Creation Research - UK Update

July 2011

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Dear Friends,

It has been quite an eventful few months for John Mackay and Creation Research. The gap since our last newsletter has been a little longer than normal as we wanted to include details of the itinerary for John's visit to the UK later this year. He arrives at the end of August and will be here until mid-October.

Queensland floods

When we last wrote John had had to cancel his visit here so he could have a hernia operation, following prolonged throat problems and violent coughing fits. He recovered well and was getting back into ministry in Australia when in January Queensland was hit by very heavy flooding. Whilst the Mackay’s property, which also houses our head office, was not in the worst affected areas, the gales and torrential rain did impact their lives and those of their family as well as other members of the Creation Research team. Dean Davis, who has worked with John on video production for many years, had both his home and his editing studio in different Brisbane suburbs wrecked by flooding. He tried to save what he could, but amongst items he could not salvage was unedited footage which John was intending to use in future DVDs.

Creation Research’s open air Jurassic Ark museum also suffered badly in the early phase of flooding. This is situated in Gympie, 110 miles north of Brisbane, and much of the previous years' work was destroyed as a stream which borders the site burst its banks, ripped up walkways and reburied excavated fossils! A lot of repair work has been undertaken subsequently as well as improvements designed to protect as much as possible against future damage. Plans are now in place for it to be officially reopened on 13th August and John is grateful to all those, including many from this country, who made generous donations to help with the restoration work. The very wet weather did have some benefits though: the upper portion of the Biblical Garden display, “From Adam to Australia” has thrived, with many of the tropical plants flourishing in the high humidity! Photographs and reports are available on our main web site under “Jurassic Ark Project”.

Disasters everywhere

Queensland was not the only place to be thrown into turmoil by natural disasters at the start of the year. Torrential rain and subsequent flooding also killed hundreds of people in Brazil and dozens in Sri Lanka. These received limited UK news coverage because the media focused on events in Queensland. In February Christchurch, New Zealand was hit by a strong earthquake, then Japan suffered a devastating earthquake and tsunami. John was already receiving a steady flow of questions from people who wanted to know if the Queensland floods were God’s judgement when the destruction in Japan focussed people’s minds even further. Consequently one of his new talks has the title, “Really Down Under - 2011”. John describes it as, “a seriously challenging look at how God judges and blesses, as well as what we can learn about Noah’s flood and coming judgement.” Of course in an increasingly secular Western world, the majority of people do not understand that the God of the Bible is in control of weather and other “natural” events. These days politicians around the world are being pressurised to act as if mankind controls the environment. Back in 2008 Creation Research released the DVD, Climate Change - The God Factor which asks and answers the most important question of all in this regard, “Does the Creator retain full authority over His creation?”

Questions like this remind us that the issue of creation or more accurately the authority of the Creator is not simply a matter of defending the reliability of the Bible, but is important in forming a truly Christ-centred world-view. Increasing numbers of Christians are seemingly being carried along with the secular agenda rather than their Creator’s programme. This can be expressed in different ways, but there are often common strands. For instance, Evangelicals who support the notion that modern usage of fossil fuels has caused “climate change” also commonly accept evolution. This highlights the fact that there is some sort of disconnect between their world-view and Biblical teaching. The Bible clearly teaches that the biggest climate changing event there has ever been - Noah’s Flood - was the result of human activity. However, it wasn't the outcome of too much wood burning or pre-Deluge metal smelting, but because mankind had filled the earth with violence. Nearly two thousand years later, the prophet Isaiah (Ch. 24) was to warn of the day when total disaster would come upon the earth; “The earth is violently broken, The earth is split open, The earth is shaken exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, And shall totter like a hut; Its transgression shall be heavy upon it, And it will fall, and not rise again.” Earlier he described why this will happen - not because of carbon emissions, but because of a disregard of the Creator, His laws and His covenant; “The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, Because they have transgressed the laws, Changed the ordinance, Broken the everlasting covenant.”

Christ in control

Christians who are concerned about human abuse of this planet need to remember that this universe is not the result of millions of years of random processes. It is the work of the One who speaks with such authority that not only mountains, but atoms and molecules obey Him. These know they exist because He spoke them into existence - a truth many people have these days chosen to forget. If Christians had a deep fear of The LORD in their own hearts, perhaps they would not fear the works of men as they do. The message Christians need to proclaim today is the same as it always has been, “The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, To turn one away from the snares of death.” (Prov. 14:27), also echoed in “The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.” (29:25).

In the New Testament we are told several times that Jesus Christ holds all things together. These are the opening words of Hebrews 1:

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Jesus Christ is the One through whom the Father made the universe and who today upholds all things - including the global climate - by the word of His power. Notice how the writer sees no separation between Christ’s work as Creator and Sustainer of the universe and His ministry as Saviour and Redeemer. His authority to salvage us from the dire consequences of our rebellion is one with His sovereignty as the Craftsman who shaped this planet and holds it together. How sad it is when Christians in unbelief deny both in ‘six days He made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them’ (Ex. 20) and His promise that “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.” (Gen. 8)

The writer of Hebrews returns to the relationship between the Creator and His creation later. Applying the words of Ps. 102 to Jesus, (God the Son) he wrote:

You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; And they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will fold them up, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not fail.

He emphasises the contrast between creation which will perish and Creator who will remain when this universe is discarded like a worn-out coat. This creation is here for a purpose, but it does have a shelf-life. When its purpose is fulfilled, the Creator will discard it and replace it with something which is not just new, but which has been prepared for a much better purpose. Modern environmentalism gives pre-eminence to the creation rather than the Creator. Biblical prophets warn that sin ruins not only people, but also the whole of creation. They also remind God’s people that He has always planned something better for those who fear Him. The final verse of Ps. 102 (not quoted in Hebrews 1) asserts, “The children of Your servants will continue, And their descendants will be established before You.” Like the Creator Himself, those who serve Him will continue in eternity with Him, whilst this world and the things which belong to it are destined to perish. John reminded the readers of his letter of this when he warned that Christians who love the world and the things in the world cannot love the Father (1 John 2).

Resisting godlessness

Confusion within the Church over such things is not new, but we live in days when Western societies as a whole have chosen to eliminate the Creator from their world view. It is therefore more important to remind one another as Christians that God is still on His throne, ruling from there over all the affairs of men, both personal and international. Paul emphasised that the Creator is in full control when he spoke at Mars Hill:

God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshipped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring.”

In days when people around the world are seeking to write their Creator out of history, Christians need to love Him and their neighbours sufficiently to remind them that their Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth, (Job 19). Doubting the Creator’s honesty about His work in the beginning can only lead those who claim to believe in Him into doubting His authority today. Yes, the Creator does retain full authority over His creation and we encourage you to equip yourselves as fully as possible to stand against the present tide of secularism which seeks to deny this truth, knowing that the battle we all face is about far more than the first few chapters of the Bible.

I am writing this Update the day after the BBC broadcast a documentary on assisted suicide. Not only would the showing of someone taking their own life have been unthinkable in Britain a few years ago, but the arguments against man assuming sovereignty over his own life would not have been made without reference to the Creator. However Christians who speak out against such things in the media these days know that they must make their arguments without reference to God if their reasoning is not to be shouted down. By contrast, atheists constantly assert that secularism has to be the foundation of all moral debates. The most arrogant of these are always ready to ridicule faith and Christianity in particular, at every opportunity. Earlier this year on Revelation TV, Richard Dawkins described the death of Christ as “hideous and demeaning”. A few weeks later on BBC 1 he referred to the same event in this way, “Is that not the most disgusting idea you have ever heard?” In response to these attacks, we are enclosing with this Update an article entitled, “If God is all powerful, why doesn’t He just forgive people?” which we hope will help Christians to give a reasoned answer for the hope which is within them.

Proclaiming Christ

Please continue to pray for John Mackay, his family and all of us who work with Creation Research. Please pray that The LORD will equip John to continue to proclaim Christ the Creator and Redeemer around the world. One recent development has been a series of radio programmes broadcast on Radio Eden, a British-based satellite radio station with almost global coverage. More details of broadcast times and tuning information are on our UK web site. Please pray that The LORD will use this initiative to speak to people around the world. A sample programme can also be heard on our latest web site - askjohnmackay.com. This is a question and answer site, where John and other members of the team respond to many of the questions which we (and probably you) get asked when we speak about Christ as Creator. Please pray these will be used by the Holy Spirit to give sight to those who have been blinded to the truth through things such as the teaching of evolution.

Please also look at the enclosed itinerary to see if John will be speaking near you when he is here from late August to mid-October. If so, we hope you will be able to get along and of course we encourage you to bring with you those who don’t believe in Jesus Christ.

Randall Hardy

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This page last edited July 2011.
© Randall Hardy, 2011