Lancaster Baptist Church of Lancaster, California, has been playing with Contemporary Christian Music for a long time, and the fruit is evident. (We document 23 examples of Lancaster's use of contemporary worship songs in the report Analying Adapted CCM Songs.) We have warned that nothing can change the transformational power of this sensual, "one-world church" music, and nothing can keep it from transforming every ministry that does not heed the warning to separate from it. In a recent article I said, "The transformation will be most evident in Paul Chappell's children's generation, but by the time the transformation becomes evident enough for the average independent Baptist preacher to recognize it, it will be far too late to do anything about it" ("Preacher Says the Brethren Are Galled at Brother Cloud," FBIS, Oct. 28, 2014). Travis Chappell and Mark Rasmussen, Jr. are evidence that my warning is on target. Travis is the son of Paul Chappell, senior pastor of Lancaster Baptist Church and president of West Coast Baptist College, and Mark is the son of Mark Rasmussen, Sr., vice president of West Coast and the most conservative face at the institution. The young men are publishing soft rock renditions of popular contemporary charismatic praise songs on YouTube under the names of Mark Rasmussen, 5FriendsFilms, and OneCauseProductions. An acoustic cover of Hillsong United's "Oceans" is sung by Rasmussen and three other young people that I assume to be associated with Lancaster in the video above. Though it is played in a soft rock style, Mark's rendition would be accepted enthusiastically in any charismatic environment. "Oceans (Where My Feet May Fail)" is a popular contemporary song that features endless repetition in the original. The words say, "Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders." This is standard charismatic mysticism. It is the philosophy of "take me out of the box; take me beyond the words of Scripture; take me to any strange experience; I won't judge; I won't test." It is the philosophy behind such things as spirit slaying, holy laughter, holy shaking, continuing prophecy, gibberish tongues, female pastors, love for the pope, and uncertainty about the sin of homosexuality. The "real" Hillsong United rendition can be found at this link. If you go to about 5:50 minutes into the nearly 10 minutes of this contemporary worship song, you will see what "real" contemporary worship looks like. It's all about a powerful sensual experience. It's about "feeling God." I suggest that Travis and Mark stop playing around and go whole hog with what they obviously love. Stop pretending that you merely like the "light" editions of these charismatic worship songs, and come out publicly with full-blown rock & roll worship. Dance, hold your hands in the air, get some drums and a bass guitar. Show the independent Baptists how it is done. Let the music take you where it wants to take you. Or are you afraid that the time is not yet right and there are still too many independent Baptist pastors who support West Coast who would be offended at the real stuff? Oh well, bide your time if you must. The "old fogies" will soon be gone, and you can do what you want, and that music will most definitely take you to a different place. You can see Mark and Travis's rocking a cappella version of "Well on My Way" in the video below.

​(Friday Church News Notes, October 31, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Matthew 6:28
"And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:"

When a flower lives in harmony with and is dependent upon, say, an insect for fertilization, this is known as symbiosis. Creation Moments programs have given many examples of this, and each one defies the notion that these relationships could have developed by chance over very long times. We have another example today.

Chicory spaces out the opening of its flowers through the summer on a precisely timed schedule that is in perfect harmony with its pollinators. Early in the season, chicory flowers nearest the bottom of the flower stalk open first and, as they are pollinated, they close, and the next flower up the stem opens and so on. There is a remarkable efficiency to this, but there is more: The flowers usually open only in the cool morning hours, not only to protect the delicate flower from the heat of the sun but also because this is the time the pollinating insects are about. Other flowering plants open their flowers only at night and tend to have white flowers so that they are easily seen in the dark. These are the flowers that are pollinated by night-flying moths.

Such coordinated inter-relationships between the plant and the animal kingdoms could not have developed through accidental situations. They provide more evidence that the wise Creator designed these and all creatures within their relationships from the very beginning!

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Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Job 38:4
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding."

A new revolutionary design in metal-cutting blades has been added to the metal-working industry. In use, the new blade is fixed in one position while the metal to be shaped spins on a lathe. This new blade stays sharp six times longer than the old blade design. When cutting titanium, the old-style cutting blades become dull almost the second they are used, but the new blades last up to 30 minutes. This wonderful new blade was developed by two engineers who got the original idea from a rat.

You see, rats' teeth always have a sharp edge. Engineers learned that this is because the teeth are hard on one side and soft on the other. So as they wear, they always keep a sharp edge. Applied to metal-cutting technology, this principle has lowered costs and increased productivity because cutting blades don't have to be changed as often.

Beginning in Job 38, God humbles Job with several chapters of questions about the wise designs found in the animal kingdom. God's message is, "Job, if you think you're so smart, who created all this with such wisdom?"

Even the teeth of the rat are created with such wisdom, and once we learned the principle, our technology was improved. In light of this, how can the claim be made that there is no Creator?

Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Job 36:5
"Behold, God is mighty, and despiseth not any: he is mighty in strength and wisdom."

The shark seems to have been designed for one purpose and one purpose only – to eat!

Up to two-thirds of the shark's brain is devoted to its excellent sense of smell that enables it to find food. In its mouth are many rows of sharp teeth, and when one set wears out, another set behind it moves forward as if on a conveyor belt. And speaking of teeth, did you know that sharks are literally covered with thousands, if not millions, of teeth? That's right – sharks don't have scales or a leathery hide. Called dermal denticles, these are true teeth that are covered with dentine and have a central pulp canal. Meshed closely together as they are, they provide the shark with a strong armor.

The shark's stomach is very large and has an unusual spiral valve so that more nutrients can be absorbed in less space. But more remarkable is that they seem to be able to eat anything. The contents of one large shark's stomach included three overcoats, a raincoat, a driver's license, one cow's hoof, deer antlers, twelve lobsters, and a chicken coop with feathers and bones inside!

The awesome shark stands as another example of God's limitless creativity. Nevertheless, it is certainly a fearsome creature, and I, for one, am glad that God did not create us to live in the same environment.

Photo: Courtesy of Stefan Kühn. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Daniel 2:22
"He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him."

Fungus grows in the dirt virtually all over the world. After millions of dollars of research on the fungus, looking for a usable drug, medical researchers were ordered to stop their research. But one scientist disobeyed orders. And the result is the most important miracle drug since the discovery of antibiotics!

When Jean-Francois Borel, who describes himself as a "mouse doctor," refused to give up research on a white fungus first identified in soil samples from above the Arctic Circle, organ transplant surgery had virtually stopped. Organs could be transplanted, but the body's rejection of the organ killed over half of all transplant patients within a year of the transplant. Dr. Borel's continuing research led to the discovery of cyclosporine, a chemical which prevents the immune system from rejecting transplanted organs. There are now over 150,000 people living with transplants because of Dr. Borel's discovery. Yet, scientists are still not sure how the cyclosporine works.

Fungus might seem like an odd place to look for wonder drugs. But drug companies have learned that microorganisms in soil produce a wide range of medically interesting chemicals. Each year they test some 30,000 samples to see whether a miracle drug might be hidden in one of them.

So although many scientists say they believe there is no purpose or mind behind nature, they regularly look for purpose in the creation.

Photo: Courtesy of André Lage Freitas. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Psalm 19:9-10
"The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb."

A recent study involved sticking little numbered tags on the backs of seven thousand living honeybees. The purpose was the age-old question of what determines our behavior: nature or nurture? genes or environment? The honeybees were used to see if their occupation in the hive was based upon what their father did. That is, was it genetic inheritance? Typically, the queen bee mates with over a dozen males before settling down to a year or two of continuous egg-laying. In one study, the queen was allowed to mate only with a "guard bee" and an "undertaker bee," whose job is to dispose of dead bees in the hive.

It was found that the young bee is likely to take up its father's occupation 80 percent of the time. This means that much of the complex social structure of the beehive is passed on in the genes. But the study also left evolutionary scientists with a mystery. There is a wide genetic variation within the normal beehive, so if the whole arrangement evolved, the very cooperative and complex society actually found would not be expected.

The answer is, of course, that when something is clearly so intricately designed there must be a Designer. Some have even admitted that their main objection to believing in creation is that they would have to accept the fact that there is a Creator.

Photo: Honeybee. Courtesy of Muhammad Mahdi Karim. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Northland International University (formerly Northland Baptist Bible College) is officially a Southern Baptist institution after the trustees voted to donate the school to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The decision to take Northland into the SBC was made under the leadership of the current president, Daniel Patz, who is the grandson of founder Paul Patz. Al Mohler, Jr., president of Southern Seminary, said, "The fact that there will be a Boyce College and Southern Seminary campus located in Wisconsin on a campus of this stature is an enormous step forward for Southern Baptists. I can only imagine what the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention would think to know that the reach of the SBC and its mother seminary is now of this magnitude in the upper Midwest" ("Southern Seminary trustees accept gift of Wisconsin university campus," Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, news.sbts.edu, Oct. 15, 2014). Dennis Hansen, director of missions of the Bay Lakes Baptist Association in Appleton, Wisconsin, says, "I think the Southern Baptist work in the upper Midwest is really going to benefit from this." Northland has been moving in this direction for some time. On October 22, 2002, we published a warning by Pastor Bobby Mitchell, Jr., that "Northland promotes John Piper's materials to the student body and he is held in high esteem among the students." Piper has influenced many independent Baptists in a Calvinistic, New Evangelical direction. About the time of Pastor Mitchell's warning, I had observed that Northland's bookstore featured many titles by New Evangelicals with no warning whatsoever, but Dr. Sam Horn, a vice president at Northland, responded to Mitchell's warning as follows: "I can't begin to tell you the times we have publicly addressed the Piper issue on our campus and encouraged our guys to stay off him. ... We did not renew contracts with two teachers last year over the issue of Hyper-Calvinism and Hyper-Dispensationalism. We are constantly hitting the Piper and New Evangelical issue" ("More about Northland and John Piper," Fundamental Baptist Information Service, Oct. 25, 2012). Obviously they didn't hit it hard enough! By 2010, the die was cast at Northland. Northland's chapel welcomed Rick Holland, executive pastor of John MacArthur's Grace Community Church. Not only is Holland a "hyper" Calvinist, he also heads up the "Resolved" conferences which pollute the minds and hearts of young people with Christian rock and rap. Matt Olson, former president of Northland, pushed the "in essentials unity" philosophy to justify the changes. Last year he said that issues such as "Bible translations, music, dress, methods of ministry, secondary associations" are non-essentials and such things should not be used as a basis for separation ("Pursuing Transparency with Change," MatthewOlson.com, Apr. 18, 2013). This is the Southern Baptist principle of "unity in diversity." No wonder Northland joined the Convention. We are living in a time of breathtaking change, a time of blending, and most independent Baptist preachers and their churches are not in a position to stand. There was a time when a preacher could remain ignorant of important issues and drift along with the "herd" in a right direction, more or less, but that day is long past. Preacher friend, have you read our free eBook Why Most Independent Baptists Will Be Emerging within 20 Years? Are you a serious student? Are you educating yourself on issues such as music, ecumenism, "Christian" psychology, New Evangelicalism, and the emerging church? Are you educating your people properly?

(Friday Church News Notes, October 24, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Psalm 147:5
"Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite."

Just imagine a scientist going to the supermarket where he picks up a banana, an antenna from a blue crab, and a whisker from a catfish. He takes these back to his lab, hooks them together and connects the whole thing to his computer. He calls it a "bananatrode" and uses it to detect chemicals from the human body called dopamine.

While scientists don't actually do that, the scene is not so far-fetched. The crab antenna can detect tiny traces of amino acids in salt water. You see, crabs find their lunch by sensing and tracing down amino acids in the water. The catfish whisker can detect equally small amounts of amino acids in fresh water, and they both can do so extremely quickly. Scientists know that these natural sensors work much faster and are more sensitive than man's rather cumbersome methods of laboratory analysis. For that reason, they are being seriously studied for human medical use. One such application is a glucose sensor for an artificial pancreas. Oh, and the banana? That was for the scientist's lunch.

It is amazing to consider that while the crab and the catfish are pretty low on the evolutionary ladder, they have these wonderful abilities not even matched by twenty-first century technology. Surely, this is more reasonably evidence of superb design in the beginning by our Creator.

CPhoto: Courtesy of Hans Hillewaert. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Proverbs 3:11-12
"My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth."

It sounds like science fiction to suggest that if someone typed your name into a computer and misspelled it, the computer would find and correct it. This would need a very sophisticated software program.

But did you know there is an even more sophisticated information storage and transmission system in each of your cells – your genetic code? Not only does your genetic code store far more information in a microscopic space than can our largest computers, it also has a built-in error correction system. Scientists have discovered a number of key enzymes within the cell that have just one job: find and correct errors in the genetic code. Those errors can creep into the code because of radiation, certain chemicals, or other outside forces. The enzymes faithfully correct any errors, preventing mutations – the same mutations that scientists thought could cause evolution. One expert on enzymes has stated that science has no explanation for how such sophistication could have evolved. Neither is there any explanation for how life could have continued without this genetic proof-reading and correction capability.

Only our Creator could have been wise enough to design an information system that can correct its own errors. Even we human beings have not figured out how to do this with our much simpler computers. Certainly, blind chance could never do what the best of human intelligence can do!

Photo: Chart showing the relationship between codons and amino acids. Courtesy of Seth Miller.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

The lovely hymn "How Firm a Foundation," whose author was probably Robert Keene, has been popular since it appeared in Robert Rippon's 1787 A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors. Keene was the song leader in Rippon's church. This hymn was sung at the funerals of American presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and at the deathbed of Andrew Jackson. On Christmas Eve, 1898, during the Spanish-American War, it was sung by an entire corps of the United States Army encamped near Havana, Cuba. While leading this hymn in chapel, Charles Hodge, president of Princeton Seminary from 1865-78, was said to have become so overcome with emotion that he could not sing the words. The third stanza is based on Isaiah 41:10. Following are all of the stanzas:

Psalm 139:14
"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well."

One of the greatest questions in biology asks how a single fertilized cell divides into many different cells – some become liver cells, skin cells, brain cells, and bone cells. This is the ultimate way of asking the question, "Where do babies come from?"

Human growth factor – a chemical produced by our body – is being studied to see if it is responsible for the development of all those different cells from a single cell. However, this is only one of thirty known chemicals that influence the development of new cells. Another powerful chemical – called GM-CSF for short – has now been synthesized as a drug and stimulates the development of white blood cells in the bone marrow. This drug has saved otherwise doomed patients who have lost virtually all of their bone marrow by exposure to radiation. Nerve growth factor is another being studied as a possible treatment for Alzheimer's disease and for use in re-attaching limbs.

Do you notice where all of these incredible chemicals come from? They don't come from laboratories staffed with the best brains in science. They are produced by our bodies. Science should stand in awe at the evident wisdom behind those chemical structures and the way they work. And that's one of the best arguments that we were created by a wise and powerful Creator, not by mindless chemical accidents!

Photo: Courtesy of A2-33. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

(Friday Church News Notes, October 17, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143)

Genesis 6:19
"And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female."

One of our Creation Moments listeners has written to ask how evolutionists explain the development of male and female. The problem is, if a mutation produced the first male, it isn't likely that another mutation would have produced the first female at the same time and in the same neighborhood. The writer further pointed out that studies now show that with the current genetic errors we all carry within us, one male and one female would not be enough to establish a new population of male and female creatures.

The question is important. Evolutionists have admitted that their theory does not have a satisfactory explanation for how male and female could have developed. One evolutionist even noted that because evolutionists have no credible explanation, most textbooks simply ignore the question as obvious as it is.

But evolutionists also point out that the problems in explaining the origins of male and female are even greater than those already mentioned. They now admit that their studies show that if creatures progress by evolution, creatures who reproduce sexually would be at a disadvantage. Even worse, sexual reproduction is, as one evolutionist put it, designed to weed out the very genetic variations that supposedly cause evolution!

It is difficult to understand, then, how anyone could say that evolution offers a better explanation of life than the Bible's creation account.

Photo: Courtesy of Rainis Venta. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Psalm 148:7
"Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:"

Sharks have larger and more complex brains than fish. In fact, in learning tests they score about as well as rabbits. That won't get them into college, but it does show that they are not some prehistoric left-over of evolution.

While most of the shark's brain is devoted to the sense of smell, the shark has sensors just beneath its skin to detect low-frequency vibrations. They also have pits near their head that detect the electrical fields given off by other living things and may help them navigate.

Perhaps the most amazing feature of shark intelligence is that they are socially complex creatures that communicate with each other through a language of body signals. So far, researchers have learned what seven of these signals mean. For example, as sharks circle in a school, the larger and more dominant sharks move toward the center one by one, using a number of body signals to direct other less dominant sharks to move to the outside of the circle. Male hammerheads show submission to other hammerheads by shaking their heads.

Because intelligence and ability are gifts of the Creator, they are often found in abundance in creatures that evolution says are simple or less-evolved creatures. This contrary fact tells us that the Bible's description of the creation in which we live is more accurate than speculations by man.

Photo: Courtesy of Suneko. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Genesis 1:29
"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."

It has been written against, outlawed, and is the original "food of the gods." Modern science is finding that chocolate seems to offer some positive health benefits.

When Cortéz and his soldiers came to the New World, Montezuma offered them his people's favorite hot chocolate. But Montezuma's people didn't add sugar to the chocolate. Instead, they added ground-up hot peppers. This was real hot chocolate! The Spanish thought it was terrible stuff. Luckily for chocolate lovers, they did take some of the beans back to Europe. There it dawned on someone to leave out the peppers and add sugar instead. By the eighteenth-century, chocolate houses had become so popular that brewers of alcoholic beverages demanded legal restrictions against chocolate because it was ruining their business.

Today, Americans eat an average of 10 pounds of chocolate per person per year. Chocolate also contains a mild anti-depressant as well as theobromine, a unique substance that perks you up and calms you down at the same time. And contrary to popular thought, chocolate is not addicting.
 
While chocolate may seem a trivial subject, it has given those who like it a lot of enjoyment. It is one of those gifts God has given us that makes life a little more enjoyable – but is totally unnecessary. And this offers us a lesson about His gracious thoughts toward man.

Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com

Genesis 1:28
"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Intelligence – as much as is needed and no more – is widely found throughout God's creation. So intelligence alone is not what makes man special.

Consider the weaverbird. The nest of the weaverbird is woven of strips of fiber and grass. Using beak and feet, the male uses loops and knots to weave its hanging nest. Then, the nest is inspected by a prospective mate. If she doesn't like the nest's construction, she turns down the hopeful male. The male then rebuilds the entire nest. Some males have been seen re-building their nest two dozen times before being accepted by a prospective mate. Certain weaverbirds actually build cities of nests protected by a woven roof. One roof was 15 feet across! Now, all this requires a certain level of intelligence.

So it is not intelligence that sets man apart from the animal kingdom. No, it is the fact that our Creator made us to have a special relationship with Him. Even though we are a pretty bad lot, God loved mankind so much that He chose to die as Jesus on the cross that we may be forgiven. Anyone who has accepted Christ in faith has the promise of being made a new creation, beginning right here in this life and into eternal life in the next! That's the wide gulf between man and animal!


Photo: Weaverbird and its nest in northern India. Courtesy of Ashish Aitian. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Creation Moments, Inc., P.O. Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 www.creationmoments.com