LETTER TO THE ARK ENCOUNTER

The following is the text of a letter I sent to the Ark Encounter regarding its presentation of the gospel. I have withheld the name of the person addressed to ensure his privacy.

Dear ____________,

On June 23 of this year, my family and I enjoyed and were mightily impressed by the Ark Encounter. It was an awe-inspiring and profitable day which we spent walking in and gawking at the exterior and interior of the Ark. It’s a sight that leaves the eyes wide, the mouth agape, and that’s an understatement. All who were and are involved in the massive project are due a heart-felt, “hats-off” for a job well done.

I was also interested in the evangelistic inscriptions and plaques inside the Ark, inscriptions which I fear would leave the reader confused as to what the gospel is, that is, confused as to how to get to heaven.

As I traversed the Ark, I noted that Deck 1 gave (I may have the exact locations confused) the gospel as including, “Turn from sin.” A difficulty with that is none of us, not a single person in the Ark that day or any day, can “turn from sin.” Even Noah, on the other side of the Flood, didn’t turn from sin.

Once saved, then always saved, but we exist in this life still sinning from time to time. That’s why John wrote I John 1:8-9. Even John includes himself and the Apostles when he writes, “If we say that we have no sin. . . .” The inscribed admonition on Deck 1 requires that a person get his life in order, cleaned up, to be saved, whereas the one and only thing necessary for salvation is not a work, but “believe.”

In I Corinthians 15:3-4, Paul states the content of the gospel, that is, what a person is to believe, and, in doing so, makes no reference to having to “turn from sin.” “Turning from sin” is an impossible pre-requisite for salvation, and thus the intrusion of works into grace, something forbidden by Paul in Galatians in very strong terms. Paul said nothing about reforming one’s life in Acts 16:31.

In another gospel presentation inside the Ark, on Deck 2, I think it was, we’re told to “repent” without the word’s being defined, so the person hearing, listening with English ears, would define “repent” as “feel sorry for sin.”  It’s interesting that the Gospel of John which was written to bring a person to faith in Christ never uses the word. If feeling sorry for sin was necessary for salvation, one would think John should have said so, but 99 times in the book, he conditions salvation on faith alone, not on an emotional response.

The problem is that “repent” means a change of mind, not a feeling of sorrow. The Greeks had a word for “feeling sorrow,” a word the Bible uses to describe the feeling Judas had as to what he had done. But he remained lost. “Repent” means “change your mind,” not “feel sorry.” A person is to change his mind about who Jesus is and what He did on the Cross. When a person “believes,” he has “changed his mind.”

There were other evangelistic inscriptions inside the Ark, such as “Ask for forgiveness” and “Ask God to save you,” and the quoting of Eph. 2:8-9 (saved by grace) as well as Acts 16:31. These appear to be mixed messages of works and grace.

I left thinking that a person who read all the inscriptions would be asking himself, “Which is it? Do I turn from sin, which I can’t do or Do I feel sorry for sin, or Do I ask for forgiveness? Or, Do I believe that Jesus, the Son of God died for my sins, rose from the dead, and trust Him alone?”

I know you don’t know me; I want you to know that I’m not a lone voice crying in the wilderness. There are and have been others with the same message of salvation by faith alone apart from works: Dr. John F. Walvoord (President of Dallas Seminary) Louis Sperry Chafer (Founder and first of President, Dallas Seminary), Charles (Chuck) Swindoll, Dr. Charles Ryrie, Dr. Robert P. Lightner, Drs. Charlie Bing and J. B. Hixson, et al.

Only one inscription is needed, placed at strategic points in the Ark, and it’s the one which draws its content from I Corinthians 15:3-4: “Jesus Christ, God incarnate, died for you, paying the full price your sins and rose from the dead. Believe in Him and Him alone for eternal life.”

Having said all that, I want to thank you for the Ark Encounter I and my family had on that unforgettable June day.

Yours truly,


Dr. Mike Halsey

NOAH'S ARK: AWESOME--HOWEVER

I traveled 445 miles, 6 hours, 59 minutes, to Williamstown, KY, (50 miles north of Louisville) to see Noah's Ark and it was mighty impressive since it took 6 years to build the 510-foot vessel, all to scale as given in the Bible. "Huge" is an inadequate use of the language to describe it.

As a matter of fact, there aren't any words to describe the massive thing with its 3 decks including the housing for all the animals in that floating zoo. Since I have no words, I won't try.

As one enters the Ark and walks the decks from top to bottom, he's confronted with information from Genesis 6-9 as well as other texts including the testimony of Christ as to the Ark's historicity. There's an exhibit of silly children's books that show drawings of the Ark in order to demonstrate how such artists' renderings transform the Ark into a cartoon thus damaging its credibility. That was a wise inclusion for folks to see. The Ark does destroy Sunday school depictions of what they built back then.

It is a sight to behold and a wonder to be examined from the inside out and it was worthy of that long trip. Hats off to the designers and builders of the to-scale rendering in Williamstown, KY.

HOWEVER

There is a "however" that we must discuss. Throughout the interior of the Ark there are inscriptions that are evangelistic, which, if the reader is paying attention to them as he moves along, can only be described as confusing and conflicting. On one deck, the tourist reads, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" which is straight out of Acts 16. Then in another area, he'll come upon John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

On another deck, the evangelistic message takes a wrong turn as it pleads with the reader to "turn from sin and believe." Wait. That's not what Acts 16 says. It says "believe." That's not what John 3:16 says. It says "whosoever believes." No mention of trying to get clean. There wasn't a single person admiring the Ark that day who could or has "turned from sin." God is not telling the unbeliever to scrub his life of sin before he trusts Christ. That's an impossible command.

Another evangelistic plea told us to "repent (feel sorry for your sins) and believe." "Repent" is not in a single verse in John, a book written to persuade a person to trust Christ. "Repent" is a "change of mind," not a command to simulate or work up an emotional response. "Repent" doesn't occupy a place in Acts 16 or John 3.

If a person reads those entreaties, one sentence after another on the same wall, he would be asking himself, "Which is it? Is it 'believe?' Is it 'repent and believe?' Is it 'turn from your sins?'" There's a conflict. Those are dueling sentences.

SERIOUS

The gospel is a matter of utmost seriousness; that's what Paul says in Galatians 1:6-9, as he uses the word, "accursed" for those who tamper with the free grace gospel. Then, Paul states the gospel in I Corinthians 15: "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand,  by which also you are saved . . . For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." Where in that text is "repent?" Where is "turn from sin?" Those additions aren't there. 

I wonder if anyone has pointed out the conflicting messages on the walls of the Ark. Just to make sure somebody does, I'll give it a try.

RIOTS AMERICAN STYLE

"A mindless mob with violent intent descended upon a children’s hospital in Houston this week and even as a child screamed out in terror, the attack continued. The mob threw bricks into the windshield of the child’s father’s vehicle."

"Rioting and looting has spread to a lot of cities including Rochester, New York. There was a horrible beating of a woman outside a business after she tried to stop people from smashing the windows of the Rochester Fire Equipment Company.

"The woman and her husband lived above the store. The group apparently had been trying to loot a jewelry store next door. As the woman talked to the small mob, they suddenly turn and started attacking her, one woman punching her and another man beat her with a board and the others joined in the attack. Her husband tried to come to the defense of his wife with a golf club but then they turned on him."

Richmond Police Chief William Smith said: “One incident that is particularly poignant, that truly illustrates the seriousness of the issues we’re facing is that last night protesters [i. e. rioters] intentionally set fire to an occupied building on [West] Broad Street. This is not the only occupied building that has been set on fire in the last two days. But they prohibited us from getting on the scene. We had to force our way to make a clear path for the fire department. The protesters intercepted the fire apparatus several blocks away with vehicles and blocked that fire department’s access to the structure fire. Inside that home was a child.”

"One authority said on Monday that he estimates businesses in the Twin Cities will make insurance claims totaling at least $500 million — from buildings that were burned down or damaged, merchandise is stolen or ruined, and lost revenue. That estimate doesn’t include damage to public infrastructures, such as the 3rd police precinct in Minneapolis, or large corporations because they are self-insured. Also not included are businesses that didn’t have insurance."

What kind of people throw bricks at a car window in which they know are people with a baby? What kind of people set fire to a house in which they know a child is inside and then block a fire truck trying to get to it? What kind of people attack a woman and her husband?

There is the biblical answer to that question: people who have no moral compass to guide them;  people who have taken God out of every public venue; people who've been instructed that they have no accountability and no fear of any human or divine authority; people who are convinced that they are a god who can decide from day to day what's right. And . . .

People straight out of Romans 1: people who "even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened;" a people who "professing to be wise, they became fools;" a people who "just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, ²⁹ being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; ³² and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."

The brilliant Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman who traversed a much younger America in 1835-1839, wrote  four volumes titled, "Democracy in America" in which he said that our nation was bound together by "the habits of the heart." 

He defined the habits of the heart as "those morally binding customs, general opinions, and attitudes that shaped the mental habits and intellectual dispositions of the people. These ideas and habitual practices slowly and organically melded together diverse people into a unified one. The habits of the heart made Americans intensely patriotic. 

[The habits of the heart] "attached Americans to family and community. They made Americans staunch defenders of private property, free enterprise, hard and honest work, resourcefulness and ingenuity, and thus, vehemently anti-socialist and anti-communist. Above all, these habits of the heart made America very religious. (John Hovart II)

Fallen man hates the habits of the heart because they are the fruit of a society based on the Bible. Fallen man, hostile to the Bible, seeks to destroy the habits of the heart and wants to replace them with crushing government programs and regulations, but it is only these habits of the heart that can make America great again. 

In replacing the habits of the heart, we march into a howling wilderness of a culture in which every man does that which is right in his own eyes. 

As Tristan Justice writes, "Make no mistake, the nation has gone mad."

 

EN GARDE!

EN GARDE: A term that describes the basic stance of a fencer. In a match, it's a warning from the director to both fencers to prepare to fence (not with chicken wire, but with swords). I've always been interested in the sport, ever since I watched a few Errol Flynn movies on TV.  As Robin Hood (a socialist if ever there was one) he could buckle the swash like no one else, but Zorro comes close.

The Bible issues the same command: be on guard for the many false teachers that are taking the money and the minds of the gullible. One such false teacher has taken over $300,000,000 in his 80+ years of shearing the sheep and is still going at it hot and heavy.

The question is, how do we know the false from the true? Is there a commonality among the deceivers? I believe there is, and, over the next several weeks, I'll submit four marks of wolves in sheep's clothing.

First of all, a false teacher will take a verse or even a few words and remove them from their context. Kenneth Copeland, he, of a net worth of over 300 million dollars, recently told an eager audience of itching ears that he assured them that he would live to be 120. 120? How did he come up with that figure, when, generally speaking, the psalmist said that three score and ten would be an average life span? The psalmist wasn't promising the reader anything; he was making a general statement.

Copeland came up with that figure because he said he was "in a covenant with God' to live to 120 based on Genesis 6:3: "Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 

What Copeland has done is to remove verse 3 from its context which is about the coming judgment of a universal flood in Noah's day, specifying that the great inundation is 120 years away, a period of grace, then comes the disaster. Genesis 6:3 is not a covenant into which any man, then or now, enters with God. 

Copeland also has cut another text from its context: Genesis 8:1: "But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark, and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided."

The master wolf put on his sheep's wool and built an entire sermon (I use the word loosely) on three words, "God's mighty wind," and made it into a promise that God's mighty wind would rid America of the Corona-19 virus.

At one point in the homily, Copeland looked into the TV camera and said, “I blow the wind of God on you [the virus]. You are destroyed forever, and you’ll never be back. Thank you, God. Let it happen. Cause it to happen.” Then he blew into the camera and led a chant with other members of his church: “Wind, almighty, strong, south wind, Heat: Burn this thing, in the name of Jesus. I say you bow your knees. You fall on your face.” (Speaking of looking into the TV camera, several people have noted that his eyes and twisted facial features look demonic.) 

By taking Genesis 8:1 from its contextual neighborhood which is all about the Noahic Flood, all of a sudden, Genesis 8:1 has something to do with Copeland's supposed supernatural ability to blow a virus from American shores. He completely ignores one of the cardinal rules of hermeneutics: Context is king.

Kenneth Copeland was born in Lubbock, Texas, in December 1936. Since that time, "according to various reports, he has used church donations to acquire a $20 million private jet. He allegedly has used this jet for trips to resorts and various other personal vacations. He also reportedly lives in a $6.3 million lakefront mansion that is also reportedly funded by his church. There have been reports that Copeland could be worth as much as $750 million or even $1 billion."

The sheep have been sheared. But what about those whose wool has been shorn?  God said something which is instructive about them. To Israel through the prophet Jeremiah, God declared, "The prophets prophesy falsely, and . . . people love to have it so."

TBC