AMEN 2009: Faith in Practice

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Adventist Medical Evangelism Network (AMEN)

AMEN 2009 Breakout Seminars

Dentist & Physician Role in Public Evangelism

Patti Guthrie

Todd Guthrie

The Well-Balanced Mind

Mark Ranzinger

The Foolish Missionary

Chester Clark

The Role of Health Professionals in Establishing Education & Health Institutions

Dwight Nelson

The Secret to Surviving the Coming Economic Earthquake

David DeRose

Creation-Science Evangelism

Harnessing the Resources of the Church in Medical Evangelism

Father in heaven, we thank you for the privilege we have right now of coming into your presence.

And Father, we have sensed as individuals and as a church how important this topic is.

We pray that you'd help us to not only see that more clearly, but to realize what role we can have as health professionals in making a difference in the local church that we're a part of, in our communities, in our families, and beyond.

Well, by way of perspective as we begin our time together, we're going to look at 3 different areas today.

I'm going to first look with you at some philosophical issues as they relate to creation science.

And the question is, is creation science important?

We're going to look at that from a philosophical basis first.

Then we're actually going to look at some things you may want to employ in public presentations, because that's especially what this seminar is geared for.

So first of all, we're gonna spend actually probably the larger portion of our time talking about why I think you should be excited and motivated to be involved in this subject, taking an advocacy position in your local church and your community.

And all of you who've registered have this CD.

This CD is something that AMEN is providing.

There's a number of organizations and individuals who have allowed us to put their PowerPoint slides on here that deal with creation science.

So if you want to be involved in doing a creation science seminar or a talk or a sermon, these resources are here for you to use.

They've been granted to us to copy them freely to give out on this occasion for individuals to use in their own presentations.

A little bit more in the way of background is just who I am.

I am a physician and public health professional.

I have boards in internal medicine, and I still think I have them in preventive medicine.

So I can tell you that here at the end of 2009.

Most of what I've done in my professional career is in the lines of preventive medicine.

About 7 years ago, I started a consulting practice, mostly doing programmatic consulting, health media.

Was doing that full-time for 4 or 5 years.

And a lot of what I was doing was working with faith-based entities, Adventists and otherwise, and got more involved with evangelism, public evangelism, and how health interfaces with that.

And so 3 years ago, I was invited by the Northern New England Conference to scale back my work with my company called Compass Health to halftime and work as a pastor halftime.

So I'm employed halftime by the Northern New England Conference, especially with a mandate to be involved in health evangelism.

And I actually think creation science and health evangelism are very closely linked.

We'll talk about that at least briefly in this first of the 3 presentations that I have for you.

And like I said, this first 1 is really the longer presentation.

The other thing that is very important, I think, to emphasize for all of us is that we have credibility in the scientific realm, even though we might say, well, we're not basic scientists, maybe some of you are, you know, MD, PhDs, or you have, you know, advanced training in some other discipline besides dentistry or medicine.

The point is, in our communities, in our congregations, we are looked at as having a scientific knowledge base that has credibility attached to it.

So with that background, let's talk about why I believe creation science is important.

And I've got a question for you as we begin, and that is, has anyone ever offered you a deal that just seemed too good to be true?

Now you might say, well I'm obviously asking the question in this section because this is not the financial health section and maybe people in this audience would be more likely to have faced such a scenario.

But I wanna actually give you a scenario about a deal that seemed too good to be true and we'll call the fellow Richard.

Does this look like an old vehicle to you?

It's supposed to, whether it does or not, okay?

So he's got this old vehicle, it's all beat up And he meets a very kind mechanic.

And this mechanic tells him, you know, I can fix your whole car.

I know the car is breaking down every week, but I can not only fix it mechanically, but I can totally restore this car, and I'll do it for $200.

And like I said, we're not in the financial seminar right now, so 1 of you, let's say you're Richard, you decide you're going to go for it.

And so you give this mechanic your vehicle and in fact he tells you after a number of weeks not only is the car all repaired but he's going to personally deliver it to you if you would like.

Well you say okay, bring the car by And then the next day as he comes by, you see pulling up into your driveway something that looks like this.

No for those who are just listening, you know, we've got a Fancy sports car illustrated here.

I don't know what type of car that is Some of you are better with those things than I am But we're talking as we begin about restoration.

And the reason why I'm talking with you about restoration is because it's a theme in the Bible.

We're talking about motivation, why we should be concerned about creation science.

It's foundational to all biblical revelation.

And Acts chapter 3, verses 19 and 21, Peter's great sermon on the day of Pentecost, he calls on the people there to repent, be converted, that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." Now listen carefully, he says, "'He shall send Jesus Christ, who was before preached to you, who the heaven must receive until, ' how long?

That's right, until the times of restitution or restoration of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." What is Peter saying here is a theme of all of Revelation.

Yes, it's the plan of restoration, the times of restoration.

The Bible is speaking, the prophetic messengers are speaking about restoration.

And so Peter is saying this is the focus of biblical revelation.

Yeah, bringing, making things back right.

It's bringing things back to their original state their original designer purpose So think about it If the Bible is talking about a plan of restoring things to their original state, what is it talking about?

It's really based on the very premise that we have in Genesis 1 and 2, isn't it?

That God created everything very good and that he is going to return creation to that state.

So what I'm trying to help us see first of all, that origins is not just a tangential issue.

Foundational to the whole theme of the Bible is the plan of restoration.

And so when we read in Genesis 1, 1 about God's creation, God is the active agent in creation.

And we read at the end of that chapter that he made everything how?

So what I'd like to suggest to you, and I don't really need to even suggest it because we see it in our ranks as Adventists and throughout Christianity, is that most Christians today, most of those who self-identify themselves as Christians, have actually left the straightforward testimony of the Bible in Genesis 1 and 2, and they've accepted a view of origins that is totally human derived.

Am I on shaky ground when I'm speaking about this?

So, growing numbers of Christians really have embraced Darwin's theory of evolution.

And in fact, it's interesting in the dialogue that takes place in the secular marketplace, we hear about people like Francis Collins.

Francis Collins is a major figure, major figure in medicine, in the world.

I mean, he's currently the director of the National Institutes of Health.

He was the director of the Human Genome Project.

He's often interviewed in secular sources as far as his insights into origin.

In essence, what many Christians are believing, and Dr.

What many Christians are actually saying Is that if you look at Darwin's theory of evolution?

It doesn't hold water So God must have been acting through the millions of years that evolutionary science is talking about.

So instead of just saying it's a process, an undirected process, they're saying that we need to believe in theistic evolution and we can all live happily ever after.

We can be Christians, you can be secularists.

So this is a prevailing theme in Christianity today.

And whether it's the Catholic Church with their pronouncements, whether it's an evangelical scientist like Dr.

Collins, this is a prevailing theme, and it of course has come into the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

So let's just talk about, you know, in its purest sense, what evolution really is speaking about.

Whether it's theistic evolution, or whether it's just saying, you know, there is no God and things just evolved on their own.

Back to Menu

Series

AMEN 2009 Breakout Seminars

Creation-Science Evangelism

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

ASI 2011 Seminar: Health

Energizing Your Witness: The Adventist Lifestyle Message Rightly Utilized

1h 19m

AMEN 2010 Plenary Sessions

Wholeness with Your Family

59m

The History of City Evangelism

1h 28m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

Living and Sharing the Three Angels’ Message

1h 58m

Financing Yourself

Financing Yourself- Part 3

1h 11m

AMEN Luncheon Session- Part 2

31m

Does Theistic Evolution Create More Problems Than It Solves?

50m

A Heart Reaching For Hearts

1h 17m

Adventist Apologetics: Complex Issues, Adventist Answers

6. The Final Generation (Panel Discussion)

1h 14m

Faith and Healing

59m

Seminars

Our Best Year Yet Sharing Jesus

1h 16m

New Light for Adventists- Part 1

1h

Sound Doctrine