Another Full Weekend

Attendance at the church seminar was good, and although not as many resources were purchased as expected (due to the depressed economy and loss of jobs in the Detroit area), very many people expressed their appreciation for the teaching.

An engineer told me on Sunday morning that he loved the topic of creation but until hearing my talk “Creation or Evolution: Why It Matters” he had not understood the foundational importance of Genesis. He was at all the rest of the sessions.

After my last talks on Monday, a man in his 30s came to talk to me. He had heard me on the Christian radio program that afternoon and came to hear what I had to say. We talked for 45–60 minutes, and rather quickly I learned that he was an atheist. But he was not hostile, and we had a good back-and-forth discussion with some other people listening in. He had grown up with a Catholic mother and Baptist father, so it was understandable that he was confused about lots of things related to Christianity. We talked about where Cain got his wife, the historical reliability of the New Testament, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, the lack of any basis for morality in his atheistic worldview (a point I had emphasized at the end of both talks that evening), the laws of logic, and other topics.

A lady from the church was listening in on the conversation and chimed in some helpful comments occasionally. At the end she also invited him to join a discussion group at the church, and he willingly gave his address and phone number to her. As he left, I gave him a copy of The New Answers Book 2, which he seemed to appreciate. I think he was really listening, and though not persuaded clearly on any points, was challenged to think about the truth. Please lift a prayer for this young man—that he will come to the church discussion group in the weeks ahead and eventually will repent of his sins and trust in Christ as his Lord and Savior.

A Visit to Greenfield Village

On Monday during the day, a family that came to the seminar got most of our family in for free on their annual pass to Henry Ford’s amazing Greenfield Village, a restored 19^th century working village next to the Ford Museum. It was a great learning experience as we listened to people in period costumes explain and demonstrate various aspects of life in the late 1800s. All the buildings were restored originals that Ford bought and transported from various places in the country, especially featuring the life and work of Ford and his close friend, Thomas Edison. It was amazing to see how intelligent and creative people were back then. They were no dummies.

But you couldn’t miss the impact of evolution. In the building for making pottery, one lady told us that it took millions of years for clay to form, to which my son replied, “How do you know?” The lady said that’s what the chemists and geologists teach in the university. Later, in the glass-making shop, the docent told us about how these glass-making skills go back 18,000 years. But he also commented about how “man has always been so creative.” Of course, all the tools, houses, and machinery we saw were a testimony to the creative genius of man—because he is made in the image of God. But most of the people working there—and the tourists visiting, no doubt—have been brainwashed to believe that the far more amazingly designed people, plants, and animals in the village had no creator but were simply the result of vast amounts of time plus chance plus the laws of nature blindly and purposelessly working on simple matter. The foolishness of evolution and millions of years!

Another sad point of the village was that the only church in the village was a Universalist Church, which is certainly not an accurate representation of the spiritual nature of America in the 1880s. But unfortunately, it is increasingly appropriate for today’s America, largely because of how the teaching of evolution and millions of years has eroded faith in the Bible, the only infallible source of information about God and the origin and history of the creation. Ford was an incredibly wealthy, hard-working industrialist who reportedly treated his employees very well. But none of that would help him on Judgment Day, for he rejected the only Savior, Jesus Christ. If you are ever in the Detroit area, a visit to Greenfield Village will be well worth your time—and you won’t see everything in one day.

Thanks for praying,

Terry