Where I Was

As a geology student, I was taught the secular old earth theory of uniformitarianism—the slow gradual accumulation of sediments over millions and billions of years. This theory completely ruled out the Biblical global flood since the present is the key to the past, and there are no global flood occurring at the present. Also, since radiometric dating had proven the extremely old age of the rocks (millions and billions of years), there was adequate time for molecule to man evolution.

After my conversion to Christianity and later call into the pastoral ministry, I continued to believe in millions and billions of years while also believing in God’s supernatural creation of the heavens and the earth, a literal Adam and Eve, and the Fall. I thought the six days of creation were just a story used by God to explain creation in a way that we could understand and establish the basis for the Sabbath.

From Old to Young

Three things happened to convert me to a belief in creationism. First, while a pastor, I was invited by a boy scout leader to show my rock and fossil collection to a home school class that met in a church nearby. One young boy repeatedly (and I mean repeatedly) asked the ages of the various rocks and fossils in my collection. I initially thought he was amazed by the old ages but later learned from the scout leader that he was mocking me since he had been taught that the earth was only six thousand years old. As the Bible says, “From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength” (Psalm 8:2) and “a little child will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6).

Secondly, when I read Ken Ham’s book, The Lie, my eyes were opened to the truth. Unless you believe in a young earth, you destroy both the character of God and the essence of the good news of the gospel, God’s redemptive plan in history. As Ken Ham put it, “if you have death and bloodshed existing before Adam sinned, God’s very good creation and the need for an atoning sacrifice are destroyed.” Therefore, you cannot have death before man’s sin. According to the evolutionists, man arrived late on the scene of geological history.

When you believe in millions and billions of years of death and disease, you malign God’s character, making Him a liar, for Genesis 1:31 states, “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.” Are you going to believe the words of man, or the Word of God? For the Bible clearly states in Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent; has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

Regarding the gospel, Ken Ham stated that “millions and billions of years of death, disease, suffering, carnivory, and thorns as observed in the fossil record occurring before man ever existed” is incompatible with not just Genesis but the whole Bible. Romans 5:12 states that “through one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death through sin.” Therefore, it is not just Genesis that you have to turn into a myth, but the whole of Scripture.

Thirdly, I was now on board with young earth creationism theologically as depicted in the Bible, but I still desired geological evidence. This was provided in Dr. Timothy Clarey’s book, Carved in Stone. In this book Dr. Clarey gives evidence for the global flood as the best interpretation of the global megasequences that we see on the continents around the world, the mystery of dinosaur graveyards and soft tissues preserved in dinosaur bones, the one hundred foot plus thick coal seams deposited over large areas, and the existence of oil deposits that would have been eaten up by bacteria if they were hundreds of millions of years old.

My Mission

I now feel called to lead other pastors that believe as I used to, to the truth of not just God’s word but scientific evidence for a young earth. To hopefully convince them that they cannot believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of God’s Word and not be a young earth proponent. It is my desire to meet with these pastors personally and show them the scientific evidence and how it matches Biblical theology and thus encourage them that Genesis is God’s true account of the history of the earth. And prayerfully, through these pastors, to get the truth out to their congregations and Christian schools. If these pastors are receptive, I would like to encourage them to visit the AIG Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter in Kentucky. In the future, I would love to help facilitate a creation conference in this part of the country.