1 Peter 3:20
“Which sometime were disobedient, when once 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.”

I have some sympathy if fellow Christians say that the most important task that we have is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes, though by no means not always, such a comment is made to suggest a science-based ministry like ours is not really fulfilling the Great Commission.

We recognize that there is always a danger, in everything that we do, that we can forget the mandate that we have to share the Gospel. But I would argue that a creation ministry is uniquely placed to share the Gospel. Before his ministry built the Ark Encounter, Ken Ham rightly said that, after the Cross, the Ark is probably the Bible’s most vivid symbol of salvation. I agree. So when we tell people about the Flood, we should not just be relating the scientific mechanisms that could have developed the rocks, minerals, and fossils that we see. These things were formed by the Flood – but the Flood is a record of the Gospel. Mankind sinned against God. We broke His commandments. God sent the Flood as a judgment and caused Noah to build the Ark as a means of salvation.

So, when I show people the volcanic activity of Mount St. Helens, we let people know that vulcanism was caused by the Flood. So we can share the Gospel. When we show people a fossil, probably formed during the Flood, we remind people of God’s wrath and His mercy. So we can share the Gospel.

Creation Geology is good science. It is also the discovery of Gospel tracts written in stone.

​Ref: Taylor, P.F., Itching Ears, (Castle Rock, WA: J6D Publications, 4th Edition), p. 159. Image: Sanjay Archarya, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International.

Colossians 2:4
“And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words”.

Many years ago, before I was in full time ministry, a friend at church wanted to introduce me to a friend of his.

“He’s a scientist,” he said. “He knows all about Genesis. He’ll be interested to talk to you.” He told me his name, but I hadn’t heard of him, and I thought I knew of all the well-known creationists in the UK at that time.

When I was introduced, I quickly realized that this man was not just someone who compromised the book of Genesis in order to maintain a belief in evolution. There was also an unfortunate arrogance about him which caused him to mock those of us who hold to biblical teaching on Genesis. My less informed friend introduced me enthusiastically: “Paul is very interested in creation science.”

“Is that as some kind of a hobby, then?” the evolutionist asked with a slight sneer!

I wonder what his reaction would be if he met me again. Biblical truth was far more than a hobby even then, but now it is my career! Perhaps his attitude would be like that of one of my relatives at a family event. “Keep up the good work!” he began. “Except that what you do isn’t good work, is it? It’s just a complete waste of resources.”

Whether you are formally in ministry, as I am now, or holding down a so-called secular job, as I did then, spending time in God’s word and allowing it to influence the way we live and work is never wasted resources. I pray that God will bless you with all confidence as you seek to serve Him!

Ref: Taylor, P.F., Only Believe, (Castle Rock, WA: J6D Publications), p. 125. Image: Adobe Stock Images, licensed to author.

Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning God…”

The first four words of the Bible are incredibly important. “In the beginning, God…” These words boldly declare the truth about how we should view the universe we live in. They tell us that there was a beginning. There was a time when all the things that now are were not. And before all that, before even time itself, was God.

The four words refute all naturalistic explanations of the universe. They refute evolution because they make clear that there was a planning intelligence behind the universe rather than blind, random chance.

Yet the words also refute a mere theistic intelligent design model because they reveal that the Creator was not an impersonal, unknowable entity but has all the divine attributes on which the remainder of the 66 books of the Bible will expand. These four powerful words suggest that we should go on to learn more about this wonderful God, Who has made all things well, and Who takes the trouble to be mindful even of humans like us.

These four powerful words refute atheism by boldly declaring that God does indeed exist. As the title of one of Francis Schaeffer’s books puts it, “He is there, and He is not silent”.

The four words also refute agnosticism because the God Who Is There is someone that we can know and learn more about.

The four words also refute deism because the God who is declared to have created is described, known, and knowable. He is not an abstract concept, but a reality.

Genesis is the foundational book of the Bible. And these four powerful words are the foundation phrase of Genesis.

Ref: Taylor, P.F. (2006), The Six Days of Genesis, (Green River: Master Books), chapter 1. Image: Adobe Stock Images, licensed to author.

Jonathan Jarry’s job is to separate sense from nonsense in science, but he never imagined that creating a fake news video would end up being his most effective tool. Facebook users may be familiar with his latest video for McGill University’s Office for Science and Society (OSS)—it has 10 million views and counting. The video title screams for a click: "This NATURAL TRICK can CURE YOUR CANCER." The opening graphic offers another too-good-to-be-true promise: "This amazing cure for cancer has been known since the 1800s." The video tells the very fake story of Dr. Johan R. Tarjany, who in 1816 discovered a kind of moss that cures cancer, knowledge the video claims has been suppressed by pharmaceutical companies. The story gets better. Tarjany added the moss to his diet and never got cancer—and great news—even though the Food and Drug Administration has banned the moss, it’s available online. Just as you’re reaching for your credit card, celebrating your discovery while simultaneously cursing big pharma, the tale unravels. Thirty-nine seconds into the video, the truth is revealed: The video that you thought promised an easy answer instead is a hard lesson in media literacy and critical thinking. … Jarry said the idea came from a similar video a former coworker had shown him. It had six million views and purported to show a researcher who had discovered radio signals that could kill cancer cells. … He said it was frustrating because bunk science videos often reach far wider audiences than those his team puts together. On the McGill OSS YouTube page there are a number of videos explaining topics like sloppy food science and personalized genetic testing, but the views rank in the hundreds of thousands, not millions. "We don’t sell these easy solutions to complicated problems," Jarry said. "We sell nuance and criticism and uncertainty, and that doesn’t sell as well." … The video ends with a message to viewers: "Be skeptical, ask questions, consult doctors and scientists, and don’t fall for conspiracy theories dressed up in pretty packaging. Be skeptical because there's so much misinformation out there and be aware of your own biases. Be aware of the fact that you will be easily emotionally manipulated.

How a Canadian viral science video is teaching a lesson about online health hoaxes,
​CBC News (Canada), Jul. 15, 2018

Psalm 19:1
“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.”

We know how the Earth and the other planets of the Solar System were formed, don’t we? In the beginning, there was a lot of dust around the Sun, and gravity caused particles to stick together, eventually forming planets. And the dust was formed by a supernova explosion.

Evolutionists assume a continual cycle of star life, followed by novae, then new stars, new novae and so on. Therefore, the Sun’s parent star went supernova, then the Sun formed, and other dust became the planets. As atheist astrophysicist Lawrence Kraus has said, “The stars died, that we might live”.

Two notable heavier radioactive isotopes formed by supernovae are said to be aluminum-26 and iron-60. Solar System planets show evidence of plenty of aluminum-26 but much lower quantities of iron-60, all of which is now assumed to have decayed into stable nickel-60. An alternative theory of planetary formation suggests that the Sun’s progenitor could be a type of object known as a Wolf-Rayet star.

Observed examples of such stars seem to be large and massive – perhaps 50 to 60 times the mass of the Sun. The bubble nebulae surrounding these stars seem to contain similar quantities of aluminum-26 and iron-60.

It is not wrong for evolutionists, like creationists, to have different models of cosmology. It is simply of concern when evolutionists pretend that they know the answers for certain when we are not dealing with examples of observed science, by adherents of either evolutionary model.

The one person who did observe planet formation was the One who made them; who made Earth first on Day One, and the other objects on Day Four.

Ref: University of Chicago. (2017, December 23). Scientists describe how solar system could have formed in bubble around giant star. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 27, 2017 from < www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171223134850.htm >. Image: Judy Schmidt, Hubble Telescope, copyright: < https://www.spacetelescope.org/copyright/ > (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International).

Exodus 20:11
“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

In another Creation Moment, we talked about the complexity of photosynthesis and how the process could not have evolved by chance. Evolutionary scientists like to point to what they refer to as simple systems from which more complex systems might have evolved, and so a recent scientific article discusses the earliest known organisms that use photosynthesis. Evolutionists assume that more complex plants could have evolved from single-celled algae, many of which use photosynthesis.

In order to confirm their belief, the scientists from McGill University examined micro-fossils of an algae called bangiomorpha pubescens, found on Baffin Island. They assigned the rock containing these fossils an age of 1.047 billion years. This was achieved using Rhenium-Osmium dating.

The popular article that reported this stated that the Re-Os dating was done on the sedimentary layer in which the fossils were found. This, of course, is not possible, but the original academic article correctly states that the dating was done on adjacent layers.

Re-Os dating works by the beta (β) decay of 187Re. Half of the rhenium decays in a given period, known as the half-life (t½). The half-life has been measured at 42Ga. Given that the half-life should not change, if we know the initial quantity of Re, and the current measured quantity of Os, we should be able to calculate the age of the rock. Unfortunately, the half-life of Re is notoriously difficult to measure, and is subject to great uncertainty. One published measurement was just 33 years – a billion times smaller than the accepted value.

The Bible gives us a better, authoritative method of measuring age.

Ref: McGill University. (2017, December 20). Origins of photosynthesis in plants dated to 1.25 billion years ago: Maybe the ‘Boring Billion’ wasn’t so boring, after all. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 27, 2017 from   www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171220122032.htm. Image: Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.5 Generic.

Genesis 1:11-12
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”

Green plants are green, mostly because of a green pigment called chlorophyll. Many of us learned in high school that this green pigment is what causes photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is that key process by which a plant can manufacture useful high energy molecules such as sugars. In the photosynthetic process, the plant absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water transpiring from its roots to create sugar molecules. The byproduct, oxygen, is released into the atmosphere. At first sight, this seems pretty straightforward. But there is, of course, a lot more to it. The process becomes especially difficult to understand if one wants to assume that this is a process which came into existence by evolution.

Our first problem is that the reaction requires an input of energy – chemists call this an endothermic reaction. Such reactions are not unusual, though reactions requiring the input of light energy are less common than those inputting heat energy. However, if you fill a jar with water and carbon dioxide, and shine a light into it, you will not make sugar molecules. Therefore, chlorophyll is not just a catalyst for the reaction – it is an essential intermediary without which the reaction cannot happen.

In fact, a whole book can be written on the complexity of this whole process, and the inter-dependability of every step. And then we go further to see how animals get their energy from plants, so every energy chain comes back to photosynthesis. It is a process that looks like it was designed by God for a purpose – which is exactly what the Bible says.

Ref: Swindell, R., Shining light on the evolution of photosynthesis, Journal of Creation 17(3):74–84 December 2003. Image: Adobe Stock Images, licensed to author.

Isaiah 45:18
“For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.”

What do we make of it when people tell us that they have seen a UFO? Creation speaker and writer Gary Bates has studied the phenomenon of UFOlogy for years.

He points out that the largest percentage of supposed sightings of UFOs are no such thing.

Some sightings are fraudulent. There are people who, for various reasons, will make up stories about UFOs and aliens. Such people may be gullible or they may be jealous of the attention being given to someone else who is claiming to have seen aliens.

Some sightings are of the planet Jupiter or Venus. These two bodies appear as bright stars in the sky. When they are present in the sky, it is not difficult to be awestruck by them and be misled into thinking that these are not God-ordained objects.

But Bates isolates a percentage of UFO cases that cannot be dismissed under the headings above. These are people who have genuinely experienced something but have no means of interpreting it. In some cases, these people can become anxious about the event and actually do not want it to happen. Bates suggests that this might be for the simple reason that they have indeed experienced something, though it cannot be a true abduction.

Such people seem to be under demonic influence. We need to pray for such people to help them understand the stages through which these visitations have taken them. These close encounters are troubling but have all the hallmarks of demonic deception.

Ref: Bates, G. (2010), Alien Intrusion, Creation Book Publishing. Image: Adobe Stock Images (licensed to author)

​Hebrews 10:10
“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

​In the 1970s, Larry Norman – the grandfather of Christian rock – sang a song called “Unidentified Flying Object”, which included the words:

If there’s life on other planets,
then I’m sure that He must know
And He’s been there once already
And has died to save their souls.

Norman had, shall we say, an eccentric view of theology. But belief in so-called UFOs appears to be more widespread than what we could dismiss as the preserve of the crazy few. Indeed, one international survey has suggested that as many as 61% believe that life exists on other planets, with a large percentage of those believing that alien spacecraft have visited the Earth.

Such a belief is clearly evolutionary in nature. So many believe that life evolved on Earth from non-living molecules. If that is one’s belief, then it is not much of a stretch to believe that such a process cannot be unique; it must also have happened elsewhere in the universe.

Yet such a belief is contrary to what the Bible teaches, and this fact comes as a surprise to many people. Hebrews 10:10 tells us that Christ died “once for all”. ICR writer and scientist Brian Thomas points out:

Since the Lord Jesus died only once before His resurrection, He could not have gone to die again on alien planets. Therefore, intelligent redeemable E.T.s must not exist.

If life could have evolved in many different places in the universe, our galaxy ought to be teeming with messages and contacts from aliens. Yet it isn’t. The silence from our alien brethren is consistent with the fact that they do not exist.

Ref: Thomas, B., Half of Humanity Believes in Aliens, < http://www.icr.org/article/10400/ >, accessed 12/26/2017. Image: Adobe Stock Image, licensed to author.