So Much Hunger

As we speak at conferences and other meetings, we experience so many people expressing their hunger for the truth of God’s Word, for answers, and for resources. I just experienced this in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Dr. Terry Mortenson just experienced this at his recent speaking engagements in White Plains, New York. We see the hunger growing more intense in this nation.

I wanted you to experience what it is like for the various speakers when they are speaking in the field. Put yourself in their position: you have given your presentations—and people line up to talk to you. Here is a summary of what it is like:

Most of the people had never heard information like this before, and many were very compromised in their thinking on origins. But there was great hunger for the resources, and people asked lots of questions. There were also a few people who were quite resistant to the message.

A fireman in his early 40s, who came to faith later in life, spoke to me. He is obviously passionate about following Christ and His Word. But he had recently gone to seminary and now teaches part time at a local Christian college, where he was partly influenced by the old-earth systematic theology texts that were used in courses he took. He was very appreciative of my talks on Noah’s Flood and why the age of the earth matters. I also was able to email him on Sunday afternoon my 2006 ETS paper critiquing the old-earth views in two of the systematic theology texts that he used in seminary. He already wrote me back and said the paper was very helpful to him.

A man from Jamaica who works with a ministry to university students there asked if I would come to Jamaica next year as part of the 60th anniversary for his mission. He has already emailed me to pursue that idea.

A Hispanic lady wanted to know what was available in Spanish, and I was able to point her to our website, where we have a lot of resources in that language . She and her husband (who doesn't speak Spanish) bought some resources in English to study together.

A middle-aged couple bought the New Answers Book 1 and started reading and discussing it in the restaurant at lunch on Sunday. Two men sitting near them overheard their conversation and asked about it. The couple ended up giving the book to the men and bought another copy Sunday night.

A public high school principal (who is a keen young-earth creationist) told me, “You held my 6-year-old daughter’s attention for two straight hours and that’s a record.” He also knows the man who angrily walked out of the church on Sunday morning saying, “If that is what I have to believe, I’m going to the Unitarian Church.” The principal later told me, “Don't worry about him. He’s coming to our house for dinner next weekend. We’ll work on him.”

A woman in her late 30s who goes to a different church said after my talk on why the origins issue matters, “I’ve never heard anything like this, and I’ve never thought about the issue of death before sin. My head is spinning. I’m really going to have to think about this.” I encouraged her to do so, just as I had when I started my talk by challenging people to be like the Berean Jews in Acts 17:11.

A missionary who witnesses to and leads Bible studies for diplomats at the United Nations was thrilled with my talks. He has been going through an email-format Bible study on Genesis 1–11 with a missionary friend in Moscow, Russia, who became a convinced young-earth creationist as a result of taking an apologetics course that I taught when I was living in Hungary in the late 1990s. For over 10 years the missionary in Russia has been influencing other missionaries all over the world through his email-led studies, just as he has been doing with this guy ministering at the U.N. This guy now sees more clearly the foundational importance of Genesis and is presently teaching a study on Genesis 1–11 to some U.N. diplomats and staffers. He told me that this study has garnered the best attendance of any Bible study he has done at the U.N. That is so encouraging. I offered to help him in any way I could by coming to speak to his group some time. He said he’d think about that, especially because of all my international experience.

On Saturday, I also did an interview with a reporter for a Christian newspaper. He is also an administrator at a college, where, of course, evolution is taught as fact. He has quite a little ministry to students on the side exposing them to creationist arguments and resources, which they have never encountered before. He also anonymously donated a number of DVDs (all by PhD creation scientists) to the college library. But a Christian friend of his who works in the library told him that the library leadership has refused to put the DVDs in the library. He’s working behind the scenes to see what can be done about this censorship. He is so excited about the ministry of AiG, and through his contacts with many churches in New York City, he wants to try to get a major creation seminar in the City some time in the near future.

Devotion

No one to

(Hosea 13:9) O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.

We have no one to blame but ourselves for the consequences of our sin, and from those consequences we have no one to help us but the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ken