A “Chance” Encounter

First, I hope you had a Blessed Christmas, remembering why Christ—the “Last Adam” (I Cor. 15:45)—came to earth over 2,000 years ago. This gift from heaven is especially poignant for one family who visited the Creation Museum—but first some background.

Recently my wife and I were at the Dollywood theme park in Tennessee—only a few miles from where we will hold our national apologetics conference “Defending the Faith” in July  (see www.answersingenesis.org/about/events/defending-the-faith-2010).

A number of people throughout the day recognized me and came up and spoke about how the ministry of AiG and the CreationMuseum had positively impacted them.  One testimony really stood out.  This young lady asked to have her photograph taken with me. She shared with me how AiG and the Creation Museum had impacted her and her husband’s lives.  This young lady, Felicia, was so impacted by the ministry, that I asked her to send me her testimony in writing.  Here is that testimony of the “chance” encounter in Tennessee:

I was saved by the grace of God on June 10, 1993, two months before my eighth birthday. It amazes me that God made salvation so naturally simple that even a child can understand it. I was lost and I knew it  [...] The burden of sin was taken away, and immediately inside there was peace.

Directly after, Satan tried to disturb that peace. He tried to convince me that I did not really get saved, and furthermore, tried to confuse my mind and influence me onto an unrighteous path. Unfortunately, I let doubt cloud my mind. I did not study the Bible so my confusion grew, and by the time I was grown, I had strayed far from God. I blended right in with the world.

Thankfully, the Lord God chastises his children, and when I realized how miserable and meaningless my life had become, I went back home. Like the Prodigal Son, God welcomed me. This time, I was determined to attend church, listen to the Sunday school teacher’s lessons and the preacher’s sermons, and study God’s Word.

As I began to study God’s Word, I was bombarded with internal questions that my mind pondered endlessly and without answer. Where did God come from? Is my life significant? Is there really a heaven and hell? Is Christianity the only right religion? Where does the big bang and hominoids fit into the Bible? Is the story of Adam and Eve real? Did Noah’s flood happen? Why is the world full of hate, pain, and death? Why did people in the Bible have to kill and sacrifice their animals to please God?

Sadly, although I had been born-again for over a decade, I was still an infant spiritually. I could not answer these questions, and I felt immense guilt and shame for even thinking about such things. I admitted to my aunt, a devout Christian, that I had been asking these questions, and she comforted me, saying, “Don’t feel bad about asking these questions. You’re a seeker. And if I had to guess, I’d say God has a calling for you.” That is when I realized that if I could find answers to these questions, I could help others who are asking the same things. So I prayed and asked God to give me answers, and He did. He led me to Answers in Genesis.

My husband and I, along with his parents, took a trip up to the Creation Museum. I had, only a few days earlier, began to feel a heavy burden on my heart. The Lord was surely preparing me to take the trip seriously and to pay attention, while Satan was fighting tooth and nail to get me to close my mind to anything that conflicted with what I had learned in school and in the world. As I walked through the front door of the museum, I heard so very clearly in my mind, “They are going to brainwash you here.” Yet, the farther I walked into the museum, the clearer it became that I had already been brainwashed-- by secular schools, media, and liberalism. Why had I put so much trust in my professors? I put complete trust in my anthropology professor when he said, “Humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time,” and in my biology professor when she proclaimed that the universe expanded from a single point billions of years ago, and in doing so, I completely ignored what God reveals to us in Genesis. I had neglected the Old Testament, while trying to maintain my belief in Jesus and the New Testament. Yet, Jesus plainly tells us:

“For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if you believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” John 5:46-47 KJV

When I realized what I had done, that I had put more trust in man’s theories than in the words ordained by God, my heart broke into pieces. I felt convicted for having ever doubted a single word of the Bible. It is the Truth.

As I walked through the “Corruption” part of the museum, I finally realized why we are all sinners, and why pain and death entered into God’s creation, and why we need a blood sacrifice to cover the sins of the flesh. Then I finally found myself in the “Cross” portion of the museum, where I watched ’The Last Adam’ video. Since I was just a little girl, I believed that Jesus Christ had died for my sins on the cross, but it was not until I watched this video that it became clear why He had to die, andwhy only His sacrifice could suffice. More than ever, I appreciated what my Lord and Savior did for me, and I felt so unworthy.

When I left from the exhibits, I saw a little Jewish temple replica in which stories are sometimes read to children who are visiting the museum. That day [the room] was empty, and as I stood inside, I felt like falling on my knees and crying out to the Lord for forgiveness and thanking Him for His love. Instead, I let my heart wrench inside, and I walked through the gardens outside the museum with nothing on my mind except the sacrifice of Christ, and how wretched I was for not truly understanding and appreciating His gift to me. That night, I confessed to my husband how terrible that I felt for ever doubting God’s Word and for not praising Jesus daily for His sacrifice. My husband, a medical student at the time and avid believer of evolutionary theory, confessed the same feelings of guilt and shame, while expressing how the museum had changed his scientific beliefs. We got down on our knees by the bedside in Frank Zitzman’s Creation House [a place to stay nearby for museum visitors] where we both called out to Christ for forgiveness and rededicated our hearts and minds to Him. Since then, God has called me to teach Answers Academy, and I have committed myself to this ministry.

Felicia S.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying

Ken