rocked the Jewish state destroying most of the Carmel Forest near Haifa. The new trend continued when Hamas started the ‘Great March of Return’ in March 2018 and introduced the incendiary balloons and kites which were used to terrorize Israel’s southern regions. The latest wave of blazes which plagued the Jewish state in May and destroyed the Jewish village Mevo Modiin and has now spread to Samaria and Judea was for a large part the work of arsonists as well. The fire in Mevo Modiin left 50 families without a home and possessions, while police and the Israeli fire brigade later determined the blaze was caused by arson. Arson-terrorism has now also reached Samaria and Judea. A huge blaze in the Jewish village of Carmei Tzur in central Judea which raged on Wednesday last week and reached the outskirts of the embattled community, started after Palestinian Arab arsonists threw firebombs across the security fence, a member of the local security team told this reporter. The source said that Palestinian Arabs routinely throw firebombs across the fence near the Hamas hotbed Beit Umar, but this time they targeted the southwestern part of Carmei Tzur where there is no fence and where most people live in caravans. The huge blaze in Carmei Tzur coincided with a large fire near the Jewish village of Itamar in central Samaria. Residents of Itamar claimed that the fire was the fourth attempt in as many days to destroy their community. ‘This is the fourth fire to break out in four days, endangering residents and families, destroying years’ worth of work by farmers. The heart breaks,’ Iyar Segal a resident of Itamar told Israeli media. The media largely ignored these fires while the major news outlets in Israel blamed the wave of fires on the unprecedented heat wave which hit the Jewish state in May. Only the state-funded broadcaster KAN reported about the real reason for the wave of fires. KAN said, ‘hundreds of the fires in the last weeks in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh area were a result of arson.’ The terror watchdog group Boomerang, furthermore, released a new video documenting the number of fires that firefighters fought since November 2016: a whopping 1,773 (Gaza-belt not included). Firefighter Ron Shlaf, who was a prominent member of the team that investigated the wave of fires, said that there’s no doubt about what caused the bulk of the blazes. ‘Yes. We’ve faced arson terror. There is no dilemma or doubt about it. All the villages that were burned were Jewish and all those arrested or prosecuted were Arabs. And from a thorough investigation we conducted, no one else in the Middle East—including the Palestinians—experienced such an extreme wave of fires like we experienced,’ Shlaf told Boomerang. Shlaf's team investigated 80 large fires since 2016 and came to the conclusion that 71 of them were the work of arson terrorists.”

​“ISIS Behind Fires Ravaging Israel,” Israel Today, June 11, 2019

Genesis 8:22
“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

New Scientist magazine has published an article which suggests that corals may have evolved to cope with climate change. In 1970, scientists in Hawaii, investigating the Kāne‘ohe Bay Reef, found experimental evidence that corals would not be able to withstand sea temperatures 2°C higher than those of today. The corals were said to bleach, losing their colors, and then die.

The reason for the experiment was part of the concern among some scientists to investigate what would happen if the Earth’s temperature did indeed rise by a couple of degrees, as they were of the opinion that such a temperature rise would be caused by Anthropogenic Global Warming, caused by human industrial emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

In the years since that experiment, many scientists have cast great doubt on the prevailing premises of AGW – now re-christened Climate Change – to avoid the embarrassment of reducing temperatures.

However, the original researchers have taken more corals from the same area of the same reef and conducted the same laboratory experiments on them. The 2018 results are somewhat different from those of 1970. A 2°C rise in temperature now seems to have considerably less effect on the coral than in 1970. This would suggest that there has been a change in the coral. It is likely that organisms which can survive higher temperatures have been naturally selected.

But, as so often before, this is not evolution. We started with corals and we now have – corals.

​https://creationmoments.com/sermons/global-warming-makes-corals-evolve/

In spite of a supreme effort on the part of denominational leaders to pump the machine up by hook or crook and the introduction of marvelous new programs at each annual gathering, the Southern Baptist Convention is still dying. Spiritually, it died sometime in my childhood, if not before, but we are talking here about numbers. Between 2006 and 2018, the Southern Baptist Convention lost 1.5 million members (LifeWay Communications, 2018 Southern Baptist Convention Statistical Summary). The average weekly worship attendance was 5.3 million, but a majority of those are “Sunday morning only” Christians, and a Sunday morning only Christian, when measured biblically, is no Christian at all. (The evidence for this is a simple comparison of Sunday morning Christianity with Acts 2:41-42 Christianity.) Yet, at the very time when the SBC is in terminal decline by any biblical standard, giving is at an all-time high, totaling $11.8 BILLION for 2018! If that is not a modern Laodicea, there is no such thing. “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods...” (Revelation 3:16-17).

​(Friday Church News Notes, June 21, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Ecclesiastes 3:21
“Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?”

The New Scientist magazine has recently been running a series of articles entitled Unnatural Selection.  These articles purport to show how the human race is driving evolution and changing the way that organisms evolve. One article gives a number of examples of this alleged evolution. The article claims that:

The average size of caribou has decreased, due to the big ones being hunted.

Longhorn sheep in France have not-so-long horns anymore – also due to hunting.

Snow lotuses in Tibet flower at half the height of what they used to due to vigorous harvesting for medicines.

But the most startling changes that the article reports is that elephants’ tusks are shorter than they used to be.

In 1969, 10% of female elephants in Zambia were tuskless. Today, 40% are without tusks. Since elephants are often shot for their tusks, females without tusks clearly have a greater chance of survival. Among Asian elephants, only the males have tusks. It is now thought that less than 5% of Asian male elephants have tusks, and that figure is decreasing.

It is not clear from the article, however, whether elephants without tusks are being born more frequently these days or whether it is simply that hunters have no interest in hunting a beast that provides no ivory.

It cannot be repeated often enough that this process is not evolution. The creatures started out as elephants. At the end of the process, they are still elephants, designed for their life by God.

creationmoments.com/sermons/elephants-evolve-smaller-tusks

At the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention in Birmingham, Alabama, top denominational leaders donned long-haired wigs and performed Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” (video) for the pleasure of the thousands of SBC pastors in attendance. The Lynyrd Skynyrd wannabes were Kevin Ezell, president of the SBC mission board, Ronnie Floyd, former SBC president and current president of the SBC Executive Committee, Paul Chitwood, president of the International Mission Board, Jamie Dew, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and Adam Greenway, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. There is nothing godly or morally innocent about Lynyrd Skynyrd. Since their debut album in 1973, they have stood for rebellion and moral license. The main message is “live as you please,” which is to shake one’s fist at Almighty God and His holy laws. The band was named to mock a former gym teacher, Leonard Skinner, who had talked to the band members about their long hair and rebellious attitudes. The nearly meaningless song “Sweet Home Alabama” uses the name of the Lord in vain multiple times. Not to be outdone, SBC President J.D. Greear danced onstage with two other men to Whitney Houston’s filthy “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” during a youth event. The crowd “laughed and cheered” to this wicked performance. One viewer described it as follows: “Much of the dancing is sexualized, and one of the males portrays an effeminate male kneeling and dancing in submission to JD [Greear] while singing ‘when the night falls loneliness calls; oh! I wanna dance with somebody. I want to feel the heat with somebody.’ Seriously, why would two ministers be doing this?” Why? 2 Timothy 4:3-4 answers that, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but AFTER THEIR OWN LUSTS shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

SBC staff performing “Sweet Home Alabama”

​​(Friday Church News Notes, June 21, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Genesis 1:24
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.”

A recent article in New Scientist claimed that “Evolution is making us sick”. The article’s author boldly proclaimed, “Evolution is behind the resurgence of head lice, bedbugs, rats and more.” We have already discussed the specific example of antibiotic resistance in a previous Creation Moment, but the New Scientist article broadens out that concept, saying, “Almost as soon as we started using penicillin to treat infections, DDT to kill mosquitoes and herbicides to destroy weeds, resistance began to emerge. The reason is simple: when we try to wipe out pests and pathogens, we put huge pressure on them to evolve or die.”

The article is, in fact, a lengthy example of the logical fallacy known as equivocation. This is where different meanings of the same word or phrase are deliberately confused. When we are referring to Darwinian evolution, we are talking about the spontaneous increase in information, which they claim has allowed, for example, ancestors of the apes to evolve into humans. But change due to external pressures, where certain traits are selected from a range of possible traits, is not Darwinian evolution. No example of such evolution is actually available. Adaptation and even speciation are observed facts. Not so with Darwinian evolution.

So, the author, in describing how the problems of sickness are being tackled, does not see the irony when he states, “Biologists are creating new ‘anti-evolution’ super-weapons.” In so doing, these biologists undermine the supposition of evolution.

creationmoments.com/sermons/evolution-is-making-us-sick

The 2019 annual Southern Baptist Convention was held in Birmingham, Alabama, June 11-12. There were 8,183 messengers from associated churches (meaning churches that contribute to the SBC Cooperation Program). “Southern Baptists acted in support of sexual abuse survivors, embraced ethnic and gender diversity and rallied around the Great Commission” (“Wrap-up: SBC supports survivors, embraced diversity,” Baptist Press, June 13, 2019). An amendment was approved stating that sexual abuse is grounds for a church to be deemed “not in friendly cooperation” with the convention. Recent reports have found evidence of cover ups of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist congregations, and the Convention is trying to deal with it. But they are dealing with it in a typically ineffectual denominational way which fails to address the root causes, which are rampant unregeneracy, terrible worldliness, lack of courageous pastoral leadership, lack of serious discipleship, frightful biblical ignorance, and near nonexistence of church discipline. Sexual abuse aside, thinking back on my childhood and youth in Southern Baptist churches, it is clear that I was terribly abused. I was abused by pastors who didn’t preach the whole counsel of God, who didn’t rebuke sin forthrightly and didn’t warn of error plainly, seemingly fearing man more than God, who didn’t exercise discipline, who received people into the membership who had absolutely no intention of being faithful disciples of Christ, therefore polluting and weakening the spiritual atmosphere of the assembly, who let the deacons and their wives run the church, who didn’t deal with me wisely and carefully about being born again, instead, accepting a flimsy profession as salvation and receiving me into church membership when there was zero evidence that I had been converted, who didn’t teach me how to be a serious Bible student and failed, therefore, to introduce me into the unspeakable beauty of God’s infinite Word (the Bible seemed, rather, to be a bunch of old stories that were irrelevant to my life), who depended on weak denominational literature instead of teaching the pure Word of God and all of the Word of God, who never supported a real foreign missionary and never even introduced us to one, leaving that business to a faceless denomination, who didn’t preach separation from the world, who allowed worldliness to run rampant among the youth--the youth who attended Sunday services but spent Saturday nights at rock & roll dances and drinking parties. This is wretched abuse. While I can’t blame my foolishness and rebellion on a church, there can be no doubt that a more biblical kind of church could have had a great influence on me for good.

​(Friday Church News Notes, June 21, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Genesis 1:31
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

A friend of mine went into the hospital recently for a fairly serious but routine operation on his heart. He has now recovered well, but his recovery was severely hindered by the fact that he got an infection with the bacteria MRSA. This is a very difficult bacterium with which to deal because it has become resistant to most forms of antibiotic. Evolutionists point to this development of antibiotic resistance in organisms like MRSA as an example of modern-day, observable evolution. In popular conversation, bacteria with antibiotic resistance are known as superbugs. So have superbugs really evolved antibiotic resistance?

The answer to the question depends on your definition of evolution. Biological evolution requires a mutation producing new genetic information rather than simply selecting from what is already present.

Many bacteria have little pumps which enable external materials to be taken into the organism. These pumps will also sweep antibiotics in which destroy the bacteria. But MRSA has developed a mutation which renders these pumps ineffective. Materials are not swept in, so the antibiotics do not affect it. But this is a defective mutation. It also inhibits the bacterium’s ability to compete with other bacteria. They cause problems in hospitals precisely because antibiotics have killed off all the bacteria which do not have the mutation. Therefore, the bacteria remaining in hospitals are defective mutants. This is not, therefore, an example of evolution. Darwinian evolution is supposed to provide an uphill path for better organisms. Antibiotic resistance is the exact opposite of that.

creationmoments.com/sermons/is-antibiotic-resistance-evolution

“Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Ti. 1:17). The context is Christ. Christ is mentioned in verses 12, 14, 15, and 16. Therefore, verse 17 is a doxology of Christ. It is a doxology of God with the focus on Christ. The word “eternal” is the Greek aion, which refers to ages both of space and of time. The world system, the universe, was made as the sphere for the working out of God’s eternal purposes. Christ created the aions (Heb. 1:2), and He sits as King over them (1 Ti. 1:17). Aion is often translated “world,” but it is also translated “age” (Eph. 2:7; Col. 1:26) and “forever” (most often referring to God and Christ) (Joh. 12:34; 14:16; Ro. 9:5; 11:36; 16:27; 2 Co. 11:31; Ga. 1:5; Php. 4:20; 1 Ti. 1:17; 2 Ti. 4:18; Heb. 1:8; 5:6; 7:24; 13:8; 1 Pe. 5:11; 2 Pe. 3:18; Jude 1:25; Re. 1:6, 18; 4:9, 10; 5:14; 7:12; 10:6; 15:7). The eternal aions also refer to the Word of God. In 1 Pe. 1:23, 25, we are told that the Word of God “liveth and abideth for ever” and “endureth for ever.” This is eis aion, or into the ages. The eternal torment of the unsaved is said to be eis aion aion (Re. 14:11; 20:10), a most fearful concept. In the following verses, aion seems to have the dual meaning of world (physical) and of age (Ac. 15:18; 1 Co. 2:7-8; 3:18; Eph. 4:4; Ga. 1:4; Eph. 1:21; 3:9; 1 Ti. 6:17; 2 Ti. 4:12; Tit. 2:12). The ultimate goal of the aions is described in Ephesians 1:10, “That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.” The word “time” here is the same concept as “age.” Note in Ephesians 1:10 that there are “times,” plural. There are past aions (Col. 1:26), the present aion, and aions to come (Eph. 1:21; 2:7; Heb. 6:5). In Eph. 3:21, “world without end” is aion aion. In brief, aion refers both to the physical universe and to the time universe. Aion refers to worlds of matter and to the worlds of time. The physical universe is the realm or sphere in which God’s plan for the aions take places. The present heaven and earth is the sphere of the past and present ages, while the new heaven and new earth will be the sphere of the ages to come. Christ is King of the aions.

(Friday Church News Notes, June 14, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

“Church membership has plummeted in the last two decades by nearly twenty percent. Across the United States, now, only fifty percent of U.S. adults belong to a church and or a religious institution. Further, demographically, the drop was recorded highest among Democrats and Hispanics. Throughout the twentieth century, church and/or religious membership hovered around seventy percent, with the last recording of such in 1999. Meanwhile, the number of persons with no religious affiliation jumped from eight percent to nineteen percent. The new Gallup findings underscore a generational dynamic. Among Americans 65 and older, church membership in 2016-2018 averaged 64% percent, compared to 41% among those aged 18-29.”

“Poll: Church Membership Dropped,” Brown’s Newsletter, April 2019

Genesis 7:11
“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.”

Evolutionists and deep-time geologists assume that the most powerful weapon in their armory is the Geologic Record. After all, it must be true, mustn’t it, that the lower levels of rocks are older than the higher levels? So the animals represented by the fossils in lower levels must have lived on Earth in an era before the eras represented by fossils in higher levels. The logic used by evolutionary geologists and biologists is as follows: If organisms evolved over millions of years, we would expect to find fossils of earlier creatures in lower layers. What they fail to notice is that this is not a sound logical argument because the possible causes of the layers of rocks, containing different fossils, are plural. Several explanations can be devised which would lead to the same outcome. Therefore, the outcome observed cannot be used to attempt to prove the one possible cause that we favor.

Creationists believe that the overwhelming majority of fossils were formed during the worldwide Flood. But this Flood would not have killed creatures randomly. Since our best Flood model suggests that there was only one continent, Rodinia, before the Flood, then the rising floodwaters would have reached creatures living near the Rodinian coast first. So the fact that dinosaur and gymnosperm fossils appear in lower levels in the Geologic Column could be because those organisms lived nearer the coast. Therefore, the geologic levels reflect environments and ecosystems of the pre-Flood world, not millions of years.

creationmoments.com/sermons/do-geologic-layers-prove-deep-time

“China’s state-run newspaper Global Times revealed in a column defending the nation’s authoritarian ‘social credit system’ Monday that the communist regime had blacklisted 13.49 million Chinese citizens for being ‘untrustworthy.’ The article did not specify what these individuals did to find themselves on the list, though the regime has revealed the system assigns a numerical score to every Chinese citizen based on how much the Communist Party approves of his or her behavior. Anything from jaywalking and walking a dog without a leash to criticizing the government on the internet to more serious, violent, and corrupt crimes can hurt a person’s score. The consequences of a low credit score vary, but most commonly appear to be travel restrictions at the moment. China is set to complete the implementation of the system in the country in 2020. As the date approaches, the government’s propaganda arms have escalated its promotion as necessary to live in a civilized society. ‘As of March, 13.49 million individuals have been classified as untrustworthy and rejected access to 20.47 million plane tickets and 5.71 million high-speed train tickets for being dishonest,’ the Global Times reported, citing the government’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). Among the new examples the newspaper highlights as dishonest behavior are failing to pay municipal parking fees, ‘eating on the train,’ and changing jobs with ‘malicious intent.’ In addition to limited access to travel, another punishment the Chinese government rolled out in March was the use of an embarrassing ringtone to alert individuals of a low-credit person in their midst. The ringtone would tell those around a person with low credit to be ‘careful in their business dealings’ with them. In the system, all public behavior, the Global Times explained Monday, will be divided into ‘administrative affairs, commercial activities, social behavior, and the judicial system’ once the system is complete. No action will be too small to impact the score. Using the nominally private corporation ZTE, China sold a version of its credit system to socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. The system would reportedly work through the already established ‘Fatherland Card, a ration card used to distribute food and medicine to Maduro’s supporters. Anyone who indicated opposition to the regime put their food supply at risk. With ZTE technology, the ‘Fatherland Card’ can track the purchases and real-time locations of any Venezuelan.”

“China: Social Credit System,” Breitbart, May 14, 2019

Genesis 1:26
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

Every so often, popular science news magazines and websites start to talk about new species of supposed hominins. In a recent report, the ScienceDaily website advanced the conjecture that, until 40,000 years ago, there were two other groups of hominins in Eurasia – the Neanderthals in the West and the Denisovans in the East. We have discussed both of these groups many times before in Creation Moments and have consistently concluded that both groups were, in fact, fully human, not actually being any different from modern humans.

Many remains have been found in the Denisova Cave in Russia. One recently found bone fragment appears to be of a 13-year-old individual. It was possible to take DNA analysis of the bone, and this research suggested that the child had a Denisovan father, but that the child’s mother was Neanderthal.

This is, of course, an intriguing find for paleontologists. Evolutionary scientists have already suggested that Denisovans had interbred with homo sapiens and that there had also been interbreeding between “modern” humans and Neanderthals. Our conclusion, as creationists, had been that this was entirely to be expected, given that we do not accept that there were ever differing species of humans. Therefore, all Neanderthals and all Denisovans were, in fact, “modern” humans, and all, therefore, descended from Adam and Eve. A confirmed interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans is entirely consistent with our biblical understanding of the whole history of the human race, all of which was created in the image of God.

creationmoments.com/sermons/another-hybrid-human

“President Trump ruffled feathers on both sides of the political aisle when he tweeted his support for LGBT Pride Month. On Friday afternoon, the president tweeted, ‘As we celebrate LGBT Pride Month and recognize the outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great Nation, let us also stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation. My administration has launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality and invite all nations to join us in this effort!’ President Trump pledged on the campaign trail to focus on LGBT issues, showing himself to be the most friendly towards LGBT issues of any of the Republican candidates. In February, he appointed Ric Grenell, the US Ambassador to Germany, to lead the Administration’s efforts to encourage other countries to decriminalize homosexuality. American Family Association President Tim Wildmon said, ‘Homosexuality is not something the president should celebrate. It’s unnatural, unhealthy and immoral behavior. We hope he will continue to stand firm against the so-called Equality Act (H.R. 5) and any legislation that threatens religious freedom. Such legislation will use the full force of the federal government to punish Americans who don’t embrace the LGBT political agenda.’”

​“Trump Becomes First,” Christian Headlines, June 5, 2019

Genesis 2:19
“And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.”

A new fossil is causing a lot of interest among cheniologists – those who study turtles, tortoises and terrapins.

These animals are well known for possessing a protective shell. There are two shells. Under the animal is the plastron, while the upper shell is the carapace. Plastron and carapace, which are cartilaginous, are joined by bony bridges. As these bridges are associated with the ribs, evolutionists believe that the turtle’s shell evolved from the animal’s ribs.

Recently, a fossil, called eorhynchochelys (“Ay-oh-rink-oh-keel-is”) has been discovered, which seems to be a turtle, but also seems to have no shell. One of the fossil’s discoverers – a researcher at the National Museums of Scotland – said, “It shows that early turtle evolution was not a straightforward, step-by-step accumulation of unique traits but was a much more complex series of events that we are only just beginning to unravel.”

So is this shell-less turtle an evolutionary ancestor? Fossilization is a process which is both slow and rare. The right conditions for death and burial must be available. Frequently, fossils can be found which differ from parent species only by some illness or growth. Therefore, eorhynchochelys could simply be a mutant, born without a shell, or a turtle with a soft shell, or one that has lost its shell in an injury, as a small number of turtle survivors of catastrophes has shown. In any event, eorhynchochelys is not in any way evidence for evolution. It is simply an interesting fossil, and its traits can easily be explained within a biblical context.

creationmoments.com/sermons/mutant-turtles

“A gay French writer has lifted the lid on what he calls one of the world’s largest gay communities, the Vatican, estimating that most of its prelates are homosexually inclined and attributing much of the current crisis in the Catholic Church to an internal struggle. In the explosive book, In the Closet of the Vatican, author Frederic Martel describes a gay subculture at the Vatican and calls out the hypocrisy of Catholic bishops and cardinals who in public denounce homosexuality but in private lead double lives. Aside from the subject matter, the book is astonishing for the access Martel had to the inner sanctum of the Holy See. Martel writes that he spent four years researching it in 30 countries, including weeks at a time living inside the Vatican walls. He says the doors were opened by a key Vatican gatekeeper and friend of Pope Francis who was the subject of the pontiff’s famous remark about gay priests, ‘Who am I to judge?’ Martel says he conducted nearly 1,500 in-person interviews with 41 cardinals, 52 bishops or monsignors, and 45 Vatican and foreign ambassadors, many of whom are quoted at length and in on-the-record interviews that he says were recorded. Martel said he was assisted by 80 researchers, translators, fixers and local journalists, as well as a team of 15 lawyers. The 555-page book is being published simultaneously in eight languages in 20 countries, many bearing the title ‘Sodom.’”

​“Bombshell book alleges,” CBSNews, Feb. 15, 2019

Genesis 4:22
“And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.”

Scientists in Israel have been studying remains of so-called Chalcolithic people in the Upper Galilee area. Remains of up to 600 individuals have been excavated from the Peqi’in Cave in northern Israel. These remains were ossuaries and were buried with other items, suggesting that the cave was used as a mortuary.

Such people were thought to have blue eyes, but previous studies had not confirmed this. However, there was sufficient DNA in these remains for scientists to determine that the blue eye “mutation” was present in the people.

Such studies underline for us the evolutionary bias inherent in historical research. There is no evidence that differences in appearance – such as blue eyes, eye shape or skin color – have anything to do with mutations. Rather, we suggest that God created humans with the capacity for a wide variety and range of appearances. Blue eye color is caused by a low amount of melanin in the eye coloration and, hence, is usually found in conjunction with other low melanin indicators, such as pale skin. There is no suggestion that this is caused by mutation.

Chalcolithic means Copper Age. Evolutionary historians place the Copper Age before the Bronze Age, as bronze is a mixture of copper and tin and can, therefore, be assumed to require more technology. Yet, in Genesis 4, the metals worked by Tubal-Cain were bronze and iron. In post-Flood remains, which the Peqi’in remains must be, bronze and iron working was already known, so there was no Copper Age.

creationmoments.com/sermons/copper-age-and-blue-eyes

Jerusalem’s annual gay pride parade was held on June 6, with an estimated 10,000-15,000 in attendance. To counter ultra-Orthodox protests, the police had a massive presence, posting officers every 10 to 20 meters along the parade route and stationing helicopters and drones overhead. Israel’s first homosexual justice minister, Amir Ohana, appointed hours earlier by Benjamin Netanyahu, joined the parade. The city government refused chief rabbi Aryeh Stern’s request to remove rainbow flags, instead ordering the removal of protest posters that read, “Father and Mother = Family. The courage to be normal.” No wonder the Bible calls Jerusalem “Sodom” in Revelation 11:8. Meanwhile, over in Israel’s second largest city, Tel Aviv’s 21st annual pride parade is scheduled for today, June 14, in the midst of a month long homosexual festival that is one of the biggest in the world. Some 200,000 are expected to march in the parade. Tel Aviv’s Hilton Beach was recently voted “one of the best gay beaches in the world” (“Pride Comes to Tel Aviv for the 21st Time,” Jerusalem Post, June 5, 2019). The city’s LGBTQ community center is funded by the government with workers receiving city salaries. It is obvious that the present return of Israel to her land is not the fulfillment of the prophecies of the New Covenant. For “then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations” (Ezekiel 36:24-31). The present return is for the purpose of preparing for the fulfillment of Daniel’s 70th Week (Daniel 9:27), when Israel will rebuild the temple and make a covenant with the Antichrist which will lead to the return of Israel’s true Christ, Jesus, and the establishment of His kingdom.

(Friday Church News Notes, June 14, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Matthew 19:4-5
“And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?”

There are some people who claim that Jesus said nothing about the definition of marriage. They use this argument to suggest that the traditional view of marriage is not necessarily supported by Scripture. Former President Jimmy Carter had quite a bit to say on this. Asked about same-sex marriage and whether it conflicted with his profession of Christianity, he said, “That’s no problem with me. I think that everybody should have a right to get married, regardless of their sex.” However, he had no Scriptures with which to back this up.

However, Jesus stated that not the slightest part of God’s moral law was to be overturned by His teaching. He would, therefore, have assumed that marriage meant one man and one woman. For example, in Matthew 19, He said, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” This is clearly referring to marriage, as it should be. And Jesus maintained that this was the pattern of marriage “at the beginning” – a phrase which refers to the beginning of the world, not just the beginning of human history.

It is popular today to attempt to rewrite Scripture in the light of contemporary social mores. However, Jesus frequently cut across society’s morality, and He does so today, maintaining that God’s way is correct.

creationmoments.com/sermons/how-did-jesus-define-marriage

“Today, the supper room has taken place of the upper room, play has taken the place of prayer, and feasting the place of fasting. There are more full stomachs than there are bended knees and broken hearts. There is more fire in the range in the kitchen than there is in the pulpit. Oh, I would like the cooking squad put out and the praying band let in, less ham and sham and more heaven, less pie and more piety, less use for the cook book, and more use for the Old Book. Put out the fire in the kitchen and build up the fire in the pulpit.”

“Cookstove Apostasy,” The Gospel Advocate, May 30, 1935

First United Methodist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, screened an episode of the children’s show Arthur depicting a “same-sex wedding.” The same show was rejected by Alabama Public Television (“Alabama Methodist church to screen shunned ‘Arthur’ episode,” AP, June 3, 2019). The mainstream Protestant denominations (e.g., Episcopal, United Methodist, Presbyterian Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) have been permeated with wicked theological liberalism since the turn of the twentieth century. The so-called “evangelicals” who remain in these denominations are openly and brazenly disobedient to God’s Word, which says, “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (2 Corinthians 6:14, 17, 18), and, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:5).

(Friday Church News Notes, June 7, 2019, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Matthew 19:4-5
“And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?”

In previous Creation Moments, we have seen that failing to believe in the historicity of Genesis requires us to believe that Paul and Peter made mistakes in their writing of inspired Scripture. In fact, a theistic evolutionary approach to Scripture is even more problematic than this. Jesus, Himself, refers to the historicity of Genesis on a number of occasions.

For example, when Jesus was talking about marriage and divorce in Matthew 19, He refers to God’s creation of male and female in Genesis 1:27 and the marriage of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:28. In so doing, it can be seen that His argument does not work if He has made a mistake about the historicity of Adam and Eve. Theologians from BioLogos maintain that Jesus was merely speaking to the culture of His time in ways that they would understand. This argument is weak. There are many occasions when Jesus’ teaching is contrary to the accepted values of the time. Even in Matthew 19, He is cutting across the traditional Pharisaical view of marriage.

In Luke 11, Jesus refers to the prophets and summarizes them as “From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias”.   Again, His entire argument would collapse if Abel were not a historical figure, because Zechariah clearly is a historical figure.

It is simply not acceptable to assume that the Second Person of the Trinity spoke in ignorance or in falsehood in these verses. Jesus clearly spoke the truth about actual people and events.

creationmoments.com/sermons/did-jesus-get-it-wrong

“When Christine Nambereke left for Oman last September, she was hopeful she was on her way to helping her family--including her husband, James Obed, and seven children--fight crippling poverty. An agent had promised the 31-year-old Nambereke, from eastern Uganda’s Bumbo village, a job as a housemaid with a monthly pay of 600,000 shillings ($168). But when she reached Muscat, she was sold as a slave. When she returned to Uganda in early May, she was dead. These women--all of whom died unnatural deaths after complaining of abuse--are just the most extreme examples of a growing epidemic of an increasingly open, modern slave trade that starts in Uganda’s eastern region and culminates in closed rooms in Gulf nations. Migrant workers from across Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia have for several years complained of abuse in the Middle East. But over the past year, eastern Uganda has emerged as the theater of a double-barreled racket. At fast-spreading weekly markets, some women are promised jobs in the Gulf only to be sold once they get there, while others--many of them girls between the ages of 10 and 18--are directly and publicly ‘bought’ as slaves and then resold in the Middle East, according to Ugandan authorities, Interpol, independent experts, legislators, and victims and their families. The public sale of women started at Arapai, eastern Uganda’s second-largest market located 180 miles northeast of the capital Kampala, in January 2018, says Edina Nagudi, the local government’s officer in charge of the region’s markets. The practice quickly spread to other regional markets such as Chapi and Sire. At Arapai alone, up to 50 girls are now auctioned in a day, says Nagudi. Overall, more than 9,000 girls and young women are estimated to have been bought at these eastern Uganda markets since last year--for as little as 50,000 shillings ($14), according to Betty Atim, an Ugandan member of Parliament. And for some, even death doesn’t bring closure. After 22-year-old Shivan Kihembo died in Oman in October--months after she had been sold there--her father, Patrick Mugume, was asked by his daughter’s ‘owners’ for money if he wanted her body back. ‘I sold my land and sent it to her boss in Oman before the body was released,’ he says. Uganda has a per capita income of $604, so Nambereke was promised three times what the average Ugandan earns. Some, like Stella Namazzi, who escaped from her masters in Jordan, return with tales of horror. ‘We were lined up in a big room,’ she recalls. ‘Those who wanted to buy us came and pointed out who they wanted to buy. We were sold as if we were domestic animals.’ For the traffickers, there’s big money involved: The women bought for $14 are sold for as much as $10,000 in the Middle East, authorities say. When Zubedah Nakitende complained to her Jordanian employers that her hands were aching from work, her boss gave her what she thought was water to wash her hands. It turned out to be an acid that ate up her fingers. Unable to work anymore, she was sent back to Uganda--where she had to have her fingers amputated.”

“Modern-day Slavery,” msn.com, June 2, 2019

1 Peter 2:20-21
“For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:”

In both of his epistles, the apostle Peter writes about the Flood. In his first epistle, he wrote: “The longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” Peter goes on to compare the Flood to baptism. The account of the Flood in Genesis shows that Noah and his family were saved from the wrath of God on a sinful world by the Ark and, therefore, waterproofed through that judgment. The ordinance of baptism is, therefore, predicated on the historicity of the Flood and the necessity of it being a worldwide Flood.

In 2 Peter 3, the apostle refers to scoffers who believe that all processes have continued from the beginning at the same rate as they proceed today. This is the evolutionary principle that the present is the key to the past. Peter refutes this argument by pointing out that the whole world was created by God and that the whole world was deluged by Him. He writes that the scoffers have deliberately ignored these two world events. The application is clear. Modern evolutionists and deep time geologists are like Peter’s scoffers, interpreting the world as a gradual development of slow processes over long aeons of time. Peter is clear that the biblical account of the Flood really happened, and, if he were wrong, the whole of his teaching would fall apart.

creationmoments.com/sermons/did-peter-get-it-wrong