Newsletter 87.

Newsletter 87 from Maurice Sweetsur

Ministry Update.

I have been greatly blessed already this year during the taking of numerous children's programmes in Churches and Primary schools throughout Auckland. However, at a time when Christian beliefs and values are under so many attacks from different quarters in New Zealand,  two experiences stand out for me in particular

1.I have been teaching "Bible" at a school in South Auckland for the last 19 years. This is now very much a multicultural school and the Christian Religious Education (CRE) programme is offered during Terms 2, 3 and 4, to Year 5 and 6 children. There are usually about 130 of them in total. For about the last 6 or 7 years the school has also run their own "Values" programme concurrently with our CRE programme. Thus parents / guardians have to choose which programme to send their children to.

The number of children attending the CRE programme had for a number of years been between 40 and 50 (about 35% of the total). The Deputy Principal told me that our low numbers were because there were a lot of Moslem children in the school. However, early last year, I obtained permission from the school to take a sample lesson for all the Year 5 and 6 children so as to give them an indication of what our programme is like. Subsequently our CRE numbers jumped up to 93 (72%). This year I was again allowed to take a sample lesson, and our pupil numbers are now 118 (91%). Praise the Lord!

Obviously parents or guardians have the final say on which programme their children attend. However, if we make our "Bible" programmes interesting enough, children will want to be part of them. Consequently, as long as their parents are not strongly antagonistic to Christianity, they may be able to influence their choice of programme.

2. I had the privilege of sharing at Willow Park Christian camp during the recent school holidays. I was greatly blessed to see how the children really entered into the Praise and worship sessions, readily prayed publically, and shared their testimonies. A good proportion of the youngsters also made either first time commitments or recommitments to the Lord.

I was greatly encouraged to spend four days mixing with the young campers. If they are representative of the next Christian generation, we will be entrusting the continuance of the Gospel into good hands. I came away with a new found confidence in the future of the Church and consequently our country.

Contents.

This Newsletter is a little different than usual as I am not sharing any new teaching insights. However, I have recently received a number of items via email from various sources that have blessed, challenged or amused me. I thought that I would share them with you.

Investigating the science behind Creationism.

Homeless man.

Can you read this?

The Hospital Bill.

A Past funny.

Investigating the science behind Creationism

Martin Kentish | Network Norwich and Norfolk, UK

Here's the rub. Before I became a Christian I believed everything I was told about evolution. All those things were definite 'facts' because everyone I knew seemed to believe them. Even after becoming a Christian, I didn't think the 'New Earth Creationists' had a scientific left to stand on. I was wrong.

Evolution or creation? Old Earth or New Earth? To answer the questions I did what many people do in trying to fit what I read in the Bible into the evolutionary worldview I previously held.

For example, the 7 days of Creation weren't days at all, but some period of time that really meant millions of years. I had become a Theistic Evolutionist trying to fit the Bible into science which I used to believe was true.

As I grew in my awareness of God, I couldn't help but think if He said 'days' in the Bible and referred to morning and evening, then He probably meant days as we know them. The more I grew in my awareness of God, the more I doubted what I was previously told from an evolutionary view.

What really kicked off the search was a very simple view I held which was that if something 'appeared' to be designed, then it probably was. I was acutely aware that I might be trying to fit my Christian worldview into scientific data, but kept going back to let the scientific data speak for itself.

Then courtesy of a dear friend, Eric Hopley, my eyes were open to a chap called Dr Grady McMurtry. He is a very clever chap - an evolutionary specialist - but became a Christian at 27 which presented him with the same problem.

Rather than leave his brain behind and simply reiterate 'God did it', he stood up to the challenge with a determination and brain the size of a planet to look at the facts.

And here is what was revealed to me as if a light was turned on. We're told the Earth is old because it has to be if evolution is true. And we are told the Earth is old because all the evidence we hear tells us it is old.

So what is that evidence? Fossils? Rocks? Radiometric dating? Yes, all of them and several more. If any of these three are true, I would agree: the Earth is old and I still have the problem of fitting the Biblical account of creation into the scientific worldview.

When I started looking into these three, I was shocked to discover some massive problems with the assumptions of age. Age is really important. For a start, fossils have to happen quickly, else the life that is about to be fossilised decays naturally and won't produce a fossil. Therefore, fossils themselves are no indication of age.

Secondly, rocks and their strata that I assumed was evidence of millions of years, can easily be formed quickly. In fact, by examining their shape and line, they are far more likely to have been produced quickly than over millions of years.

Lastly radiometric dating which was conveniently difficult to understand in the beginning is easily proven to yield completely mad results in the lab.

Now even if someone like me who does not have a PhD in any of the above can understand very simply the obvious errors in the methods and 'facts' that we have been repeatedly told, why can't all Christians?

The simple answer is this: most Christians have left their brains behind and never engaged with the Scientists. Secondly, many who have engaged with the scientific worldview have unknowingly embraced a worldview which is contrary to the evidence in the Bible.

What was so exciting is the more I looked at the Bible, and then the scientific evidence, the more the Young Earth view seemed true. Fossils had to be created quickly, so therefore did the rocks around them.

A worldwide catastrophic flood that lead to the evidence we see seemed to be a much better explanation than the evolutionary one. And that is exactly what we see in the Bible.

Reading Romans 1:20-23: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles".

Now this says to me that you don't need to have a massive brain to see that God created everything.  Nor is it difficult to see why 'wise' people go stupid to deny the existence of God.

When we look at 'Mr Evolution', Charles Darwin, one of the key reasons (encouragements, incentives) of publishing Origins was to deny the existence of a Divine Creator.

It removed God from the equation.

I can't help but feel that the motive for pursuing the evolutionary worldview is not so much about doing 'good science' but about doing science that removes God from the equation.

So I would say to anyone who is reading this and thinking I am a mad 'Young Earth Creationist' to forget the labels you want to give me and look at the evidence yourself.

And if right now you are steaming under the collar with rage because everything I have said undermines what you have accepted, here's three questions to take away and find out the answers yourself:

* What are the best conditions for fossils to be made?
* Can rock strata be created quickly?
* Is radiometric dating infallible?

So look into these, baring in mind the underlying worldview of the person who is presenting you with the 'facts'.

It is an interesting journey and I hope those who embark upon the discovery of the facts will not feel the conflict between believing in Genesis and the evidence there is out there.

Homeless Man

(Author: Unknown)  

It was a cold winter's day that Sunday. The parking lot to the church was filling up quickly. I noticed as I got out of my car that fellow church members were whispering among themselves as they walked to the church.

 

As I got closer I saw a man leaned up against the wall outside the church. He was almost laying down as if he was asleep. He had on a long trench coat that was almost in shreds and a hat topped his head, pulled down so you could not see his face.

 

He wore shoes that looked 30 years old, too small for his feet with holes all over them as well as his toes sticking out of one shoe. I assumed this man was homeless, and asleep, so I walked on by through the doors of the church. We all gathered for fellowship for a few minutes, and someone mentioned the man laying outside. People snickered and gossiped but no one bothered to ask him to come in, including me.

 

A few moments later church began. We all waited for the Preacher to take his place and give us the Word, when the doors to the church opened.  In came the homeless man walking down the aisle with his head down.

People gasped and whispered and made faces. He made his way down the aisle and up onto the pulpit and took off his coat and hat.

 

My heart sank. There stood our preacher...he was the "homeless man".

No one said a word. The preacher took his Bible and laid it on the stand and said, "Folks, I don't think I have to tell you what I am preaching about today."

Can you read this?

7H15 M3554G3

53RV35 7O PR0V3

H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N

D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5!

1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5!

1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG

17 WA5 H4RD BU7

N0W, 0N 7H15 LIN3

Y0UR M1ND 1S

R34D1NG 17

4U70M471C4LLY

W17H 0U7 3V3N

7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17,

B3 PROUD! 0NLY

C3R741N P30PL3 C4N

R3AD 7H15.

PL3453 F0RW4RD 1F

U C4N R34D 7H15.

The Hospital Bill.

A man suffered a serious heart attack while shopping in a store.

The store clerk called 999 when they saw him collapse to the floor.

The paramedics rushed the man to the nearest hospital where he had

Emergency heart surgery.

He awakened from the surgery to find himself in the care of nuns.

At the Catholic hospital. A nun was seated next to his bed holding

A clipboard loaded with several forms, and a pen. She asked him

How he was going to pay for his treatment.

"Do you have health insurance?" she asked.

He replied in a raspy voice, "No health insurance."

The nun asked, "Do you have money in the bank?"

He replied, "No money in the bank."

Do you have a relative who could help you with the payments,

asked the irritated nun.

He said, "I only have a spinster sister and she is a nun."

The nun became agitated and announced loudly,

“Nuns are not spinsters !  Nuns are married to God."

The patient replied, "Perfect. Send the bill to my brother-in-law."

A Past funny.

When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up.

What with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way I was going to lay that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But ...

Now that I've reached the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today.

You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves!

And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen! And then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

And there were no MP3s or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or, we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up!

You want to hear about hardship?

We didn't have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was, it could be your boss, your Mom, a collections agent, you didn't know!!!

You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics!

We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids"! Your guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!

And you could never win, the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died!

Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater, there was no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy sat in front of you, you watched his hairstyle!

And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning... D'ya hear what I'm saying!?!

We had to wait ALL WEEK!

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled!

You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1984!

[forwarded by www.SermonFodder.com]