There is an event coming to the VanAndel Arena in a couple of weeks that has some interesting potential for evangelistic outreach.  It is called Walking With Dinosaurs, and features a life size animatronic spectacle of what these creatures would look like if we were to see them in front of our very eyes (see a 1 minute youtube clip here, or check out their website at www.dinosaurlive.com). We typically haven’t been out for more family oriented events like this, but it gives us a unique angle to present the Gospel.  There are several showings throughout the week long engagement from December 10 – December 14.  We’re planning on being out for at least a couple of the 3 sessions on Saturday (the 13th), they are scheduled at 11:00 am, 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm.  We’d love to have anyone join us for the event, but please email me prior to coming as details are a bit sketchy as of yet.  We’re planning on setting up a spot at the main entrance of the Van Andel arena to have your picture taken in the graphic at right, giving out DVD’s and info and sharing the Gospel one to one.  It should be a lot of fun.

     Some of you may be wondering why this would even be a good event.  The program itself is, as usual with this sort of thing, pretty geared toward evolution.  Part of our role at an event like this is to challenge people in what they believe about this, and why they believe it.  Many Christians haven’t even given much thought to this issue, but it is incredibly important to our faith.  So, we can also encourage believers that we meet to have a better Biblical and scientific grounding in this area.  Here are a few questions to ponder answered by Answers in Genesis, along with some interesting links.

When Were Dinosaurs Found?

     The story of their discovery began back in the 1820s, when Gideon Mantell, an English doctor, found some unusual teeth and bones in a quarry. Dr Mantell realized there was something very different about these animal remains, and believed that he had found an entirely new group of reptiles. By 1841, about nine types of these different reptiles had been uncovered, including two called Megalosaurus and Iguanodon.
At this time, a famous British scientist (and creationist), Dr Richard Owen, coined the name ‘Dinosauria,’ meaning ‘terrible lizard,’ for this is what the huge bones made him think of.

Are Dinosaurs Mentioned in Ancient Literature?

     Interestingly, the word ‘dragon’ is used a number of times in the Old Testament. In most instances, the word dinosaur could substitute for dragon and it would fit very nicely. Creation scientists believe that dinosaurs were called dragons before the word dinosaur was invented in the 1800s. We would not expect to find the word dinosaur in Bibles like the Authorized Version (1611), as it was translated well before the word dinosaur was ever used.

     Also, there are many very old history books in various libraries around the world that have detailed records of dragons and their encounters with people. Surprisingly (or not so surprisingly for creationists), many of these descriptions of dragons fit with how modern scientists would describe dinosaurs, even Tyrannosaurus. Unfortunately, this evidence is not considered valid by evolutionists. Why? Only because their belief is that man and dinosaurs did not live at the same time!

     However, the more we research the historical literature, the more we realize there is overwhelming evidence that dragons were real beasts, much like our modern reconstructions of dinosaurs, and that their existence has been recorded by many different people, even just hundreds of years ago.

OOPARTS – Out Of Place Artifacts:

A look into ancient history, literature and art (when dinosaurs shouldn’t have been known)
www.s8int.com/dinolit1.html

Ica Peru “Dinosaur” Figurines
www.omniology.com/IcaPeruDinoCeramicArt.html

Here are a some mentions of “dinosaurs” in the Bible (as dragons, behemoth, leviathan):
Deuteronomy 32:33; Job 30:29; Jeremiah 51:34; Job 40:15-24; Job 41:1-10; Psalms 44:19; Psalms 74:13; Psalms 74:14; Psalms 91:13; Psalms 104:26; Psalms 148:7; Isaiah 13:22; Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 34:13; Isaiah 35:7; Isaiah 43:20; Isaiah 51:9; Jeremiah 9:11; Jeremiah 10:22; Jeremiah 14:6; Jeremiah 49:33; Jeremiah 51:37; Micah 1:8; Malachi 1:3; Nehemiah 2:13

Have Dinosaurs Lived in Recent Times?

     If the different kinds of dinosaurs survived the Flood, then they must have come off the Ark and lived in the post-Flood world.
In the Bible, in Job 40:15-24, God describes to Job (who lived after the Flood) a great beast with which Job was familiar. This great animal, called ‘behemoth,’ is described as ‘the chief of the ways of God,’ perhaps the biggest land animal God had created. Impressively, he moved his tail like a cedar tree! Although some Bible commentaries say this may have been an elephant or hippopotamus, the description actually fits that of a dinosaur like Brachiosaurus. Elephants and hippos certainly do not have tails like cedar trees!

     Actually, very few animals are singled out in the Bible for such a detailed description. Contrary to what many may think, what we know now as dinosaurs get more mention in the Scriptures than most animals! So dinosaurs—all the different kinds—must have lived alongside of people after the Flood.

When Did Dinosaurs Live?

     The story we have all heard from movies, television, newspapers, and most magazines and textbooks is that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. According to evolutionists, the dinosaurs ‘ruled the Earth’ for 140 million years, dying out about 65 million years ago. However, scientists do not dig up anything labeled with those ages. They only uncover dead dinosaurs (i.e., their bones), and their bones do not have labels attached telling how old they are. The idea of millions of years of evolution is just the evolutionists’ story about the past. No scientist was there to see the dinosaurs live through this supposed dinosaur age. In fact, there is no proof whatsoever that the world and its fossil layers are millions of years old. No scientist observed dinosaurs die. Scientists only find the bones in the here and now, and because many of them are evolutionists, they try to fit the story of the dinosaurs into their view.

     Other scientists, called creation scientists, have a different idea about when dinosaurs lived. They believe they can solve any of the supposed dinosaur mysteries and show how the evidence fits wonderfully with their ideas about the past, beliefs that come from the Bible.
The Bible, God’s very special book (or collection of books, really), claims that each writer was supernaturally inspired to write exactly what the Creator of all things wanted him to write down for us so that we can know where we (and dinosaurs) came from, why we are here, and what our future will be. The first book in the Bible—Genesis—teaches us many things about how the universe and life came into existence. Genesis tells us that God created everything—the Earth, stars, sun, moon, plants, animals, and the first two people.

     Although the Bible does not tell us exactly how long ago it was that God made the world and its creatures, we can make a good estimate of the date of creation by reading through the Bible and noting some interesting passages:

1. God made everything in six days. He did this, by the way, to set a pattern for mankind, which has become our seven day week (as described in Exodus 20:11). God worked for six days and rested for one, as a model for us. Furthermore, Bible scholars will tell you that the Hebrew word for day used in Genesis 1, can only mean an ordinary day in this context.

2. We are told God created the first man and woman—Adam and Eve—on Day Six. Many facts about when their children and their children’s children were born are given in Genesis. These genealogies are recorded throughout the Old Testament, up until the time of Christ. They certainly were not chronologies lasting millions of years.
As you add up all of the dates, and accepting that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to Earth almost 2000 years ago, we come to the conclusion that the creation of the Earth and animals (including the dinosaurs) occurred only thousands of years ago (perhaps only 6000!), not millions of years. Thus, if the Bible is right (and it is!), dinosaurs must have lived within the past thousands of years.

Other Links:

Tyrannosaurus Soft Tissue Found
www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0325Dino_tissue.asp

www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers#/topic/dinosaurs

www.dinosaur-extinction.com
 

"Look at the behemoth,
 which I made along with you 
 and which feeds on grass like an ox. 

What strength he has in his loins, 
what power in the muscles of his belly! 

His tail sways like a cedar; 
the sinews of his thighs are close-knit. 

His bones are tubes of bronze, 
his limbs like rods of iron. 

He ranks first among the works of God, 
yet his Maker can approach him with his sword. 

The hills bring him their produce, 
and all the wild animals play nearby. 

Under the lotus plants he lies, 
hidden among the reeds in the marsh. 

The lotuses conceal him in their shadow; 
the poplars by the stream surround him.

When the river rages, he is not alarmed; 
he is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth.

Can anyone capture him by the eyes,
or trap him and pierce his nose?"

NIV
 

     I’ve just taken the opportunity to go through the completed version of Consumers or Creators from Borderlands, a ministry of a good friend mentioned in past newsletters, Adam Barr.  If you’re looking for a good study guide for small group format or just interested in personal study, this is a great resource.  Other friends, Kevin and Sherry Harney, who are 2 of the top study guide writers in the country, have put together the guide portion of this material.  It is an exploration of life, faith and culture, looking into becoming those that would influence culture rather than being shaped by the culture marketed to us.  You can purchase the guide with DVD for $15 with additional guides for $5.  View more details on the web at www.borderlandsweb.com/blog/consumers-or-creators/.  To order, email Adam at atbarr@borderlandsweb.com or call him at (616) 826-3468.  You may also contact me for more info.

by Janna Sullenger

     On a recent Friday, I was able to go out again to the streets of Houston, TX to pass out tracts and bait for one to one conversations. At first, I was determined to just support my husband and not much else. I hadn't been witnessing at the supermarkets, gas stations, laundromats, or even my neighbors… on a regular basis that is. I have plenty of people to witness to, though I find my self lacking desire for these that are perishing. “Why!?!”, I wondered.

     While in Houston downtown on this Friday night, I met a man by the name of Alan, who challenged me to the characteristics of Jesus Christ. Without going into detail of the conversation, I will share with you what got me so fired up. This man, who was intoxicated, yelled out Jesus loves His children. He shouted out true characteristics of our Savior, but he himself resembled that which is unpleasing to God. He spoke of a god that suites his pleasures, his Jesus accepts him with his sin. That outraged me, and finally I talked to him like he just took a stab at my daughter. In the heat of the moment I yelled at him and told him that is blasphemy. I got so mad that this man claims to serve the same master.

     I began to realize this is what makes me passionate about reaching out to strangers. The defiant attitude people have to our King. Our GOD!  To think as you walk around at the grocery store, gas station, video store, etc, all these people are laughing, gawking, and mocking our Lord and King, by living a life unpleasing to Him. And what do I do, ahh,"I'm in a hurry", "that don't want to listen to me", "there's no way I could speak to her", "she/he is not worth my time", the list goes on folks. The goal, the purpose, the meaning of a life devoted to Christ is simply this: His Glory, His Honor, and His Love. What else does God have to bless you with, or even chastise you with to reveal Himself in the pure holy light of the Lamb. The passion I speak of, it's in every person that the Holy Spirit resides in.

     In closing, as a wife, as a mother, as a Bond-servant to God, I will attempt to see the world in the lens of blood slain stains of Jesus Christ. He died for them, he died for you, and he died for me. My pity and my love will reach out to others for the sole purpose of bringing God the honor. I want to leave my home with the intention of delivering the Good News to anyone that crosses my path. To learn and study how to reach the lost only comes with a desire to please God. I encourage you all to seek a desire to communicate what God has shown you to others. Do it in love for God, and pity for their souls, and you can't go wrong. Picture them in eternity, pain stricken agony, and try not to warn them. This will reveal upon whom your thoughts lay. Live, breath, serve. Only God knows when you will breathe your last breath. 
 

"Missing Link" Still Missing

     Imaginations certainly took flight over Archaeoraptor Liaoningensis, a birdlike fossil with a meat-eater’s tail that was spirited out of northeastern China, ‘discovered’ at a Tucson, Arizona, gem and mineral show last year, and displayed at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. Some 110,000 visitors saw the exhibit, which closed January 17; millions more read about the find in November’s National Geographic. Now, paleontologists are eating crow. Instead of ‘a true missing link’ connecting dinosaurs to birds, the specimen appears to be a composite, its unusual appendage likely tacked on by a Chinese farmer, not evolution.

"Archaeoraptor is hardly the first ‘missing link’ to snap under scrutiny. In 1912, fossil remains of an ancient hominid were found in England’s Piltdown quarries and quickly dubbed man’s apelike ancestor. It took decades to reveal the hoax." U.S. News & World Report, February 14, 2000

"Darwin admitted that millions of ‘missing links,’ transitional life forms, would have to be discovered in the fossil record to prove the accuracy of his theory that all species had gradually evolved by chance mutation into new species. Unfortunately for his theory, despite hundreds of millions spent on searching for fossils worldwide for more than a century, the scientists have failed to locate a single missing link out of the millions that must exist if their theory of evolution is to be vindicated." Grant R. Jeffery, The Signature of God

"There are gaps in the fossil graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms, but where there is nothing whatsoever instead. No paleontologist . . . denies that this is so. It is simply a fact. Darwin’s theory and the fossil record are in conflict." David Berlinsky

"Scientists concede that their most cherished theories are based on embarrassingly few fossil fragments and that huge gaps exist in the fossil record." Time magazine, Nov. 7, 1977

"The evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except the fact that it is missing." G. K. Chesterton

Excerpted from The Evidence Bible
 

     We are continuing the Grand Rapids Griffins schedule for a good stretch, including the month of December.  We are planning to be out for Friday games on the 5th, 19th and 26th.  Fridays are also dollar beer nights, which makes our crowd a lot more interesting and larger than other nights.  We are also planning the Walking with Dinosaurs event on the 13th mentioned earlier in this newsletter.  Consider marking a date to come out with us and see what God is doing…
 

John Piper

"The astonishing thing is that people can become religious without being converted. That is, they join churches and start reading the Bible and doing religious things with no change in the foundation of their happiness: It is still themselves. They are the ground of their joy.”