Through the many years as I have listened to sermons from the church pew, I have noticed that I hear a message with a pattern. The pattern seems to get ever louder and clearer and seems to be one of two themes.

The first theme seems to be a message that says "you better believe what I am telling you or you are headed for hell".

The second theme is almost the same and says "if the Bible is true, you better believe what I am telling you or you are headed for hell".

The message from the pulpit does not ever seem to be "The Bible is true and so you better believe what I am telling you or you are headed for hell".

The preacher seems to think that because he believes the Bible is true that the congregation does also and so he need not waste time explaining that the Bible is true.

I contend the general population is so filled with evolutionary thinking and the religion of secular humanism that they cannot comprehend what the pastor is saying. Secular humanism is the religion of modern man that proclaims there is no truth and there are no absolutes and has permeated our whole culture. The people are sitting there in the pew with a brain full of doubts about the truth of scripture.

Paul faced the same problem at Mars Hill with the evolutionary Greeks and had to take them back to the beginning so they would have a foundation for their understanding.

Modern preaching seems to have as a goal "getting people saved". We need to change goals and have a goal of "telling people the truth" and giving an answer to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Getting people saved is not our job. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. Defending the scripture AND TELLING PEOPLE THE TRUTH is our job. If we will do our job, He can do his.

There really was a creation ex nihilo (from nothing). God really did it in six days. Everything really was very good at the end of the sixth day. Adam and Eve really did doubt God and there really was a fall into original sin. Death really did enter after Adam's disobedience. There really was no death before Adam sinned. Eve really is the mother of all living. There really was a catastrophic flood in Noah's time (4,400 years ago) causing the billions of fossils buried in smooth even layers all over the earth. There really were a limited number of generations of begats from Adam to Christ telling us there were no millions of years. The Bible really is true as written by the Holy Spirit.

Remember the creation versus evolution controversy is not just about creation and evolution, but is ultimately about the authority of the whole word of God. If the Bible contains both truth and error it is useless, because fallible man with his fallen brain would have to determine what is truth and what is error.

I pray we can encourage one another and simply tell the truth and defend the scripture in this long war against God.

Prepared from creation science literature to remove evolutionary thinking from the church by Sidney C. Phillips M.D. February 2002.

End of Message number 49.