Marriage Success Strategies: 1. Decide

This post is the first in a series.

To make a marriage last, what has to happen first? Two couples start out equally happy and in love. One pair grows and glows, more and more over time, until one spouse dies. The other turns from joy to misery in just a few short years. Why? Could it be due to the presence or absence of a deliberate decision, made at the outset, to pursue and develop a successful marriage?

Michael Hargrove was at the airport in Portland, Oregon, when he noticed an unknown man whose family greeted him as he arrived. Hargrove noticed the obvious passion between this stranger and his wife and children (two sons under ten and a daughter less than two). They exchanged warm embraces, affectionate words, and delighted expressions. Hargrove was impressed to learn that the couple had been married twelve full years and that they had been separated for just two days. Hargrove felt compelled to tell the man, “I hope my marriage is still that passionate after twelve years!”

Hargrove writes:

The man suddenly stopped smiling. He looked me straight in the eye, and with a forcefulness that burned right into my soul, he told me something that left me a different person. He told me, “Don’t hope, friend … decide.”

Source: A 5th Portion of Chicken Soup for the Soul, by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

Believe it or not, a happier marriage does not begin with a miracle, a new house, more money, or different children! It does not come about accidentally or automatically, just because two people become husband and wife. It starts with a decision. That decision, made at the beginning, made every day, and made for the long haul, determines to a large degree the success of that marriage. That decision encompasses choices that lead to “happily ever after.” These choices include the following.

● I will put God first in my marriage. I will look at my marriage as He does, and I will glorify Him in my role as a husband or wife. I will imitate Jesus in thought, word, and deed.

● I will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, for my marriage to thrive and flourish. I will change myself, getting better and better at marriage every day. I will become the person that my spouse thought he or she was getting when we said, “I do!”

● I will act in such a way that my spouse will say, at the end of each day, “I’d choose you again.” I will look my best, act my best, and be my best. I will earn his or her trust and respect every day. I will help create the kind of marriage that every person would love to have.

● As much as it depends on me, my marriage will last a lifetime. We will enjoy each other, share our blessings and challenges, and grow old together. When we near the end of this journey, we will still be holding each other’s hand and each other’s heart.

Do you want to have a happy, successful marriage and family? “Don’t hope, friend … decide.”

Cory Collins

Who Invited Job to Jurassic Park?

He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. Job 40:17-18 

Evolutionists claim that dinosaurs evolved and became extinct millions of years before human beings ever walked the earth. They have thoroughly convinced many in today’s culture that this geologic timetable has been proven beyond doubt. The fictional book and movie titled “Jurassic Park” were based on the claim that many of these creatures lived during the “Jurassic Period,” dated at 208-144 million years ago.

If all that is true, if dinosaurs never co-existed with man, who told the biblical Job about them? How could the Bible describe a dinosaur, if no one had never seen one?

Carefully read Job 40:15-24, where God is said to be speaking to Job. What the text calls “Behemoth” describes a creature of enormous size, strength, and dominance. Of course, the word “dinosaur” itself was not invented until AD 1841. The Hebrew word behemoth would be the best term available in that language to apply to a dinosaur. Note the power of its loins and belly. Imagine bones like tubes of bronze and limbs like bars of iron. Picture its moving tail, stiff and long like a cedar tree. A turbulent river would not intimidate this gigantic creature, nor could man tame it or even approach it.

No creature on earth, certainly not the hippopotamus, matches this description. So how did Job know about it? There are only four possible answers.

1. It has been suggested that the passage refers to a mythical being, which never existed. That seems unlikely, because chapters 38 and 39 of Job obviously depict real animals that are still with us today. These include the lion, the raven, the mountain goat, the wild donkey, and many others. In addition, reference to a non-existent creature would be of no value in the context. Here God emphasizes that, though Job knows these beings are real, he does not know what God knows about them, because he did not create them.

2. Some have said that the Bible is actually talking here about the hippopotamus. This is very doubtful, in part because the hippo’s tail is short and small. The hippo also lacks the size and intimidating presence of this behemoth. In addition the hippo, unlike this creature, has been tamed. Furthermore, the use of such exaggerated language to describe this creature does not fit the context, in which other animals are accurately portrayed.

3. Another theory – which I have never seen anyone propose – is that the behemoth in Job 40 is a dinosaur, but that it actually existed millions of years before Job or any other man ever lived. No unbeliever or evolutionist (as far as I know) supports this, because he would then have to ask, “How could a man-made book like the Bible record information about a creature that became extinct long ages ago, without a God to reveal it?” So this solution would affirm, “Job knew, because God told him.” That would require inspiration!

4. The only other possible answer is that dinosaurs co-existed with man at some point. Evolutionists may call such a conclusion laughable, but think about it. Either Job saw and knew of such a creature firsthand, or he heard from others who had previously been aware of its existence. By process of elimination, this solution seems the most plausible, though it flies in the face of the unproven geologic timetable which separates dinosaurs and human beings by millions of years.

Question: If the Bible is not true, and dinosaurs really preceded man by millions of years, who told Job about behemoth?

Who invited Job to Jurassic Park?

There are other irrefutable proofs, outside the Bible, showing that man and dinosaurs once co-existed. These consist of ancient drawings and engravings of dinosaur-like creatures found in various parts of the world.

● At the Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah, there is an American Indian petroglyph (rock carving) that shows a dinosaur.

● In 1924 Samuel Hubbard and Charles Gilmore, leading the Doheny Expedition near the Grand Canyon, found another dinosaur petroglyph and even dinosaur footprints.

● Waldemar Julsrud, a German businessman, traveled to the El Toro Mountain in Acamboro, Mexico in 1944. He found thousands of artifacts, including hundreds of handcrafted dinosaur sculptures. This discovery was so damaging to evolutionary theory that many scientists suggested that these figurines were fakes. After all, they were so accurate. Further research, however, authenticated their antiquity.

● Javier Cabrera Darquea eventually gathered over 11,000 ancient burial stones that the Inca Indians in Peru had placed with their dead. The art form and the location dated these stones to the time of the Inca Culture, ca. AD 500-1500. Almost one-third of these stones depicted specific types of dinosaurs.

For more information, see Dinosaurs Unleashed, by Kyle Butt and Eric Lyons, 2004, Apologetics Press, Inc., ISBN: 0-932859-61-5, pages 48-52, 58-59.

Also read more details here:

http://www.apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=2&issue=823&article=1576

Photo source: http://total4god.wordpress.com/tag/predictive-programming/

Once again, if ancient peoples never saw or knew about dinosaurs, how did they draw them? And if they did know, how did they know? This is a dilemma that evolutionists cannot answer. Creationists can not only answer; creationists can use such information, both inside and outside the Bible, to defend genuine faith in the God who made heaven and earth.

Cory Collins

Seeing the Forest AND the Trees

… that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.  1 Cor 12:25-26

The phrase, “You can’t see the forest for the trees!” warns us against focusing so much on the specifics of a situation that we lose our awareness of the larger picture.  How important that is.  There is no forest without the individual trees.  Yet, while the forest needs each tree, each tree depends on the forest as well.  This dual truth holds in the church, as it does in the great outdoors. Life, health, and growth require both “one for all” and “all for one.” 

According to Richard Innes, giant Sequoia trees, also known as redwoods, often reach heights of 300 feet and diameters of 30 feet.  They can range in age from 2,000 to 3,000 years; some of them were living when Jesus walked the shores of Galilee. The largest specimen, the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park, is 275 feet tall, has a diameter of 36.4 feet at the base, and has been estimated to weigh 2500 metric tons.

These majestic trees make it through raging fires, violent storms, and fierce winds.  They also have a comparatively shallow root system which makes their survival even more amazing. How do they do it?  They live in groves with their root systems entangled with numerous other trees. In other words they support each other. They couldn't survive alone.

http://www.actsweb.org/articles/article.php?i=613&d=2&c=5

Violent storms in Alabama and elsewhere have driven home a powerful point.  Why does a tree fall, even one that seems strong, tall, stable, and healthy?  It’s true, of course, that trees often fall because they were diseased, or their roots were weak, or the soil around them was saturated with water.  Perhaps the wind and other elements were just unusually forceful, beyond what those trees could bear.  There are inward elements, outward elements, or both.

However, sometimes a tree falls because the strong tree that was next to it fell first.  Exposed directly to elements it never faced before, it topples.

I have seen this happen in families.  The spiritual giant, a parent or grandparent perhaps, passes away.  Then other members, who are not prepared to face life’s crises head-on, without that shield of protection, flounder and fail.  Their prayer life at home, their family Bible reading and discussion, and eventually their church involvement fade and fall. No one picks up the mantle of leadership.  No one reaches out to intertwine the family’s roots. Before long, without even a “Timber!” another family drops out.

This is true of church leadership.  The individual tree needs the forest to survive, and vice versa.  In an eldership I know elsewhere, there was a humble, compassionate, mission-minded, exemplary man.  The other good men enjoyed the shade that his leadership provided.  When he died they faced, without him, the strong winds he had helped to resist.  Their mission work, emphasis on mature biblical preaching, and compassion as a group suffered.  No one to my knowledge has stepped up to say, “I will be the tree that stands where that brother stood.”  As a result the entire forest is not quite the same.

The point?  First, enjoy the protection of faithful leaders!   Love them, support them, and follow them.  Second, prepare yourself for the time when that sheltering shade may be gone.  Intertwine your roots before that loss comes.  Make sure that your family, and your local congregation, will not fail or fall when that time comes. 

And you – yes, you! – become the tall, strong tree that others need you to be! 

Charles Darwin Attacked by Bombardier Beetle!

When Charles Darwin first proposed his theory of evolution, he made a frank, honest admission. In fact, he stated that his entire system could be proven false, based on just one criterion. He wrote in 1859:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189)

On this Darwin was right. And that’s what makes Darwinism wrong.

There are countless “complex organs” and systems which depend on multiple facets and elements coming into being at the same time. The ear, for example, could not work without all the parts in place simultaneously. It simply defies reason to suggest that one piece formed at a time, which could not function by itself, and which depended on the other parts to work. The same is true of the lungs, the eyes, blood clotting, cilia in human cells, birds’ wings, bats’ sonar, and millions of other complicated, interdependent systems.

This principle, called “irreducible complexity,” is not something invented by those who believe in intelligent design and/or the Bible. It was noted and insisted upon by Darwin himself.

Darwin believed that scientists would eventually uncover proof – which he lacked – of countless intermediate links. He thought that these new findings would account for the complex organs and systems that are so evident. From his time of writing in 1859, to the present day, such evidence has still not been produced.

One fascinating case of irreducible complexity is that of the bombardier beetle. The following description is taken from the book, The Collapse of Evolution, by Scott Huse, on pages 78-79.

The bombardier beetle is a small insect that is armed with a shockingly impressive defense system. Whenever threatened by an enemy attack, this spirited little beetle blasts irritating and odious gases, which are fired at 212 degrees F. out from two tail pipes right into the unfortunate face of the would-be aggressor. 

Dr. Wermann Schildknecht, a German chemist, studied the bombardier beetle to find out how he accomplishes this amazing chemical feat. He learned that the beetle makes his explosive by mixing together two very dangerous chemicals (hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide). In addition to these two chemicals, this clever little beetle adds another type of chemical known as an inhibitor. The inhibitor prevents the chemicals from blowing up and enables the beetle to store the chemicals indefinitely. Whenever our beetle friend is approached by a predator, such as a frog, he squirts the stored chemicals into the two combustion tubes, and at precisely the right moment he adds another chemical (an anti-inhibitor). This knocks out the inhibitor and makes the chemical combination toxic. It then explodes violently right in the face of the poor attacker. 

Could such a marvelous and complex mechanism have evolved piecemeal over millions of years? The evolutionist is forced to respond with a somewhat sheepish "yes," but a brief consideration of this opinion will reveal its preposterous nature. According to evolutionary "thinking" there must have been thousands of generations of beetles improperly mixing these hazardous chemicals in fatal evolutionary experiments, blowing themselves to pieces.

Eventually, we are assured, they arrived at the magic formula, but what about the development of the inhibitor? There is no need to evolve an inhibitor unless you already have the two chemicals you are trying to inhibit. On the other hand, if you already have the two chemicals without the inhibitor, it is already too late, for you have just blown yourself up. 

Obviously, such an arrangement would never arise apart from intelligent foresight and planning. Nevertheless, let us assume that our little beetle friend somehow managed to simultaneously develop the two chemicals along with the all- important inhibitor. The resultant solution would offer no benefit at all to the beetle, for it would just sit there as a harmless concoction. To be of any value to the beetle, the anti-inhibitor must he added to the solution. So, once again, for thousands of generations we are supposed to believe that these poor beetles mixed and stored these chemicals for no particular reason or advantage until finally, the anti-inhibitor was perfected. Now he is really getting somewhere! With the anti-inhibitor developed he can now blow himself to pieces, frustrating the efforts of the hungry predator who wants to eat him.

Ah yes, he still needs to evolve the two combustion tubes, and a precision communications and timing network to control and adjust the critical direction and timing of the explosion. So, here we go again; for thousands of generations these carefree little beetles blew themselves to pieces until finally they mastered their newfound powers. But what would be the motivation for such disastrous, trial and error, piecemeal evolution? 

The beetles did not blow themselves up. Instead it was Darwin’s theory that exploded.

Hear him again:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189)

Cory Collins

http://corycollins.net/