• Did God take billions of years to create the universe?
• Mutations could have created many new species over time, couldn’t they?
• Were there human-like creatures before Adam and Eve?

Today I answer, “No, no, no,” to these questions with much clarity and confidence.

When I was growing up, in India, evolution was taught in schools. But it did not shake my faith even one teeny bit because none of my teachers believed in it. But the theory of evolution was sneakier than our teachers realised. Terms like adaptations and modifications soon became second nature to us all, teachers and taught alike. In reality, the monster was too crafty for ordinary people to handle. We did not know what to do with concepts like radioactive dating, Neanderthal man, Cambrian explosion, and the myriad others that we came across.

I believed that ordinary people need not worry themselves about these matters that were best left to Christian scientists to deal with. At the same time I believed resolutely, that the Bible will eventually be proved right. For all my zeal for the Lord, I was like the proverbial ostrich, imagining that if I did not think about the problem, it would go away.

At first I found much strength in the work of Christians like John Clayton. He tried to add a Biblical perspective to the body of so-called scientific data as and when it was becoming available. He did not question the science itself but with all boldness spoke out against the interpretations and conclusions reached by evolutionary scientists. His love for God and his faith in the Bible constrained him to explain the data as best as he could. As a result, he did not think it necessary to believe in a young earth, and he had reasonable reasons for the same. His commentary on modern trends like divorce and abortion and his news about issues that impact Christians was enlightening. I am still very grateful for the work of Mr. Clayton, especially in focusing on the wonder of God’s design in creation. “Dandy Designs” is what he called them in his magazine. His own personal life was a good example to all readers of his magazine “Does God exist?” So, while I think differently about his stand on the age of the earth now, I would feel very sad if anyone trashed his lifelong work and service. We are all in the process of fighting off the same enemy and I wish we could just get on with the task at hand, every man doing his best with prayer.

The first kiwi family to invite us for a meal when we first came to New Zealand were the Aikens from church. When we were at their home, Dave Aiken asked us what we thought about the age of the earth. He believed in a young earth. We had until that point not given much thought to the matter. From that day on, we added this matter to our ever growing list of ’subjects we need to find out more about.’

Today, we understand how important this subject is. Evolution has sneaked its way into every little space it can find, and where it cannot go—Archaeology, anthropology, astronomy, education in general, churches— the world view it fuels is able to go. Everywhere you go expecting truth to meet you, this world view stares you in the face instead.

If your world view dictates that the Bible is true when it states that God created you, you know that you are subject to God’s rules. But if your world view teaches you that you are the product of evolution, you know that you can make your own rules. So you cannot afford to be a Christian ostrich.

Unless we embrace the Bible and trust it to be wholly and literally true, unless we are anchored to the solid rock of the word, we will find that we cannot stand. If we do not believe in the authority of the Bible’s Genesis account, the Bible loses its credibility. How can we then believe in the absolute morality of the Bible. In these days of moral relativism, our parliaments lay down laws on the basis of pragmatism, convenience, and majority vote. This was how Israel found itself towards the end of the period of the Judges. “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” Judges 21:25. Christians are the salt of the earth who by their death grip on the Bible, and its absolute moral standards, will delay and stagger the world that is on a downward spiral towards moral bankruptcy and chaos.

If the Bible says, “six days” let us agree that it is six days, the days being defined six times in the first chapter itself as

” God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.” Gen 1:3
“. . . So the evening and the morning were the second day.” Gen 1:8
“So the evening and the morning were the third day.” Gen 1:13
“So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.” Gen 1:19
“So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.” Gen 1:23
“. . . So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.” Gen 1:31

So also with the flood account or that of the dispersion of peoples at Babel. There is no need to explain these away. They are quite credible as they are. Far more credible than the theory of evolution. Neither do we need to be open to dodgy stories intended to make the Bible explanations more credible. We do not need a falsified account of how NASA has discovered the missing day spoken of in Joshua. The Bible can manage without such help, thank you. We do not need help from the likes of Ron Wyatt who claimed that he had found Noah’s ark. When in doubt, it is simply better to honestly say, “I do not know.”

Let us not be ashamed of the Bible. It is a credible and amazing account of the history of our race. This great book contains the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus, who came to save mankind from sin and death and hell. It speaks of Him from the very first book of Genesis to the very last one of Revelation. So let us lift up this gospel unashamedly that all men may draw near and so be saved. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes . . .” Romans 1:16

All Christians must equip themselves with good information. The well-advertised book War of the Worldviews published by Answers in Genesis gives you the big picture in a nutshell very nicely.

Man oh man, you’ve got to hear Pastor Al Martin’s preaching. Click here to get to some of the sermons.

He has been preaching for 46 years, which includes the last 37 years in Trinity Baptist Church of Montville. It would be almost impossible to find a subject that he has not dealt with in these years.

His beautiful voice and rich language would have been ideal for itching ears, but for the fact that his preaching is not easy on the ear of the natural man because of its holy forcefulness. He is known for his careful exegesis, excellent delivery of the word and application. Let us be thankful to God for such men who regard the pulpit as a responsibility for which they must one day render account to God, and so preach without compromise but with passion, grace, and love.

His name is a byword in Reformed Baptist circles and he has been a mentor and guide to many many pastors. So his retirement is big news. He is moving to Reformed Baptist Church of Holland, Michigan, where his step son Mark Chanski is a pastor. He will not minister there in the capacity of pastor but will continue to write and teach. David Chanski, another step son, is moving to Trinity Baptist Church from Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to take over from him.

In these last weeks Pastor Al Martin has been preaching a series of sermons entitled: Parting Words of Counsel to Members and Friends of Trinity Baptist Church. I believe there are seven parts. I have listened to two so far and they are well worth listening to. Click here to get to them.

I had my first persimmon this week. It reminded me of several things–of kumara (sweet potatoes), lichies, and papayas. But if I were blind folded, and asked to guess what I was eating, I would have sworn that it was the Nongu, the fruit of the Palmyra tree. (In fact, as I dug into my persimmon for my second mouthful, I was transported back to childhood and summer nights in Bangalore when hawkers came selling the Nongu fruit calling out “kaatinongu.”)

The fruit is very filling and rich in vitamin C.

I am told that persimmons are astringent and become edible only when they are really soft and ripe. The one I had was mushy ripe.

Last night we enjoyed a pleasant evening listening to music performances by the students of Macleans College in Auckland. Our children Tim and Lydia sang in the school choir. It was nice that the Snowballs and the Aikens could come too. Our friend Moses annan also came.

We had different groups come and perform like the orchestra, stage band, school choir, barbershop chorus, barbershop quartet, and so on. We listened to Tschaikovsky, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and other composers so ably performed by the children.

The choir sang three pieces:

Simple Melody

Song of Ruth

Battle Hymn

I am glad that New Zealand still has public schools like this where students are expected to be neatly dressed in their uniforms, are well behaved and work hard at their studies and other extra curricular activities.

On Saturday, Elsie Orr is going to help me with the Little Bereans class. She is going to tell them the story of John Paton. When I was hunting around in the Web for colouring pages and other things, I came across an article called Characters of True and False Disciples by John Macarthur (click here to get to the article).

The following story of John Paton is used as an illustration, and what an illustration it is:

The first time I ever preached in this church, long time ago, I told you a story about a missionary that is perhaps the greatest illustration of obedience in my recollection. John Payton was his name and he was a young student in England. And he didn’t exactly know where God wanted him to go but he felt a call to the mission field and he was a student in seminary at the time. He’s just recently been married. And God began to lead him in the area of the New Hebrides islands and the New Hebrides islands were inhabited by man-eating cannibals. And in those days it was a severe test of a man to go to the mission field.

Now Payton didn’t argue. Took his little bride, got on a ship and they took off for the New Hebrides. No questions asked.

Now I look at my own life, when I was in seminary if God had come to me and said, “Listen, MacArthur, I’d like you to go to an island of man-eating cannibals,” you know what I would have said? “Now, God, I just want to share a couple of thoughts with you. God, I graduated from seminary. I made it. I’m…why should I be somebody’s lunch? Listen, God, I know a Bible-school dropout. They’ll eat him and who will know? His ignorance will never come across. Why me?”

Well that’s what the flesh would say, that’s not what John Payton said. He gathered up his little wife and the boat let him off 200 yards from shore in a little dinghy and they rowed to the shore. What do you do when you arrive on an island you don’t know the language, you can’t speak one word and you’ve got man-eating cannibals? Well you don’t stick a sign in the sand that says, “VBS next Saturday.” It’s a little more difficult than that.

What do you do? You pray a lot and you stay awake a lot. And that’s exactly what they did. And they watched and the natives watched, and then they watched…and it just was a constant thing. And the natives never seen people like that before, of course, were just struck with them. Well several months went by and one day his wife gave birth to a little baby. Two weeks later the baby contracted a tropical disease and died and a day later his wife died and he buried those two side-by-side right in front of the little lean-to he had built on the shore there. And he said in his biography, “I slept on the graves for three nights to keep the natives from digging up the bodies and eating them.” And he said, “I said to God, ‘Just how far does obedience go, God? What do You want from me?’”

But then through the providence of God a native that was outcast from the tribe found his way to John, scared the tribe was after him and began to communicate in little words. Pretty soon there was enough communication for John to share with him. He began to share the gospel with him…thank you, sir…he began to share the gospel with him, just in a simple level. It took a matter of days to communicate. He learned how to say stone and tree and all of this and pretty soon he told them there was a God who had a Son who died, and so forth. Over a period of about a week or so he led this native to Jesus Christ and that native brought another native. And pretty soon he had a little group of protectors and they would hide him when the natives came to kill him. And his biography reads like a jungle adventure, like nothing you’ve never read.

Well, as God would have it, John Payton stayed on those islands for 35 years. And at the end of 35 years he said in his biography, “I do not know of one single native that has not made a profession of faith of Jesus Christ.” You see, that’s what one man does with unquestioning, unhesitating obedience. The cost isn’t the question, obedience is. And oh, the beauty of a disciple that’s obedient.

If you want to read John Payton’s autobiography, click here)

This morning, my camera’s zoom lens caught this bird that we’ve agreed is a pigeon. A more accurate name anyone?

more photos of this bird

Some pictures taken on our way back from church

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Isa 55:12

More tree photos

“Why are photocopies of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the Internet not available free to the public?” Thus starts Don Srail’s Talkback piece in the Biblical Archaeology Review site, and he goes on to lament the suppression of valuable information from the public eye.

Once long ago, my dad was trying to move a bed from one room to another. And I was helping him. But being just four or so, he told me later, I was an additional weight that he was dragging with the bed. So it is in this struggle to get true science and true archaeology into the open, many of us are more of a nuisance than a help.

We experience a trend in the world suppressing anything that might substantiate the Bible. This mission of suppression has become more important for many in academia and research circles than the very truth that they ought to be trying to discover, establish, and document.

Yes, although both science and archaeology have made tremendous strides in recent times, yet both have been influenced for some time by a set of presumptions that gradually became assumptions. It is not possible, even if there was freedom, to extricate immediately, the many wonderful findings from the false premises and resulting erroneous inferences made, that in turn may have become premises for other studies that may have involved other exciting finds and many hours of sweat and toil. Obviously, it is a complicated matter, and this struggle is not primarily a Christian struggle. It is a fight for truth that many non Christians also want to participate in.

Some of us, well meaning Christians, because of our ignorance, naivety, and pride, get into debates and discussions for which we are poorly equipped, and end up like the four-year old– more of a nuisance than a help. The moral of the story is not that we have to keep out of the way, but rather to read more, listen more, become better informed and more humble and attentive when discussing these subjects with people expressing their opinions.

I find it hard to believe that such a wall exists. But it’s true. The city of Madurai is tense because police broke a portion of this wall yesterday. It is a 100-meter wall that was built 20 years ago to keep “low caste” people from entering the “upper caste” area of a village.

Caste is a very complex matter in India, a monster that clings so closely to us even 60 years after Independence. I worry for the children who are caught in the crossfire, those growing with the wrong notion that they are in some way superior, and those growing up believing that they are inferior.

My great grandfather’s father converted to Christianity from one of these very same castes that built this wall. So I am a pure-blooded one-of-these-castes person. I am in no way inherently superior to any one else—not superior to a Dalit or any other Indian or Asian or European or anyone else.

What does the Bible say about such divisions among human beings?

The Bible says that we are all sinners. Every one of us, without exception, have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. (How often have we in India seen people doing all kinds of penance to somehow atone for their sins! They do whatever they think will work and hope for the best.) The Bible says that after this life, will be a terrible judgment and at that time, we will see God’s holy wrath. Nothing sinful can stand in His presence. Because of this, in our sinful state, death is a fearful prospect.

Why can’t God just overlook our sin? God, because of His nature, is just. In God’s economy, sin cannot go unpunished. Like the child of an aerodynamics engineer cannot hope to completely understand all the physics behind how a heavy aeroplane can remain airborne, without falling to the ground, so too, we do not fully understand why God allowed us to sin and why He chose to go about this rather elaborate process of rescue. As little children, we learn more and more from the Bible as we study it with His help.

Coming back to the main discussion, the Bible says that this holy God is also a God of love. So He sent His Son Jesus to come as a man, live a sinless life and die on the cross. The Bible says that Jesus took, upon Himself, the punishment of the sins of all those who will come to Him to be saved. He became the propitiation for our sins. The Indian word for propitiation is Praayashchith. We Indians are familiar with this concept of appeasing divine wrath. Jesus atoned for sin in a way that satisfied divine requirements. So this Jesus became the Way of hope for you and me.

If you come to Him in faith, He will cleanse you of your sin and cover you with His righteousness. You can then approach God because it is as if you will have a clean white robe covering you. Not only does He cover you on the outside, He also changes you into a better and better person with every passing day. When you die, He will complete the process and make you perfect and glorified and ready for heaven.

Heaven will be a place with such glorified people from every tongue and tribe and nation. Heaven will have Brahmins, Pillais, Nadars, Thevars, Dalits, Syrian Christian Malayalees, Nairs, and people from all castes and communities in India and from every nation under the sun–all those who have had their sins washed by Jesus’ blood. What a glorious place that will be.

For You (Jesus) were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation Rev 5:9

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal 3:28

Very few tapes have we enjoyed together as a family as much as this one. It’s called Irreconcilable Differences, that features host John Ankerberg and a panel comprising John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, and James Kennedy.

The issue discussed is a document that sets out with the noble aim of bringing Roman Catholics and Evangelicals together, but falls short because it overlooks and glosses over vital differences in the doctrines of salvation of both communions, resulting in implicitly compromising the five solas, so precious to us.

• Sola scriptura (”by Scripture alone”)
• Sola fide (”by faith alone”)
• Sola gratia (”by grace alone”)
• Solus Christus (”Christ alone”)
• Soli Deo gloria (”glory to God alone”)

I have many close Roman Catholic friends; how wonderful it would be to fellowship together. But I now know that it is not as simple as saying: Let’s forget our differences and get together. Coming together is going to have to involve much study of the Bible, church history and other material, much prayer, courage, and brutal honesty.

Above all it needs the love of Christ to reach out and a love for Christ to keep from compromise.

The tape has many delightful bits. In one part, Dr. Ankerberg gives Dr. Kennedy a minute to explain how one can get into a relationship with Jesus. This is his prompt reply.

“God is holy and we are sinful. That’s the problem. And If that were all there were to the problem, God would solve it very simply, He would send us all to hell. But God is also loving, infinitely so. And because He loved us, He sent His own son into the world and He imputed or laid upon Jesus Christ all of our guilt and sin and then, something which astounded me when I first learned it as a father, God poured out all of His wrath for sin upon His own Son, and Jesus Christ in body and soul suffered infinitely in our behalf and paid for the penalty of our sins . . .
The problem for you is simple:
Your sins are going to be punished by God. The question is, are they going to be punished on you in hell forever or on Jesus Christ on the cross.
If you would prefer the latter you need to abandon all trust in yourself, repent of your sins and receive Him into your heart as Savior and Lord, trusting in His atoning death and perfect life as your only hope of salvation and His promise is: ‘He that trusts in Me already has everlasting life.’ That’s the good news.”