I remember the time I had preached at the Sunday morning worship service about dinosaurs and the gospel in a small church in Australia. While driving with the pastor and his family to their home for lunch, the pastor's youngest child blurted out, "Hey Dad, how come you told us dinosaurs didn't even exist?"
The topic of dinosaurs is certainly one which (in my experience, at least) has not been; handled well in most Christian homes.
Children are being bombarded with information on dinosaurs through the newspaper, schools, and television. Probably because of the "monster" appeal and the supposed "mystery" surrounding these creatures, children love to hear about dinosaurs. Sadly, most of the information they get equates dinosaurs with evolution and millions of years.
At the school assemblies associated with the "Back to Genesis" seminars, I have asked the thousands of K-6 student’s questions such as: "Who has heard that dinosaurs lived millions of years ago?" "Who has heard that dinosaurs evolved?" All the hands go up in response to these questions. However, when I ask such questions as: "Did dinosaurs go on the Ark?" "Did dinosaurs live beside people?" not too many answer in the affirmative. Most of these children come from Christian homes. It is obvious that evolutionists have thoroughly indoctrinated even Christian family lives with false ideas about dinosaurs, the one we live in now, or that they never existed. The following quote from a recent book entitled A New Look at the Dinosaurs (Alan Charig, p. 24) sums up why many Christians are afraid to discuss dinosaurs.
The contents of this chapter must seem to be the very opposite to what is written in the Bible in the first chapter of Genesis. There it tells how God created the earth, and then, in four days, all forms of plant–and–animal life (including man himself) just as we know them today. Every living thing was created "after his kind." Most people, however, no longer believe that the Biblical story of the Creation is literally true. They look upon it as a parable—an allegory (like many of the stories told by Jesus in the New Testament); in other words, it is a fictitious story, which serves to illustrate a moral teaching. Many leaders of the church now accept that the earth and the living things upon it are constantly changing; indeed, some of them have been pioneers of research into evolutionary history. They say that there is no real conflict between science and religion.
I believe dinosaurs are used more than any other topic by evolutionists to brainwash our children into accepting evolutionary ideas and rejecting the Bible as God's inerrant Word.
However, it is exciting to know that now, more than ever before, there is a whole range of books, videos, and tapes for children and adults explaining the TRUTH about dinosaurs from a Biblical perspective. And NOW is the opportune time for you to obtain as many of these materials as possible, not only for your own family, but also for witnessing to neighbors and friends.
"Ding fever" has hit again. Newspapers and magazines across the country have run articles about the release of the movie "Jurassic Park." Time magazine, April 26, stated: "And early in June, dinomania will reach fever pitch with the premiere of Steven Spielberg's long-awaited movie version of the Michael Crichton's thriller "Jurassic Park." According to this article, $65 million enabled "techno-wizards" to produce the most sophisticated animated dinosaurs yet.
But "Jurassic Park" is just the beginning. According to the Tampa Tribune, April 17, "'Jurassic' is just one member of a pack of dinopics set to trample into theaters and onto television screens nationwide during the next few months." These other movies include "Carnosaur," "T Rex," a new release of "Godzilla," "Super Mario Brothers," and others.
In regard to the topic of dinosaurs, the Tampa newspaper reports: "There is an apparently unlimited appetite for this kind of information, according to Donald Lessem, founder of The Dinosaur Society. Lessem, who keeps track of such things, says there are some 300 dinosaur books in print, 'most of them for kids, most of them very inaccurate.'"
The same newspaper article goes on to say: "Dinosaurs have fascinated and intrigued the popular imagination ever since their discovery in the 19th century when pre-Darwinian scientists realized that the huge, unidentifiable bones they were digging up predated the Great Flood. Such conclusions were considered heresy at the time." Notice the negative comment about the Flood of Noah's day. Certainly the topic of dinosaurs is used by evolutionists to convince people the Bible cannot be taken seriously.
It's not only the movies that are bringing "dino fever" back, but special dinosaur exhibits are now very popular at zoos, museums, and other places visited by literally millions of people.
Time magazine also stated that: "Last month an educational poster on dinosaurs produced by New York's American Museum of Natural History was mailed free to seven million school children. courtesy of McDonald's—which will also be handing out "Jurassic Park" mugs at the local franchises." The New York Museum is the same one that recently opened the "Hall of Human Biology and Evolution"—the most extensive collection of fossils and fossil casts displayed in the world—to propagandize evolution in a really big way to the general public.
It's also interesting to note that the most popular children's show on PBS television, with 1.5 million viewers (more than "Sesame Street"), is "Barney and Friends." This program features "Barney," the big purple dinosaur. Apparently Barney outdraws Big Bird at malls and hospitals.
There is no doubt that dinosaurs are very popular, particularly with children. There has been what could only be described as "dinomania" in our society for some time. But "ding fever" is spreading like never before. What an opportune time to use the wealth of materials now available to teach children the TRUTH about dinosaurs. Dinosaurs did NOT live millions of years ago; they DID live beside people; they DID go on Noah's Ark; they ARE mentioned in the Bible; they DID live after the Flood (Job 40:15-24). There is MUCH evidence that they have lived up until quite recently. God CREATED all animal types. Dinosaurs did NOT evolve, and there is really NO mystery about what happened to them.
In chapter 19 of the Charig book, A New Look at the Dinosaurs, the author discusses what may have happened to the dinosaurs. He lists many of the dozens and dozens of theories people have come up with. For example: They may have eaten too much and died of overeating; the meat eating dinosaurs ate all the plant-eaters and then themselves died of hunger; gradual warming of the earth led to premature cataracts in the eyes of the dinosaurs—they became blind and perished before they were old enough to reproduce. The list goes on and on. In the last paragraph we read:
" . . . we can only confess our supreme ignorance of the real causes of dinosaur extinction and say, quite simply: 'We don't know."'
It is interesting to note, however, what the author says when trying to explain why the dinosaurs died out: "Every year people come up with new theories on this thorny problem. The trouble is that if we are to find just one reason to account for them all, it would have to explain the deaths, all at the same time, of animals living on land and of animals living in the sea; but, in both cases, of only some of those animals, for many of the land-dwellers and many of the sea–dwellers went on living quite happily into the following period. Alas, no such one explanation exists"
But one such explanation DOES exist! If you change the timescale to thousands of years instead of millions, and then think about the event of the Flood of Noah's day and the animals that escaped on the Ark, there is an explanation that fits with what Charig stated above.
Why not call ICR (619-448-0900) or Master Books (1-800-999-3777) or Films for Christ (1-800-332-3361) today and ask for a catalog that lists the beautifully produced materials which tell the TRUTH about dinosaurs from a Christian perspective. Also, Regular Baptist Press (708-843-1600) has produced a beautiful vacation-Bible-school curriculum for 1993 using ICR materials. Perhaps these materials are just what some of your friends need to get them to read the Bible. Maybe you haven’t told your children the correct story about dinosaurs, and maybe you have let them read and see only volutionary explanations about these creatures. Maybe their faith in the Bible has been weakened because you have not dealt with this subject. Don’t forget, Fathers, bring your children up "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4).
