Question From a Child

 I just love to get questions from kids. To kids the Bible is more real than to grown-ups and they really ask some good questions. Just today, a pastor friend of mine shared this question with me. My friend was like, how do you answer this kid, not knowing what garbage that they are giving them at school. 

The question was did Adam live with dinosaurs? I can find no place in the Bible that specifically says that Adam lived with dinosaurs. However, the word dinosaurs was not even made up until 1842, and the Bible was written about 1800 years before that. Therefore, that makes sense. However, the Bible does say:

Genesis 1
King James Version (KJV)
²⁴And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

 ²⁵And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

 ²⁶And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

 ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

 ²⁸And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

 ²⁹And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

 ³⁰And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

 ³¹And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

This shows that God made all the living creatures, Man, and dinosaurs on the 6^th day. He just does not call them dinosaurs because that is a man-made word that means terrible lizard. Therefore, the short answer is yes, Adam had to live the same time as dinosaurs.

That really leads to the next question, can you find dinosaurs in the Bible. I would say yes, the book of Job describe two creatures that must be dinosaurs. First is the behemoth found in Job 40,

¹⁵Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.

 ¹⁶Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly.

 ¹⁷He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.

 ¹⁸His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.

I have had some people try to argue that this is an elephant but it cannot be because it says he move his tail like a cedar. Have you seen an elephants tail there is no way you can describe an elephant’s tail like a cedar. (See below) 

Also, see the size difference. I agree the parts of the description could be an elephant, except for the tail and size; therefore, it must be what we call a dinosaur today. 

 The second animal is the in the next chapter of Job and the description takes up the whole chapter. It is called the Leviathan. I will only give excerpts here for size but please go read the whole chapter 42. The Leviathan has scales:

   ¹⁵His scales are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal.

 ¹⁶One is so near to another, that no air can come between them.

 ¹⁷They are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered.

Scales are found on lizards and these are strong and impenetrable.

 ²⁵When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid: by reason of breakings they purify themselves.

 ²⁶The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold: the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon.

 ²⁷He esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood.

 ²⁸The arrow cannot make him flee: slingstones are turned with him into stubble.

 ²⁹Darts are counted as stubble: he laugheth at the shaking of a spear.

The leviathan is so big that anybody who sees it is scared. No known weapon works against the leviathan. 

 ³¹He maketh the deep to boil like a pot: he maketh the sea like a pot of ointment.

He lives in the sea. 

 

I believe the only explanation of these two creatures is that they are what modern day people would call dinosaurs. Therefore, God did make dinosaurs because he described them in detail and He made all living beings as stated in Genesis. And God made all the living beings in the beginning, so dinosaurs were made, therefore, logic tells us that Adam lived with dinosaurs. 

Forgiveness

I came across a Christian friend the other day and he was just about paralyzed with fear about the sin in his life. I do not think I have seen someone as bad off as he was, but I have seen this before. Therefore, I really thought it would make a good blog and hopefully relive some of the fear out there among my readers. 

 

First, we have to go back to the basics, which is the very nuts and bolts of the Gospel and that is

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (King James Version)

 ³For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

 ⁴And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

Jesus died for our sins. That means ALL our sins; past, present and future not just ours but everybody’s. God also says

Psalm 103:12
As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

I love using this verse to demonstrate that our sins are gone. I know I have used this before in a blog, but it really shows God’s point. Go get a globe of the world and take your finger, put it on the North Pole, and run it south to the South Pole. Now to keep going you must run your finger north. Therefore, North and South meet at the poles. Now, take your finger and put it on the equator in South America and spin the globe so your finger goes east, keep going until your finger comes back to South America. You always went east. Not once did you go West in your whole spin around the globe; therefore East and West never meet. Take this one-step further; God removes your sins in ways so that they never touch you again. Bottom line, God has completely removed your sins.

The next thing is that we know sin in our life that is not confessed puts a block between God and us. This is why it is so important to confess our sins.

James 5:16 (King James Version)

 ¹⁶Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

I like to look at the Amplified Bible sometimes, because it uses a lot of synonyms for important words to really bring out the meaning, so here is the same verse from the Amplified Bible.

James 5:16 (Amplified Bible)

    ¹⁶Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart]. The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].
 

I like this because when it says healed, most people think of a bodily healing; but I think the better meaning is as this version brings out, to restore a spiritual mind. Sin can block your thought processes toward God, but confession of the sin and prayer will restore you, not save you, you are already saved, sinning does not make you lose your salvation. 

 

What happens is Satan likes to use this trick of remind you of your past sins, some that you have already confessed, and some that you have not yet confessed. What you need to do if it is a sin that you have already confessed, is tell Satan that it is already confessed and it is covered by the blood of the Lamb. That will give him a black eye as they say, because what he tried to do backfired. If it is a sin that you have not confessed, immediately confess it so you can be restored to a spiritual tone. This happened just last week to me at work, while I was working I just remembered something I had done as a child, I have no idea why it came back, but I right there confessed it and now it is over.

Some people will tell you to pray that God will show you all your sins so you can confess them. I not sure that is good idea; a person can get overwhelmed with their sin, especially a new Christian, which may be part of my friend’s problem. I prefer to tell people to ask God to show them their sin in His timing, so they can confess it and handle the weight of their sin.

 

One last verse I would like to point out is

1 John 1:8-10 (King James Version)

 ⁸If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

 ⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 ¹⁰If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

There are two points to this verse; one, that some people are the exact opposite of my friend in that they think they do not sin. That in itself is a sin. The point is, we are all still sinning even after we are saved. However, as the next verse says, and my second point, God is faithful and will forgive our sins and clean us up from our sin. 

That we have been forgiven and will continue to be forgiven is the point; there is no need to be paralyzed in our sin, we must give it to God to forgive.