Eclipse 2024

Museum Of Earth History Expansion

Last year we focused on being SHAKEN by the Lord from any and all aspects of our walk that we take for granted. This year our focus comes from the realization that He has SPOKEN TO US, as we find in Hebrews 1:2, our theme verse for 2024. The author of Hebrews begins this great book about the Savior’s fulfillment of Old Testament history by connecting it to His creator-ship. At the outset of Hebrews, we are told that the Lord has spoken prior to the time of Christ. Through the prophets, He spoke to the forefathers of the Hebrews author in different ways. Those “forefathers” being spoken of are also yours as you read this, if you are a Christ-follower. If it were not for the reality in the Old Testament, then none of us would know the grace that impacts our lives. The Lord spoke through those “fathers” of old to prepare the way for all of us. As the author continues into verse 2, we hear a shift directly to you and me. “In these last days” we long for interaction like our “fathers” experienced. How often do we seek an experience with the Lord as those in scripture experienced, longing for personal connection with the Lord who seems, at times, far off? These continue to be the last days spoken of in Hebrews; it was not only the days of the first or second century church. The Lord has SPOKEN TO US through His Son, Jesus Christ, as much today as He did so many years ago. Christ is the owner of all things, no matter the time, for He is the one through whom the entire universe was created. His supremacy is ultimate and authoritative for all time. Since all the above is true, we can know that Jesus has the power for salvation. He and He only provided purification of sins because He is the only one worthy to do so by virtue of His perfect life. This understanding is so vitally tied to His authorship of life and redemptive purpose from the beginning. We can never separate the two, as some advocate today with a misrepresentation of Genesis. For if we don’t acknowledge Christ’s direct activity at the beginning, we are missing the groundwork for His physical death, burial and resurrection. If there was no sin in perfection, there would be no physical death; because there was sin in perfection, there is physical death – this is the purpose for Christ. We need a Savior for our sin and death problem. Christ is that for us, with all the Father’s Glory and Majesty. And to think, as we follow Him each day, He speaks to us. His Word is the same today, as it has been and will be at any point in time, SPOKEN TO US in these last days so we may know our salvation and His enduring power for all eternity. Let us start the new year hearing His voice. Blessings.

The written Word of God is absolute and authoritative on all subjects it touches. It is God-breathed for life by His inspiration and different from any other book. My Bible is the most prized and important book I own. I am an old-school written Word carrier. There’s something about reading from and teaching out of a paged, written text that impacts me more. The text may be the same on a device, but it feels different on a physical page. Over the years I have exhausted many Bibles while preaching and teaching. I may only be able to use a Bible for about 6 years before they deteriorate beyond usefulness. Either the binding goes away or the cover dissolves from being held, folded, rolled, packed, and unpacked. This use is vital to my walk and ministry with the Lord. Using the same written text for years helps me familiarize myself where passages are located, if I can’t remember chapter and verse. It becomes the place where I note important details and underline impactful verses the Lord teaches me. My Bible has become part of me; weathered, worn, used, a little soiled, comfortable, trusted, inspiring, and dependable. My present Bible, as many of you know, has been on it’s last leg for a year or two. I have had suggestions from many to rebind it or just replace it. Over the last few years I have searched for a replacement of same size and type set, but to no avail. My particular Bible went out of print several years back. So, I keep on using my trusted “friend”. I can hardly think about parting with it for the time it would take to rebind it. It totally scares me to send it away out of my presence and trust another to take care of it. The Lord would have to put my spirit at ease. Enter into the picture a good friend from Missouri. A few months ago, while preaching at his church, we went out to dinner. Afterwards, his daughter had asked we stop by the restaurant she works to say hello. As Providence would have it, there is a vinyl record and used book store off the restaurant. Neither my wife nor friend would ever pass up the opportunity of used books. As usual, my friend found several books to buy. One looked strangely familiar in it’s original box - a Bible. I asked to see it. To my surprise it was the same one I have been looking for all these years. I immediately felt like I needed this Bible and was willing to pay whatever to my friend who had found it. Then he simply said it was mine, a gift. I believe my wife had shared the state of my own Bible and the search to replace it. What a glorious gift! Now begins the arduous task of transferring all my notes and inspirations. That seems far easier than parting with my old “friend”. Who knows, I may be able to get my old Bible rebound after all since the Lord has provided a replacement. The Word of the Lord is always to be treasured above all else. I pray your Bible is as important, impactful, and used as mine has been to me. Take a moment and thank the Lord for His Word in your life!

I feel it appropriate to give a summer ministry update. We have traveled this summer over 15,000 miles with an approximate event attendance of 4800 people, and we have seen the Lord working on worldviews of the young and old alike. Not only have we been called on to do VBS and camps, as usual, but have also done D3 (Dinosaurs, Design and Destiny) events. It is rare that we do D3 events in the summer, as they are typically our “bread and butter” the rest of the calendar year. Through all of it, our mission has been accomplished in overwhelming fashion. VBS has been our main focus this summer with a total of 7. It was very impactful to see three of these churches adopt a whole-church approach. Over the past few years we have challenged churches to do VBS for the family. With this approach, we teach the lesson to the students at the beginning. Then the students are dismissed to crafts, games, snacks or other activities while their parents and other adults have their lesson with the same topic studied more in depth. Our desire is that student and parent worldviews are impacted in the same evening, providing great opportunity for discussion on the way home. This has been received well by the churches who chose the “whole church” VBS. There have been numerous times this summer that parents or other attending adults have expressed thanks for teaching them as well. Regretfully, each night at the churches there were still some parents that would drop off their child and not stay, but return at the end of the night, as usual. This seems such a missed opportunity to drive home the Word of the Lord in those families. We are not going to pull back from this endeavor, and our desire is to make this a “normal” VBS strategy when we are invited to teach. We praise the Lord for those families SHAKEN for His Kingdom this summer. The couple of D3 events seemed very out of place at first, since most summers are so focused on camp and VBS, but the Lord used these to reach new churches with our mission and message. Establishing the importance of Genesis in worldview development and the Biblical history is priority in these events, and experiencing the excitement of new congregations as their worldviews are impacted is such a praiseworthy thing. We know that the Lord will use these moments of challenge, conviction, and learning for His Glory. Some of our fossils were also seen by more than 7000 over the course of several days during a VBS that Answers in Genesis put on at a church in the heart of Dallas. They approached us way too late to make the opportunity work, yet our summer schedule actually freed up for one week. The Lord worked it out for His purpose and the fossils were used as part of the whole event, blessing many with the opportunity to see dinosaurs for the first time in a church and through Biblical glasses. From young to old, we have seen worldviews and lives impacted for eternity. Some people have been SHAKEN with a new understanding of the importance of Scripture in their lives. Others have been saved as a response to the Gospel that is clearly seen through the lens of Genesis. We lift our praises to the Lord Almighty for the open doors, hearts and minds this ministry has the opportunity to impact. Thank you for all the support, it is affecting eternal destinies! Blessings.

Genesis Week Camp has become one of my favorite weeks in the summer. Ten years ago the camp was started by Ryan Cox, my now colleague. It is a unique church camp in Illinois since it is the only place we teach year after year. Over the course of 3 years, Genesis Week covers Creation, Flood, and Babel so students that attend every year from middle through high school get these worldview foundations twice. The Lord has provided an avenue for us to impact young lives now and for generations to come. This year I was reminded of the importance of this camp, the first of the summer season. This year’s camp maintenance director is a former Genesis Week camper. It was great to catch up and see what the Lord has been doing in his life. He is now married to a fellow Genesis Week camper from years back and has two children. (This is a gentle reminder from the Lord we are not getting any younger.) He directly equated the strength of his faith to the study and worldview development each summer at Genesis Week. I was able to meet his wife and children over lunch one day. She expressed similar sentiment for the two years of Genesis Week she attended, stating, “They were my favorite weeks of camp ever.” One evening at campfire, a camper got up and expressed the Lord has called him to full-time preaching and teaching of the Word. He relayed to his fellow campers that the Lord, through Genesis Week, had greatly impacted and equipped him for ministry. I don’t know how many of you have the opportunity to impact young lives for the Kingdom, but please don’t pass on those opportunities. He went on to express that during his first summer my teaching had been most impactful. There are moments in life that are more than humbling, yet most rewarding at the same time – this was one of them. Another camper approached me and stated her desire to be a “creation scientist”. She asked how to be one. We talked through a whole game time about different avenues and possibilities. I expressed to her the need for more to step up and be called to science. She shared that for the entire past year she has carried everywhere the books she bought last year at Genesis Week so she could give Biblical answers to friends and family members on foundational issues from Genesis. I pray that the Lord continues to use her in a mighty way, as I observed her influence on fellow campers all week with positive results. This year, Genesis Week impacted 102 camper lives, along with all the adult staff. The Lord saved 6 students that realized He is the only door to salvation, and He called 5 students to vocational ministry. Ryan and I are deeply impacted year after year with the opportunity to pour Christ’s foundation into students’ lives for eternity. We thank the Lord for your support that makes this Kingdom work possible and encourage you to be SHAKEN to service, if you are not already. The Lord is coming, and there are many lost that need His direction. Blessings!

After an evening message on a recent trip, I was approached by a father with his two children in a packed foyer of the church. Usually I might field a couple of questions from the children about our dinosaur fossils. He introduced himself and kids then passed some encouraging words my way for that evening’s message and our mission. Then he professed being a public school science teacher. At that moment the conversation can go many different directions, as I have experienced over the last 17 years. This teacher and father began sharing his testimony of the Lord seeking him as he walked away during his high school years. Growing up in the church, he never had his science questions answered with a Biblical worldview. He saw a hypocritical faith being expressed one way on Sunday with only lip-service the remainder of the time. This drove his faith to agnosticism because to him the Bible did not have answers that adults could apply to the world today. So I asked him how the Lord impacted him to bring him where he is today. In college the Lord gave him a strong Christian roommate that impacted his life with genuine faith. After being invited to a campus Bible study group, he found the Lord is the answer. He began to study the Bible for himself the first time in his faith. In the area of origins, however, he still held to a traditional evolutionary worldview, until one night when surfing on youtube he watched a video about a scientist that was a young earth creationist. “It brought up some compelling points,” he said as he was relaying this experience to me. Then he was led to a Ken Ham (Answers in Genesis, President) video about his book Already Gone . The next thing he did was read that book and realized it was describing his worldview development growing up in the church and walking away from his faith. After that, he began studying and developing a Biblical worldview on origins and beyond. The challenge at present for this teacher is presenting truth in the classroom. I asked how the Lord is using him in that mission field. He expressed the scenario of having an evolutionary concept come up and simply sharing with his students that not everyone agrees on that concept. His students then ask him for more explanation, where he shares that a very trustworthy source supports another option. His students continue to seek answers by asking him if the Bible is the other source. By the students bringing it up and asking questions, he is able to share the Bible’s truth and accompanying science as support for reality. I was so blessed by what the Lord is doing through this man as a father and teacher. Our mission is to go where the Lord takes us and share the historical truth of the Word to encourage the faith of those present. It is always rewarding to know we are impacting lives for the Gospel. On this one night though, the Lord impacted my faith by the journey of this man as he seeks the Truth. I was so encouraged to see the importance of Genesis and the life answers it holds to be actively changing lives. The Lord continually works through His Word and you to save lives, families and others we may never see this side of eternity. Blessings.

In the first few seconds of time, the Lord began establishing space and matter. As that matter came into existence, it was incomplete and formless. Yet the Lord had a plan of perfection and order in all things. His plan was never chaos, as some suggest the first moments of creation might have been. Neither was there ruin as the Lord was preparing the “good” creation. In an instant, matter went from formless to order at every atomic level, known & unknown to us today, during the Spirit’s moving with the addition of light. We see the Lord’s power & glory manifested in creation from the time He said, “Let there be light.” The power for holding all matter together is found nowhere else. As a matter of fact, the strong force that holds the nucleus of the atom together is still a scientific mystery, to a degree. It is more than feasible for a believer to understand it as the Lord’s powerful hand. He is sustaining life and has been from the very beginning, just as the apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 1:17. When life feels out of control, we have the Lord’s testimony of His creation. Those that support a big bang model or old earth history undermine the origin of the Lord’s purpose for life. They place order much later in time and only allow for natural processes bringing that order. This worldview allows doubt as to when the Lord is active and in control of all things, or even worse that the Lord uses chaos within His perfect creation of everything. This is simply oxymoronic. The first day of creation shows the Lord’s purpose and assures us of His control. The Lord has a plan or will for your life that began at creation. That will is a perfect one that ends with eternal life with Him, a relationship planned for in the first moments of creation as the Spirit began moving over the matter. All of creation was SHAKEN with purpose for you, His image-bearer’s existence. Our security and comfort in times of chaos is the Lord Jesus Christ who has shown us His plan from the first moments of creation and continues into eternity. Blessings.

SHAKEN by the Spirit