Wednesday AM

This morning a few of us were treated to a wonderful sunrise. I love watching God prove his faithfulness one more day through a beach sunrise.

As we got to the beach, we met a couple who made the effort to get out on the beach EARLY to watch the sun rise, but because it looked like the clouds wouldn’t let us see the sun rise, they left. It was a great example of how we make the effort to come to something (like asunrise or a beach retreat) expecting God to do something great, but then when it looks like He might not do what we expect, we give up and leave just before God really shows up. They left just 2 minutes before God blessed us with a beautiful sunrise.

We don’t know when God is going to do something amazing at beach retreat, so please keep praying for the kids, Bro. Mike, James Dollar, Dr. Caner and the counselors. We need the Son to rise this week and work in lots of lives. We pray that we won't turn loose of God before he does something amazing.

After James Dollar and The Narrow Gate opened us up in praising God, Mrs. Hana Caner spoke to us.

Mrs. Caner grew up in communist Czechoslovakia. They had “freedom of religion” in that they could worship in church, but also had regular police interrogation to check out what her dad, who was a pastor, was saying.
Her grandfather was a lawyer, but because he would not renounce Christianity in order to practice law, he was forced to work in a factory.
Mrs. Caner was surrounded by Christian family and took it for granted. Finally in 8th grade she realized that she had Christianity knowledge, but not Christ.
Accepting Christ meant that she would lose friends, limit her job opportunities, etc. so she was terrified to trust Christ, but decided to follow Christ no matter what. Life did not become easier! God had to convict her to know Him with her heart and not just her mind. He had to test her for her to demonstrate true faith. Her faith was tested in many ways. Classmates would not talk to her. For two months none of the kids in her class (35 total) would even talk to her. All the while God was saying “Just trust me.” She brought her Bible every day so that even if none of the kids around her would talk to her, God would. One of her classmates noticed that she was not bothered by them ignoring her, and approached her about it. She told her she had Jesus and that He was all she needed.

Bibles and Christian literature was very precious in communist Czechoslovakia. In fact, her dad was smuggling Bibles into the coutry. Once she got a Chick Tract and that made her the coolest kid in her Baptist Union. (Considering the availability of Bibles and other Christian literature to us, can you imagine a tract being that important?) Soon, she let one of her classmates look at it and he asked if he could keep it. She really didn’t want to let him have it, because she felt so “cool” with it. But she knew the Lord was telling her to give it to him, and she was obedient. A few years later, she heard that the guy who borrowed the tract had been saved after reading it years after she had given it to him.

She reminded us that our decisions for Christ are important for us and for the others we can affect with the gospel.

Her final questions to us were:
1. Do I take my faith and what I have for granted? (Are we thankful for all of the blessings that we have? Great church, Bibles, godly ministers, godly people around us, freedom of worship, etc.)
2. Do I have a testimony to share? If not why not?
3. Am I faithful to share my faith? You never know what affect it might have.

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After a short break and some more praise time, Onward presented a skit on "Worthless Words" and encouraged us to truly listen to others and to be careful in our speech.

Then Dr. Caner came to teach us evolution. (He's against it, just in case you were wondering!)

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Dr. Caner taught us on Intelligent Design vs. Unintelligent Evolution

In a recent survey of Americans:
• 47% of Americans believe in creation
• 9% believe in evolution (amazing that after many years of evolution being crammed down the throat of school kids that the number is still this low)
• 44% believe in something that is a mix of the two (a very odd group that think that evolution and creation somehow co-exist even though the principles behind them are diametrically opposite) For instance:
• Big bang the stars occur then earth, Bible earth first then stars
• Big bang earth runs out of energy, Bible earth will be completely remade

If evolution is true, then the following statements must also be true:
1. God does not exist.
2. There is no life after death.
3. There are no absolutes.
4. No ultimate meaning in life.
5. People don’t have free will (we are pure animals and act only on instinct.)

How do you demonstrate in life that you believe in creation? (Gen 1:26-31)
1. Show the value of man. (verses 26-27) We are the beauty of Gods creation. We are created in the image of God and he breathed life into us. Thru that we have dignity, destiny and freedom. We live in a culture of death where our society is allowing abortion, euthanasia, and now even pushing to harvest organs of live born / brain dead babies. But we also live in an age where we can see in incredible detail into the womb. God created us in his image and that gives us eternal value.
2. Show the value of marriage (verse 28.) We must put our entire trust in God that he is in our marriage and that he will keep our marriage strong.
3. Show the value of meaning (verse 31.) What is our chief end? To worship God. We can never find meaning outside of the worship of God. Goodness is a picture of God.

If I can get you to doubt the first verse of the Bible, you will doubt every verse.
God created us in his own image. He created everything and everything belongs to him.

We have to show our world that we believe in creation, because we believe in the God of creation.
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After our morning services we had a great lunch of sandwiches, pasta salad, and chocolate on chocolate cake. Then it was off to enjoy more fun in the sun.