Rediscovering The Truth About Creation

In 1967, I was a young person without the Lord. I had a very serious spiritual problem, and it was doing a good job of destroying my life. By December of that year, my life was in pitiful shape. I had gotten myself into all sorts of trouble, and I did not know how to remedy my situation. At the time, I lacked all hope and direction. Yet, despite some very clear symptoms, I still did not understand or appreciate the true seriousness of my problem. Nothing from within me was screaming words of caution, nothing was pointing me in a heavenly direction, and nothing was telling me to slow down. I was headed in the wrong direction and had been for a long time. Yet, nothing was working to modify my trouble-ridden course!

To begin with, I had been suspended the previous June from Old Dominion University. After nine reckless months away from home, I had been sent back home with a Grade Point Average of 0.017 on a 4.0 scale, which was a very dismal F-minus average. Twice during 1967, in July and again in October, I had walked off my job, both times without even giving the customary two-weeks notice. I had already faltered in the educational world, and I was beginning to do the same thing in the workplace. During those difficult days, I even found the time to become involved with the wrong kind of crowd and get myself into some other very awkward situations.

Finally, by December, I had reached the point of feeling completely helpless and alone. Not only that, but I was also becoming desperate. I knew that something was dreadfully wrong with my life. But at that time, I could not tell what that something was, nor could I figure out a way to fix all that seemed to be wrong with me.

The above difficulties in my life existed up until December 14, 1967. During those stressful times, I had not known anything about right living. I could not have offered a good prescription for living to anyone because my own life had been in such a terrible mess. Then, in mid-December of that year, after finding the Lord, much of my confusion and indecision was lifted. For the first time in my life, I could sense myself moving in a positive direction, and I felt a measure of hope. To this day, I cannot and do not take any credit for all that the Lord has done for me. He delivered me from all my difficulties and all those problems that I had made for myself prior to December 1967. To tell the truth, I simply see myself as the undeserving recipient of His marvelous, good Grace.

Someone might look at the details of my life during those years and say that my finding Christ was just plain dumb luck. If so, they would not be far wrong. Before my unique experience on that Fall night in December 1967, I had not been looking for the Lord. Up until that point, I had not even wanted any part of Him! On December 14, 1967, I was simply out for a late night drive along Interstate-64 in Hampton, Virginia, trying to get a few minutes away from all my problems. On that evening, as I drove along the highway, I had not expected anything out of the ordinary. I had not thought that I would break down and become so emotional, nor had I ever imagined that I would actually ask the Lord for His forgiveness. But all of those things did happen, and what I brought home that night, by way of my new spiritual birth, changed me forever. I have neither been nor wanted to be that old person since I met the Lord.

Needless to say, my experience on that Interstate highway in 1967 was not the end of my spiritual journey. It has actually only been the beginning! Since those first moments as a Christian, I have tried to critically examine my old life. It is not that I am interested in somehow returning to those old days of frustration and discouragement. But I have and do desire more understanding concerning the various forces which had been at play in my life. As a Christian, I want to know more about the Lord because with greater knowledge about Him comes a greater ability to live right for Him and before Him. Also as a Christian, I want to know more about Satan. The devil tricked me throughout those many years of wayward, wasted living, and I do not want to be fooled again!

For these many years since that late night in 1967, I have tried to comprehend more about the spiritual so that I might better see and understand how it relates to the natural. In short, I have sought to know why I had had so many difficulties and why I had encountered so much failure in the first place. Why had I gone so far on life's wrong road, to the point of actually flunking out of college, walking off two jobs, and getting mixed up with the wrong crowd? Even more importantly, what had put me on that wrong road? These two questions, and particularly the last one, have dominated my thoughts for well over twenty-five years. Now, as a result of much studying and analyses, I know that there was more going on at that time than what I could have ever known or possibly understood.

In November 1967, plus for several months before, I had been able to look at and dismiss certain surface-level, environmental factors of my early life. I had been able to determine that they were not the cause of my problems, but I had not and was not able to look at and understand the system around us! I had not been able to peel back the outer layer of reality and clearly view the spiritual forces which were at work beneath the surface in my life and in society. More was happening at that time than I had been able to see! Today, more is still happening than most people either know or care to know. Yet, understanding these forces is critically important if one is to really know the truth about life's important spiritual matters. Without knowledge, one becomes a slave to ignorance and will almost instinctively have difficulty ever finding the right path. With understanding and knowledge, however, one can find strength, resolve, and the wisdom and ability to overcome all of the troublesome obstacles of this life. My goal, therefore, is always to understand more!

In more recent years, as I have continued to examine those earlier days of my troubled past, I have gone into greater depth in an attempt to better understand what has and what now is happening in this country. I have tried to peer into the system around us to determine the actual spiritual climate of our land, and as a result, I have concluded that America was really in serious trouble, even as far back as the Fifties and Sixties when I had, at one time, thought that everything was looking pretty good. Now, my belief is that, even by the 1950s, our nation had already entered into the initial stages of what has been a gradual, spiritual decline. Furthermore, my analysis indicates to me that we are continuing to fall!

Contrary to the opinion of many, life in America is not getting better. In terms of being able to learn the truth about the Lord and about how to live right for Him, life in America and even the world is getting worse, much worse! Some might wish to stick their head in the sand and ignore all the negatives, but closing one's eyes to the truth is not wise. Like it or not, we have all been and our children continue to be molded by the system around us. Moreover, as we shall see in the coming chapters, that molding process has led and is still leading all of us from the truth about God. Therefore, for the sake of ourselves and our families, we must try to understand this world system and how it is affecting us so that we might be better able to defend against it. This book is dedicated to giving each of us that kind of understanding and knowledge.