Mom and I found a new friend at the Creation Museum
Our final day of vacation we hit The Creation Museum. Wanna know what they had there? Dinosaurs! Lots of dinosaurs! And they had a lot of information about dragons too! Were dragons and dinosaurs the same thing? I don’t know. I do know dinosaur bones have been found just about everywhere, and dragon legends are everywhere. Godzilla is a dinosaur, but he breathes fire like a dragon. I’m cool with that.
A mastodon isn’t a dinosaur. It’s like a big elephant in a fur coat. We found this naked one in the museum.
The Creation Museum was set up to walk people through the 7 C’s of God’s eternal plan: creation, corruption, catastrophe, confusion, Christ, cross and consummation.
1) Creation: God created everything! Day 1: light. Day 2: atmosphere. Day 3: land, sea and plants. Day 4: the sun, the moon and the stars. Day 5: fish and birds. Day 6: land animals and man. Day 7: sleep in!The second C: corruption! Satan, that snake!, gets Adam and Eve to mess up and disobey. That opened a whole mess of problems.Corruption means death. Not just for people, but for the animals too! People messed it up for everyone!The third C: Catastrophe! It got so bad that God had to wipe the world clean by sending the flood. This here is Ebenezer. He was one of the dinosaurs caught in the great flood. He was named Ebenezer by the scientist who helped excavate him because they saw him as a reminder of God’s judgement on the world. Ebenezer means “The Stone of Help.” That refers to a rock set up by the prophet Samuel after God rescued his people from the Philistines. The rock was a reminder that God helped them. This lucky couple spotted us at the museum. They had also spotted us the day we were in the Great Smokey Mountains. They were also in Pigeon Forge the same day we were. And The Ark Encounter! Mom asked them where they were headed next. Home. Hey, us too! But their home was in Wisconsin. We live in Michigan. Okay. Back to the 7 C’s. The 4th C is for Confusion. God mixed up everyone’s language at the tower of Babel. That got people to spread out to all points on the globe. There was a new C chart posted here. We’ve now gone through the bad parts, now for the hope part. The 5th C is for Christ. Things to know about Christ: He is God, He’s our Creator, He’s the I AM of the old testament. Check out the ways he proved himself.Jesus showed his power over the natural world by turning water into wine, walking on water, calming the storm, feeding the multitudes…Jesus had power over physical ailments. He healed people lepers, people with dropsy, paralysis, lameness, blindness, deafness and a bunch of other issues. Jesus had power over death. He brought back Jairus’ daughter, a widow’s son and his friend Lazarus.Jesus had power over the supernatural. He could command demons to flee and even cast some into a herd of pigs. The pigs wanted nothing to do with the evil spirits and plunged off a cliff rather than be home to them.Now we come to the 6th C: the Cross. Sadly, Jesus, who never sinned, willingly chose to die here for everyone else: all of us sinners. It was his greatest gift to us.I can’t believe Mom messed up. She didn’t get a picture of Christ coming out of the tomb! But she did snap this one of Jesus appearing to his disciple Thomas. Jesus proved he rose from the dead by appearing to Mary Magdalene, the other women at the tomb, 2 disciples on the road to Emmaus, Simon Peter, all the disciples (the second time Thomas was with them), seven disciples at the Sea of Galilee, James, over 500 people at once, and then again to the disciples at the Mount of Olives. Jesus returned to heaven. Now begins the final C: Consummation. The finish of God’s work. This will be when Christ returns and puts things back the way they are supposed to be.
These last two pictures represent the choice people have to make on where to spend the rest of eternity. There’s only these two options available.
Mom says if you’re a Christian, you are born twice, but only die once. If you’re an unbeliever, you are born once, but die twice.
I’m not sure where teddy bears go when they die, but I’m hoping it isn’t a place where I’ll burn up.
When Mom’s bible study group were reading Revelation, it talked about Heaven (the New Jerusalem) having 12 gates, each made from one pearl. And the streets were pure gold, but crystal clear. The tree of life grows in heaven, in the middle of the Holy City. It sounds like a really nice place.
Here’s the message of the Creation Museum: Sin entered God’s perfect world with Adam. Quoting from the exhibit: “When he rebelled against his Creator, he brought God’s judgement of death, suffering and the Curse (of sin) upon this world. Like the first Adam, we have all sinned against God. Consequently, we all deserve the penalty for our sin – death and condemnation.
“Jesus Christ is the Last Adam. He came to redeem what the first Adam had destroyed. As the first Adam brought death into this world through sin, the Last Adam came to live a sinless life, die on the Cross to pay for our sins, and conquer death by rising from the grave. One day He will return and put an end to death, disease, suffering, and the Curse. All who have received His forgiveness will dwell eternally with Him in the new heavens and new earth.”
Going through the gift shop, there were more examples of dragons and dinosaurs on display. He’s a stegosaurus on a temple pillarA native American pterosaur!Sauropods on a plate!
Sigh. It had been an awesome five days with Mom and Dad. We got to see soooo much cool stuff: the Smokey Mountains, Pigeon Forge, The Ark Encounter, and The Creation Museum. Time to head for home. Ryan and Joe are waiting there for us and we still got a five hour drive. Anyone mind if I sleep the rest of the trip? I think it’s time to hand the blog back over to Mom.
