I'm a Creationist!  There.  I said it. 

http://youtu.be/qF9aY49oQTs - Indescribable - Chris Tomlin

And God spoke all these words when He gave Moses the Ten Commandments: 

Exodus 20:1:  "I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt..."

verse 11:  For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day.  Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

SIX days!  Rested on the seventh.  Either days of Creation were normal 24 hour days or that seven day of rest was a really, really long time.  But that's just my understanding.  I walk by faith.  If God says it in His Word, I believe it.

And you know what I just love?  When scientific discoveries point right back to God's Inspired Word!!! 

Love it! Love it! Love it!

Over the weekend, I had a cold and was in bed watching a show on the History Channel - History's Mysteries - Sodom and Gomorrah.  It seems an amazing discover was uncovered.  First of all, we now know there was actually a city of Sodom.  For years some people thought that was just a "an old bible tale", but then archaeologists began to uncover evidence to support city life in an area right where the Bible said  Sodom was located.  How many times does that have to happen before we start believing God? 

Then a clay tablet was found that may answer some questions about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/226353-Decoded-The-clay-tablet-that-tells-how-an-asteroid-destroyed-Sodom-5-000-years-ago-

excerpt from the link above:
A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for more than a
century has been identified as a witness's account of
an asteroid that destroyed the Biblical cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah 5,000 years ago.


Researchers believe that the tablet's symbols give a
detailed account of how a mile-long asteroid hit the
region, causing thousands of deaths and devastating
more than one million sq km (386,000 sq miles).


The impact, equivalent to more than 1,000 tons of
TNT exploding, would have created one of the
world's biggest-ever landslides. ~~~





 This disc showed constellations in the sky and another interesting thing.  It appeared to indicate that an asteroid may have crashed to earth about 5000 years ago, very near to where Sodom and Gomorrah were located. Archaeologists had already determined that Sodom was indeed left in ashes by some catastrophic incident that happened suddenly, literally destroying Sodom, burning it complete to the ground.   The possibility of an astroid convinced the scientific community of a fact that was recorded in the Bible. I'm so glad they finally figured out what God had told us thousands of years ago in His Inspired Word. 

Genesis 18
The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. ² Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. ....

Abraham invites the three men, the Lord and two angels,  to be his guests.  The Lord then tells Abraham that at the same time the following year, Sarah would give birth to their son.  Sarah overheard and cannot hold back the laugh of disbelief.  I know the feeling.  I was 46 when I found out I would be giving birth to another son, Tyler!   

But God's promises are true.  Sarah became a believer when Isaac was born just when the Lord said he would be born.

When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17 Then the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18 Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”



20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21 that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

22 The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD. 23 Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”


26 The LORD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

27 Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”

“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

29 Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”

He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

30 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”


He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”


31 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”


He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”


32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”


He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

33 When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

Genesis 19
1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”



It was not uncommon for guests traveling through a city to sleep in the square.  But Lot knew what reception they would be given if they stayed unprotected in the square.  He pleaded with them to come home with him for their safety.

“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”


3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

This passage really upsets me.  The idea that Lot would think it better for these sex crazed Sodomites to rape his virgin daughters rather than raping the two men - whom he didn't realize were angels  at the time, makes me sick.  I can't imagine making this suggestion if I were in Lot's position,  but Lot evidently saw no other way out of the disaster that was about to take place.  To him, his daughters being raped was the lesser of two evils.  9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.


10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.

12 The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”

14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.


15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”


16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”


 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! 19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”

21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.)

23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.

Astronomers have determined that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by the huge asteroid that landed some miles from these cities and as it sailed in from the atmosphere, balls of fire, possible sulphur? crashed down to earth for miles and miles.  Sodom and Gomorrah fell victim to this huge asteroid.
 
Hmmmm.....  How does that contradict what God's inspired Word says?  The Lord said he would rain down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the heavens.  I think He did just that.  Whether He used an asteroid or some other means, burning sulfur fell down on Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed those cities completely.  Archaeologist have discovered layers of ashes and bones of people who all died suddenly - I think the documentary said there were at least 20,000 people who died at the same time. 
 
And get this.  Dr. Carole Fontaine, a "theologist", says we've misunderstood all these years what the "sin" of Sodom and Gomorrah was.  Most scholars agree that the people were extremely wicked in every way and the story we are shown in the bible seems to highlight the sin of unnatural relations between men.  Dr. Fontaine is quick to clarify our mistake.  She's says the great sin was, are you ready for this?  "Inhospitality to strangers!"     Well, they certainly were inhospitable.  I'll give her that.
 
True science is not the enemy.  Humans who try every way possible to take God out of the catastrophic events described in the Bible have to continually change their "theories" to match new findings.  The Bible remains steadfast.  The more science shows us, the more we see the Truth in God's inspired Word.  There are no contradictions with true science and God's Word.   The difference is Creation science starts with a belief in a Divine Designer.  Those who don't believe God is creator spend much of their time trying to dismiss the fact the so many "discoveries" were listed in the bible thousands of years before scientists figured it out.   How can we explain away that men (inspired by God) who had no great education or wisdom in and of themselves, were able to write truths of how our world operates - natural laws -  before man even had the ability to discover those scientific truths?
 
This show about Sodom really frustrated me. At the very end, the commentator made one little off handed statement to the effect that  "Could it be possible that God did cause the destruction with an asteriod?"   Are you kidding me?
 
Why is it so hard for some people to believe that God is Creator?  It takes so much more imagination and faith to believe this universe just spontaneously happened.  Every time I hear a scientist or archaeologist or astronomer grasping for some way to take God out of the new discoveries being found every day - discoveries that support what God has already told us, it just baffles me.  But God told us about the wisdom of this world, too. 
 
1 Corinthians 3:18-20
Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; ²⁰ and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”
 
Holy and Divine Father, Creator and Sustainer of everything that is, was or will come, forgive us for failing to give You the praise and worship You so deserve.  Everything in Creation shouts Your praise, except "man".  We are Your treasured possession and we give you so little respect and honor.  I don't know You keep from zapping us into Eternity.  Thank You for Your patience.  Thank You for loving us and continually showing Yourself to those of us who believe.  I know You're with me.  I don't need science to proof it, but I sure do love seeing Your science show off  Your magnificent glory!  I love You, Father, and sing together with all Creation - "You Reign for ever and ever!"
 
http://youtu.be/O7bD02ZmTqk - All of Creation - Mercy Me
 
 
 

How Great is our GOD!

Before Jesus was born, even before creation, He was with God and He was God. 

In the beginning was the WORD.

http://youtu.be/u42Z4qIQO4Y - Faithful Love 

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

This message taken from the first chapter of the Gospel of John, the apostle whom Jesus loved,  is quite possibly the most poignant passage in all the Bible to me. 
 
The WORD was in the beginning. 

The WORD was with God.

The WORD was GOD.

Through the WORD all things were made that have been made.

In Him was LIFE and that Life was the LIGHT of all people.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him.

Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.

This is truly the best Gift ever - to be given the right to become a child of God - all because He loved us enough to become human, to live, die and be resurrected so that we, too, might die to sin and be resurrected to a new life with HIM forever and always!
Colossians 2:9-15
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.



8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.


9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. 11 In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your sinful nature was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Praise God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit!
Thank You for loving me.  Thank You for coming to earth to save me. Thank You for experiencing humanity by being born and living as fully human even to death on the cross. I know You understand what I suffer because You've experienced every struggle and pain that I will ever face, and You remained faithful to Your Father through it all. Thank You for teaching me by example to trust our Father who never fails us.  Father, thank You for Your grace and mercies that are new every morning.  Forgive me when I take Your amazing gift of love so lightly.  I cannot repay the debt You've paid on my behalf, but I can live my life to honor You. Help me to be a witness like John and boldly speak the truth of Your great love and plan of Salvation.  I pray all these things in the Name of my Savior, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who was, who is and is to come!  Be praised and lifted high in my life, Lord.  Amen.

http://youtu.be/xi0yLRX4d2M - How great is our God - Chris Tomlin

http://youtu.be/O7bD02ZmTqk - All of Creation - Mercy Me

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that all God’s people may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

I confess.

I am a Creationist!   Yep.  One of those ignorant religious nuts
who blindly believes everything written in the Bible.  That's me!

Actually, I am appalled by the number of people who don't believe every single word.  For me it's just so clear that His Word has proven accurate and true time after time, even after such incredible scrutiny by not only the scientific world but also by supposedly "intelligent" men and women whose single purpose seems to be trying to disprove that God is God.

A few years ago I found a great website called "Answers in Genesis" which was created by Ken Hamm.
He has a whole team of Creation Scientists who see science as supportive of the Creation story as told in the Bible.  These scientists have no trouble believing that God created the universe in 6 days.  Yes, that's what I said SIX days!  Not "thousand year days", six 24-hour days.  And they have the science to back up their beliefs.

You see, each of us start with a foundational belief.  For an atheist, that foundational belief is:

"There is no God.  The world came into existence all by accident - no design - it just happened."

For a believer, the foundational belief is:

"Almighty God created the universe with intentional design and purpose.  There is definitely a Designer and the Designer is GOD!"

The foundational belief you begin with will color everything you learn.  For the atheist, every scientific discovery that points to a designer is discredited or tweaked in such a way that the atheist can maintain his foundational belief.  Of course, to be fair, the same is true of a Creationist.

The difference:  Creationists have not had to "change" their original premise. Every scientific discovery points to a Divine Creator!  Every discover points to the validity of God's written Word. Consider these points:

By comparing the manuscript support for the Bible with manuscript support for other ancient documents and books, it becomes overwhelmingly clear that no other ancient piece of literature can stand up to the Bible. Manuscript support for the Bible is unparalleled!


There are more [New Testament] manuscripts copied with greater accuracy and earlier dating than for any secular classic from antiquity. (over 24,000 partial and complete manuscript copies!)

Rene Pache adds, "The historical books of antiquity have a documentation infinitely less solid."


Dr. Benjamin Warfield concludes, "If we compare the present state of the text of the New Testament with that of no matter what other ancient work, we must...declare it marvelously exact."


Norman Geisler makes several key observations for our consideration:

No other book is even a close second to the Bible on either the number or early dating of the copies. The average secular work from antiquity survives on only a handful of manuscripts; the New Testament boasts thousands.

The average gap between the original composition and the earliest copy is over 1,000 years for other books.


The New Testament, however, has a fragment within one generation from its original composition, whole books within about 100 years from the time of the autograph [original manuscript], most of the New Testament in less than 200 years, and the entire New Testament within 250 years from the date of its completion.


The degree of accuracy of the copies is greater for the New Testament than for other books that can be compared. Most books do not survive with enough manuscripts that make comparison possible.


From this documentary evidence, then, it is clear that the New Testament writings are superior to comparable ancient writings. "The records for the New Testament are vastly more abundant, clearly more ancient, and considerably more accurate in their text."

                     (The above information is from "Reasoning from the Scriptures Ministries".)


It's interesting to note that of all books of antiquity, the Bible is the most scrutinized and challenged. Forty men over a period of 1500 years tell the same story of an incredible God who created the world and everything in it.  And that great God, that amazing Creator, loves us enough to sacrifice His own Son.  Everything in His Word points to the same God.  The Bible is the inspired Word of God himself.  No one has ever been able to disprove this Truth.  No one ever will be able to do that.

Here's one of the many archaeological discoveries which points to the truth of the Bible.  Read the story in Genesis describing the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Then read the "discovery" below.  If you're a believer, I think you'll see God's hand in the demise of Sodom.  But a sceptic will try to rationalize the findings so that God isn't given the glory.

Remember how beautiful and fertile Sodom and Gomorrah was before it's destruction.  When his uncle Abraham gave Lot the first choice of where to settle his family, Lot chose this valley because it was perfect.

Genesis 13:10

Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)



Genesis 19
12 Meanwhile, the angels questioned Lot. “Do you have any other relatives here in the city?” they asked. “Get them out of this place—your sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else. 13 For we are about to destroy this city completely. The outcry against this place is so great it has reached the Lord, and he has sent us to destroy it.”


14 So Lot rushed out to tell his daughters’ fiancés, “Quick, get out of the city! The Lord is about to destroy it.” But the young men thought he was only joking.

15 At dawn the next morning the angels became insistent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot. “Take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Get out right now, or you will be swept away in the destruction of the city!”

16 When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the Lord was merciful. 17 When they were safely out of the city, one of the angels ordered, “Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”

18 “Oh no, my lord!” Lot begged. 19 “You have been so gracious to me and saved my life, and you have shown such great kindness. But I cannot go to the mountains. Disaster would catch up to me there, and I would soon die. 20 See, there is a small village nearby. Please let me go there instead; don’t you see how small it is? Then my life will be saved.”


21 “All right,” the angel said, “I will grant your request. I will not destroy the little village. 22 But hurry! Escape to it, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” (This explains why that village was known as Zoar, which means “little place.”)


23 Lot reached the village just as the sun was rising over the horizon. 24 Then the Lord rained down fire and burning sulfur from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. 25 He utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every bit of vegetation. 26 But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt.


27 Abraham got up early that morning and hurried out to the place where he had stood in the Lord’s presence. 28 He looked out across the plain toward Sodom and Gomorrah and watched as columns of smoke rose from the cities like smoke from a furnace.


29 But God had listened to Abraham’s request and kept Lot safe, removing him from the disaster that engulfed the cities on the plain.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wednesday, December 07, 2011Sodom and Gomorrah Excavated


By far the most interesting session at the recent Society of Biblical Literature Congress in San Francisco was one I wandered into by chance. I am always curious about what is going on in biblical archeology, so one afternoon I decided to skip the dozen or so sessions dedicated to Bakhtinian Decontextualization of Identity Construction in Persian Yehud (I had to tear myself away) and go hear about the excavations at a certain site called "Tall-el-Hammam." I had no idea what I was in for. After about five minutes into the session, I realized that the archeological team assigned to this dig was convinced that they had found the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah. After another half-hour, it seemed they had most of the participants convinced as well. The sites fit the geographical and temporal context into which Sodom and Gomorrah are placed in the biblical texts. The cities at the site were suddenly and completely wiped out in the Late Bronze Age, which makes a reasonably good fit with the biblical accounts of Abraham and Lot. The entire presentation was very convincing, but never once did they deal with the "elephant in the room": what caused the sites to be suddenly abandoned? As soon as the session was over, I was the first to raise my hand. "Did you find any arrow heads? Signs of invasion? What happened to them?" The lead archaeologist paused for a moment. "I didn't want to go there," he said. Another pause. "I'm preparing material for publication." Pause. "All I want to say 'on camera' is, they appear to have been wiped out in a 'heat event'."

A "heat event"!? What?!

"If you want to know more, I'll talk after the session off the record."

I wish I could divulge what he said to a small group of us clustered around the podium after the session was over, but it would break confidence. We'll have to wait for the official peer-reviewed publications
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~This article is from www.thesacredpage.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Sacred Page is a blog written by three Catholic Ph.D.s who are professors of Scripture and Theology: Michael Barber, Brant Pitre and John Bergsma. Here you can also find podcasts of "The Sacred Page with Michael Barber."


Why is it so hard for intelligent people to accept that God is the Creator of all things?  Why is it so hard to accept what God has told us through inspired writers? 
 
I choose to believe and accept that His Word is true.  
 
Prove me wrong if you can. 
 
http://youtu.be/vJdWdZv-uRA - Everlasting God - Chris Tomlin