Coal is more than fossil fuel - its Genesis Flood fuel!

For decades it has been taught that dead plants accumulate in the stagnant, oxygen-poor waters of a swamp, where they partially decay and eventually alter into combustible peat. Over vast ages under these conditions, the peat supposedly metamorphoses into coal.

But there are problems with this “story” about the unseen past. First, nowhere on earth today does peat spontaneously become coal. Second, while peats do accumulate in stagnant swamp waters, these appear nothing like coal. Surely something other than a peat swamp was involved in the formation of coal seams.

As a matter of fact, the coalification process doesn’t even require much time. In recent years, several laboratory experiments have shown that coal can form quickly, in just hours or days. Extreme conditions can accomplish it even more quickly. Heat is required, but not necessarily pressure. The process is accelerated by the presence of a volcanic clay, such as montmorillinite or kaolinite, always abundantly intermingled with coal.  

When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, phenomenal processes were set in motion that instantly produced geologic results mimicking those we are taught to think required millions of years. After the eruption, a charred log was found with wood on one end and material on the other that under microscopic analysis proved to be a rather high grade of coal, formed essentially instantly.

The eruption of Mount St. Helens provided insight into processes operating during an even greater catastrophe, the great Flood of Noah’s day.  

Marko's comment: Surprise! Coal is more than fossil fuel - its Genesis Flood fuel!

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New Hope promotes the Gospel and spiritual growth - via Internet fellowship

Bedouins in North Africa no longer plan their movements according to water availability, but according to cell phone coverage. Internet, social media, and other web-based tools are amazing - New Hope International is now using them to communicate the gospel and deliver ministry resources.

Our goal is not only for people to develop a personal relationship with Christ, but also to bring them into community with other Christ-followers. Sometimes this step happens online in chat rooms, but the most important step is small study groups or clubs and ultimately into a local church! Though the initial steps may be for us connecting with where the seeker is, the ultimate goal for the "step strategy" is to become part of a community of Christ followers. Connections are made and relationships built ... with life-changing results!

Pray for the New Hope technical support team, particularly in Ukraine, as they migrate and train the New Hope team throughout Eastern Europe in the use of their new websites. Pray for a short learning curve and little lost momentum during the changes. Pray that the new sites will be effective in delivering tools for ministry. Pray also for the completion of a more elaborate site for New Hope Ukraine (similar to Amazon!) where all Christian publishers will be able to make their resources available. 

(New Hope International newsletter, June 2011)

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Best theory for dinosaurs going extinct: hunted down after the Flood!

The Chinese and over 200 other cultures have detailed stories about “dragons.” Why, if such creatures were only mythical beasts?

Hunting Dinosaurs after the Flood-
probably not Science Fiction!

It is generally agreed that “the current extinction crisis is caused primarily by human impacts upon wild populations,”¹ and it is the largest, most dangerous wild creatures that are the first to go when humans move into an area. Thus, dinosaurs who came on board Noah's Ark and survived the Flood likely went extinct gradually the same way that scientists today observe extinctions.

Those who claim that dinosaurs could not have fit on the Ark might recall that the average dinosaur size was on the order of that of a large dog. Even the massive dinosaurs started out from football-size eggs, and juveniles of these groups could have easily been selected to board the life-saving vessel.

What about the descendants of the dinosaurs that stepped off the Ark after their year-long stay? Again, eyewitness evidence confirms that dinosaurs lived for centuries after the Flood.

St. George had to deal with a dragon in England. Alexander the Great’s army encountered a dragon. Marco Polo recorded dragon dealings. Flavius Philostratus provided this sober account in the third century A.D.:

The whole of India is girt with dragons of enormous size; for not only the marshes are full of them, but the mountains as well, and there is not a single ridge without one. Now the marsh kind are sluggish in their habits and are thirty cubits long, and they have no crest standing up on their heads.²

Pliny the Elder also referenced large dragons in India in his Natural History. More recently, historian Bill Cooper described many ancient news accounts of dinosaur encounters from England and Europe, which to this day contain place names that reference the dragons that were once there, like “Knucker’s Hole,” “Dragon-hoard,” and “Wormelow Tump.”³

Similar accounts have been handed down orally within North, Central, and South American Indian groups. The fact that so many different peoples told the same details authenticates their testimony. The book Fossil Legends of the First Americans relays information about anatomy, habitat, and hero tales related to “a water monster that ‘grew so huge’ (p. 29), a Pawnee giant raptor called Hu-huk (p. 189), a Yuki story of giant lizards that ‘were so huge that they shook the earth’ (p. 208), Sioux legends of thunderbirds (p. 239), and many other legends.”⁴

How did mankind handle post-Flood dinosaur encounters? Most likely, the dinosaurs were eliminated by humans trying to protect themselves. This is a common theme in the many dragon legends. 

(for the complete article, see Brian Thomas and Frank Sherwin, Eyewitnesses to Extinction, Testimonies to the Life and Death of Dinosaurs, Acts & Facts, June 2011)

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References (selected)


1. Woodroffe, R. 2000. Predators and people: using human densities to interpret declines of large carnivores. Animal Conservation. 3 (2): 165-173


2. Flavius Philostratus (c170-c247 A.D.). 1912. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, volume I, book III. F. C. Conybeare, trans. New York: Macmillan Co., 243-247. 

3. Cooper, B. A. 1995. After the Flood. Chichester, UK: New Wine Press, 130-145. Available online at ldolphin.org/cooper.


4. Thomas, B. 2010. Oblivious to the obvious: dragons lived with American Indians. Journal of Creation. 24 (1): 33. This is a book review of Mayor, A. 2005. Fossil Legends of the First Americans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Revival in post-Christian Italy? Believe it!

When you can feel the earth shake beneath your feet, you know something big is happening. That's exactly what occurred in Milan, Italy the afternoon of Saturday, March 19. It wasn't an earthquake but it was something big. One man who felt the ground shaking likened it to the tremor caused by a passing train. But it wasn't a train either. It was the people of God.

For perhaps the first time in hundreds of years - maybe even the first time ever - nearly 5,000 evangelical believers paraded through the streets of this great city, better known as the fashion capital of the world, to sing praise to the living God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

In the weeks leading up to the event, 1,500 posters proclaiming the love of God for the people of that city had been prominently displayed and 200,000 pieces of literature had been prepared to invite people to a website where they could find a Bible-believing church close to them.

But no one could have predicted the power of the moment that Saturday afternoon when the procession paused near Duomo, the city's main cathedral, the third largest in the world. CrossWorld worker Nina Schaafsma described it:

Our line-up of thousands had to wait. We were going crazy singing and giving testimony. Then the believers from all over Milan and from as far away as Sicily began to sing "You are King! You are King! You, Jesus, are King!" I cannot describe to you the feeling of wonder to have a crowd like ours giving Jesus the glory as we stood in the shadow of a cathedral that was raised to give glory to [the virgin] Mary. The majesty of this building and her golden statue on the top were small in comparison to the glory that was being given to the Lord in that moment.... People were crying all throughout the day. One young man told us he cried for an hour after going home. Another new believer said he felt a joy like never before.

Things like this don't happen overnight in Italy or the rest of post-Christian Europe where the spiritual soil is some of the hardest in the world. It is the result of the long-term investment of God's truth in the lives of a few who, in turn, learn to reproduce the life of Jesus in others who do the same. That's disciple-making. That's what we're all about. And we couldn't do it without you.

I invite you to take a moment to share in the joy of those Italian believers and to pray that God might shake that city, country and continent for His glory.

Watch footage to see and hear the atmosphere of this moving experience.

You can be a part of God's movement in Milan. Radio Vita was a catalyst in gaining a local presence and breaking ground for preaching the Word of God. Within the Radio Vita broadcast zone, Punto Luce church, a daughter church from Punto Lode, and others, continue to grow.

(reposted from Dale Losch, CrossWorld, June 2011 prayer letter)

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Genesis is History, Not Poetry

“Why are you guys so literalistic about Genesis? Don’t you know that it’s just Hebrew poetry? There’s no need to treat it like real history!” This was the smug comment of a young English literature teacher at a recent Christian educators’ conference where the Institute for Creation Research was conducting seminars.

The bottom line is that Genesis is not “Hebrew poetry.” Genesis is Hebrew narrative prose. In other words, Genesis is a record of accurate, true history. Not mysticism. Not mystery. Not myth. Anyone who can read a Bible can prove that Genesis is not Hebrew poetry. And this is not a minor issue, because Paul hung his theology of our salvation in Christ upon the historicity of the Genesis record (Romans 5:12-21).

Example of Genesis history, exhibiting the format of narrative prose.

And Cain talked to Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand. (Genesis 4:8-11)

There is no informational parallelism in this passage. What we read is history, a narrative account of the first instance of an unbeliever tragically persecuting a believer, a terrible precedent, a hate crime that preceded millions of later copycat martyrdoms. It’s a sad history (except that Abel went to heaven).

There is no poetic parallelism anywhere in Genesis 4, with the possible exception of the wicked “song” of Lamech the polygamist recorded in Genesis 4:23-24. Nor is there any poetic parallelism in Genesis 1, 2, 3, or any other chapter in Genesis. Why? Because Genesis is history. Virtually all of Genesis illustrates what we expect from historical narrative: careful attention to sequenced events (this occurred, then this occurred, then this occurred, etc.), as well as inclusion of time-and-space context information (when such is relevant to the narrative) and a noticeable absence of Hebrew parallelism.¹

Conclusion:

Why would anyone even pretend that Genesis 1-11, or any part of Genesis, is Hebrew poetry?

For those who know better, it is intellectual dishonesty to avoid the obvious truth that Genesis is real history. Their most likely motive is a desire to accommodate evolutionary mythology by discounting the real history of our origins, stealing credit from Christ so that a fable called “natural selection” can be credited with “selecting” (and creating) earth’s creatures.

Genesis 1-11 is easy-to-understand narrative prose. Don’t naïvely fall for the misinformation of a so-called scholar who, because he wants to rationalize his own evolutionary mythology, tries to dissuade you from believing Genesis 1-50 is an inerrantly inspired historical narrative—because that’s exactly what it is. And, as they say, “the rest is history.”

(for the complete article, see James J.S. Johnson, Genesis is History, Not Poetry, Acts & Facts, June 2011)

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References (selected)


1.Genesis 1-11, as well as 12-50, also routinely uses the vayyaqtil forms (i.e., conjunction-modified verbs that older Hebrew grammars call waw consecutives or waw conversives), an awkward Hebrew language feature that pervades Hebrew narrative prose but not Hebrew poetry. See, e.g., Practico, G. D. and M. V. Van Pelt. 2001. Basics of Biblical Hebrew Workbook. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 125-134.