Christmas Music

So now that Thanksgiving is past, I have allowed myself to start listening to Christmas music. I'm lovin' it. Getting ready to celebrate the biggest birthday party on earth is my favorite time of year, and music is a big part of that. That, and snow, lights, the smell of evergreens, etc.

I would recommend "Christmas" by Michael W. Smith (this is, by a huge amount, my favorite Christmas album and favorite album overall) and "The Christmas Sessions" by MercyMe. Both are available for free on Freegal, if your public library is a part of that program.

And yes, I know I have failed miserably at making regular postings here. I shall from here on out give up even apologizing, and just accept it as normal to go for a month or two between posts.

DGNC

The Desiring God National Conference is coming up in a couple of weeks - I'm so pumped! I went for the first time last year, and it was a great time of worship, fellowship, sitting under the teaching of some amazing men of God, and learning more what God's plan for His people is.

This year the topic is "Act the Miracle: God's work and ours in the mystery of sanctification". Should be good.

I'll try to remember to post some of my notes afterwards. No promises, though; I'm a busy college student and posting on my blog isn't my highest priority (gasp!).

Warren is a realist...

I know this is kind of a different topic for me, but I'm going to try to post more often, even if it's just quick snippets of what I find interesting.

The Gap Theory: Full of Holes

One version of “old earth creationism” is the Gap Theory. It is quite widely held to, and is something I feel I should address.

This is the theory that there is a “gap” of millions or even billions of years between Genesis 1:1 and the second verse.

“(1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

-Gen 1:1-2

According to this theory (This is very brief, and there are variations), God created the heavens and the earth in 1:1, and all the animals, etc. Some variations even hold that there was a race of men without souls in this first world. All these creatures lived for millions of years, creating all the fossils we see today. Satan then fell, and the earth was obliterated with a global flood (not “Noah's”). Then verse two picks up with “The earth was without form, and void...”. The proponents of this theory say that the word normally translated “was” here (hebrew, “hayah”) could also be translated “became” (While this is true, context is everything here. In this context, there is no way that it could be translated became). This would now say that the earth became void and without form. God then proceeded to recreate the world, the one we know now.

The only reason for this theory is to try to fit man's idea of evolution into the God's Word. A careful reading of Genesis, and the rest of the Bible, for that matter, gives no evidence for this theory.

There are several problems with this theory. First, it requires death and suffering before the fall, and the Bible states that “...sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned...” I think everyone would agree that that “one man” refers to Adam. The Bible makes it clear in this passage, and others, that death and disease were punishment for sin. How, then, could there be millions of years of death, decay, and suffering before sin? This, in my opinion, is the biggest problem with this theory.

Exodus 20:11 says that the Lord made the heavens and the earth in six days. According to the gap theory, the Lord made the heavens and the earth in one day, then millions of years, then six more days. Since the days in that verse refer to six 24-hour days, there is not much room for millions of years there.

1 Cor. 15:45 states that Adam was the first man. This discredits any theories of a race of men in this “gap world”.

Another problem is that if the fossil record was laid down during this gap period and its accompanying flood, it leaves no room for the flood of Genesis 6-9 to leave any traces. According to them, this “second” worldwide, catastrophic flood left no trace. Odd.

And lastly, as I argued in a previous post, there is just a lot of evidence for a young earth, and not for an old one. This is evidence against the gap theory.

In conclusion, I would advise anyone holding to this theory to seriously reconsider it, weighing it with the Bible, letting the Bible be the authority, not man's opinions. If a theory contradicts the Bible, it is the theory that is in the wrong. You may think that this is not a big deal, but it is. Undermining the origin of sin is undermining the very reason for salvation. Think about it.

When the Stars Burn Down

I've been listening to the new album by Phillips, Craig, and Dean, "Breathe In". The one that stood out to me the most is the song "When the stars fall down". With all the war, politics, and violence all around us, it can be hard to lose sight of the goal. The cool thing is, I've read the end of the book, and God wins. And we will spend eternity with him in a new world that is not contaminated with sin. This song reminded me of that. It feels like a little bit of Heaven practice:


When the stars burn down and the earth wears out
And we stand before the throne
With the witnesses who have gone before
We will rise and all applaud

Singing blessing and honor, glory and power
Forever to our God
Singing blessing and honor, glory and power
Forever to our God

When the hands of time wind fully down
And the earth is rolled up like a scroll
The trumpets will call and the world will fall
To its knees as we all go home 

Star of the morning, Light of salvation
Majesty
God of all mysteries, Lord of the universe
Righteous King

There will come a day standing face to face
In a moment, we will be like Him
He will wipe our eyes dry, take us up to His side
And forever we will be His




Can't wait...

The age of the Earth (and Universe)

This is one of the major issues relating to the creation-evolution debate, so I will share some of my thoughts on it here. This is not going to be technical, just a general look at some of the points I am familiar with.


Stars go through a sort of "life cycle". They start out as a small blue star, then go to yellow and red, getting bigger as they go. they then shrink into a white dwarf star. This is simplified, but sufficient for our purposes. According to evolutionists, this process takes millions to even billions of years to go from phase to phase. 
The star Sirius is a white dwarf star. However, ancient writings (by such people as Cicero, Seneca, and Ptolemy) described it as red. This was only a couple of thousand years ago, not millions. 
All this to say that at least the theory of stars "living" for billions of years may be flawed.


Jupiter is cooling off. We can assume it has been cooling off since it was formed. If it is still cooling off and is eons old, it would have had to have been really, really, REALLY, hot to start out with.


The moon is getting farther away from the earth over time. Every year it is a little farther from the earth. Extrapolating this backwards, 1.2 billion years ago the moon would be touching the earth. Needless to say, way before that we would have some serious tidal issues, to the point of no life being possible on earth. Evolutionists claim the earth/moon is 4.5 billion years old. Do the math - something's wrong there.


The earth itself is slowing down. This means... wait for it... it used to be going faster! wow! At the rate it is slowing down, putting the earth at about 6,000 years old is no problem. However, a few billion years ago, the earth would have been spinning extremely fast.

The oceans are 3.6% salt. Extrapolating the rate that salt is being added to the oceans, they would have been fresh water about 5000 years ago. What was going on for the 4,499,995,000 years before that? Was there no salt washing into the oceans before that?

These next points don't really make an argument, but they are interesting.

The oldest living organism, a bristlecone pine known as Methuselah, is estimated to be about 4500 years old. Coincidently, that is about when the great flood is estimated to have occurred. If there was no flood and the earth is billions of years old, why aren't there any older organisms on the earth?

The largest coral reef in the world, the Great Barrier Reef, is estimated to be 4200 years old. Why isn't there an older one somewhere?

Sorry...

Wow. I really haven't posted in a while. Sorry about that. I will hereby try to post more often.