Biblical Worldview vs. Worldly Worldview
This spring, April 1-5, I’m scheduled to teach another seminar at the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) base in Kiev, Ukraine, for one week of the twelve-week School of Biblical Christian Worldview series. This is to me both exciting and important – very important! The Kiev base is also the major base for the eastern Europe YWAM outreach, so this is an opportunity to help train young missionaries concerning the essential nature of a Biblical worldview to the true gospel of our Lord Jesus.
The sad fact is that here in America the Biblical Christian worldview has been so infiltrated with the craziness of the naturalistic philosophy of evolutionism through our education system from kindergarten through college and university. Even so-called Bible colleges and seminaries have bowed the knee to the Baal of evolutionism. We need men and women of God who will not bend, bow or burn! (Think of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego!) They said to their boss, the powerful and headstrong Nebuchadnezzar, “’O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.’” Daniel 3:16-18 (NKJV)
Unfortunately, the statistics indicate that now only a few Americans hold to a Biblical Christian worldview – even among those who profess to be “born-again” Christians! (Are there any other kind of true Christians?). Why? Perhaps because most so-called evangelicals saturate their minds and hearts far more with worldly “wisdom” through TV, movies, social media, fake news, etc., than they do by reading, studying and meditating on the Word of God. Many persecuted believers in Jesus in the 10/40 window are willing to risk their lives to own a Bible and share its truths, while so many “Christians” in America are dancing with Satanic deceptions while their Bibles gather dust. The principle God gave to Israel is also valid for America: “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14 Yes, it’s always true that “righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
New Year’s Resolutions?
Have you already broken your New Year’s resolution? Why? Most New Year’s resolutions are based on human willpower. If you do keep a resolution by your own dogged determination, then you will most likely fall into the Satanic trap of pride. The Word of God says: “…Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” 1 Peter 5:5-11 (ESV)
Other Essential Factors in a Biblical Christian Worldview
- Genesis is the true history of Origins.
- Adam and Eve were actual historical human beings, created by Almighty God Himself to be the original parents of the entire human race. If Adam were only an allegory – what does that make Jesus, the second Adam? Luke, in his gospel record, traces the genealogy of Jesus back to Adam!
- The reason why there is suffering, death and destruction is because we live on this cursed earth, and the curse came because of the rebellion of our original parents.
- Every one of us is also a rebel with a corrupt nature that is attracted to sin like metal to a magnet. We are lost sinners in need of the Savior.
- Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12 (NKJV)
- The global Flood described in Genesis 6-9 is the reason for the massive water laid rock layers of sandstone, shale, and clay (hundreds of feet – and sometimes thousands of feet thick), as well as the huge deposits of coal and oil on earth. Most of the fossils are found in these rock layers and deposits – and many of them demonstrate instant burial and fossilization. A fossilized fish in the process of swallowing a minnow is one example of this fact.
- “Science is thinking God’s thoughts after Him,” may have been initiated by Johannes Kepler, but became the motto of many early scientists. It’s easy to document that the founder of nearly every branch of science was a creationist. In fact, true science begins with the fear of God. Why? Proverbs 1:7 says: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (NKJV) Since the original meaning of the word “science” is “knowledge,” this verse can be accurately translated, “The fear of God is the beginning of science.” (See 1 Timothy 6:20-21 in the KJV, then read it in NKJV, ESV or NIV.)
What’s Happening in Ukraine?
Some Terrific Good News from Sergei Golovin
I believe that Sergei Golovin is the most influential and effective creation scientist and evangelist in Ukraine and in all of the former Soviet Union nations. Sergei arranged for my all-day seminar on September 22 at the YWAM base in Kiev – and it is a pleasure and honor to count him as our friend and co-worker in the gospel.
Beloved brothers and sisters,
Thank you very much for your care, support and prayers! With great joy, I present to you the Christian Center for Science and Apologetics December 2018 newsletter.
The last month of the year was pretty busy despite the upcoming holidays and ice on the roads. The number of requests for seminars, training courses and the workshops we offer to fill the gaps in the edifying of the believers in post-communist society is a great evidence that our mission to serve the Body is moving in the right direction. We come as a “landing party” to every place where the church feels the need in stronger foundation for their faith and for more effective evangelism. May the Lord be praised!
The Lord uses political turmoils of the world for His greater glory. Granted, we couldn’t start a brick-and-mortar school as we had planned before the war, but He provided the opportunity to run three “virtual” schools instead: the “Reliable Foundations” Apologetics Online Club, the School of Biblical Christian Worldview and the Joint School of Christian Apologetics. The geography of our service keeps growing. We had “landing parties” at two new venues in December. The first one was at the town of Brovary with the seminar on the biblical foundation for marriage, the second one was at the city of Vinnitsa (despite the martial law in the province) with the workshop on shaping the next generations’ worldview and the Master level course on the Practical Christian Ethics. The national culturally relevant course on Practical Christian Ethics is currently the most popular one. In February we are going to provide it twice – at the city of Kherson for the Southern part of the country where most of the internally displaced people (IDP) from Crimea currently reside, and in Kiev – for the students from the rest of the country as well as from Belarus and Russia. Please pray with us for these upcoming events.
Finally, when the holidays began, we provided the training course on the Christian Apologetics for the Christian students from the secular university to equip them for bold and effective spread of the Good News. Please pray for these witnesses of the Lord in the most aggressive environment.
At the last session of the “Reliable Foundations” Apologetics Online Club we were happy to present the new books we had hot off the press. As you know, fifteen of the world’s top twenty countries by literacy rate are the countries of the former Soviet Union (http://world.bymap.org/LiteracyRates.html). That is why publishing has always been the strategic part of our ministry. This year was extremely fruitful in that sense – we have published 18 books in both Russian and Ukrainian (which brings the total number of our publications to 229). Four more are still in press. Our online media resources were made available to thousands of people through social networks and internet sites. The content on our main resource site (ScienceAndApologetics.com) has been accessed from 79 countries of the world! May the Lord be praised!
The year 2018 was fruitful in various ways. We were organizing camps for children hurt by the war from the frontline towns and, under the radar, – for children on the occupied territories; equipping the ministries to IDPs (there are about 1.6 million of them in the country); travelling miles teaching and speaking at numerous conferences, seminars and meetings; initiating and running media and discussion clubs in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and other post-communist countries; developing the very first national training online video courses on the critical issues of the Biblical Foundations for Civil Society and the Foundations for the Cross-cultural Evangelism.
We have a lot to be thankful to the Lord for! We thank Him for you, our faithful partners, friends and co-workers on His field – for the care, prayers, support and love you share with us! We thank Him for guiding us as we were supplying ministries, churches, seminaries and individuals with the ministry resources. We thank Him for keeping our partners, friends and families safe and close to us. We thank Him for His most precious gift – to know Him, to spread His message, making others know Him, to be able to equip His witnesses for spreading the message effectively!
Please keep praying for our ministry, for our team, for our families, for the finances, for God’s guidance and protection in everything we do. You are in our prayers as well.
Yours in the love and grace of Christ Jesus
Sergei
Do You Want to Clarify Your Worldview?
These Books and DVDs Are Available
(for an offering of any amount to Overseas Outreach)
- A Closer Look at the Evidence – daily devotional by Richard & Tina Kleiss
- Have You Considered: Evidence Beyond a Reasonable Doubt – daily devotional by Bruce Malone and Julie Von Vett
- Ready to Give an Answer – a basic text on Christian Evidences by Rick Deighton
- More than Conquerors in Cultural Clashes by Rick Deighton
- Millions of Miracles: The Evolutionist’s Dilemma by Rick Deighton
- Is the Bible without Any Errors? by Rick Deighton
- Armies & Nurseries – DVD by Mike Riddle
- The Atheist Delusion – DVD by Ray Comfort
A Prayer for the Sanctity of Life
“Lord God,
I kneel before You this day, oh God who created my inmost being. You know when I sit and when I rise, and You discern my going out and my lying down. You are familiar with all my ways, and You perceive my thoughts from afar. Before a word is on my tongue, You know it completely. There is no place I can go from Your Spirit. Whether I go up to the heavens, make my bed in the depths, rise on the wings of the dawn, or settle on the far side of the sea, You are there, in that place, with Your right hand to guide me and hold me fast.
I pray this day in the name of Jesus for my nation. I ask You to remind us all that You are knitting together every baby that even now is in the womb of a mother. Teach us that each one is fearfully and wonderfully made, and that none of them are hidden from You while You are making them in the secret place of the womb. We know that there, where they are being woven together, Your eyes see their bodies even while they are forming. Even the darkness of the womb is not dark to You; the night shines like the day, and darkness is as light to You.
Remind us that Your thoughts and purposes for every unborn baby are vast and outnumber the grains of sand. You have ordained the days of their lives and those days are written in Your book even before one of those days has come to be. I plead with You to convict us all that these precious lives need to be protected so that You may fulfill Your purpose for each one of them.
We pray together for our president and all elected officials at every level, that they all will come to recognize the sanctity of life in the womb. May they come to be horrified at the thought of destroying what You are knitting and weaving together in that dark and secret place. We pray that lawmakers will be moved to protect the right of all babies to draw their first breath and to live out the days You have assigned to them.
Please bring every man and woman who has participated in an abortion to a profound place of repentance. May they bring the sorrow and the guilt and the pain of it all to You, that You may cleanse them from all unrighteousness, restore the years the locusts have eaten, and set them on a new path.
It is in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.” (Bryan Fischer, American Family Association)
The Meaning of Evolution
An atheist wrote:
“Christianity has fought, still fights, and will continue to fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.” (G. Richard Bozarth, ‘The Meaning of Evolution’, American Atheist, p. 30. 20 September 1979).
I strongly disagree with Richard Bozarth’s assertion that Christianity fights science for two reasons:
- The scientific method grew out of a Biblical worldview!
- Evolutionism is not science! It is a naturalistic philosophy.
What is sad to me is that Richard Bozarth understands the meaning of evolution, whereas multitudes of Christians don’t get it!
From Our Mailbox
“This year it has been 23 years since I came to Christ. These have been the years of God’s grace and faithfulness. He has been guiding and blessing me. I remember very well the evening of my repentance on 15 November 1995. I remember overwhelming joy of forgiveness and peace with God. It is unforgettable and remains a memorial stone in my spirit and in my story, a stone that I go to, when it is difficult. It is a moment and a place where I have experienced the gospel, the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, the power of God for my salvation and ministry!
A couple of weeks ago you celebrated Thanksgiving and we all, our entire family thank the Lord for you who have been praying and blessing us for a long period of time! We are thousands of kilometers away, but united in spirit and body of Christ! That’s very encouraging!
The Lord works here using us in different ways. There aren’t any serious restrictions from the state yet, so we could go to our summer camp in July. A lot of God’s Word, conversations and just time spent together with each other and our children was the highlight of the summer for most of us, even for me though I always come from our summer camps quite tired.
We are praying for you, Della and your ministry!
With love in Christ,
Yuriy (Krocha)”
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
“I’m sorry I did not respond to your last email till now. My health has been quite bad this semester. So, that made me extra busy during the brief periods when my health got better. I finished my first year of studies here. I’m on summer break now. But different things keep me busy always. Knowing more about the Lord and sharing the gospel with others is one of those!
I will write another email soon with more details. But for now, I want to let you know that, a couple of months ago I was elected as the president for the international wing of the evangelical students body on our campus. I’ll be serving in this position till October next year. Pray for God’s guidance.
Much love, Paul (Sudhakar)”
Note from Rick: Paul is now living in Australia, studying for his masters degree in astrophysics. Please pray for God to heal him and give him wisdom for his important leadership role.
How to Handle Failure
If you have broken your New Year’s resolution or have experienced a much more devastating failure, remember that failure is an event – not a person. Turn to the Savior, and the Comforter! He loves you no matter what your failure – and He can forgive you and lift you up! Also remember that failure is a stepping stone to success. When Peter trusted himself to be strong and faithful, he fell on his face! He and Judas both failed miserably, but Judas chose to try to solve his betrayal himself. Peter chose to accept the grace of God through Jesus – and to accept His commission. God used him powerfully to impact thousands on the next Day of Pentecost – and millions by his epistles throughout more than 2000 years of history. Can God do something like that with you? Why not? Remember, it’s not about you! The real question is this: “Is God still God?”
Prayer Request Update
The highly important prayer requests from our December letter are mostly still vital and very much needed. Here are some updates:
1. Jeff Finder’s doctor has now pronounced him free of the staph infection and ready to begin taking his medicine for rheumatoid arthritis. Thank you, Lord!
2. Recently when I asked Stan Lutz if he was noticing improvement each week after the trauma of his fourth heart attack, he replied: “Nope! Every day! Yes! Praise God!
3. Chris Hutton was with the therapist when I saw him sitting up and smiling in the motorized wheelchair – and he told me he was feeling good! Amen! God, we thank you!
4. Also, when I asked Al Cinnamon how he was doing, he answered that he’s gaining strength and doing good. Alright! Again, thanks be to God!
5. Please pray for a missionary friend of ours who is swimming in a sea of depression and battling the old Elijah blues in the wake of a death in the family, severe family problems, and a tough mission field. Please pray for God to wrap him in His loving arms, give him renewed vision and refreshment for his soul, conversion of family members and a good harvest in his mission following years of sowing the seed of the Word of God. To illustrate how serious this prayer request is, here is part of what he wrote to us: “Sometimes I wish I was never born. Life sometimes seems like a torture chamber: family situation, Putin, sleep apnea, finances to some degree. I hate this sinful world. Forgive me if I brought you down.” This way you also understand why we are not sharing his name. Please pray that what I wrote to him will help and that he will saturate his mind, heart and soul with the Scriptures I recommended to him. (I sometimes had similar feelings back in the late 1960’s when I was ministering in Eugene to a depressed congregation following a church split and our country was being ripped apart by riots over the Vietnam war and plunging into the pit of depravity.)
Please keep praying for all of these, for Della, for Ukraine, for America, and for all the rest of our December requests. (I hope you kept your December prayer letter!) Thank you for your prayers!
“Prayer can do anything that God can do.” E. M. Bounds
- The Lord says to you, “Learn to enjoy this life I am giving you. I offer you the abundant life; your part is to totally trust in me and refuse to worry about anything.”
- “Most people miss the joy of today by worrying about tomorrow. Let it GO! TRUST ME!” says the Lord.
- Laugh more, worry less. Laughter lightens your load and lifts your heart.
- The Lord spoke the universe into existence. What little problem do you have that He can’t handle? (From “Issues in Education” – Winter Quarter 2018)
