Who Will Take Up the Cross?

 

Dennis Edwards

Thanks for your letter and for sharing your thoughts with me. I can agree with you in quite a bit of what you say. As you would expect, I do not believe in and cannot agree with microbes-to-man evolution.

Of course, the word “evolution” has various meanings. I am referring to the creation of life from non-life and then the process that caused that life form to change into all the other life forms we see today over a period of millions of years. You know the problem of life arising from non-life is ridiculous. Therefore, we need a Creator. But the second problem with microbes-to-man evolution is that there is no mechanism in the Neo-Darwinian Theory that is able to add the new “information” to an organism. New biological information would be necessary in order to change an organism from one thing into another. No known natural process can do this.

Natural selection and mutations actually have the opposite affect as far as DNA information goes. Under those processes certain information is eliminated or deformed for survival reasons. It’s kind of like the story of the man who was hiking in the Outbacks of some western state in America. He was climbing and accidently fell in such a position that he caught his arm in between two rocks and was unable to pull himself free. He wasn’t able to call for help and after a day or two in such a situation he saw that he would starve to death if he didn’t do something drastic. He went into survival mode and decided he had to get free or he would die.

What did he do? He cut his arm off where it was stuck, formed some kind of a tourniquet and was able to find his way back to civilization. Natural selection and mutations are a similar type of survival mechanism to preserve the life of any organism. An upward input of information would be necessary to change any one form of life into another, but it is non-existent in nature. God formed all the life forms, that is, the general “kinds” of life forms, but left the ability to adapt or variate horizontally as a survival mechanism for life. He knew such a mechanism would be necessary for the “kinds” to adapt to different environments after the Flood. The ability to change in variation, like the changing in beak sizes in Galápagos finches, is the survival mechanism, but does not confirm micro-to-man evolution. Natural selection and mutations actually disproves verticle evolution.

But like Kiregaard said, our rejection of truth does not really stem from our doubts, but stems from our rebellion against authority, against submission to God and His will for our lives. Therefore, Kiregaard said, we shouldn’t spend so much time dealing with just the intellectual aspect of doubt, but really with the moral nature of man’s rebellion against God. In other words, our minds are not the cause of our doubts. It’s our insubordination to submit to God, our moral rebellion against His authority, like Melville’s Ahab’s rebellion against the Big White Whale, that leads us to doubt. Doubts are a result of our not wanting to submit to God’s will in our life.

When I was a young student mad at God for taking my girlfriend away from me, I embraced evolution. It was a good creation myth that eliminated God from the picture. I could do what I wanted and didn’t have to conform to the Judeo-Christian ethical system I was raised in of “don’t dos”. However, when I came to Christ and renewed my position of submission to God’s will in my life, I accepted the Creation narrative and found good reasons to believe so in some of the writings of the early creationist, specifically the book “The Genesis Flood,” by Whitcomb and Morris. That was the first time I had ever come across scientific evidence for the Genesis Flood.

When I was young, evolution wasn’t taught so strongly in the younger grades, but I think it was around 1964 when the Russians launched Sputnik that the American educational system embraced evolution and accepted it into its curriculm. The Russians had taught it and weren’t they ahead? The Humanistic Society run by the Huxley grandson Julian Huxley had been advocating the move to evolutionary doctrine since the early 1930s.

My first year in college one of the only manditory course the first year was a course in Geology. The course taught the evolutionary time frame of millions of years. You cannot have evolution without the millions of years. In order to be able to defend a non-millions of years creation story, you need to do some studying. What we are taught in the media, in “scientific” literature, and school seems so tight fit and sure that only an “idiot” would stand up against it. Tolstoy wrote a book called “The Idiot.” I never read it, but believe the “idiot” was a Christ figure. I’ll try to be that idiot here!

Of course, you know that any dating methods we use are influenced by our initail belief system. That is what Dr. George Elis, the Quaker, was getting at when he said,

“You cannot do physics or cosmology without an assumed philosophical basis. You can choose not to think about that basis, but it will still be there as an unexamined foundation of what you do. The fact that you are unwilling to examine the philosophical foundation of what you do, does not mean those foundations are not there: it just means they are unexamined. My colleagues (Elis worked with Stephen Hawkings on the Big Bang Cosmology) are producing theories of what they call creation of the universe out of nothing. But when you probe them, you find they’re not producing theories of creation of the universe out of nothing. They are assuming a huge machinery of quantum field theory and fields and particles and interactions, which generate universe, but not creation of the universe out of nothing.”

What I’m trying to get at is that scientists will assume that millions of years took place and then look for a process that will confirm their belief. In researching those who developed the “millions of years” theory, such men as James Hutton and Charles Lyell were in an active war to remove Moses from science. Lyell fudged his measurements to present “evidence” against the young earth theory. He suggested to the pre-Darwinists to not openly attack the Biblical story so as not to alert the Church that they were under attack! Lyell and his friends would try to be subtle and undetected by the Church in their attack against Christianity so the Church wouldn’t know what was happening until it was too late. Even the great British Evangelist Charles Spurgeon was spouting millions of years before Charles Darwin’s theory reached the printing press.

But how do we know the age of the earth? We cannot go back in time and see what happened and measure the years. We can only look at the evidence in the present and speculate about how it came about, much as like a murder detective would speculate about how a murder has occurred. Hutton and Lyell needed to get the “Genesis Flood” out of the way so that they could reinterpret the geological record as a slow process over millions of years, rather than as a rapid deposition over a short period of time, just thousands of years as the Bible indicates.

The naturalistic dating methods that have been developed assume that millions of years have occurred and assume that the same processes we see at work today and their rates of action have remained the same since the dawn of creation. If we call all the flood deposits that do exist “local floods,” we can remove the “Genesis Flood” and the Bible from our thinking.

The trouble is that we haven’t been around for millions of years to see if those rates of processes have remained the same or slowed down or have sped up or variated over time. But assuming that the processes have not changed or varied over time and using that type of thinking we can find many processes that are happening in nature at the present that, if we extrapolate backwards in time, give us a much younger earth than the 4.5 billion years proposed by modern science.

The first one that comes to mind is the fact that the moon is moving away from the earth by so many inches each year. I think it’s about 1.5 inches a year. Now if we accept that the rate has been constant over time, then in just 1.5 billion years the earth and moon would have been touching each other. However, over a 6,000 year period, the moon would have moved a distance of less than 300 meters. The Biblical assumption would seem more in-line here with reality than the evolutionary millions of years would.

Another example is the salt in the ocean. About 450 million tons of salt enters the ocean each year, with some 27% of that coming out due to various reasons. If we assume that the ocean was without salt in the beginning of time. If we assume that the same rate of salt that enters the ocean today has been the same rate consistantly in the past over time, and we do our math, we come out with the fact that the oldest age of the earth by measuring the present known rates is 62 million years. That doesn’t prove that 62 million years have passed. If the rates increased because of some cataclysmic event, like the Genesis Flood, much of that salt could have entered rapidly into the ocean waters and therefore it would give a much shorter age for the earth. The Genesis Flood could easily push the age of the earth down to 6,000 years.

Astronomer Dr. Jason Lisle has written several articles on distant starlight and the age of the earth that present some of the difficulties of proving either billions of years or thousands of years. Of course, as a creationist scientist, he tries to show that a 6,000 year young earth cosmology is not evidencially inaccurate. The cosmological evidence itself does not disprove a young earth. It depends on how the evidence is interpreted. You can find one of his articles at the following link: https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/starlight/does-distant-starlight-prove-the-universe-is-old/

Being open-minded really means that we are willing to debate the truth. We are willing to look at our initial assumptions and try to evaluate which assumptions are arbitrary and less likely to be true, against which assumptions are reasonable and therefore more likely to be true. When we are open-minded, we are willing to ask the question: “Why do I believe the way I do?” In other words, our views ought to stand up to criticism and be an accurate reflection of reality and be the most reasonable conclusion from the evidence available. Otherwise, we are just being arbitrary and irrational.

I am not going to throw away the Bible because it has been used by religionists to control men. I am not going to throw away my Bible because it has been used and is being used by false teaches making money off of God’s good word. I have a hard time accepting the religious system and its church attendance and “Do Nothing for God” theology. But I also have a hard time understanding why it is difficult for many intelligent Christians to accept the Genesis Record as it reads. I suppose they don’t want to be accused of being friends of Ken Ham and the religious right. I can understand that and I might not be very comfortable around some religious people. [Nevertheless, Jesus admonished us to love all men, even our enemies, or those who have a different view. We love them because they are made in the mage of God. We debate ideas and earnestly contend for the faith, because that is the traditional standard in trying to find truth.]

But that does not mean every thing the religious right believes is wrong. What we believe does affects what we do. Our beliefs affect our actions. They are interrelated. I want to put on the mind of Christ. That’s why I try to read His word daily and let it speak to me. That’s why I am careful with the type of input I put into my brain because I know it eventually affects my spirit. I know I am in a spiritual war against the lies of the enemy. It’s in Jesus where all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge of God is hid and I want to follow Him and not let any man beguile me with enticing words.

I want to lead others to Christ and help them get in relationship with Him becauuse only in Him is there life eternal. He’s the true light that lightens every man that comes into the world. But there is a false light that is actually darkness because it doesn’t bear witness to the truth of God’s word. The truth is that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I am captive to the word of God. It is my source of strength, my guiding light, my helping hand and gives me descernment in my search for what is true.

God's word also exposes my sin. Yes, my SIN: my selfishness, my ego, my laziness, my rebellion, my disobedience, my ignorance, my pride. God’s word shines a light on my heart and causes me to reflect on my sinfulness. It causes me to cry out to Him for His mercy, for help, for strength, for truth, for love because in me is no good thing. I am desparately dependent on the love, mercy and help of God daily. Without Him I can do nothing. But with Him, all things are possible and I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.

Somehow our former fellowship failed in our training of you young people and you have thrown off the yoke that we tried to place upon you. Maybe it was because, in a way, we forced the yoke upon you and we didn’t give you enough free-will in accepting it. Therefore, you rejected our belief system, because of our sample was lacking. But in rejecting our bad sample, you have thrown out much of what was good in our belief system. “Throwing out the baby with the bath water,” as they say. Many have thrown out obedience and submission to Christ and His word and have choosen a compromised Gospel, if one at all. They eat, drink, and are merry and don’t dedicate themselves to any worthwhile cause of helping the underpriviledged, or poor, imprisoned, hospitalised, etc. They have eliminated God from their thoughts.

Many have sat down and let themselves be brainwashed by the media and the wisdom of the world and thrown off the truth of the Gospel. I am sure that God will raise up others who will hear His call. Maybe it will be the young Chinese Christians who will fulfill the mission to today’s modern generation. God is always in the business of calling out a new group as the old becomes set in their ways and loses the fire and spirit of God which comes through obedience.

My Christian belief system, though some what evangelical, is very different to the evangelical. By my interpretation, many evangelicals “hear,” but do not “do.” They may “believe,” but they don’t follow through and “do” what they say they believe. Some have their minds blinded by the God of this world. Some live for the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life and follow the Abundant Life Gospel.Very few are really following God seriously. Many denominations have a comfortable system to make money and are not really interested in changing the world for Jesus. Some are only intersted in gaining new members because they may bring more income into the offering bag.

God has had to raise up David Icke recently to expose the evil plans of the masters behind the scenes who are using the recent health pandemic to push their globalist agenda. I am no fan of David Icke. Facebook and YouTube have blocked his interview on London Real because Icke tried to explain where the present health crisis is leading to: a draconian futuristic state where the 1%, and the technocracy they want to implement, will control the world. He believes that the 5G, the fifth generation of cellular network technology, may have serious health implecations, but is necessary to their plans.

Israeli scientist and writer Harari from the New York Times bestselling historical book “Sapiens,” says we must give up our liberties and rights to embrace security and health in the face of the new assassin viruses that will become ever more frequent and dangerous. We must accept the technology that is avaible, the “tatoo” [Bill Gates] and other forms of advanced technology [ID 2020, also Bill Gates] if we want safety and health. Harari calls out for new generation of world leadership as the old American leadership is no longer worth following. 

The anarchist from the Vigilant Dollar says the economic tsunami following the present health crisis will affect the world like no other economic crisis has since the Great Depression. He sees a draconian world system in the making with total control in the hands of Bill Gates and the Master puppeteers above him. He believes the 5G is necesarry to do all the transactions that will take place in a paperless-money world.

The book “Capital” by a French economist Thomas Piketty warns that the 1% get richer and control more each generation as their wealth grows faster than the economy of the world. He shows it statistically to be true and warns we are moving into the future where the 1% will own nearly everything and mankind will be forced to live in urban cities. In “The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System,” James Rickards predicts that a new international monetary system is in the making, that the dollar will collapse and a money-less system will be developed under a basket of currencies including the Russian and Chinese.

We could very well be on the verge of the New World Order. Many are calling out that it will soon be here. Some are protesting against it and their freedom of speech is getting denied. But most are hypnotized by the media masters and will go along with the moves toward a draconian state because they love their safety and security over their freedom and their rights.

Who will stand up against the New World Order and explain exactly what is happening? Who will show the world that it is in a deep spiritual battle for the souls of men? Who will explain to them that God’s word has spoken of these events in the prophetic books of both the Old and New Testaments?

We, your parents, had hoped you would join us in the battle for the souls and lives of humanity. But we failed you and now you may fail God. But I am confident that as time passes and these events manifest themselves more clearly, some of you will awake out of darkness and re-embrace the true light. You’ll pick up your cross, the cross of Christ, and arise to the battle against the evil forces of Antichrist.

We, your parents, are praying for you daily. We are praying you will re-embrace your calling as disciples of Jesus, however He calls you to fulfill it. We are praying you will be a force for God and good in the soon coming evil days which are almost upon us.