Creation News and Views

AT the end of March Professor Andy McIntosh visited India for 10 days of creation ministry, taking in Mumbai (Bombay), Calcutta, Gangtok, Hyderabad, Pune, Hosur (South of Bangalore) and Bangalore. The tour was organised by Jyoti Chakravartty of the Creation Science Association of India. Beginning in Mumbia, over 300 people attended a meeting on the Sunday, followed by a special pastors’ meeting the next day. On the Tuesday in Calcutta 120 people attended a talk on ‘Creation or Evolution – looking at the evidence’.

Andy then travelled to Sikkim and Gangtok in the foothills of the Himalayas near the China/Tibet border, where there was a meeting of young people and keen pastors, including Rev Tingbo, moderator of the Sikkim region of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The next stage of the tour included Hyderabad, with meetings at the large Century Baptist Church. At Pune there was a meeting of about 100 Christians, who were keen to know more, and understand the importance of Creation and the evidences that were presented. At the final meetings at Bangalore, when a young man from the closed country of Bhutan was present, so much interest was shown, that a local Creation group is likely to be formed. Jyoti Chakravartty also hopes to set up groups in many parts of India.

POLAND TOO
In mid-April Andy McIntosh spent 5 days lecturing in Poland. Due to the grounding of flights by the volcanic ash cloud, getting there involved a 24-hour overland bus journey. However, the effort was well worthwhile, with encouraging meetings at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gdansk, two lectures at the University in Szczecin, and three lectures at Zielona Gora University, attended by up to 150 students. The final meeting at Kalisz University was attended by around 100 students, and a Professor of Physics, who was very polite, expressed great interest and openness, and has since been in contact with Andy. Andy McIntosh’s comment on the Poland tour: “It is quite amazing to be in a country where one is not frowned on to talk about origins in Universities.”

After more than three years of working, planning and praying, Dennis Peterson’s book Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation (left), is now being printed in Beijing, and distributed in the Chinese language in China and worldwide. It has also gone on sale in Government bookshops. Dennis says: “This is a huge breakthrough to have the permission of the government of China to freely distribute such a relevant message with a perspective that is firmly committed to the accuracy of scripture.“ “This is one of the only books clearly detailing the scriptural detail plus the scientific and historical evidences of Biblical and Scientific Creation that will be seen by potentially millions of souls in China. The process is so lengthy that it is rare for a book that is this boldly Christian in position to ever get approval for publication in Communist China.... It’s a huge victory for the gospel. To many it’s a dream come true.” In China, thousands of people are converting to faith in Jesus Christ every day. Please pray that this book will not only increase that number, but will also equip Christians to oppose the deception of evolution and have a firm grounding in God’s word.

ACCORDING to NASA, “Two of the most profound questions that all cultures, both past and present, have asked are: where did we come from and what is our destiny? Throughout history philosophers, theologians, and scientists have debated these questions.” Secular scientists have proposed several scenarios for the fate of our universe. The “Heat Death” theory is based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics (which states that everything is running down due to increasing “entropy”) In spite of its name, this theory suggests that the universe will become totally dead with a temperature close to absolute zero. The “Big Rip” theory suggests that the matter of the universe, from stars and galaxies to atoms and subatomic particles, and including our own solar system, will be progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe at a certain time in the future. Then there is the “Big Crunch” theory which presupposes that the universe will eventually collapse back on itself, resulting in a massive “black hole.” Each of these scenarios assumes that it all began with a “big bang”, and some scientists even suggest that a “Big Crunch” could be followed by another “big bang” to create another universe! They also assume that the universe has no ultimate purpose, that it will continue for billions of years, and that there will be no supernatural intervention.

GOD WILL INTERVENE AGAIN
Such a naturalistic scenario is totally unacceptable to Christians, who have always believed that God, who stepped into history when Jesus Christ was born, will intervene again. The Wikipedia online encyclopedia rightly states, “The second coming of Christ is the central event in Christian eschatology.” Natural processes will not be allowed to run their course to ultimate destruction. Christians have differing views about the sequence of events at the end of time, but all agree that following the return of Jesus Christ as King and Judge, God will replace this fallen world with “a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.” (2 Peter 3: 13). The contrast with the secular, naturalistic view of the end is striking. The Bible clearly teaches that it will be a restoration (Acts 3: 21). This will not be a restoration to the primeval conditions imagined by secular evolutionists, but to the state that existed before “The Fall”. This is how John described his vision: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” (Revelation 21: 1). He also wrote, “No longer will there be any curse.” (Revelation 22: 3). That which blights creation at present will not exist in the new creation.

INSTANTANEOUS
The Bible says that when Jesus returns Christians “will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye.” (1 Corinthians 15: 51-52). This will be an instantaneous re-creation not a process over eons of time. And God didn’t need eons of time to create everything in the beginning! No Bible-believing Christian can accept the secular scientists’ view of the universe’s destiny, so why accept their views about its origin?