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This is taken from another discussion. What are your views on the Creation? 6 days? Earth is a billion years old?

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I like the way you put that, RoyW.

Beautiful - Creation! Man can be so proud sometimes. He thinks he knows so much. He becomes so puffed up with his knowledge. He reports in the school textbooks that he knows things that he hasn't even begun to know. I mentioned that I had been accused of being left-brained. lol Of course, that is all nonsense. Man hasn't even begun to figure out the brain. He never will. It is far too complex for us to understand in this life. Billions of dollars are being spent to seek to understand the complexity of this universe and more billions being spent to understand the complexity of the living cell. Man has not yet even scratched the surface of knowledge yet he boastfully reports that the Bible is wrong. Science has disproved the Creation week. Nonsense. 

Man's ability to think is remarkable. The soul of man is beyond finding out in this life. There are some things that we are going to have to wait on to understand. The great questions of man - how did we get here, why are we here, where do we go when we die, who am I? God smiles and says, "Wait." He did tell us that in the end times knowledge would be greatly increased. Man begins to say that he knows and attempts to convince others that he knows. His knowledge is increased, but still he knows so little. 

God has allowed us to make these very powerful microscopes to see inside the living cell. Man has to take a very deep breath. Wow! He never dreamed of such complexity. Darwin's concept was that the cell was fairly simple. Nope - complexity is not even close for a sufficient word to describe the cell. Man sees inside the cell and stares in wonder. "What in the world is going on in there," he thinks. It was way beyond anything he could have ever imagined. 

In the Bible, we have truth. The Bible does refer to this beautiful creation we see all around us but it is primarily focused on the "why." God became like us and came in person and spoke to us about truth and life. He is the One. He is the truth and life. All who follow Him are granted eternal life. Through faith in Him and His Word, man becomes a part of this family that is the center of this beautiful Creation. He gives us life and that life eternal if we believe. 

God gave us some insight when He walked on this earth. He confirmed to us that He did it in just six days as He puts man right there in the very beginning. Man's feeble attempt to describe the beginning puts man at the very end - 13.7 billion years later. Jesus could have easily put man thousands upon thousands times ten thousands later to describe the timeline. He did not. "Haven't you read Scripture"? He says. "Don't you know what is spoken in Scripture?"

No, man does not know what Scripture says and still boasts that he does know. Are we telling our children that man does not really know all that he thinks he knows? It is very important that we do. Otherwise, our children may grow to one day think the Bible is not true. Our children might actually begin to believe that science has disproved the simple meaning of Scripture. No, child, science is still in the dark ages when it comes to the knowledge of life. For that, we must turn to Scripture. To answer your questions of how, when and why, we must open the Bible. In there we will find Truth. In there, we find God. To know Him and the power of His great love is to have eternal life. Let us all become students of His Word, and then teach our children. Let us put His Word before our children throughout the beautiful day. 

Ps 118:19-21

19 Open for me the gates of righteousness;
I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
20 This is the gate of the Lord
through which the righteous may enter.
21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become my salvation. NIV 84

Brother and sisters, this is where we find the answers and life.

Hugh Ross vs. Kent Hovind - How old is the Earth?

I agree with the Roy's first post and agree with Kent Hovind as well. Enjoy

Wow! It has been probably over ten years since I first viewed this video. While I think Hugh Ross is a Christian, he has not shown enough evidence to dismiss the obvious meaning of the presentation of Scripture. The Day-Age theory is not the best explanation of Genesis one IMO. I think they both got day one wrong. I am not even close to be a scientist; just one trying to understand what the Bible says. Before day one there was no earth, no heavens, no life outside of God (I don't know when He made the angels. They were there watching the Creation.) After viewing the debate once again I was very glad to have the opportunity recently to express that I do not believe the age of the earth to be an essential doctrine to salvation. I do say it is a very important discussion. I do understand Hovind's position why entropy had to begin at the fall rather than at the beginning of Creation as Ross states. I don't think there is anyway to discuss the distance of stars based on the information we have today. The distance of stars are definitely going to agree with billions of years. That does not mean that they were made billions of years ago. Uniformitarianism would say "yes" the universe is billions of years old. That does not make it so. That information how to explain a young earth based on the distance of starts is not yet available to the young earth scientists but is upcoming IMO. However, the horizon problem (not mentioned in this debate) is a great problem to those who believe in an old age. Estimates that our universe would attain a uniformity of temperature as we actually see could not have happened I believe the estimates to be 50 to 100 billion years. Solutions to this problem also offer a solution to the young earthers about the light problem measuring the distance of the stars from the earth. Don't be afraid to teach your children that the Bible is true. There are many problems presented to us from the Big Bang that the Big Bang does not amply satisfy all contradictions. Science is a wonderful discipline. As of today, there are many, many more questions in this field rather than answers. Only the arrogant will indicate to you that science has all the answers to your questions. The honest scientist will tell you that he has more questions than answers. What is the percentage? Maybe it could be 1% answers and still 99% questions. There is so much more to be discovered. We have made it to the moon. Woohoo. How much further is there past that? Well, we put the Explorer on Mars. Wonderful. Let's keep going. How long will it be before man comes to the conclusion that the earth is God's special place for His special plan and that there is no more life out there. Before that can be answered by science, he has to explore every galaxy. How long will that take? These questions will not be answered in your life, your children's lives and so on. Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe. It is certainly too early to put our Bibles away on the shelves. Darwin is going down and will go down yet in your lifetime. But, then there will be other theories. The heathen will continue to rage against God and His beautiful Creation - that is until He comes back. 

Thank you, David, for posting. 

Eric,

That said , it seems self evident that in order for Hovind's position to be correct, it must  withstand every objection that Ross has made. 

I have no idea what line of logic or line of reasoning you are alluding to, to  make such a blanket statement and determination. Is it self evident simply by making the statement you made? Tell me why is it self evident and why do you think that for Hovind's position to be correct it must withstand EVERY objections that Ross has made, when we are dealing with a historical account for which we have no eye witnesses for, other than the testimony of the Holy Spirit through scripture?

 In order for Ross to have the better viewpoint he only has to be correct once.

Tell me why this is true to you and a true statement in general?

Ross has so many lines of proof and reason for his better view on the subject,

Please enlighten me, cause I don't see his better reasoning or lines or proof. He is relaying on human understanding and study, which has been wrong countless times. Scientist have made thousands of mistakes with their assumptions and calculations. Too many to enumerate. Google scientific screw ups and you will get more pages than one cares to review.

...without changing the Bible account, that it doesn't conflict with God's work

It does change the bible account. Tell me how it doesn't. Saying that a day in the Genesis account of creation is not a literal 24 hour day is changing the biblical account.

If the bible can be understood so easily by the simple man, why would we need priests and teachers?

Simple - Romans 10

13for "WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED." 14How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? 15How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!"…

We need them for evangelizing and to instruct the new saints in holy living, but we don't really need them if we don't have them and only have the bible, for God says:

1 John 2:27

But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don't need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true--it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.

John 16

12"I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13"But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14"He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.…

I will respond to your other points later.

Much love to you brother.

Eric,

He is antagonistic , smug and illogical.  He is the cultist he warns of, makes straw man arguments that he accuses of and  doesn't prove his take on the Bible as he claims he can. Though he demands his view is the final word simply because he said so. All else is heresy, and that is hurtful, fightin words.  He does not prove his case. He is passionate but not persuasive.

Hovind is your brother in Christ who knows what’s on the line. He knows that the fools who practice the religion of evolution use the old earth argument to support their case; they have no case without it. God calls them fools, blind, wild beasts etc… The entire New Testament rings with constant alarm about those who pervert the truth of God’s word. The false religion of evolution, a religion made by Satan, the father of lies, needs the old earth argument to preach nonsense to the masses. Of course Ross is a brother as well. So we love him as such and correct him as scripture demands we do. Hovind has a godly zeal. A passion for truth. To the modern intellectual brothers in Christ trying to reconcile worldly knowledge with scripture, Hovind is a cave man who likes to fight.

He is a Godly man with a back bone who understands how important the topic is and has a calling to fight for the integrity of scripture. I wish we had so many more like him. No blood was spilled. I am sorry you view him as you do, but I don’t. I love him as I love Ross.

A few verses of what Paul/the apostles though about those teaching error.

“…stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies.  These promote controversies rather than God’s work–which is by faith.  The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.  Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk.  They want to be teachers of the law, but htey do not know what they are talking about our what they so confidently affirm.” (1 Tim. 1:3-7)

“Some have rejected these [faith and good conscience] and so have shipwrecked their faith.  Among them are Hymanaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:19b-20).

 “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.  Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2).

“Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress.  Watch you life and doctrine closely.  Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:15-16).

“If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing.  He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain” (1 Tim. 6:3-5).

 “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.  Avoid godless chatter, because those who indulge in it will become more and more ungodly.  Their teaching will spread like gangrene.  Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth.  They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some” (2 Tim. 2:16-18).

“Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you  know they produce quarrels.  And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.  Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:23-26).

 “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage–with great patience and careful instruction.  For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.  But you, keep you head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry” (2 Tim. 4:2-5).

Elders “must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.  For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of teh circumcision group.  They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach–and that for the sake of dishonest gain” (Titus 1:11).

“Rebuke them sharply, so that they may be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth” (Titus 1:13-14).

“You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1a).

 

May my Lord help us love one another.

Amen.

Eric, 

Just a question....are you catholic?  

"The entire New Testament rings with constant alarm about those who pervert the truth of God’s word."

Great words, bro. Excellent and succinct. 

Scribe and all,

It is very obvious that all the writers of the Bible plus Jesus interpreted Creation as presented in Genesis 1. It is impossible to find anywhere in Scripture where someone has interpreted those days as six long periods of time. Some have made the case concerning this that these didn't have the advantage of modern science and didn't have the understanding that the universe was billions - not thousands of years old. I am one that struggles with this reasoning. Why would God withhold this information from these men? I sometimes get the feeling that some present themselves as knowing more than God. 

I have no doubt that there is still much for us to learn. I am one that believes we are only scratching the surface of the knowledge involved in our universe and life here on earth. After the introduction of microbiology to our world, Darwinism is taking a huge hit. Darwin's Origin of the Species is being clearly shown to be wrong. In our time it is losing its stranglehold on science. 

New knowledge about our universe is causing a shift in the understanding of the Big Bang theory. In the meantime, I wonder just how much leeway God is giving us to present His Word as saying something that it obviously is not saying. 

RoyW, I certainly agree with Jesus. At least I intend to :)  I don't believe that I disagree with him in any way. However, the light that was understood in Jesus' times is not the light we have today. We have ten thousand times more understanding than people could comprehend just 500 years ago. What is normal to us, would have been dumfoundingly miraculous to people in the 1st century. 

Certainly, Jesus understood creation fully. But, the language and comprehension to convey the notion of things as we can understand today may not have been available. 

The Evo-science crowd believe that the entire universe came into existence and expanded into it's cosmic proportions within a trillionth of a second. God says he created things a little differently, but a day is pretty sudden for all of it. I see no problem with reconciling that. 

Evo-science says we (6-day creationists) have a problem with the age of things, since it would take "billions" of years for light to cross  the universe and we can clearly see things (with telescopes) that are millions of light years away. But, I believe there is an answer to that, which the Evo-science crowd are missing. Namely that the light would have begun emerging as creation happened and IF the universe had a single point-time of origin, then the simple fact is that the time of light's travel is irrelevent, since space and time are a unified dimension (as per Einstein's theory). 

Now, God doesn't say that he created everything from a single point of reference (ala big bang) in Genesis. However, he does say in Isaiah 45:12 "...My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts."

So, God does say that things got spread out; and specifically that He did it Himself. So, again, I don't see any problem reconciling this; except that Evo-science refuses to acknowledge that God had the jump on them and said 2700 years ago that He spread space out - long before they thought of it. 

In other words, if God spread out space, then he spread out time as well (again, per Einstein's insights). So, for light to travel across the universe in so many billions of years is a moot point. I have no trouble at all seeing how God could create the entire universe in a single moment, or in 6 days. He says he did it in 6 days, I believe him. But the factor of time is not really relevent, since space-time of the heavens was "...stretched out..."

What I'm saying is that the Evo-science folks have missed a point in the fact that trying to date the universe in billions of years is silly because if it happened in a trillionth of a second, then all of the universe actually "...stretched out..." faster than what Genesis says. Do you see? So, therefore, for light to travel across that expanse in the same trillionth of a second is also possible within that same event. 

You said:

Why would God withhold this information from these men? 

I am convinced that God has not told us everything there is to know yet, however He has told us more than we realize. I mean, we have learned a phenomenal amount in the last 500 years. Things that were not known or understood before. Then, often we find that God had revealed it already - humanity just didn't understand it yet. 

I'm convinced there is still very much to learn. I'm also convinced that a big part of why Evo-Science cannot perceive the errors in their own theory is because perceiving creation is largely a spiritual matter and spiritual things are spiritually appraised. 

Scribe,

When you speak of Evo-Science, are you speaking of evolutionary science or do you have something else in mind?

Scribe, I understand the rhetoric; my question is just how far are we allowed to take it. In Jesus' day, the language was certainly available to express billions of years. Yet, Jesus puts man in the beginning of Creation not at the very tail end as does Einstein and the Big Bang. This is some pretty specific language:

Mark 10:6  But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. KJV

The context of the verse is Jesus speaking against how easy it was for man to divorce his wife. Yet, it is clear that He is aware that the universe was made in the time frame explained to us in Genesis.

My direct question is how much license are we given? I have another question: Is hell a real place? Is there a literal lake of fire where those who resist God's grace will spend eternity? Are we given the same license here that many have taken with the six days? The idea of such a place is beyond my imagination. Why would God create such a place where man will suffer day and night for eternity? Is this another place where we can say that there is still much for us to learn about the nature of God? Is hell real? 

Should I go on or does this make my question clear? We hear so little preaching about hell that it is obviously something we struggle with to comprehend. 

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