GOD,

SCIENCE, FRIENDS

Also by Leonard Brand

Beginnings
Choose You This Day
Creation? Really?
Faith, Reason, and Earth History
The Prophet and Her Critics

GOD,

SCIENCE, FRIENDS

And God’s Love for You

Leonard Brand

with Anita Oliver

Illustrated by Susan Pettit

Cover design by Steve Lanto

Cover design resources from iStockphoto.com |
1137041778 (front cover) |
688341240 (back cover)

Interior design by Aaron Troia

Interior illustrations by Susan Pettit

Copyright © 2019 by Seventh-day Adventist Faith and Science Council

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved

The authors assume full responsibility for the accuracy of all facts and quotations as cited in this book.

You can obtain additional copies of this book by calling toll-free 1-800-765-6955 or by visiting http://www.adventistbookcenter.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brand, Leonard, 1941- author.

Title: God, science, friends : do you know Jesus? / Leonard Brand ; Anita Oliver ;
illustrated by Susan Pettit.

Description: Nampa : Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2019.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019002110 | ISBN 9780816365180 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Christian life—Miscellanea—Juvenile literature. |
Bible—Miscellanea—Juvenile literature. |
Jesus Christ—Miscellanea—Juvenile literature. |
Religion and science—Miscellanea—Juvenile literature.

Classification: LCC BV4501.3 .B742185 2019 | DDC 230—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002110

July 2019

Dedication

Dedicated to the Junior Sabbath School members at Azure Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church, who for many years have been an inspiration for us to find better ways to communicate the truths of God’s Word.

Contents

Preface

Part 1: Jesus, the Greatest Lover of All

Chapter 1

An Adventure Begins

Chapter 2

Let’s Make Someone Who Can Love Us

Chapter 3

What If They Disobeyed?

Chapter 4

Lucifer Made a Mistake

Chapter 5

Trouble in the New Creation

Chapter 6

Was There No Other Way?

Chapter 7

The Judge, the Traitor, and the Lover

Chapter 8

God Explains His Plan

Chapter 9

Communication With Our General

Chapter 10

The Modern-Day Prophet

Chapter 11

Can God Love Even Them?

Chapter 12

What Is a Remnant?

Chapter 13

The Lamb Is the King

Chapter 14

“Let’s Go Get Them!”

Chapter 15

Safe at Last

Part 2: Jesus and Science

Chapter 16

What Does a Paleontologist Do?

Chapter 17

Dinosaurs

Chapter 18

Let Them Stretch

Chapter 19

Why You Might Be Mean to Your Friends

Chapter 20

Why Can’t We Stretch Farther?

Chapter 21

Assumptions in Science

Chapter 22

The Hero and the Deception

Chapter 23

Animals on the Dunes

Chapter 24

The Great Flood Catastrophe

Chapter 25

Whales in the Desert

Chapter 26

The Greatest Geologist Ever

Chapter 27

It’s OK to Not Have All the Answers

Chapter 28

Number 21—Super Wolf

Chapter 29

“But I Can’t Change the World!”

Part 3: How to Live and Know Jesus

Chapter 30

The Big Day

Chapter 31

Best Friends

Chapter 32

“Do You Love Me?”

Chapter 33

Don’t Hurt Your Friends

Chapter 34

How Much Jesus Loves Us Every Day

Chapter 35

Want to Expand Your Mind?

Chapter 36

“Do You Trust Me?”

Chapter 37

It’s All About Who You Know

Chapter 38

Carson and Jane

Preface

A man was looking out his window in the middle of winter, gazing at the snow that covered the ground. He saw several sparrows fluttering and trying to find something to eat. They couldn’t find food because the snow was deep. The man took some breadcrumbs outside and scattered them on the snow for the birds, but the birds flew away because they were scared of him.

He thought to himself, I wish I could become a sparrow so I could help them and so they wouldn’t be afraid and fly away.

Once upon a time, God did exactly what that man wanted to do. He sent Jesus to become a person like us. Jesus came to live with us so we could get to know Him and not be afraid of the overwhelming awesomeness of God.

This book presents God’s gift, the gospel, in stories. The truth about God and His loving efforts to help us get to know Him and love Him does not need to be complicated. We present these amazing truths in clear and readable form. We then encourage readers to go to the Bible and study the stories God has given us, which carry deeper meanings that can, through prayer for His guidance, be grasped even by us humans.

The middle section of the book presents several aspects of science and faith, and it encourages readers to recognize the reality of God as Creator of all that exists.

We thank the many Junior Sabbath School members who have inspired our writing efforts, especially those who read part of the manuscript and gave their anonymous assessments and suggestions for improvement. Our hope is that this book will be a blessing to searching young minds ages ten to one hundred.

One young reviewer wrote, “This book is answering all of my questions! . . . This book will change people’s lives.” That is our hope—that the Holy Spirit can use this material to help many readers fall in love with our Savior.

Leonard wrote the stories, Anita polished them up and put them in the context of a conversation between two children and their uncle, and Susan added the finishing touches with her artwork. God bless your reading.

Leonard Brand

Anita Oliver

Susan Pettit

PART 1

Jesus, the Greatest Lover of All

CHAPTER 1

An Adventure Begins

Sunshine streamed through the open window of the family room as Carson and Jane Lawson searched NASA websites for pictures of galaxies. Ten-year-old Carson and his sister, Jane, who was nine, lived on a farm during the summer. Away from the city, they could see the Milky Way in the night sky. With their father’s telescope, they could look at the stars. The only problem, they thought, was that they could see only the stars in the galaxy where they lived.

The kids at school were interested in looking through Carson and Jane’s telescope, but when they did, they soon got bored because all they could see were small specks of light. They could see the moon and a few planets. Carson and Jane wanted to see more.

“Do you think people could see heaven, where God lives, if there were powerful enough telescopes?” Jane asked her brother.

“Maybe,” Carson said. He moved the cursor on the computer screen to look at a photograph of deep space.

“Do you think we could understand how Creation happened if we could find a scientist to explain it to us?” Jane asked. She was trying to get her brother’s attention.

Carson switched to another site, where he found an image of the Milky Way.

Jane reached for her tablet and started scrolling through photos from the Hubble Space Telescope. “Maybe we’re stuck just seeing stars from a long way away, without ever being able to know for sure what God’s home in heaven looks like.

“Or,” she continued, “maybe we should just stick to studying the earth. Maybe there are more things to learn here about the Creation of the earth. Maybe we could learn about God’s home by studying our own home.”

“Um,” Carson replied, “we might have a better chance of understanding the Creation of the earth at least. I would like to see where God lives. But I’m interested in finding out how our world was created.”

“You know what we could do?” Jane looked up from her tablet. “We could ask Uncle Leonard to tell us about Creation. Then, hopefully, we could find out more about the universe.”

After a moment she said, “We should think of some clever questions to ask him. He knows lots of things, and we want to be sure to ask good questions. What do you think?”

Carson finally spun his chair around and looked at his sister.

“Actually, I like that idea. I have some ideas I’ve wondered about for a long time. Maybe he could help us. And I have questions too. Like, How did God plan the earth? And how long did it take? OK, let’s see what questions we can think of.”

“I know one I would like to ask,” Jane said as she looked over Carson’s shoulder at his screen. “Why did God make the world in the first place? And I would like to know why, if God created the world, animals eat one another and people are so mean. How did that happen?”

“OK, but we need some science questions too.”

“Let’s just go. We’ll come up with questions while we walk.”

Jane started for the door, and Carson followed.

Carson and Jane lived in the city with their parents during the winter. In the summertime, they stayed on a small farm next to Uncle Leonard’s place. Uncle Leonard was a scientist at a university. They often visited his farm because he had ideas and new things to show them. To get to Uncle Leonard’s summer place, they walked down a trail that led across a meadow and over a hill. They often saw interesting insects, small furry mammals, and many kinds of birds.

This day, as they walked toward Uncle Leonard’s, the two came to a pile of bright blue feathers. “A hawk probably ate a blue jay and that is all that’s left,” Carson commented. He picked up one of the feathers and examined it. Jane looked at the pile and wondered out loud why a God who made both of these creatures would allow one to eat the other.

A short time later, they came to Uncle Leonard’s house. With their questions in mind, they rang the doorbell.

CHAPTER 2

Let’s Make Someone Who Can Love Us

When Uncle Leonard heard the doorbell chime, he called to Carson and Jane from the backyard. “Come around here. I have something to show you.”

Uncle Leonard was putting together a new telescope on his back patio. It was larger and more powerful than the one in Carson and Jane’s backyard. “Hopefully we’ll be able to see much farther away,” he said.

Carson went over to the new telescope and examined the controls. He could see that it was going to be a great instrument for viewing stars. He looked at his uncle and asked how soon it would be ready for them to use.

“Hopefully within a couple of days. I want to try it out to be sure it’s working well before you come over on a dark night to look through it.”

Jane asked Uncle Leonard why he wanted another telescope when he could just look at the color photos from the Hubble telescope online.

“Let’s take some lemonade out to the gazebo and talk about this,” Uncle Leonard suggested. “I suspect there is more to your visit than asking about telescopes. What’s on your minds?”

They took a pitcher of lemonade and three glasses to the gazebo and sat down. Comet, the lazy schnauzer, lay down at Uncle Leonard’s feet. She put her head on her front paws and closed her eyes.

“We want to know about lots of things. Like, why did God make the world?” Jane began.

“Also, how did God make the world?” Carson asked.

“These are both large and important questions,” Uncle Leonard said as he leaned on one arm of his chair. “I think we can get some answers by thinking back to the time before the world was created. It might be helpful if we tell it like a story.

“You have both seen books and movies about imaginary stars and worlds. Let’s weave together a story that’s based on what we know for sure. We can give names to some angels and let them talk about God and Jesus. They could ask some of the same questions you have, and we will talk about the same evidence they had.”

Jane jumped up from her chair, her eyes flashing. “That’s so cool! Can we name them right now?”

“I think one should be named Zimron,” Carson said with a laugh. “Another one could be Hazon. We can have two angels called Zimron and Hazon.”

Jane had brought a small notepad and a pencil. She opened the notepad. “I’ll start keeping track of the characters in this story so we don’t forget who is who.”

“Let’s begin this story at the beginning of our world, which we call the earth,” Uncle Leonard said. “It begins back when God the Father and Jesus, His Son, were making plans to create a new world. They wanted this new world to be so beautiful that all the angels of heaven would sing and laugh for joy.

“It would be a new kind of world, a place where the people would look very much like God. The people on this world would have the awesome ability to make little people. And all the animals would be able to make little animals just like themselves.

“Like all the angels in heaven, the two angels, Zimron and Hazon, were eager to see the new world that God and Jesus were planning. Perhaps their conversation went something like this.”

* * * * *

“Have you heard about the new planet God and Jesus are planning?” Zimron asked.

“Only that there is going to be one,” Hazon said.

Zimron led Hazon to their favorite place to talk, so they could speak quietly about this new world. “Come, let’s sit here for a bit. I want to tell you what I heard,” Zimron said.

“There are beautiful worlds out there already, so why does God want to make another world?” Hazon asked.

“You know that Jesus and the Father love spectacular things,” Zimron replied. “I heard that Jesus said, ‘The universe We have made is beautiful! Just see those stars across the sky and the planets around some of them. We are going to create another planet, one that’s covered with trees, grass, and flowers, one with rivers and lakes. It will be especially wonderful, just like it is here in heaven.’ That’s what Jesus said.

“The animals will be smart, but They will also make humans, who will be the smartest creatures of all on the planet. The place where the humans will live will be a garden, with everything they need. It will have plants to eat and beautiful flowers, clear water, and many animals.”

Zimron continued, “They are going to make many new kinds of creatures: mammals to walk the earth, fish to swim in the water, and birds to fly in the air. Some will be amusing, with long necks. Others will be cuddly and cute.”

* * * * *

“But Uncle Leonard,” Jane said, looking puzzled, “were all of these creatures good to one another, or did they fight like they do now?”

“Jane, wait—you’ll want to hear how God made the world. We can get to your other questions later.”

Carson looked at Uncle Leonard. “What were the animals like at the beginning of Creation? Did it take God a long time to make the creatures on the earth, or did He do it quickly?” It seemed that God and Jesus had planned a very complicated world.

“You’re about to find out,” Uncle Leonard answered.

* * * * *

Zimron said, “I’ve heard that God and Jesus are having private planning sessions. Nobody knows for sure what is going on in those meetings, and some of us are getting curious. But you can be sure that whatever They decide, it will be spectacular!”

“Now that you mention it, I have heard that Lucifer is asking questions about it, and he’s not sure he likes God’s plans,” Hazon said, looking down at his hands. “But tell me, what else have you heard?”

“It isn’t all settled yet, but it seems the animals will be quite different from one another. The humans will be very smart, able to think for themselves and able to choose how they act—just like the angels.”

Shortly after their conversation, Zimron and Hazon went to a meeting for all the angels. God the Father and Jesus the Son were going to explain to all the heavenly beings what They were going to do. Jesus explained the plans in detail. He said, “The earth and everything in it will be created in six days.”

A gasp went up from some of the angels. They knew God could make a world faster than that. But then, it sounded like a complicated world, and some other angels wondered why God wasn’t going to take longer.

God and Jesus said They would put the new little world in just the right spot to support life in the galaxy called the Milky Way.

After the huge gathering of angels was over, Zimron and Hazon went back to their favorite spot to review what they had heard. The descriptions of the new world made them want to see it. From the descriptions they had heard, some of the new animals sounded as though they would be beautiful and funny, such as the tall, long-necked giraffes with their spots. Running around on the ground would be squirrels that would collect acorns and pine nuts and hide them to eat later. There would also be little gophers to dig burrows in the ground and loosen up the soil so the flowers could grow better. There would be dogs of all kinds—small dogs, large dogs, chubby dogs, and very fast dogs.

Zimron and Hazon paused to think about the last creatures that would be made, the humans. They would be rather like angels but also a bit like the animals.

“How can that be?” Hazon wondered. “These amazing creatures that God calls humans will be special. We will be able to teach them things, and they will study them all through eternity and never run out of new things to learn. I look forward to meeting them.”

During the meeting with the angels, God and Jesus had explained that They were making a new planet because They thought it would be a wonderful idea to share the universe with others who could think, talk, and understand the universe in the same way They did. They wanted other beings who could appreciate their friends and could love God and one another.

Zimron and Hazon talked about the idea of someday soon walking with humans in the evening, in the meadow by the lake, discussing many things. Wow, that would be fun! It seemed that all the angels in heaven were talking about this new world and what it would mean for them. There might be even more to learn about the creation of this world than they had heard yet. They were curious and excited. They hoped it would not be long before God and Jesus would tell them more.

CHAPTER 3

What If They Disobeyed?

Carson and Jane looked around Uncle Leonard’s backyard. From the patio, they could see dead limbs on trees and hear the scream of a red-tailed hawk as it zoomed through the sky. Jane looked at her brother and realized she had a very big question. If God had made the world and the universe so spectacularly perfect, what had gone wrong? The previous summer, the father of their friend Peter had died, and sometimes they heard about other people dying. Why did that happen?

“Uncle Leonard,” Jane said, looking down, “what went wrong?”

“Well, Jane,” he replied, “the Bible tells us about God’s plan to solve the problem of disobedience. We can imagine that the conversation between Jesus and His Father could have been something like this.”

* * * * *

“Father,” Jesus said, “it is almost time to create the world and human beings. However, We need to remind Ourselves of the important plan that We have had from eternity past. These humans have the ability to make choices, to love and obey Us because they want to. It is an awesome ability We will give them, but We must be prepared if one of them disobeys and becomes mean. We can’t let them live forever and make life hard for others.”

“Yes,” God the Father said, looking thoughtfully at His Son. “Yes, that would be a very big problem, but We have a plan. We haven’t discussed it for a while, but now We must talk about it. If someone disobeys, that creates a serious problem. It would be much easier if We did not give them the ability to choose. Nevertheless, it would be awful if they could not make their own choices. Can You imagine a planet full of humans bowing down like toy animals, all of them saying ‘I love you’ without even knowing what that means? No, We can’t do that. We can’t make them like machines, no matter the huge price We will have to pay if they disobey.”

“Yes, Father, I realize what that price will have to be, and it is terrible! As You say, We have to do it. We made the universe, and We have to be willing to pay the price if they disobey. And if they disobey and say they are sorry, We can’t just forgive them and forget they made a mistake.”

“That’s right,” God the Father said. “That would seem to be the easy way, but We both know it won’t work. Love and cooperation are what make Our universe a happy place. In fact, if humans or angels begin to disobey, something in their minds will change forever. They will become so different from Us that they can no longer live with Us. They will have to be separated from Us—and if that happens, they will die.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Jesus said. “I can see only one way to solve that problem. I know what I must do. How can I face it? But to let the humans die, these humans We love, that is not an option. To solve disobedience, We must clearly tell all the humans and angels that disobedience naturally brings death. To let them die is too awful. I will have to die so they won’t have to die” (Hebrews 9:16–28; Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 15:1–28; John 3:13–17; Matthew 26:27, 28).

“That is a huge choice, Jesus. I know You love them that much.”

“Oh, yes, I will do it. If they disobey, We will have to separate Ourselves from them for a time, so they can live long enough for Us to carry out Our plan. Then I will go to the earth and live as a human being, with a human mind and body. I will live a sinless life and then—this part is so terrible—You will separate Yourself from Me as I take all of the people’s sin on Myself, as though I had committed all of those sins, so they can see that sin brings separation from You and it brings death (Genesis 2:17; Exodus 33:20–23; Mark 15:34).

“Only then will the penalty for sin be satisfied and the people once again live in harmony with Us. After the plan is finished, I will again be Your divine and eternal Son, but I will forever live in a human body instead of as I am now. I am willing to do that to save them. Of course, if I am not successful in living a sinless life, I will be forever separated from You. But there is no other way. Our love for Our created friends won’t let Us leave them to die.”

“If only one human being sins, and all the rest are faithful, You know what has to happen,” God the Father said.

“If only one person sins,” Jesus said, “I will still go to the earth and carry out the plan to save that one person. We both love them too much to lose even one of them.” He stood up and walked back and forth.

“Yes, that is the plan We will follow. We can go ahead and create the humans We long to share the universe with! Even if they sin, We have a solution for that fearful problem. That has always been Our plan, but now that We are ready to create humans, it has reminded Us of how necessary the plan is.”

* * * * *

Jane sat very still and thought about the story. She finally said, “So that is why Jesus came to the earth and lived here for thirty-three years. Some people treated Him very badly and finally tortured and killed Him, didn’t they? I guess that showed to everyone in the universe how bad sin is.”

After a moment, she continued. “It also proved that sin does separate us from God and causes death. I’m sure God loves us so much that He wanted to just forgive us, so He sent Jesus to die in our place” (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).

“Then God could forgive us without making it look like it doesn’t matter if we disobey Him,” Carson said.

“I believe there could never be a more loving and wise and wonderful God than we already have, the God who created everything!” Uncle Leonard exclaimed.

The sun was high in the sky, and it was time to head home for lunch. Carson and Jane thanked Uncle Leonard for taking time to talk to them. As they walked along the path toward home, they were very quiet. There was so much to think about.

CHAPTER 4

Lucifer Made a Mistake

Early in the morning three days later, Uncle Leonard called. Jane swallowed the last of her breakfast and answered the phone.

“Hello, Jane,” he said. “Can you and Carson come over? I want to finish our conversation from the other afternoon. It seemed there were things we needed to talk about more.”

Jane agreed that would be a good idea and hung up the phone. A short time later, she and Carson set off across the field toward Uncle Leonard’s.

They greeted Uncle Leonard when they arrived. And immediately they asked him to continue his explanation.

Uncle Leonard began. “You’ve heard of many stories about contests between good and evil, between good people and bad people. For example, C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a story about a conflict between good and evil. When we read these stories or watch them, we want the good guys to win! It wouldn’t seem fair if the bad guys won and made life miserable for everyone else.”

“It’s true,” Jane said. “And even in stories I like, people are often fighting.”

“Yes, even in the Bible,” Carson added. “I wonder about all the wars and fighting in the Bible stories. Where does it all come from?” he asked.

Uncle Leonard answered, “There is one true story, an all-time master story, that tells of a conflict between good and evil that has affected the entire universe. We are living right in the middle of it! And all the other fights come from that one master story. Can you imagine? It is like we are the actors in a gigantic movie. But it is real life.

“The story began in heaven, at the government headquarters for the whole universe. In heaven, God doesn’t just sit around. He is the King over His domain, over the universe and all the planets and the people who live there. God is a totally good God.

“You remember what we heard about how God, His Son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit planned the creation of humans, who could choose to love God or not. God loves the people He created and wants their lives to be wonderfully happy. He wants all people to be kind and helpful to one another, and God knows just how to create people so they will be kind and happy too. That is how God created all people on all the planets, as well as all the angels.”

Jane was intrigued by the idea of angels. “Uncle Leonard, have you ever seen an angel? Do you know what they’re like?”

“We don’t know exactly what angels are like, but we do know they are intelligent beings like us, but they’re able to do more things than we can. They can travel through space from planet to planet and they can be invisible to us, even though they have real bodies and brains. That may seem spooky, but the angels are God’s helpers and our helpers.

“You may know some of the Bible stories about angels. One of my favorites is about Daniel. One day Daniel was praying. God had given him a vision, and he was very troubled and frightened by it. At the end of his prayer, an angel appeared and said, ‘Daniel, greatly beloved.’ Then, while Daniel stood shaking with fear, the angel answered some of Daniel’s questions (Daniel 9:20–23; 10:11). An angel visited Daniel on more than one occasion.

Angels also appeared to the shepherds at Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8–15). They appeared to some people and talked to them after Jesus’ resurrection (Luke 24:1–9). So we know people have seen them. But the Bible doesn’t give many details about the angels.

“Now let’s get back to what we were saying about the creation of the earth. What kind of a place was it? All of God’s creation was beautiful, a wonderful home for all who lived there. All of the people and angels He created were loyal to God, and they were never evil—they were not mean to one another and did not tell lies or hurt anyone. People could trust all their friends, and they could learn about nature, learn to be great musicians, travel to other planets, and live very joyful lives. What an awesome place!”

“I would like to live there,” Carson said. “I don’t like it when people tell lies.” Carson had a friend who told him lies sometimes. The friend was clever, and it was hard for Carson to tell when his friend was telling the truth and when he wasn’t.

Uncle Leonard continued. “God could have made us so we could never sin or reject Him or make mistakes. He could have made us so we didn’t have any choice but to be loyal to Him. But God didn’t do it that way because He knew that intelligent people or angels would not be truly happy if they were like machines that obeyed God because they could not do anything else.

“Love and trust are the sources of happiness and joy, and they can exist only if we have the ability to choose them. This meant that if God’s creatures were going to be happy and truly love Him, He had to take a risk—the risk that one of His created beings would choose to disobey and rebel against Him. If that happened, God would have to solve the problem of rebellion and save the universe from the forces of evil.

“Even angels had to be able to choose. And in the big story of the conflict in the universe, that is where the trouble started. One angel named Lucifer, who was the angel closest to God, was famous for his goodness, wisdom, strength, and beauty. He was the leader of all the angels. He knew how completely good and unselfish God is, and he was happy serving Him.

“For reasons no one can explain, Lucifer slowly began to change his mind. He started feeling jealous of Jesus, and he allowed this jealousy to grow in his thoughts. Finally, he wanted to be as powerful in the government as Jesus was. However, Jesus was God, along with His Father and the Holy Spirit, and Lucifer was not God—he was a created angel. He could never become God. His jealousy of Jesus was not reasonable (Isaiah 14:12–15; Ezekiel 28:11–19).

“Even though Lucifer was becoming rebellious, God was very patient and loving to Lucifer. He tried to convince this most beautiful and brilliant angel, His close friend, that he was doing wrong when he wanted to be equal with Jesus.

“Lucifer really knew in his heart that God was right. But he was not willing to admit his mistake and ask God to forgive him.

“Finally, Jesus and His Father and the Holy Spirit talked it over. ‘Lucifer, Our friend, has made a mistake,’ They said. ‘He is becoming selfish and wants to take Your place, Jesus, as leader of the universe. He is telling the other angels that he, Lucifer, can run the universe more wisely than We can.’ ”

“What made Lucifer do that?” Carson asked.

“Lucifer, by becoming selfish and jealous of Jesus, had committed the first sins in the whole universe. God and all the intelligent beings had always been unselfish and eager to help one another. Lucifer’s sin was bringing selfishness into the universe. He wanted to be greater than Jesus. This was the beginning of the original struggle between good and evil.”

“Why didn’t God stop him? What happened when God didn’t stop him?” Jane asked.

“Lucifer didn’t want to be all alone in his rebellion against God. If he were going to win his war against God, he would have to convince the other intelligent beings to join him in his rebellion. How could he win other angels to his side when they all knew how completely good and wise and kind God was?

“Lucifer began to use one evil weapon that God would never use—lies (Genesis 3:2–4). He spread lies about God to the angels. He said God was unfair and selfish and that God expected them to follow laws that could never be obeyed. The angels were surprised to learn that there were laws at all because they naturally followed the kind and unselfish examples they saw in Jesus, His Father, and the Holy Spirit. They did not even know they were following the Ten Commandments.

“Angels had never heard lies before. How would they know whether to believe Lucifer’s stories? Many of the angels did not believe the stories Lucifer was telling, and they remained faithful to God. However, a third of the angels were tricked into believing that Lucifer’s stories about God must be right, and they trusted Lucifer instead of God.

“It may be easier for us to understand what happened eventually in heaven if we let our two angels, Zimron and Hazon, tell the story.”

* * * * *

Zimron and Hazon attended a meeting called by a group of angels who were listening to Lucifer. These angels said they had learned that God was severe, picky, and selfish, that He wanted all power for Himself, and that angels were robots if they simply did what they were told.

Lucifer had told the angels to be careful about who they shared the new information with because some angels were still loyal to God. Zimron and Hazon were confused. They had always believed that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit loved them and that They were always kind. Never had the angels questioned the goodness of God.

After the meeting, Zimron and Hazon went to their favorite visiting place.

“What do you think?” Hazon asked. “Who are we to believe? We have always loved both Lucifer and Jesus.”

“I’m inclined to go to more of Lucifer’s meetings,” Zimron declared. “I don’t quite understand all his complaints about God, but I think we should give him a chance to explain.”

“I suppose you’re right. But when I go to his meetings, I always feel something I have never felt before. I guess it’s fear!”

“Soon Jesus will call a meeting,” Zimron said. “We should go and hear both sides, Hazon. We should not be too hasty in deciding one way or the other. But right now Lucifer sounds convincing and asks questions I can’t answer. Maybe we should consider his way.”

Sometime later, Jesus called a meeting of all the heavenly beings. With the growing confusion in heaven, Jesus wanted to talk about the new ideas that were floating around. God the Father was there also, and He reminded the angels that Jesus was not created like the angels but that He was in fact God, just like the Father.

Many angels were reassured by the meeting; even Lucifer could see that what Jesus was saying was true. However, he had become so jealous that the old hateful feelings came up again.

Jesus called Lucifer to have a private meeting with Him. The two talked for a long time. Each loved the other. In spite of that love, Lucifer decided he wanted to go his own way. So they both cried, and Lucifer went away to find his angel friends.

How could God convince the angels to not believe Lucifer’s false stories? He could do it only one way, and it would not be easy. God would have to allow Lucifer to show everyone what life would be like for those who followed his way, so the other angels could see if Lucifer’s government was really better than God’s, as Lucifer said it would be.

Hazon decided to follow Lucifer. Zimron pleaded with him to remain loyal to Jesus, but he refused. The two angels hugged and said goodbye.

* * * * *

Uncle Leonard looked sad as he said, “Some kind of war happened between God and His loyal angels, including Zimron, and Lucifer and his angels, including Hazon. Lucifer, now called Satan, was chased out of heaven, and he set up his headquarters on the new planet, the earth (Revelation 12:7–13).

“We don’t know how much time passed, but eventually the Father and Jesus and the Spirit were at this planet and created everything on it, the land and all the beautiful plants and animals that Zimron and Hazon had heard about. And They created Adam and Eve. It took only six days to make everything, and on the seventh day, God rested from His work. He and the new people, Adam and Eve, celebrated the first Sabbath together. Ever since then, the Sabbath has been a reminder that God is our Creator” (Exodus 20:8–11).

“This explains a lot, Uncle Leonard. Thank you for continuing the story,” said Jane.

“I can’t wait to find out what happens next. May we return tomorrow?” asked Carson.

CHAPTER 5

Trouble in the New Creation

The next morning, after the dew had dried from the grass, Carson and Jane went back to see Uncle Leonard.

“Good morning, Uncle Leonard,” exclaimed Jane as she entered the house. “Please continue the story!”

“So what did Lucifer do after the war? And how did he end up doing bad things in this new world?” Jane wanted to know about this part of the story. She had heard about Adam and Eve’s sin, but she wanted to hear her uncle explain it in his helpful way.

Uncle Leonard began, “Satan was not allowed to bother the new people unless he could win them to follow him instead of God. He plotted how to fool them and turn them against God with his lies.

“God didn’t allow Satan to follow Adam and Eve around and pester them. He could only talk to them if they came to one specific tree, and God had warned Adam and Eve about Satan and told them not to go to that tree (Genesis 2:16, 17). ‘Stay together,’ He said. ‘You will be safer that way.’ Nevertheless, Eve went to look at the tree.

“Satan decided to use a serpent as his lying tool (Genesis 3:1–7). He made his voice seem like it was coming from the serpent. Through the serpent, Satan lied to Eve. Because she thought it was the snake talking, she was curious. This was fascinating to Eve because she had never heard an animal speak before. She was fooled into distrusting God and eating the fruit that God told them not to eat.”

Carson was agitated. “What was so bad about a piece of fruit? It wasn’t much. Just a little thing.”

“Well, Carson, it was not just the fruit,” Uncle Leonard said. “The serious problem was that Eve believed Satan instead of believing God. A very serious thing happened after she ate the fruit. She gathered fruit from the tree and went running to Adam. She showed him the fruit and told him how much wiser she felt already. She said the fruit was delicious and persuaded him to eat some too.

“Adam felt terrible. He knew what Eve had done. He also knew that God had said they would die if they ate the fruit. But Eve looked fine, and he was afraid he would lose her. So he took a piece of fruit and quickly ate it.”

“What did they do after that?” Jane asked.

“That evening, Adam and Eve heard the voice of God in the Garden when He came to visit with them as He always did (Genesis 3:8–17). ‘Adam,’ He called. ‘Where are you?’

“ ‘I’m hiding here.’

“ ‘Why are you hiding?’ God asked.

“ ‘Because I was afraid. I was naked.’

“ ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree I told you not to eat from?’

“ ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Adam said. ‘The woman you gave me, she made me eat.’

“God looked at Eve and said, ‘What have you done?’

“Eve was angry now. Adam had blamed her! So she blamed the snake. ‘The snake You made tricked me,’ she said.

“Then God cursed Satan and the snake. He told the snake it would forever eat dust. And He told Satan that eventually Jesus would make an end of him.

“After Adam and Eve sinned, Satan claimed that because they had chosen to believe him instead of God, the earth now was his kingdom. That was not actually true, and God did not abandon the earth to Satan. But because the people had sinned and chosen to follow Satan, Satan was able to use his power to change the earth and to trick the people into living by his selfish ways instead of by God’s ways.

“Now it appeared that evil would win the battle. The story starts to sound dark and ominous! Will evil win and destroy the Prince, the true Hero of the story?

“Since that time,” Uncle Leonard continued, “centuries of selfishness, disease, death, and evil have passed on this earth. Satan has tried to blame all of these things on God.”

“Why would God allow it to happen?” Carson asked.

“God had to allow all this evil to go on until the people and angels in all the universe understood that Satan, not God, caused the evil.”

Jane was puzzled by this. “Why didn’t God just kill Satan after he sinned to prevent all of this evil and pain?”

“Think about that,” Uncle Leonard replied. “If God had killed Satan, what would all the angels and people have thought? They would have said to themselves, ‘I’d better obey God, or He will kill me too!’ The universe would then have obeyed God from fear, not from love. God does not want that, so He has to be patient and allow those who choose evil to exist until the whole universe is convinced that Satan is a liar and God is right.

“This has been difficult for humans to cope with,” Uncle Leonard said with a sad look, “to see people they love be hurt or killed by disease, accidents, or even murder. Pain, suffering, and death are hard for us to understand, but think what it cost God. He had to send His Son, Jesus, to this earth to be mistreated, tortured, and killed. Jesus suffered a brutal death on the cross to finally show how bad things would get in Satan’s effort to win his battle with God (Matthew 26–28; Mark 14–16; Luke 22–24; John 18–20).

“This contest between God and Satan can be called the great controversy between Christ and Satan. When Jesus died on the cross without ever sinning, this finally guaranteed that the forces of good will win the battle (1 Corinthians 15:1–31).

“The time since Jesus rose and went back to heaven has given more
evidence of just how evil Satan is, and it has allowed more people to choose to follow God. This ultimate war between good and evil is almost over. Jesus will soon come and take His followers to heaven to live forever in a universe with no evil or wars or selfishness. The genuine good Prince, Jesus, will rescue the people who accept His gift of salvation, and they truly will live happily ever after. We will soon be going home, where there is no Satan or evil!”

Carson was quiet as he thought about what Uncle Leonard was saying. Jane had a look of pain on her face. She still could not understand why God allowed Satan to cause so much trouble. “I don’t know about God right now,” she said.

Carson looked at her with some fear in his eyes. How could she say such a thing?

“Uncle Leonard, that sounds like a terrible story,” Carson said. “How could Adam and Eve turn against God? What happened then? Could they never be close friends with God again?”

“I’d like to know that too,” Jane said.

“It’s getting late. Why don’t you come back another day, and I can tell you the next part of the story? It looks like Comet is about ready to call it a day.” Uncle Leonard smiled at Comet and patted her head.

Comet stood up, stretched, and yawned.

“Can we come back tomorrow?” Jane wanted to know. She was still troubled about what kind of Being God is.

“You can come in the morning,” Uncle Leonard said. “How about ten o’clock?”

Carson and Jane had much to think about as they slowly walked home. “I don’t really understand the war in heaven,” Carson said. “I hope Uncle Leonard will tell us more about it.”

“Me too,” Jane said. “I hope he has some good news to share about God.” She kicked a stone. “I still don’t understand why He didn’t just kill Satan. I would have.”

CHAPTER 6

Was There No Other Way?

The next day, Carson and Jane walked back along the meadow path to Uncle Leonard’s farm. As they talked along the trail, the brother and sister realized they had a very big question. If God made the world and the universe so spectacularly perfect, how had it gone wrong? Uncle Leonard had told them about Lucifer, who was now called Satan. But it seemed there was more to the story.

Uncle Leonard settled in his chair. He could see the troubled looks on Carson’s and Jane’s faces.

“What is troubling you?” he asked.

“We were still wondering about what happened before Creation and how the angels could be tricked by Satan. Something was going on, but what was it?” Carson began. “We understand that Satan caused the problem, but how could that be? What was the thing that made him go bad? Was it God’s fault that he sinned? Was there something wrong with Lucifer?”

“It is a sad but important story,” Uncle Leonard answered. “It’s true, the universe was perfect. No one had ever died. Everyone loved one another, and all beings in the universe loved God.

“The trouble began when Lucifer got to thinking about himself. He saw that Jesus was getting attention from the other angels, and he thought he would like to have that attention for himself. Lucifer himself caused his sin. He began to think about himself all the time. As he did, he became more selfish and angrier. He wanted God’s power without God’s love.

“Lucifer saw that as God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit were planning to create the new earth, it was a spectacular plan. But he was not asked to help with the planning. Lucifer wanted to be part of the planning. He wanted to be like God.”

“But no one is more important than Jesus,” Jane said. “Didn’t Lucifer love Jesus like the other angels?”

“That’s what is so sad,” Uncle Leonard said. “He did love Jesus. That was not the problem. But he wanted the attention and worship for himself. So he tried to convince other angels that he deserved to be equal with Jesus.”

“Did all the angels believe him?” Carson asked.

“No. In fact, most of the angels did not believe him. Many of them tried to get all the other angels to stop listening to Lucifer. Think about our two imaginary angel friends, Zimron and Hazon. They ended up on different sides of the conflict.

“Even Jesus pleaded with Lucifer not to do what he was thinking. For a while, Lucifer felt bad. He still wanted to be part of life in heaven. However, his pride, which was a new feeling for him, was too strong. He convinced one-third of all the angels to believe him. That’s a lot of angels.”

“After the war in heaven, when Lucifer and the angels who agreed with him were thrown out of heaven, did they have to stay on the earth all the time?” Carson asked.

“The Bible does not say specifically,” Uncle Leonard said. “It seems that they could go to other planets until after Jesus’ crucifixion. Then, after that happened, they had to stay around this earth all the time” (Revelation 12:7–9).

“No wonder we have so much trouble here,” Carson said. He sometimes watched news online, and he was troubled by all the wars and other violent things happening in the world.

Jane said, “So God and Jesus went ahead with the creation of the earth just as They had planned it, even though Satan and his followers were here?”

“Yes, they did,” Uncle Leonard affirmed. “All the loyal angels got to see Creation, and they sang for joy. They missed their friends who had followed Satan, but they were glad for the new world.

“The other day you were troubled that God did not kill Satan,” Uncle Leonard said to Jane. “But think about it—He would have had to kill all the angels who followed Satan as well. That would have been one in every three angels. It would have included angels like Hazon. What a terrible thing that would have been for the universe. All the faithful angels had angel friends who followed Satan. If God had killed every rebellious angel, all of the others would have served God from fear after that.

“Now, when they can see our world and what happens when sin takes over, they understand why, at the end of time, all sinners will have to die.”

“I see that now,” Jane said. “I think God was right.”

“But it is still a very sad story,” Carson said.

“We can talk again soon,” Uncle Leonard said. “There is much more to the story, but that is enough for today.”

CHAPTER 7

The Judge, the Traitor, and the Lover

Jane and Carson Lawson’s mother and father usually lived at their farm during the summer. In the winter, while the children were in school, the Lawson family lived in the city. Jane and Carson’s mom, Cynthia, was an elementary school teacher. Their father, Ross, taught students at a university. They all looked forward to the summertime, when they could relax for a while at the farm. Mrs. Lawson loved to cook. She also planted a garden every summer and tried out new herbs and vegetables. Mr. Lawson liked the quiet so he could think and write in his study, which had a beautiful view of the countryside.

Behind the Lawsons’ summerhouse was a large meadow where several cows spent their days. To one side of the backyard was a small chicken coop with some chickens and a rooster. The chickens were of particular interest to Jane and Carson, but they tried to avoid the feisty rooster, who would attack to defend his territory.

In the evening, when Jane and Carson came into the house, they often got to try some new recipe their mother had invented using her home-grown herbs. Sometimes they thought the food was good, and sometimes it was what they called an adventure, but the worst times were when an adventure turned out to be truly nasty. Not all the herbs cooked well. The children were good sports about it. Their mother said they always seemed to be hungry.

Sometimes after dinner, the parents and children sat on the back patio overlooking the meadow. Often it was very dark, so they could see lots of stars. On one especially dark night, they talked about God and what was going to happen in the future. Carson and Jane had been reading the Bible and had come upon the word judgment.

Jane had heard in school that God was going to hold a judgment in heaven and that everyone on the earth would be judged. She was concerned about what would happen to their family in a judgment. She felt that she mostly did good and right things, but then she thought of the times she and Carson had argued and said mean things to each other. She wondered if everyone would know about all the mistakes she had made.

“Dad, will I be kept out of heaven because of the bad things I’ve done?” she asked. “I had a friend in school last year whose father went to court, and a judge sent him to prison for a year. Is God’s judgment like that?”

“I think the Bible tells us that the heavenly judgment is different from that,” her father replied. “One difference from courts on the earth is that in the heavenly judgment, the judge, the defense attorney, and the jury are all people who love us. Jesus is the judge, Jesus is the defense attorney, and Jesus is the witness. Thankfully, He wants us all in heaven.”

“Let’s do a little compare-and-contrast like we do in school,” their mother said. “Then I think we can see more clearly the difference between an earthly court and God’s court.

“When someone today is accused of doing wrong and has to go to court, a judge and jury will make the decision about the facts of the case. A defense attorney will try to defend the person accused of doing something wrong. On the other side of the case is the accuser, called the prosecutor.

“The defense attorney’s job is to convince the judge and the jury, if possible, that the accused person didn’t do anything wrong. The accuser’s job is to try to prove that the accused person broke the law and should be punished. That is the way our courts work now.

“We probably think that God’s judgment will be about the same,” she said. “Some people think God is the judge and the prosecutor at the same time, just waiting to condemn us, and maybe Jesus has to try to convince God the Father not to sentence us to eternal punishment. But that is not the way the heavenly judgment operates. Remember that experience Jane had with her friends last year? That can help us think about how this all works.”

And she began to recount the story to help Jane and Carson understand.

* * * * *

Jane had two friends who lived in the valley. Sometimes they came to play with her. Layla lived closest, so she came more often than Amber. Layla was fun because she liked to do active things, such as running, riding bikes, or hiking in the hills. However, she had a habit that made Jane very uneasy. Layla would say bad things about Amber. No matter what Amber did, Layla found something wrong with it and criticized her.

One day, when both girls were at Jane’s house for the afternoon, Amber stumbled over a root under the plum tree. She cried out as she fell and scraped her elbow.

Layla whispered to Jane, “If she weren’t so clumsy, she could keep herself on her feet.”

Amber started crying. She had scraped her elbow badly and it hurt. She looked up at Jane, tears running down her face.

“Layla,” Jane said, “let’s see if we can help her up and take her to the house to get her elbow cleaned up.” She bent down to help Amber.

“I’m not going to stay and play with two crybabies,” Layla retorted. She stomped away toward her house.

“Let’s go to the house so my mom can clean up your elbow and put some antibiotic on it,” Jane said as she helped Amber get up. They walked together toward the house. Through her tears, Amber was careful to watch where she stepped.

“I don’t know why Layla acts like that when we play,” Amber said. “Why does she say such mean things to me? She never used to be so mean. We used to always play together and have fun. I can’t think of anything I ever did to make her so mean to me.”

Jane thought for a moment. “Next time she comes back, let’s talk to her. I like to play with you both, so I don’t like to see bad things come between you.”

The two girls climbed the steps to the back patio, and Jane opened the sliding glass door into the house.

“Mom,” Jane called, “we need help.”

Jane’s mother came from the kitchen. She saw blood on Amber’s elbow, and she could see that Amber was upset.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I was playing with the swing under the tree when I turned and fell over a tree root,” Amber said. “Then Layla started making fun of me, and that made me feel worse. I really want to be her friend, but she just won’t let me.”

Jane’s mother cleaned the wound and put antibiotic on it. She covered it with a sticky plaster strip. “Let’s sit at the table and have some lemonade. I want to know more about what’s going on between you. Maybe we can find a solution. Haven’t you and Layla always lived next to each other? What happened?”

“We have always been friends. When we play at her house or my house, she seems fine. But when Jane is around, she just can’t seem to be nice to me. I don’t know what to do.”

Ice clinked in their lemonade glasses. Everyone was quiet.

Jane said, “She says all kinds of mean things to me about Amber even when Amber isn’t around. And when Amber is here, she makes fun of the way she walks, the clothes she has on, or the way she talks.”

“So one of you three is an accuser and one is a defender of Amber,” her mother said. “You three like one another, but there seems to be something else going on. I do not think it would be helpful to talk to Layla about it at this time. Let’s wait a bit and see what happens. It might get better, or then again it might get worse. But we don’t want to make it worse by accusing Layla and making it look like we are ganging up on her.”

* * * * *

“All this makes me think about what happens when God and Satan have a conversation about us,” Mrs. Lawson said to Jane and Carson. “Satan points out all the times we have lied, all the people we have hurt, all the sins we have committed. Satan is our accuser. However, we have a Defender. God knows about every sin we have committed, but Jesus and God defend us, because Jesus died so we could be forgiven (John 16:25–27). This makes Satan furious because he is jealous of Jesus.

“Let’s think this through for a minute. Since God is not the one who accuses us, the accuser or prosecutor is Satan. He is the one who will bring up all the bad things we did and insist we ought to die. God the Judge does not want that to happen, but if we did those bad things, and we all sin, then how can He call us innocent?

“That is when Jesus comes into the court scene. Jesus knows we do wrong, but because we do not want to do those things, and we ask for forgiveness, Jesus can say, ‘Step aside, Satan, I paid the price for those sins. I died for Jane, so she can come home to heaven with me. I love her too much to allow you to destroy her’ (1 Corinthians 15:20–27, 53–56).

“That is why God’s judgment is good news, not something to be afraid of. God the Father and Jesus both want us in heaven; They are eager to have us there. They are so anxious to have us there that Jesus suffered all the agony of dying on a cross to save us.”

“I sometimes still wonder why Jesus had to do that,” Jane said. “Couldn’t He just say He forgives us, and that would be enough?”

“One reason that won’t work is that Satan is a traitor,” her mother replied. “He turned against God and has been trying to convince the people in the whole universe that he, Satan, is right and God is wrong, that he knows how to run the government of the universe better than God does.

“Satan is glad when we are miserable because he accuses God of making us miserable. God knows Satan is wrong, but it is not always easy for the people in the universe to see who is right, and God does what it takes to show that the traitor is wrong. God wants us to know that we can trust and love Him; we can trust Him because He truly is a loving and trustworthy God. Therefore, God has a judgment to show the whole universe that each saved person will be in heaven because Satan is wrong and Jesus took the punishment that Satan wanted us to take. Of course, not everyone will accept His offer of forgiveness and salvation, and that makes Jesus sad.

“Another illustration may make this explanation of the judgment clearer. A police officer sees a car going much faster than the speed limit. He stops the car and asks the driver, ‘Don’t you know you were going too fast?’

“The driver says, ‘Yes, I was going too fast, but I am sorry I did that.’ The police officer gives her a ticket, and this means she will have to go to court and face the judge.

“She is scared, but she comes to the court to see what the results of her wrongdoing will be. The police officer is there to accuse her of speeding, breaking the law. The judge asks, ‘Did you break the law, as your accuser says?’

“She answers, ‘Yes, but I am sorry.’ Fortunately, in this case the judge is a caring, loving judge—but even if the driver is sorry and he is willing to forgive her, he knows that breaking the law requires punishment. So he makes his judgment: ‘You are guilty, and you must pay a $100,000 fine.’ She is very frightened because she could never pay that fine.

“The judge knows fines have to be paid because if they are not paid, the laws would not mean anything and people could break them whenever they wanted to. Think what the world would be like if anyone could break the laws with no punishment? The world would quickly become a place full of pain and fear.

“But what happens next leaves her speechless with joy. The judge walks out of the courtroom with her and pays her fine. The judge loves this girl and wants to forgive her, so he pays her fine. If that happens, do you think she will go out and act like she doesn’t have to keep the laws? Oh, no, she will be so grateful to the loving judge that she will not want him to have to pay any more of her fines.

“That’s the kind of judge God is. He loves us so much that His Son, Jesus, paid for our sins by dying for us. If we follow Satan’s temptations to ignore God and live life without seeking to know Jesus, Satan rejoices that he has fooled us. But if we study the Bible, talk to God about our lives, and let Him know we love Him, we will learn to know God better and will know that He is our Friend who loves us and wants to save us. The more we become God’s friends, the more He can help us become like Jesus and have the strength to live like Jesus and not follow Satan’s temptations.”

“Why does God need to have a judgment?” Jane asked. “Doesn’t He know who loves Him and who doesn’t?”

“Yes, He knows,” her mother said. “God doesn’t need the judgment, but the rest of the universe needs it. God is planning to bring us to heaven, even though we are sinners. We have made many mistakes, and God is going to turn us loose in the universe to travel to other planets, where there has never been any sin. The people on those planets would wonder, Is this safe? Will these rebels spoil our sinless homes? God does not expect them to believe Him just because He says it is so. He conducts the judgment so all the universe can be convinced that God makes good decisions and it really is safe to bring us into the sinless universe.

“You see, God’s type of judgment is always good news, and we can look forward happily to Jesus’ work as our Defense Lawyer and our Savior. And we can spend eternity at home in heaven with Him. This world, with its pain and disease and sadness, is our home only for a little while. Our real home is in heaven with God! Can you imagine what it will be like to talk with Jesus in person? I look forward to that.

“And now let’s talk about the rest of Layla’s story,” she said.

* * * * *

“Jesus does not give us the right to be the judge,” Mrs. Lawson said to Amber and Jane. “That is His job. He only asks us to be kind to one another, to pray for one another, and to defend one another.”

Amber wondered about what Mrs. Lawson had said. “Do you think that I should forgive Layla? If I do that, then how can I make her treat me nicely again?”

“Well, we can’t make someone else like us. But I think you are right in thinking you should forgive her.”

Jane asked, “Mom, does that mean Amber has to say what Layla says and does is OK? Is that what forgiveness means?”

“No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Forgiveness is what we do and what we think. It does not mean that what someone else does wrong is all right. It only means that the other person can make a decision about whether to think about and do what is right. I do believe you can pray for Layla, though. Then Jesus can work with her, and hopefully she will decide to change.”

It was getting late. Amber needed to go home. “Thank you for fixing my elbow,” she said to Jane’s mother, “and thank you for the talk. I’ll think about forgiveness. But now I have to go.”

The two girls agreed they would be nice to Layla and would pray for her every day.

CHAPTER 8

God Explains His Plan

When Carson and Jane went to visit Uncle Leonard again, they were ready to learn more about God. Carson had said God never talked to him, so how could he know for certain there was a God?

“Evidence, Carson. Evidence.” Uncle Leonard smiled as the brother and sister sat down.

“Evidence? What do you mean?” Carson was not sure he knew what that meant.

“Actually, that is a good question, Carson. What I mean is: What has God done or said in the past that tells us He exists? First of all, let’s talk about what He said in the Bible. A good place to start is with the Israelites because as descendants of Jacob they were God’s chosen people. He helped them escape being slaves in Egypt (Exodus 12–14). He opened a path so they could walk through the Red Sea.

“In order to explain His plans, God had them build a tent sanctuary that was called the tabernacle (Exodus 25:8–27; 26). In this sanctuary is the entire story of how God saves us. It is His illustration of how it works.

“The sanctuary was built according to a detailed plan that God made and gave to Moses. It was important to build it just right because it was a visual aid—like a drawing they could look at—to show God’s plan to save us from our sins.

“The sanctuary itself was a simple tent building with two rooms and some furniture surrounded by a fenced courtyard. Some activities occurred there each day. Other events took place only once each year in the sanctuary. The main activity the people did was a ceremony God gave to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden after they sinned. They had to pick out a perfect lamb and kill it” (Leviticus 5:5–10).

Jane shuddered. “That seems like a horrible thing to do!”

“Yes, it does,” Uncle Leonard said. “So why should they do it? Satan had tricked Adam and Eve into doubting God, and God needed to convince them of two things. First, they needed to know how dangerous sin is. Second, God did not want them to be depressed over their sinning but to know that He had a plan to save them from their sinful condition.”

Uncle Leonard looked at Jane and Carson and said, “The lamb represented Jesus. He is perfect like the little lamb, but He had to die.

“Killing a lamb was an illustration of how bad sin is. Jesus’ death was the real payment, but the lamb was a reminder. But Jesus had to die only once, so why so many sacrifices? That is because we need many reminders that our eternal life depends on His death.”

“Is killing lambs all that happened in the tabernacle?” Carson asked curiously.

“Actually, they weren’t killed inside the sanctuary. They were killed in front of it, in a courtyard. The two rooms inside the sanctuary represented two important parts of God’s plan. The first room was called the Holy Place. Some blood from the sacrifices, which represented our sins, was carried into the Holy Place. Those sacrifices continued all year, just as Jesus is forgiving our sins. This part of the illustration is like Jesus buying all our sins and storing them in the Holy Place.

“Eventually, something had to be done to truly get rid of all the sin stored up in the Holy Place. That is where the second room comes in.

“The activities in the second room, the Most Holy Place, occurred only once a year (Leviticus 16). The high priest had to sacrifice a lamb and confess everyone’s sins, including his own, for the whole year. He had to ask God to take away all that sin. In this part of the illustration, one year represented the whole history of sinning on this earth.

“At the end of the year, on the Day of Atonement, came the final reminder, the last symbolic sacrifice of a goat. This ceremony was a symbol of how God will finally finish the process and get rid of all the forgiven sins. Someday, when the time comes, all sin will go away forever.

“Satan keeps reminding God and the universe that we are sinners and we deserve to die because of our sins. The universe cannot be at peace until Satan’s accusations are answered and stopped! God has an answer for this problem, and that is what is represented in the final acts on the Day of Atonement.

“Some blood from that final sacrifice was carried by the high priest into the Most Holy Place. No one but the high priest entered the Most Holy Place, and he did so only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. He came to the ark of the covenant and sprinkled the blood on the ark. Sprinkling the blood on the ark represented Jesus taking all those sins as if He had committed them instead of us.”

“Why is the ark called the ark of the covenant? And what is a covenant?” Carson asked (Exodus 37:1–9; 40:20).

“A covenant is a promise or an agreement between two people,” Uncle Leonard replied. “Inside the ark of the covenant were the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments written on them, the very same commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Our part of the covenant, or the agreement, is to show our loyalty to God by keeping the commandments. We broke our covenant with God by sinning. That is why we must depend on Jesus to keep His part of the agreement—to save us from death by dying instead of us.

“The blood is a symbol of people’s sins. After the blood was sprinkled on the ark, there was just one more step. Remember, Jesus died so that we could be forgiven of our sins, but He is not to blame for our sins. Satan is to blame for all sin. To show this to the people, the last ceremony of the year illustrated that when Jesus returns, all sin will be transferred to Satan, and he will be locked on this earth while we are in heaven, and then he will die.

“So, in this last part of the ceremony, the high priest symbolically transferred all the sins from the sanctuary to a goat, and the goat was led far away from the Israelite camp and left in the desert. The goat represented Satan. When his evil temptations really come to an end at the end of the world, the war, this great controversy between God and Satan, will be over. The whole universe will be clean and at peace. Satan can no longer accuse us.

“When Jesus came to the earth, died, and was resurrected, it was no longer necessary to sacrifice lambs. Jesus had become the Sacrifice to save us, and we no longer needed to sacrifice any lambs to show what Jesus’ plan for saving us would be. The Old Testament helps us understand Jesus, and the New Testament tells us how He became the fulfillment of the promises that God made to the Israelites in the Old Testament.

“The New Testament also tells about how the war with Satan will end, so we don’t have to be afraid of the problems that will occur on the earth before Satan finally meets his end.

“God’s Word and His plan are always good news. Even if we are not sure we understand all of it, we can know the most important part: that we can trust our life to Jesus, our very best and most trustworthy Friend in the universe. He will end the great controversy between Himself and Satan.”

Uncle Leonard and the children sat quietly. They listened to the song of the crickets as the sun began to set.

“That was a long illustration, Uncle Leonard,” Carson said. “Did the people understand it?”

“Sometimes they seemed to. Other times they ignored it.”

A moment later, Uncle Leonard said, “Tomorrow I would like to go to your house, Carson, and look at your model airplanes. I have always been interested in airplanes.”

Uncle Leonard got up from his patio chair and walked with the children a little way down the path as they started home.

CHAPTER 9

Communication With Our General

Carson loved two things above all others: nature and history. His history favorite was World War II because of the airplanes. Every year for his birthday and for Christmas, Carson asked his parents for a new model airplane. He tried to collect as many of them as he could. Whenever he could find history documentaries about the planes of World War II, Carson watched.

Carson had twenty-three planes in his collection. Some he had made from scratch; others were model kits he put together from a box. Hanging from the ceiling of his room were models of a German Focke-Wulf FW 190 and a British Spitfire, planes from World War II, that looked as though they were chasing each other.

Just as he said he would, Uncle Leonard came to visit. Carson called downstairs from his room and invited him up. As Uncle Leonard came into the room, he bumped his head on a low-hanging airplane. He and Carson laughed.

“What is this? Am I under attack?” Uncle Leonard grinned.

“No. I just need a shorter string on that one. I just hung it up last night.”

“Tell me about your planes,” Uncle Leonard said as he sat down on Carson’s desk chair.

Carson began to explain each plane—where it was made and who flew it in the war. He liked the little Spitfire, but he also liked the US Grumman F6F Hellcat that was used in the Pacific after the United States entered the war.

After Carson had talked about every one of his model planes, Uncle Leonard asked, “Why do you think you are so fascinated by the war?”

“Actually, it’s not so much the war, it’s just the planes,” Carson said.

Thoughtfully, Uncle Leonard looked at Carson and asked, “Then why do you know so much more about the battles than the specifications of the planes?”

“I don’t, Uncle Leonard, it’s just that you can’t tell the story of one without telling the story of the other.”

“Oh, I see. May I tell you a war story?”

“Sure, Uncle Leonard.” Carson sat down on his bed.

“During World War II, the United States and its allies were fighting fierce battles against those who were trying to take over all the islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. One group of people was especially important in these battles. They were the Navajos, Native Americans from the Southwest, who volunteered to fight in the war.

“As you know, generals must be able to communicate with the soldiers under their command during wartime to give them instructions. The Marines needed to hear their orders and know what to do when it was time for battle. It was equally important that the enemy not understand those instructions. If the enemy knew America was going to attack the island of Okinawa on April 1, they would be ready with all their best weapons to destroy the US Marines when they arrived.

“The Americans had radios for communication, but the enemy could also hear the American radios. The radio operators used a secret code, but codes have a weakness—smart people can figure them out. America had cracked the enemy’s radio code, so the American generals knew the instructions the enemy generals were giving. They did not want their enemies to figure out America’s code.

“This is why the Navajos were important. The Navajo language is very difficult for anyone except the Navajos to figure out. It was better than a code because it was already someone’s language. When a general had instructions to give, he gave those instructions to a Navajo soldier, who spoke the instructions over the radio in the Navajo language. On the battlefield, another Navajo serviceman who heard those orders would translate them back into English for the Marines. The enemy generals never figured out the Navajo language, never understood what they were hearing. So they did not know what the American forces’ plans were. These servicemen were called the Navajo code talkers, and they were very important to America’s success in the war against those who were attacking us.”

“I don’t see how that relates to my planes, Uncle Leonard.” Carson felt like he was getting a sermon, not a story. He felt a little guilty for enjoying his planes so much and wondered how to understand what Uncle Leonard was saying.

“Well, Carson, let me see if I can tell the second part of my story in a way that makes all of this fit together. You have read about wars around the world. I can see by your book collection that you have a particular interest in World War II because of the airplanes used in that war. I like the airplanes, too, Carson. In fact, my father was a pilot, but he eventually quit.”

“He was? I didn’t know that. Why did he quit?”

“When your mother was a baby, he realized that he could crash one day and leave her and your grandmother by themselves. He did not want to do that, so he quit and came home. When he got back home, your grandmother gave him a special book to read. Since he had time to read during the long winter evenings, he read it. The story I am going to tell you now is the story he found in that book—the Bible.

“You remember the story I told you and Jane about the war in heaven? That war began when Lucifer decided he wanted to be as important as Jesus. He became jealous and wanted to unseat Jesus from His throne. So, as I told you, he began telling lies about God to the other angels, and eventually he convinced one-third of the angels that they would be better off with him as their leader.

“Satan knows how to sound convincing and to persuade others to listen to him. He can make them believe that a lie is truth and that truth is a lie. He convinced himself that if given a chance, he could get the entire universe to follow him. Thinking that he was smarter than God was not a good idea. God and Jesus are also very good at communication, and They are wiser than Satan.

“Because God is able to communicate with us, He gave us two sources of important information. One is the Bible and the other is the writings of a modern prophet. We can talk more about her later.

“Wars on this earth are always a plot by Satan to harm as many people as possible. But of course, Satan will not ultimately win. God knows that, Satan knows that, and we can know that because God has told us about Satan’s battle plans. Satan hates that we know all about his plans, and the only way he can be successful is to break down the communication between God, our holy General, and us, His Marines.

“Just imagine Satan and his angels discussing what they can do to trick us. They might say things like, ‘If we can convince them it isn’t important to listen to God, then we have them!’

“Another of Satan’s angels might say, ‘Or if we can keep them so busy they won’t have time for God, that will work also.’

“Satan and his angels think they can get people to invent lots of fascinating things that seem more interesting than what God has to say. If video games, TV series, and movies are made so vivid and exciting that it’s hard to not pay attention to them, those people might forget all about God and the Bible. Satan and his angels have to keep us from learning how they plan to catch us.

“However, God has not left us alone to fight against Satan and his evil angels. Because He loves us and has told us exactly what Satan’s plans are, it is now up to us to read and learn so we won’t be fooled.

“Through the centuries, God has talked to some people directly. These people are His messengers, and we call them prophets. Some people think the only work of prophets is to predict the future. However, prophets do not just predict the future. They give us God’s messages of love and tell us what is going to happen, so we can avoid Satan’s tricks. Before any big event, God always sends messengers to prepare the people for that event.

“Before the Flood, Noah was sent as the messenger to warn the people and to invite them to come into the safety of the ark (Genesis 6; 7). When it was time for the Israelites to leave Egypt, Moses was the man to give all God’s messages to them. God sent Jonah to warn the people in Nineveh to change and avoid destruction (Jonah 1–4).

“During the many years when the people of Israel were living in Canaan, they often turned away and worshiped other gods. The prophets tried to bring them back to the one true God. When they were so unfaithful that God could no longer protect them from the nation of Babylon, He sent several prophets to warn them—prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, and Ezekiel. Later, before Jesus came to the earth, He sent John the Baptist to prepare the people for that event” (Matthew 3).

“Uncle Leonard, that was all in the past. It would be nice if He would tell us more about what He’s planning for the future,” Carson said. “I would really like to know when Jesus is coming.”

“Well, Carson, as the time approaches for Jesus to come back to the earth a second time and finish the long battle with Satan, God has given us clues. Jesus told us that the final few years before His second coming will be the most difficult time in history. He told us that Satan has clever plans that will completely fool anyone who does not know God as a close Friend and who does not listen to His messages.

“Satan plans to bring fierce wars, violence, earthquakes, and other kinds of destruction and blame them all on God and God’s people. Since God warned people long ago, wouldn’t we expect God to have another messenger for us at this time (Joel 2:28, 29)? Maybe we can talk about a woman prophet tomorrow.”

Carson set down the plane he was holding. He looked at Uncle Leonard with a serious expression. “I think I’d like to hear the rest of the story. I know Jane would like to hear about a woman prophet.” He grinned. “I’ll bring her to your place tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 10

The Modern-Day Prophet

Rain was splattering on Carson’s window when he woke up the next morning. He crawled out of bed and groaned when he saw the puddles outside. He wouldn’t be able to ride his bike over to Uncle Leonard’s in that mess. When he went into the kitchen, Jane was already eating breakfast.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she said as she ate her last bite of cereal. “Didn’t you say Uncle Leonard had a story about a girl prophet to tell us today?”

Before he could answer, the phone rang. Mrs. Lawson answered it.

“Oh, I think they would like that,” she said into the phone. “OK, we’ll see you in half an hour.”

Carson and Jane looked at her questioningly.

“Uncle Leonard said he is going to drive over here since it is raining. He will be here in about thirty minutes.”

Later, the children and Uncle Leonard sat in front of the fire in the family room.

“Yesterday you wanted to know if God had told prophets anything about what will happen before the end of time,” Uncle Leonard said. “The Bible tells us some, especially in the book of Revelation, but God also sent us a messenger for this time. Jane, she was just a girl—a teenager as a matter of fact—when God gave her a vision. Her name was Ellen White.”

“I’ve heard of her,” Jane said. “Didn’t she have more than one vision?”

“She was given many visions. God talked to her and showed her scenes, like movie scenes, of what is going to happen. He also gave her messages and advice to share with the church.”

“Did people listen to her advice? And what did she write about?” Carson asked.

“Well, since you are still in school, you might wonder what she said about school, for example. She wrote several books about education. All the schools owned by the Seventh-day Adventist Church around the world are the result of her advice. We have elementary schools, academies and secondary schools, universities, seminaries, and medical schools. She was very specific about what the schools should teach and how they should be run.

“These schools were set up to teach the best knowledge that is also taught in other schools, but their main focus was to be on Jesus. They are to teach how much He loves us and that because He loves us He will come back to rescue us from this world.”

“What else did she talk about?” Jane asked.

“In 1863, Ellen White had a vision about health. That was the beginning of all the writing and speaking she did on health. Based on what God told her, along with what medical science has found, the Adventist Church has built hospitals, clinics, and medical schools around the world. The church teaches a lot about good health based on what Ellen White said.

“But again, the focus of all the health messages and medical facilities is to be on Jesus. Jesus spent a lot of time healing people, and His teachings were about how much God loves us.

“One example of Ellen White’s encouragement of medical work was her advice in 1905 that Adventists should buy a bankrupt health resort in Loma Linda, California, to make a school to train nurses and doctors. There were not nearly enough Adventist church members in California who could give money to buy such a school, and the conference administrator gave instructions not to purchase Loma Linda. But because of God’s word to her, Ellen White was stubborn and said to buy it anyway! Because of God’s miraculous leading, Loma Linda was successful in overcoming difficult challenges. Today it is Loma Linda University, a leading medical institution, respected around the world. It is the only medically oriented university that features advanced medical science combined with distinct faith in God.

“Now Ellen White’s visions about education and health were not just about institutions. God knew there would be increasing disease and health problems during this part of history, so in the 1863 vision He gave Ellen White instructions for healthful living. These instructions were far more accurate than other ideas on health at that time and are still scientifically correct. Those who follow her health principles now have less disease and live longer than people who do not follow these principles.”

“What was Ellen White like as a person? Was she a good Christian?” Carson wanted to know.

“She was always close to God,” Uncle Leonard said, “and she was a lover of people. Let me give you an example.

“Ellen White liked to ride around the countryside in her carriage. She was a friendly person who often stopped to talk to people who lived along the road. After she died at a very old age, people referred to her as the little old lady with white hair who always spoke so lovingly of Jesus.

“She understood children because she had four sons. She wrote to them when she was away from home traveling. From her letters to them, you can see how much she loved her children.

“She was a real person who had real-life duties. One was picking cherries. When she was about seventy-five years old, she wrote a letter to a friend and said, ‘Our carriages were drawn up under the trees and I picked nineteen quarts [of cherries], sometimes sitting on the carriage seat and sometimes standing on it.’[1]

“In her life, Ellen White preached hundreds of sermons, gave advice to the church, and wrote many books.

“Sadly, as always happens, Satan does everything he can to keep us from listening to God’s messenger. There are websites and books that try to make Ellen White seem like a false prophet and even like an awful person. We have to find out for ourselves what the truth is about her and her work.”

“Did she ever disagree with the Bible?” Carson asked.

“No,” Uncle Leonard replied. “Neither she nor God’s Bible messengers changed the truths given by previous messengers. Each one adds something to the beautiful set of truths found in the whole Bible. Ellen White did not disagree with the Bible. She did not give the church any new doctrines that are not in the Bible.

“God’s messages to us through Ellen White encourage us to depend on the Bible to decide what is true. Her messages remind us how important the Bible is and help us understand how the Bible guides us in our modern world with its difficulties.

“If we compare God’s messages to a set of maps to guide ships at sea, then the Bible shows us to which harbor the ship is going. Ellen White’s messages give a more detailed map showing how the ship’s captain will get us past the rocks and other obstacles in the harbor and reach the ship’s dock safely.

“The Bible outlines Satan’s plans to destroy us all, especially in the difficult times just before Jesus’ second coming. Ellen White provides a lot of information on those plans and how we can avoid Satan’s deceptions. Satan hates her for that, and he tries very hard to make us believe she is a false prophet and a deceiver. He is the real deceiver, and he convinces some people to make false accusations against her and her work.”

“That sounds like what he did in heaven when he got the angels to follow him,” Jane said.

“He sounds really dangerous,” Carson added.

“You are both correct,” Uncle Leonard said. “Ellen White’s whole life was a work of love for God and for all of us. She told us in beautiful language how much God loves us and about the free gift of salvation God offers to us because of His love.

“If you want to learn more about her messages to us and decide for yourself what you think about her, I suggest beginning with the book Steps to Christ. Then read The Desire of Ages, a book about Jesus’ life. She wrote a number of other good books, including The Great Controversy, which describes the great war between Satan and God that we’ve been talking about and how the war will end. Most important of all, we need to follow her advice to read our Bible often and let God speak to us through the Bible.”

“Aren’t her books too hard for kids to read?” Jane wanted to know.

“Well, Jane, we could read one of them together,” Uncle Leonard replied. “You, Carson, and me. We can decide which one we want to start with. Then if you have questions, I will be there to help you figure out answers.

“Looks like the rain stopped,” he said, looking out the window. The sun was peeking through the clouds, and they could see a rainbow shining over the meadow behind the house.

“I think I will go home now. We can talk again later.”

Jane and Carson walked Uncle Leonard to the door. It was time to do something else.

1

Ellen G. White to Lucinda M. Hall, Letter 21, June 25, 1903.

CHAPTER 11

Can God Love Even Them?

Jane and Carson were taking Uncle Leonard’s dog, Comet, for a walk. They talked about what Uncle Leonard had said concerning God’s love, which was sometimes difficult to understand. They liked some of the Bible stories, but there were parts of even the interesting ones that they found disturbing.

“Uncle Leonard said God loves everyone. Is that even true?” Carson wondered as he kicked a clod of dirt down the path. “Some of the people in the Bible were really bad. There are great stories about people like Samson and David, but they also did some very bad stuff. Like David. He killed Goliath and then fought a lot of wars and killed people” (Judges 13–16; 1 Samuel 17:41–51; 2 Samuel 11).

“What are you saying? Did Uncle Leonard not tell the truth?” Jane stopped and stared at Carson.

“I think he did. But maybe he just has not read very much.”

“Well, I think we’d better go ask him. It is not right to lie to kids. But then, maybe he can explain why David killed people and why Samson killed people.”

They turned back and began to walk toward Uncle Leonard’s house. Carson whistled for Comet to follow them. Comet saw a rabbit and took off after it. She completely ignored Carson. Both children shouted at Comet, and when the rabbit had run away and disappeared, the dog turned and ran toward them with her tongue hanging out.

“Bad dog, Comet.” Carson was annoyed.

“Don’t you like Comet anymore?” Jane asked.

“Of course I do. You don’t stop loving a dog just because she disobeys sometimes.” Carson looked at the face of the little dog and rubbed her ears. “Comet, you are a bad dog.” Comet wagged her bobbed tail.

When they got to Uncle Leonard’s, the children told him about Comet running off and chasing the rabbit. Then they asked him about the parts of the Bible where people did bad things.

Uncle Leonard smiled and said, “I think you have just answered your own question. Did you stop loving Comet because she disobeyed?”

“No, of course not. We would never do that.”

“Then think about the way God deals with people. We like the Bible stories, but how would we feel if no one in the Bible stories ever did anything wrong? Wouldn’t we wonder if they were really true? Wouldn’t we wonder if we could ever do anything right? Would we wonder if God could ever forgive us? Because He forgave Samson, David, Jonah, and Jacob for their sins, we know He will continue to love us and forgive us” (Genesis 27:1–39; Judges 16:23–31; 2 Samuel 12:13; Jonah 2:1–10, 4:10, 11).

Carson and Jane stared at their uncle. He was kind of making sense.

“Some of the Old Testament people—like Jonah, Esther, Abraham, and Moses—did some excellent things. However, every one of them also made some really bad mistakes. Jonah refused to go to Nineveh; Esther married a heathen king; Abraham fought in wars; and even Moses killed an Egyptian before he left Egypt. Later in his life, Moses hit the rock when God told him to speak to it, so he did not get to go into the Promised Land. But you remember that the Bible says God resurrected Moses and took him to heaven.

“When we read the exciting stories about God’s heroes, we might not pay attention to the parts of the stories that tell about people doing violent and mean things. Samson was sometimes a hero, but why was he so foolish as to fell in love with a heathen woman who obviously could not be trusted and who caused him to spend part of his life as a slave in prison?

“The story of Joseph is fascinating. But think about his brothers. Can you imagine having brothers who would try to kill you and then sell you as a slave (Genesis 37:1–36)? That is about as bad as you can get. Yet these ten brothers were the beginning of God’s chosen nation. Wow! If people in your church did that, what do you think would happen?”

“Why are those stories in the Bible?” Carson asked. He was puzzled. People did some things in Bible times that seemed to be done only by the worst criminals today. He could understand how everyone did some bad things along the way. But the Bible characters seemed to be over-the-top bad.

“Some people today criticize the Bible and say it is an awful book because of these stories,” Uncle Leonard said. “But the stories actually give me hope. If even David could be called a man after God’s own heart after all he did wrong, I know there is hope for me.

“From the Bible we learn that through history, individuals and nations were often at war with one another. At the time of those stories about the Israelites, communities and nations often attacked and destroyed one another’s cities. That is why those ancient cities had big walls around them. They needed protection from the frequent attacks by their neighbors. There was a lot of violence everywhere, and even people who loved God were part of that culture and at times acted badly like their neighbors.”

“So we don’t give up on Comet when she does something wrong. Maybe God cares too much about people to give up on them,” Jane suggested.

“I agree with you, Jane,” Uncle Leonard said. “What those difficult Old Testament stories tell me is that God is very patient with His people. He worked with them for centuries to gradually lift them up from their bad behavior and inspire them to be kinder to one another. The Bible does not tell only the good things that people did but is honest about their good and bad behavior.”

“Did God tell people ahead of time how they were supposed to act? How did they even know how to behave?” Carson asked.

“God gave His people, beginning with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, laws to live by. The Israelites were given various laws, not only the Ten Commandments. Some of these laws were similar to laws in the nations surrounding them but were better than those other laws.

“When the Israelites came to the Promised Land, they often forgot God and began worshiping heathen idols. When this got very bad, God allowed them to become captives and they were taken away to Babylon. He allowed them to become captives in Babylon to help them realize how much better it would have been if they had remained faithful to Him. Later, He helped those who wanted to return to Israel to go home.

“The story of the Flood raises many questions. First, why would a loving God kill nearly all the people on the earth? Satan is determined to destroy all of us. During the time before the Flood, he had been so successful in his war against God that almost everyone had forgotten about God and become very violent.

“What should God do about it? God is a loving God, so should He just love everyone and let them do as they wish? If that had happened, and the knowledge of God was gone from the earth, Satan would have won the war.

“God is a loving God, but that does not mean He is a wimp. In the great controversy, the big war between God and Satan, the safety of the whole universe is at risk. At times, God has to take drastic action to defeat Satan’s clever schemes to destroy the human race, and the Flood was one of those times. Love sometimes has to be strong and make difficult decisions.

“Remember also that God didn’t just kill without warning. He used Noah to warn all the people of their danger for 120 years, trying to win them back to Him before the Flood. God did not need Noah to build the ark. He could have just taken Noah’s family and the animals to another planet until the Flood was over. All the years of work building the ark was a way for God to get people’s attention.

“Think about it. Noah building that huge boat was probably the Disneyland of that time—the most interesting thing happening. It got everyone’s attention and brought them to hear Noah’s preaching. They saw the boat, and they heard God’s loving attempt to win them back. They made their own choice to reject God, so we can’t blame God that they all died in the Flood. God never brings punishments or disasters without plenty of warnings and attempts to encourage people to accept the safety He offers.

“In the midst of the difficult stories about people who treated one another badly, we find Jesus. The Old Testament people were rough and even cruel, but the stories show how God worked to make them kinder and more civilized. When Jesus came to the earth to live, His life was His crowning effort to help us become more like Him.

“Someday, when we are in our new home in heaven, we can meet David, Esther, Moses, Samson, Isaac and his beautiful wife, and all the others. I can’t wait to talk with them and learn more about their lives. I do not want to arm wrestle with Samson, but maybe I can learn from David how to be skillful in hitting a target with a sling and how to write beautiful poetry. Solomon was very wise, and it will be fun to talk with him about the animals he studied. Best of all, we will meet Jesus, and He can explain why some bad things happened in our own lives.”

Jane thought for a moment. Then she asked, “Do you think that the way God treats people should be an example of how we should treat them? I was thinking about Layla, the girl who says bad things about our friend Amber. Should Amber and I just forgive her? Or should we stop playing with her?”

“Jesus said to forgive people seventy times seven times. That doesn’t mean to keep score; it just means to forgive people and not keep score. What do you think it means for how you and Amber should treat Layla?” Uncle Leonard asked.

“It sounds like we should forgive her. She is only saying mean things. She doesn’t hit us or anything,” Jane said.

“Do you think that means you should forgive her for sure?” Uncle Leonard asked.

“Yes, I think it does. I’ll talk to Amber about it.”

CHAPTER 12

What Is a Remnant?

One August morning, Jane and her mother headed to town to buy some fabric. Mrs. Lawson liked to sew, and this day she was looking for fabric for new curtains for Jane’s room. The room had had the same curtains since Jane was a baby. It was time to make her room like a young woman’s room rather than a baby’s room.

When mother and daughter got to the craft and fabric store, they discovered rows of fabric they could use for curtains.

“What colors do you like best, Jane?” Mrs. Lawson asked her daughter as she felt the various fabrics on display.

“Not pink. I don’t like pink anymore. Maybe lavender, or black and white. I’ll know it when I see it.”

After searching for about half an hour, both Jane and her mother were running out of patience with the process. Suddenly Jane ran toward some black-and-white patterned fabric and announced, “This is it. This is what I like.”

“Are you sure? You are going to have it for a long time,” her mother pointed out.

“Mom, I’m sure. Let’s see if there’s enough.”

At the measuring table, the clerk measured off the number of yards Mrs. Lawson asked for. When she got near the end of the fabric on the bolt, she stopped and said, “There is going to be a three-quarters-yard remnant at the end. I can’t sell only three-quarters of a yard, so do you want to buy it?”

“Yes, of course. We might be able to make a pillowcase from it.”

On the way home, Jane was quiet.

“Are you all right, Jane? Are you having second thoughts about the fabric?”

“No, I’m fine. I still like the fabric. I was just thinking about something Uncle Leonard said the other day. We were talking about the end of the world, and he said at the end there would be only a few people who follow God. He called them the remnant. I could not figure out what he meant. Did he mean the remnant of people is like the remnant of fabric? Just the little bit at the end? Or the few people at the end?”

“Jane, you’re right,” her mother said. “And maybe the new pillowcase we make from the fabric end will remind you of the remnant.”

“Uncle Leonard said that it wasn’t any particular group of people who would be part of the remnant. He said it’s those who love God.”

“When we get back, why don’t you have Uncle Leonard tell you the story of Elijah and the remnant people of his time?” her mother suggested. “Elijah is one of my favorite Bible characters, partly because he was faithful to God even when he thought he was the only one left. You can go over to Uncle Leonard’s house, and I will get started on the curtains.” Her mother smiled at her and gave her a pat on the hand.

They saw Carson riding his bike when they drove up into the driveway. Jane jumped out of the car as soon as it stopped.

“What’s up?” Carson asked as he skidded to a stop.

“I want to go see if Uncle Leonard has time for a story,” Jane said. “I want him to tell us about Elijah.”

“Don’t you already know that story?”

“Yes, but I think there might be something I missed when I heard it before. I don’t remember anything about a remnant in that story.”

“Me either. I guess it’s time to go to Uncle Leonard’s.”

When the brother and sister arrived at Uncle Leonard’s house, he was washing mud off his hands after working in the garden. They both began asking him questions about Elijah.

“Let’s go in and get some lemonade,” Uncle Leonard said. “Then we can go out on the porch and sit and talk. Comet is thirsty too, so we will bring her some water.”

In the kitchen, Uncle Leonard poured lemonade for each of them. “What is it you want to know about Elijah?” he asked. “I think we have read the Elijah story together before.”

Jane told Uncle Leonard about her trip to the fabric store and the fabric remnant she had brought home. Then she told him what she had figured out about what the word remnant meant for people. However, she could not remember what it meant for Elijah.

“Elijah is one of my favorite Bible characters too,” Uncle Leonard said. “He is another one that God took to heaven. Unlike Moses, though, who died and was resurrected by God, Elijah went straight to heaven while he was alive, in a chariot that looked like fire (2 Kings 2:1–12). But we are getting ahead of the story.

“In Elijah’s time, the king, Ahab, was one of the most evil kings the Israelites ever had. His wife, Queen Jezebel, was even worse. They both worshiped the heathen god Baal.

“God sent an angel to tell Elijah to go see Ahab and tell him that because of Israel’s rebellion there would not be any rain or dew until God said there would be. Elijah marched into the king’s palace and right up to the king, who was sitting on his throne. Pointing his finger at Ahab, Elijah said, ‘There will be no dew or rain until I say so.’ Then he turned and walked out.

“Ahab was stunned. A man dressed in ordinary clothes had just come into the palace and into the throne room, and the guards did not even try to stop him. He had threatened the king, and no one said a word.

“Suddenly Ahab shouted to the guards, ‘Get that man!’ But by the time they ran to the door, Elijah was out of sight. ‘Oh well,’ Ahab said nervously, ‘what can he do? He is just a crackpot.’

“God told Elijah to go to a stream named Cherith and stay there until He told him to leave. For three years Elijah stayed there. Ravens brought him bread, and the stream provided water. That is, until the stream dried up because there was no rain. Then God told Elijah to go meet a widow in the town of Zarephath. He stayed with that widow until the day God told him to return to see King Ahab.

“You know the rest of the story very well now. So let’s jump to the part where the remnant comes in, since that is your question (1 Kings 17–19).

“After Elijah had defeated the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, he ran away from Queen Jezebel and hid because she had threatened to have him killed. Running away was not what God wanted him to do, but Elijah was tired, hungry, and afraid. Angels came to give him food, and after a few days, God said to Elijah, ‘You are not the only one who serves Me. I have seven thousand people who have not bowed down to the pagan god Baal’ (1 Kings 19:9–18).

“And Jane, that is your remnant. Elijah thought he was the only one left who was still serving God, but some others were faithful—seven thousand others. They were Elijah’s remnant. Near the end of this world, people who still follow God may feel alone and like they are the only ones still faithful to Him. But God will always have a remnant of people, a group of people, who are loyal and faithful to Him.

“There are other remnant stories in the Bible as well. For example, out of all the possibly millions of people who lived before the Flood, only a small remnant of people got on the ark. Just eight people—Noah and his family.

“Abraham and his family were a remnant from all the people who were born after the Flood, and they became God’s people.

“At the time of Jesus, there was a remnant in Israel, a small number of people who accepted Him as the Messiah when most of the people rejected Jesus.”

“You said before that there’s a remnant in the New Testament. In Revelation, I think. Who are they?” Carson asked.

“You know that God always loves everyone,” Uncle Leonard replied, “and at different times He chooses a few people to help other people, not because He loves them more but because He has work for them to do. We understand that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is the remnant church, but it does not mean that God loves the Adventist Church more or that the church members are the only ones who will be saved to live in heaven with God. It means this church was chosen to help other people understand what it takes to be prepared for the difficult times at the end of this world and that the church is to help others be prepared for heaven.

“The book of Revelation describes two groups who are saved in the end—the 144,000 and a great multitude whom no one could count. That does not sound like only the members of any one church (Revelation 7:1–17; 14:1–5).

“Ellen White told a story that explains what determines who will be saved. She gives an example of a person living in a heathen village in the jungle, who has never heard of God. God’s Holy Spirit speaks to the person, influencing her mind and heart, which means her feelings and conscience. She responds in the only way she knows how, by being kind to people and kind to the animals. She is following God’s leading in her life, even though she does not know who or what is making her kind and loving. That person will end up in heaven and will wonder what happened. Jesus will talk to her and explain it, and when she understands about God’s leading her and about salvation, she will just naturally love Jesus. In fact, she has already been listening to His voice through the Holy Spirit, so it will be natural for her to keep following Him.

“Now, what does this tell us about the remnant church? It seems clear in the Bible that some people from every religion will be saved and will be in heaven. Being a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church or any other church does not decide if we will be in heaven. In every church, some people are there because they love Jesus and want to know Him better.

“A remnant church is simply one that has a special message to share, that will help others know Jesus better. The message of today’s remnant church helps people recognize Satan’s clever tricks that he will use to try to fool us in the last years before Jesus comes. The choice then will be to love and follow Jesus or to follow Satan and his human assistants. The Bible message for the remnant will help all of us know that we are following our Leader, Jesus, and are not following a false leader, Satan, no matter how attractive he makes his false religion seem.

“The Bible defines the difference between God’s followers and Satan’s followers very clearly: those who are saved will have faith in Jesus and will keep the commandments of God (Revelation 12:17; 14:12). The other people will choose to follow human laws that are different from God’s Ten Commandments. When that time comes, those who have learned to love God will recognize the difference between those two choices, and the remnant people will be ready to encourage and help others see which is the right choice.

“We know that Jesus loves us,” Uncle Leonard concluded. “We know that He wants us to go to heaven to be with Him. And we want to love Him.”

Jane and Carson both nodded in agreement with him.

Everyone was quiet and thoughtful. As they finished their lemonade, Uncle Leonard said, “Perhaps that’s enough for one day.”

On another day, the children would ask more questions. And on another day, Uncle Leonard would be glad to answer them.

CHAPTER 13

The Lamb Is the King

Carson was riding his bicycle in the back driveway of his parents’ home.

“Carson!” Jane shouted at her brother.

Carson stopped his bike. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Let’s go ask Uncle Leonard to tell us about the dragon and the lambs.”

“Seriously? What would he know about dragons?” Carson wondered.

“Remember last week in church the pastor talked about dragons and lambs. I just thought Uncle Leonard could explain what he meant.”

“I didn’t hear anything about dragons in church.”

“That’s because you were reading your book and not paying attention.”

“If we’re going to go see Uncle Leonard, let’s call him before we go to be sure he has time. We can tell him we want to talk about dragons, and he will probably tell us he doesn’t know anything about them, and we will not have to waste anybody’s time.” Carson got on his bike and rode to the back door.

“Jane, you call,” he said over his shoulder. “I don’t want to feel silly.”

After calling Uncle Leonard, Jane turned to Carson. “He said we could come right over. As soon as I said something about dragons and lambs, he said he has a surprise for us.”

As the two walked into Uncle Leonard’s house, he suggested they go out to the sheep pasture. When they came to the pasture’s fence, all three leaned against the top rail and watched the sheep. Suddenly Jane pointed and exclaimed, “Look, a lamb! No, two!”

“Actually, I see three.” Uncle Leonard pointed to Molly, who also had a new lamb. “No reason to bother the sheep today. Let’s go sit on that boulder and chat. Now, what was it you wanted to know about dragons?” Uncle Leonard looked at Jane.

“Uncle Leonard,” Carson blurted out. “Jane has some silly idea about a lamb that can kill a dragon. She thinks she heard it in church.”

“It seems to me that I heard something like that last week also,” Uncle Leonard said as he plucked a long stem of grass and put one end of it in his mouth. He looked at Jane. “There is a story in the Bible about a dragon and a lamb. Before we start the story, I think we need to give the right names to the dragon and the Lamb.

“The Lamb in the Bible is Jesus. All through the Bible He is referred to as the Lamb. The dragon is Satan. The question is not, Can a lamb kill a dragon? The question is, Can Jesus defeat Satan?

“The secret of this fight is that although Jesus was the Lamb who died to save us, He is also God, who is strong enough to put suns and planets in their place. He could destroy Satan whenever He wanted to, but He allows Satan to continue the fight until there has been time to save as many people as possible. Then Jesus will come back to the earth and take us to heaven, away from Satan.”

“We know that Jesus already defeated Satan when He died on the cross. So why doesn’t Satan give up and stop bothering us?” Carson asked.

“It is because Satan is mean, and he wants to cause as much trouble as he can, and perhaps he still thinks he can win somehow.

“As we have talked about before, there is a war going on between good and evil, between Jesus and Satan. We call it the great controversy. That name just means ‘the great war,’ or ‘the great struggle,’ or ‘the great fight.’ Whatever we call it, it is a terrible battle on the earth.

“As we get near the end of this world, the struggle will get worse. We do not know exactly when Jesus will come, but He is coming soon. Jesus has given us several things to look for just before He comes. Some of them are a little complicated, but you both like complicated puzzles. So let’s talk about it.

“You remember that the prophet Daniel lived in Babylon after the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and taken many Jews captive. God gave Daniel some visions, so that he could see what was going to happen in the future. Five hundred years before it happened, Daniel saw how Jesus would come to the earth and be born in Bethlehem.

“One vision that Daniel had is a little hard to understand, but it is very important for us. The angel told Daniel about a period of 2,300 years that would begin in a particular year. The king of Persia would make a decree that the city of Jerusalem should be rebuilt. That decree would come in 457 B.C. And then, the angel said to Daniel, 490 years would go by, and that period would span until A.D. 34. During those 490 years, the Jewish people in Israel would continue to be God’s special people” (Daniel 8:13–9:27).

Uncle Leonard picked up a stick and started to draw on the ground. First he wrote “B.C.” and “A.D.” Then he drew a long line in the dust and wrote “457 B.C.” on one end and “A.D. 1844” at the other end. In the middle of the line, where the “B.C.” part ended and the “A.D.” part began, he wrote the number zero.

Then he continued, “The prophecy given to Daniel foretold exactly when the Messiah, Jesus, would come to the earth the first time, when He would be crucified and resurrected, and when the gospel about Jesus would be spread to the Gentiles, who are all the people who are not Jews.”

Writing in the dust on the ground again, Uncle Leonard wrote “A.D. 27,” which was the year Jesus was baptized and began His ministry.

Below that, he wrote “A.D. 31,” which was the year when Jesus was crucified and resurrected.

Then he wrote “A.D. 34.” That was the year when the gospel, or the good news about Jesus, was first taught to the Gentiles (Acts 7:54; 8:3; 10:1–47).

“But what happened in 1844?” Carson wanted to know. “That was a long time after Jesus was resurrected.”

“In the year 1844, the 2,300 years came to an end. Daniel had said it would be the year that the sanctuary would be cleansed (Daniel 8:14). Around that year of 1844, many people were preaching that Jesus was coming very, very soon. In New England, on the east coast of the United States, many people thought they understood what Daniel’s prophecy meant, and they believed that the sanctuary Daniel talked about was the earth. Therefore, they thought Jesus would come to the earth the second time in 1844 and cleanse the whole earth. They believed it would happen on October 22, 1844.

“Have you ever heard people talk about the Great Disappointment? Jesus did not come back to the earth in October 1844—and when He did not come, many people were so disappointed and angry about it that they refused to even admit that they had been looking for Jesus to come.

“But after that very sad day in 1844, a little group of people—maybe you could call them a remnant—decided that, instead of denying the prophecy was real, they would study their Bibles again to find out where they had gone wrong. They got together in small groups and prayed for guidance from God. What they discovered in their Bible studies was that the sanctuary to be cleansed was not the earth. Rather, the prophecy was talking about the sanctuary in heaven. And that day in 1844 was the beginning of the judgment in heaven, which is the beginning of the cleansing of sin.

“God sometimes gives us a visual aid so we can understand some important truth He wants us to learn. The aid He used throughout the entire Bible is the sanctuary. Remember the sanctuary the Israelites made in the desert? Well, it was just a sample or a model of what the sanctuary in heaven is like, and when we understand what it all means, we can figure out Daniel’s prophecies.

“I remember reading in Daniel’s book that the angel Gabriel came to Daniel with a message from God. He said, ‘When you started praying, I was standing by God’s throne and He sent me to give you a message.’ He also said, ‘Daniel, greatly beloved.’ I like that part. ‘Greatly beloved.’ ”

Carson looked out at the pasture. “Do you think God might call me ‘greatly beloved’ someday?”

Uncle Leonard put his arm around Carson’s shoulder and said, “I’m sure you are greatly beloved by God now. You are also greatly beloved by me.

“But now it is time to talk about the ending. What is going to happen at the end of time, and how can we know when Jesus’ coming is near?”

“Was Daniel the only one who got messages from God? Didn’t somebody else get prophecies too?” Jane asked.

“You’re right to ask that,” Uncle Leonard said. “Daniel wasn’t the only one in the Bible to talk about the end of the world. Jesus mentioned it in the book of Matthew, and John wrote about it in the book of Revelation. They give us clues, but they do not give us an exact date for anything. One of the things to look for is wars and rumors of wars.

“I think the Bible tells us about the terrible things that will happen just before Jesus comes so we will recognize them as signs of the end and not be afraid. In fact, I think what God wants us to do is look up to Him and know that Jesus’ coming is near.”

“Uncle Leonard, what about the dragon and the Lamb? How do they fit into the story?” Jane was still curious about the dragon and lambs.

“Jane, since Satan is the dragon in the Bible and Jesus is the Lamb, we know several things about their battle. First, when Satan had Jesus crucified, his plan to get rid of Jesus forever did not work out. Two days later, Jesus was resurrected when the angel came to His tomb and said, ‘Son of God, Your Father calls You.’ Second, when Jesus comes again, Satan’s time will be completely finished. Jesus the Lamb will have won the war against Satan the dragon” (Revelation 14:1–5).

“Are there any other clues?” Carson asked. He was interested in the wars and battles. He wanted to know the clues so he would know when the great war was about to end.

“Yes, Carson, there are many clues. Some are specific, and some are general. Some of them are false religious teachers and false prophets, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in many places; and some people will claim to be the Messiah (Matthew 24:1–33).

“Jesus had one specific piece of advice for us. He said, ‘Don’t be frightened.’ He has told us ahead of time what will happen so we will recognize it and not be frightened.

“As we get closer to the end, people everywhere on the earth will become either closer to God or further from following Him. Finally, Satan himself will appear on the earth as a shining, glorious angel. He will claim that he is Jesus returned to the earth, but he is a false Christ, which we call the antichrist (2 Corinthians 11:14). He will perform miracles and say many beautiful things, similar to what Jesus would say. He will also tell more lies and say that he has changed the law of God, and that everyone should follow the new, human-invented religion. Many on the earth will be fooled by the false Christ and think that Jesus really has come back.

“Satan and his human helpers will be very clever, so it will be difficult to know which of the two religious groups is right. Is it the larger group with its glorious angel leader? Or is it the smaller group, who claim they follow the Bible the right way? How will we know?

“There is only one way to know,” Uncle Leonard said, answering his own question, “and that is to read the Bible and know what it says. If we do that, we will not be fooled because God, our General, has told us just what Satan’s battle plans are.

“Jesus told His disciples that when He returns, He will come in the clouds the same way He left the earth. Jesus won’t come down to the earth and walk around with us like Satan will, but He will come in the clouds, and the angels will come down here to get us and take us up to Him. His coming will be such a glorious event that everyone on the earth will see His shining ‘spaceship’ up there in the clouds. God will not permit Satan to copy Jesus’ coming in the clouds. Jesus told us that if people say He, Jesus, is somewhere here on the earth, walking around with the people, do not believe it because He will not come back that way. There will not be any secret coming—Jesus will not secretly take people away. The Bible says that when Jesus comes back, He will come with shouts, loud trumpets, and lightning shining from one end of the sky to the other (Matthew 24:26, 27, 30, 31).

“At the end of this world, people will be divided into two groups—those who follow Jesus and those who follow Satan. The book of Revelation in the Bible gives us an important clue to identify which of these two final religious groups is the right one. Jesus’ followers, those who will be saved, have two characteristics: they will have faith in Jesus, and they will keep all of His commandments (Revelation 14:12). Those who follow human leaders and Satan will not keep all of the commandments but will keep human laws that are different from the commandments. Satan will do everything he can do to break up the communication between us and God by keeping us from reading and trusting the Bible and the writings of God’s messenger, Ellen White.

“Our love for Jesus makes us want to help others, and those people can learn about Jesus from us. We want as many as possible to learn of Jesus and be ready to go home to heaven with Him.

“Does that answer your question about dragons and the Lamb, Jane?” Uncle Leonard asked.

“Yes, it does. Since this story is about the whole world, it is even bigger than the fake ones we see in movies. Thanks, Uncle Leonard. I guess we should go.”

Jane and Carson started home.

“Race you,” Carson said, laughing.

“No fair,” Jane said. “You have a bike.” But she took off running anyway.

CHAPTER 14

“Let’s Go Get Them!”

After their long talk that morning with Uncle Leonard, Jane and Carson came home and found that their mother had lunch ready. They sat down with her to eat.

“Mom,” Carson said, “Uncle Leonard told us about the war in the universe. I still have a lot of questions about it. I still wonder why it had to happen. But even more important to me is, When will it end? So many people around the world are suffering. That makes me sad, and it seems to me that Jesus should come and stop it!”

“One thing we should keep in mind,” his mother said, “is that we do not see everything as God sees it. But He does have a plan, and it will end. Jesus said ‘I am coming soon,’ and we have to remember that ‘soon’ is not the same for God as it is for us. ‘Soon’ for us is a few minutes or days or years. God has seen all of the earth’s history, and He understands that ‘soon’ may be a little longer than our few minutes! The short time our earth has been here is only a moment in God’s time.”

“But that still doesn’t tell us how it will end, and why there’s so much trouble in the world,” Jane said. “How do you think it will end, Mom? When do you think Jesus will come?”

“You know, I remember a rescue story from many years ago, something that really happened. I’ll tell you about it, and you can get a good idea of how I see a short time until Jesus comes.

“Years ago, the country of Uganda in Africa was ruled by a cruel man. If he did not like someone, he had them killed.

“One day, some people got on an airplane in the country of Israel to fly to Europe. But some bad men were on the plane, and they forced the pilot to fly to Uganda. The people on the plane thought they were going on vacation, but instead they ended up in the country of that cruel ruler.

“When the plane landed in Uganda, the people were forced to get out and go inside the airport. They were kept in a large room for many days with very little food. It was almost like being in prison.

“Back in Israel, the Israeli government talked to that cruel Ugandan leader and tried to convince him to let the people go. But he refused. So the Israeli government began to make a secret plan for a rescue operation. Meanwhile, the people from the plane who were trapped in the airport had no idea what was happening and wondered if they would ever be able to escape or even stay alive.

“Some specially trained soldiers were chosen for the rescue mission. These men were Jewish and kept the Sabbath that week like they normally would. After sundown that Sabbath, they said, ‘It’s time to rescue those people. Let’s go get them!’ So they flew from Israel to Uganda in four big airplanes. They flew very low so that no one could detect them. Before the Ugandan guards knew what was happening, those Israeli soldiers landed and smashed their way into the airport building.

“The doors of the big room burst open, and the captives heard the Israeli soldiers shouting in their own language, ‘We are Israelis, everybody down on the floor!’

“The surprised captives knew those words and were very happy to hear them. Rescue was coming!

“The soldiers had everyone gather together and rushed them out the door to the waiting planes, and they flew away from Uganda. They had been rescued! They were all safe.”

Mrs. Lawson paused to take a breath.

“Now let’s think about a different set of captives and another rescue mission. Long ago, Satan tricked Adam and Eve and claimed the people of the earth as his captives. He wanted to keep them all trapped on the earth and drag them down to eternal death. But many of them did not fall for his cunning lies.

“God’s angels were assigned to watch over each person. They were messengers between the earth and heaven. So that means Joseph’s guardian angels stayed with him through all his years in Egypt. Angels were with King David all his life. That was no easy task, to keep up with the brave and daring shepherd boy who became king! His angels were sad when he sinned and joyful when he repented.

“Today we all have guardian angels. They are messengers between us and God. We owe a lot to their continual care for us. Right now, the world has wars, earthquakes, murders, and much suffering. Because the world is in an awful condition, we wonder why Jesus does not come. However, while we wonder, He is planning and preparing for the rescue mission.

“When He knows the time is right, Jesus will call together all the angels and make an announcement: ‘It’s time for the rescue. Let’s go get them!’ That will be an exciting moment for everyone in heaven. All the angels will spend Sabbath praising God that the time has finally arrived. Then the instructions are given, and all the angels gather and zoom through space toward the earth. Farther and faster the huge group flies toward our speck of a planet.

“Meanwhile, Satan is doing all he can to increase misery on the earth, but his power to hurt God’s faithful people has ended. His rebellion has been a failure, and everyone who has responded to the Holy Spirit is now safe from his grasp.

“As Jesus’ angel army approaches the earth, it stops far above the ground and hovers there like a giant helicopter. More instructions are given: ‘Form a huge spaceship. We will have to carry many people home!’ People are coming out of graves everywhere on the earth! Wow, what a sight! There is Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Jim!

“Now it’s each angel’s turn to go find all of their friends who made the right choice in life. One goes quickly and finds Joseph. What a fantastic moment, to take Joseph up to the angel spaceship! Then another one finds David, and they join Joseph and the others. David will be as enthusiastic as he always was! Our angels will come find us.

“The angel spaceship begins to move. With all its precious cargo of people rescued from the earth, it moves slowly at first. Then it zooms upward while everyone is crying and laughing for joy and excitement at the same time. They are all hugging one another as they find old friends and realize they will never be away from one another again. All through eternity they can visit their friends whenever they wish. They will never again have to fear that some tragedy will take them from their friends or family.

“The universe is finally at peace. There is no Satan to tempt us or accuse us, and there is no more reason to fear or worry. Life will be as God meant it to be.”

Carson and Jane were quiet as they thought about God’s rescue story. Then Jane smiled at her brother, and he smiled back. “Jesus is going to come again. Very soon! I can’t wait,” Carson said.

CHAPTER 15

Safe at Last

All summer, Carson and Jane had been talking with Uncle Leonard and their mother about the questions they had about God. They had started with questions about stars and about how God made the world, and they ended up asking about the end of the world. Soon it would be time for the family to return to the city, and the brother and sister would go back to school.

One evening, Jane asked Carson, “What do you think heaven will be like? Do you think it is a real place where we can do real stuff?”

“Of course it is,” Carson said. “Jesus said He was going to build mansions for us, so it must be real. I know a kid at school who thinks heaven is a place where we sit on a cloud and play a harp. It doesn’t sound like a place where I would want to live. But also, it’s not what Jesus said.”

Just then, Jane saw Uncle Leonard walking up the path to their house. He knocked on the door, and Jane ran to open it.

“Hi, Uncle Leonard,” she said. “Come in and talk to us. We were just talking about what heaven is like.”

Uncle Leonard said hello and came in. He sat down beside Carson and said, “So you want to talk about heaven today? Well, to understand heaven, think of a place you would most like to be, a place that would be the most interesting of any place you can imagine. That is probably a good way to begin thinking about heaven. We can also see what the Bible says. God is a real Person, so it seems heaven has to be real. It is a place in the universe where God has His headquarters. It is not sitting on a cloud! It has dirt and grass, and there are birds flying overhead.

“When Jesus comes back to the earth to take us away, we will go to heaven first. What a trip that will be, swiftly moving through the universe with all the angels, all the way to heaven. We will be there for a thousand years, a time that we sometimes call the millennium, and after that, we will come back to the earth” (Revelation 20; 21).

“That seems like a long time,” Jane said.

“We will no longer notice the time going by,” Uncle Leonard pointed out. “It will be the best time we’ve ever had.

“And then God will re-create the earth to be just like the perfect place it was at the end of Creation week, back when Adam and Eve had their first Sabbath.

“We find interesting descriptions of heaven and the new earth in both the Bible and in Ellen White’s books. The Bible tells us that on the new earth there will be a huge, gorgeous city called the New Jerusalem. The streets will be paved with gold! It also tells us we will build houses and live in them. It sounds like we will build a country home and also have a place in the city.

“It is fun to imagine what kind of homes we will build there. I want to build my home at the edge of a meadow, near a lake. In the bedroom will be berry bushes hanging over the wall, so I can pick berries from bed in the morning. It will have a living area with a mountain stream running right through it! As the stream goes out one end of the house it will widen into a pond where my friends and I can swim with the fish. Then we can walk through the meadow and pet the deer and the lions and feed the squirrels who live in the trees by the lake. People and animals will not hurt one another, so neither humans or animals will be afraid. In the ocean, we can swim alongside dolphins and take a ride on the back of a friendly whale. Wow, what fun!”

Just then, they noticed through the window a gorgeous sunset spreading its colors across the sky.

“I can imagine that heaven has beauty like that,” Uncle Leonard said. “We can’t know for sure what heaven will be like. The Bible says eye has not seen nor ear heard what God has prepared for us. Nevertheless, I think we will pick fruit from the trees and, after a swim, have a picnic lunch by the lake. The fruit will be sweeter and more delicious than any you have ever eaten.

“The next day, some of us will decide we want to do something more exciting, so we begin a trip to planet X45, way out by another star. We will zoom through space like a super rocket, maybe using a black hole like a subway. I hear they can be like a tunnel, and we will shoot out the other end and be on our way! Not everyone will choose to do that, but I think it will be a wonderful adventure. At our destination, we can visit people who have lived there on planet X45 for a very long time.

“Will there be airplanes or race cars?” Carson asked.

“Cars and airplanes are fun, but on this earth they have accidents and hurt people. Whatever we have in heaven will be so much cooler and more exciting. I think we will consider cars and airplanes slow and unexciting when we experience the speed with which we can go from planet to planet.

“On Sabbath we will gather in the city, the New Jerusalem, with all the other people. We will see all our friends, make new friends, and visit with Jesus. What a joy that will be! In the city, next to a big river, is the tree of life. We will eat its fruit, and something in the fruit will keep us from ever getting old or dying.

“We will also be able to talk to Jesus, and He will answer our questions. We may wonder why our cousin Joe is not there in heaven. We can talk with Joe’s guardian angel, and he will explain the reasons he is not there. We may shed some tears for Joe, but we will understand what influenced Joe to reject Jesus’ offer of eternal life and why Joe would not have been happy in heaven.

“We will visit other planets where there has never been any sin. The beings there will ask questions, and we can explain how much it meant to us that Jesus died to save us from Satan’s tricks. Then they will love Jesus even more than before and will never be tempted to sin.”

“What else might we do?” Jane asked.

“I like music, so I want to learn to play my trombone much better than I can now,” Uncle Leonard replied. “I want to learn to play the piano, the tuba, and the violin, and I also want to direct an orchestra. Learning will not be like it is here on the earth. We will not sit in a classroom for hours, listening to lectures. We will learn by spending time with someone who is good at what we want to learn. Maybe we will visit him or her every now and then for ten years until we have learned enough. Then the next fifty years we can spend some of our time learning another subject. To learn about animals, we can visit King Solomon and learn from him! He was one of the wisest people who ever lived. The fun of learning will never end, so we do not have to be in a hurry or worry about passing an exam.

“What this means is that heaven and the new earth will be real places, our home forever. They will not be strange places but will be like our earth, except without any of the results of sin and evil. There will not be any robberies or killing, and no one will tell lies. We will be able to trust everyone. Children will not have to be afraid to talk to strangers, and the animals will not be afraid of us. Everything will be more beautiful and more interesting than anything here on earth as it is now. We will have adventures beyond what we could ever have imagined.

“The new earth will be the beginning of an eternity of happiness and the end of the great controversy between Christ and Satan—the end of the original conflict between good and evil. This is our grand story. Remember I said that this is the master story. It is the story that gives meaning to our lives.

“Let’s review the story that began with God and His Son, Jesus, creating the universe and creating life on the planets. The creation was perfect, with no sin or rebellion or evil. In heaven, Lucifer, the leader of the angels, became jealous of Jesus and became the evil Satan. He and one-third of the angels rebelled against God and had to leave heaven. Forced to stay on this earth, Satan tempted Adam and Eve to sin, and they did sin. This brought evil, pain, and death to the earth. All of this evil is the result of human sin, so Jesus died to buy us back, to redeem us from sin and death. Then finally, all the universe will be convinced that God is right and that He is love and that Satan is a liar and a murderer. Then God takes His people to heaven to live forever.”

“I would like to go there, Uncle Leonard,” Jane said.

“Me too,” Carson added. “I wish we could go soon.”

Uncle Leonard looked out the window again. “Carson and Jane, look at those beautiful colors in the sky. It’s the last of a spectacular sunset. It makes me think of the time when Jesus will come and fill the sky with His glory. And I’m like you—I hope it is soon.”

PART 2

Jesus and Science

CHAPTER 16

What Does a Paleontologist Do?

All summer, Carson and Jane had been talking with Uncle Leonard and their mother about the questions they had about God. They had started with questions about stars and about how God made the world, and they ended up asking about the end of the world. Soon it would be time for the family to return to the city, and the brother and sister would go back to school.

Fall was coming. It was nearly time for Carson and Jane to go back to school. They would move back to the city and leave the summerhouse for a few months. They loved the country and would miss their talks with Uncle Leonard.

One day Carson said, “Jane, do you realize how lucky we are?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we have a scientist for an uncle. Not every kid has one. We talked to Uncle Leonard about lots of Bible stuff during summer vacation. It seems like it would be a good idea to ask him about scientific things.”

“Will he be coming to the city too?” Jane asked.

“I think so. He teaches and does research at the university. He might have time to talk to us. We should ask. I think he is a paleo-something. I can’t remember what.”

“Let’s ask him. What does a paleo-whatever do?” Jane wanted to know.

“That’s the whole point. We don’t know. Let’s look him up online.”

The children got out a laptop, looked up their uncle, and found that he was a paleontologist. Carson searched for what that meant.

“Google says a paleontologist studies fossil animals and plants.”

“The website also said he is a biologist,” Jane pointed out. “I think a biologist studies living things.”

“So he studies them while they are alive and studies things that are dead,” Carson commented. “Since they’re fossils, I would guess they lived a long time ago. We’re guessing, though. I think we should go talk to him.” He closed the laptop and walked over to the house phone. After pressing the buttons to call Uncle Leonard’s number, he heard his uncle say, “Hello?”

“Uncle Leonard, when are you going back to the university?” Carson asked. “Do you think you could talk to us after we all get back to the city?”

“That sounds like a good idea. I will call you after I get back to work,” Uncle Leonard said.

About two weeks later, Carson and Jane were sitting in Uncle Leonard’s office. “So you want to know what I do,” he said. “Lots of exciting things, actually. We paleontologists do a lot of crawling on our hands and knees in the dirt, with our faces close to the ground. Does that sound exciting? It is when we are finding itty-bitty fossil squirrel teeth or crocodile bones or shark’s teeth and garfish scales! However, that is not all paleontologists do—not at all. Paleontologists study all kinds of fossils of animals and plants.

“We are not anthropologists,” he pointed out. “They study ancient humans. And archaeologists study things that ancient humans made, things like pottery, stone buildings, or ancient writing. Paleontologists like me also study ancient things, but the fossils they search for are usually things that were not made by humans.”

“Have you ever found any fossils?” Jane asked.

“Yes, I have. But first, let’s talk about the largest fossils ever found. Just about everyone knows what dinosaurs are, and of course some paleontologists study dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were huge! That is probably one reason they are so fascinating. Did you know that some dinosaurs were no bigger than a cat? I think I would like to have one of those for a pet.”

Carson’s eyes grew big.

“Paleontologists try to figure out what dinosaurs looked like,” Uncle Leonard said, “but also many other things. What did they eat? How long did they live? How did they walk, and how fast could they run? How did they take care of their babies, or did the babies have to take care of themselves, like baby lizards do now? It is like a treasure hunt, looking for fossils and fossil clues that can help us understand the lives of these creatures that lived long ago.

“I’ll show you what I found on a paleontology expedition, and you can see what such an adventure is like. We go and find a place with lots of fossils, and we want to know more about them. The place could be anywhere—Utah, Peru, Africa, Wyoming. Fossils are found all over the world. I’ll show you a place in Wyoming where hardly any people live. Little dirt roads and jeep trails go through the wilderness, and we find treasure!

“Before we go on a trip to a place like Wyoming, we read articles in science journals to learn what other scientists have already found out about the fossils there. That will help us know what to look for. Since the paleontologists on our expedition are Christians, we also read the Bible. The Bible does not say anything about Wyoming fossils, but it does have the story of Creation and the Flood in it (Genesis 1–8). These help us understand the history of the earth and when the fossils were buried.

“Lists are helpful. For our trip, we make a list of the supplies we will need: a backpack; rock hammers and chisels; bags to put the fossils in; marking pens to label the bags of fossils; notebooks to record where the fossils were found; a GPS unit; a camera; sleeping bags and tents; toilet paper; a car repair kit; water containers and canteens; cans of beans, corn, and soup; bread and crunchy peanut butter; fruit; breakfast cereal; sandwich bags; and . . . and so much more.

“Oh, yes, and we need some sunflower seeds for the little squirrels that visit our camp. And don’t forget the can opener, or we may starve!”

Carson laughed. “Maybe that’s the most important equipment on the trip.”

“We need enough clothes for a week because there are no washing machines out there in the badlands, many miles from town and, of course, no showers either. Yes, this will be an adventure.”

“Is this what you do to get ready for your trips to Wyoming?” Carson asked.

“Yes, it is. When everything is collected and packed in the trailer and the four-wheel-drive SUV, we are ready. At four o’clock in the morning, the group of researchers and students have prayer and begin the long drive to Wyoming. We make our way from the university through the deserts of California and Nevada; the colorful, rocky hills of Utah; and finally up into the high-elevation sagebrush plains of western Wyoming. Along the road we see antelope-like pronghorn watching us pass.

“In the evening, we drive off the highway on dirt roads and finally reach the camping place, a secluded little valley sheltered by hills and a little grove of juniper trees. Campers pick their tent sites among the junipers. There are a few things to remember: do not put your tent too close to the big red anthills, and stake the tent down well because occasionally the Wyoming winds are fierce and can blow your tent down.

“In the morning we eat a good breakfast and make lunches to put in our backpacks. Then we gather around for devotional time. We ask God for His blessings and protection for the day’s work.

“We do not ask Him to prove our favorite theories about fossils, but we pray for God to open our eyes so we will really see what He has for us to find in the day’s searching. Our own theories might be wrong, and God may have new insights to show us, so we will understand better how the fossils got there.

“We pile in the SUV, put it in four-wheel drive, and start off, using our detailed topographic maps and GPS to find our way. We see a prairie dog burrow at the edge of the road, so we stop and whistle at him. The little animal is too curious to ignore us and sticks his head up to see what is going on. He realizes he has been fooled and disappears! We laugh at him and drive on to find good fossil deposits.

“Fossils are usually not found everywhere, so we have to keep driving, walking, and looking. Finally, as we walk along the base of a low, dry hillside, we see pieces of bone on the ground!

“The question now is, Where are these coming from? We look up above the broken bones on the hillside and find more pieces. It looks like the pieces are falling down the slope from farther up the hillside. Now we are getting somewhere. We follow the line of bone fragments up the hill until they end, and there we find bones poking out of the hillside. This is where the fossil animal is. As rainwater eroded the ground, it carried pieces of bone down the hill.

“This time we are fortunate because the fossil is in sedimentary rock, which is formed of sand, mud, and volcanic ash and isn’t very hard. We can dig away the rock above the fossil and finally uncover a skeleton. It is a turtle with its shell. That is an exciting find! The turtle shell is almost complete, but the head and legs are missing. We wonder why.

“To keep the fossil from falling apart, we cover it with wet newspaper and then make a cast of plaster of paris. When the cast dries, the fossil is labeled with a specimen number, and in our notebook we record that number and the GPS information that tells exactly where it was found. We take the fossil home for more study.

“After more searching and study of fossil turtles, the sun is high in the sky, and it’s getting very hot. The day of work in the badlands is finished and we start back to camp. Our four-wheel-drive vehicle gets us through the rough places in the trail, but one gully is a little too sandy, and we are stuck! What will it be like sleeping out here in the car all night? we wonder. Actually, it really isn’t that bad. With shovels, we clear away some sand, then we put brush and rocks under the wheels, and soon we are on our way again.

“Back at camp, it feels good to relax in the shade. We put the can opener to work and restore our energy with a tasty meal. Everything tastes good out here in the wilderness! There is time now to watch the fascinating little squirrels haul away the sunflower seeds, read a book, or discuss the fossils we found that day.

“Later on, we learn that when turtles die, their heads and legs fall loose from the body soon after they die and before the shell bones come apart. That is why our fossil turtle had a complete shell but no skull or leg bones. After it died, it lay on a lake bottom only long enough for the head and legs to fall off before it was buried.

“We examine the rock where it was buried and find that it is mostly volcanic ash. Now we know that our turtle was buried quickly by ash from a volcanic eruption soon after it was killed by breathing the ash. These little pieces of evidence help us gradually learn more about how the animals died, why they are fossilized here, and how these facts fit in the Bible story of the Flood. These turtles did not live millions of years ago. It seems they were living in this valley right after the Flood. The Bible helped us recognize that the evidence indicates the turtles were killed and buried rapidly. We might not have recognized that if we believed that all these rocks took millions of years to form.”

“Is that one of the theories? That the turtles died quickly?” Carson was curious to know.

“That is correct. It lines up nicely with the story of the biblical flood.”

“Are these some of the evidences you told us about this summer?”

Uncle Leonard said that this was part of the story. However, before the end of the trip, there would be more discoveries.

“With more fossil turtle discoveries, the week rolls past, and it is Friday. That day we begin as usual, but we stop digging up bones at noon, eat our lunch, and head for town.

“The first stop is the town recreation center, where we can pay to take a shower. That feels wonderful after a week of work in dusty places. Then it is time to find the laundromat to wash clothes, visit the post office and pick up our letters from home, and find a market to buy another week’s supply of food.

“Sabbath is a refreshing break from work and gives us time to visit the church in town and go for a hike along the river. The Sabbath reminds us that God, our Creator, made the first turtles thousands of years ago, along with all the other interesting animals we see around us. At the end of Creation week, God rested on the Sabbath, and He asks us for a date with Him each Sabbath, so we do not forget that He created us and loves us.

“After a few weeks of following adventurous jeep trails, finding fossils, and searching with our faces close to the ground, it is time to take all our discoveries back to the laboratory. There, we can clean the fossils for detailed study to uncover more of their secrets.

“In the Bible, God told us how He created the earth with forests, rivers, meadows, and all the living things to live in them. From the Bible, we know that humans did not evolve from apelike ancestors but that we were created with curious minds that always want to learn more. God told us about Creation and the Flood, but He did not tell us all the details about how the fossils were buried during and after the Flood. He left for us the fun of studying the rocks and fossils so we can figure out just how all those animals were fossilized and preserved. I guess He knew there would be paleontologists who love their adventures in the wilderness.”

“Do you think it would be possible for me to go along the next time you go to Wyoming?” Carson asked.

“Could I go too?” Jane wanted to know.

“If your parents went along as well, that might be possible. It is hot, dirty work, so you would have to really mean it when you say you want to go. We can talk to your parents about it.”

CHAPTER 17

Dinosaurs

One day, about two weeks after school started, Carson and Jane ran to Uncle Leonard’s office. They dashed up the stairs in the office building, ran down the hall, and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” they heard Uncle Leonard say.

As soon as they were seated, Carson began their story. “Today in school, the teacher had a scientist come speak to us about dinosaurs. He said he is a Christian and that he does not believe dinosaurs ever existed. He said the idea of dinosaurs was made up by evolutionists. The teacher agreed with him. When I raised my hand, I told them that I had seen dinosaur bones and that I have an uncle who is a paleontologist and that he has dug up dinosaur bones. They gave each other a funny look and didn’t answer.”

“So your question today is, Did dinosaurs really exist?” Uncle Leonard asked. “Or are the tales of dinosaurs just stories someone made up? We can look for the answer in two places: the Bible and science. We will look at the Bible first. The Bible does not actually tell us if dinosaurs existed, but we can decide if the existence of dinosaurs seems to fit into the Bible history of our earth.

“One concept that helps us is that if dinosaurs were real, the story of the Flood can explain why they went extinct. The Flood was a catastrophic time that killed all the people outside of the ark, so it could have killed the dinosaurs.

“But there is still a question we need to answer. If there were really dinosaurs before the Flood, why doesn’t the Bible talk about them? The good answer is that you can read the first few chapters of Genesis and see why it might not talk about dinosaurs. The first three chapters tell about Creation and about the first sin by Adam and Eve. Chapter 4 is the sad story of Cain killing his brother, Abel. Chapter 5 is a list of Adam’s children and grandchildren, down to Noah. Then the first eight verses of chapter 6 describe how evil and violent the people were before the Flood. Right after that comes the story of Noah and the Flood.

“As you can see, there is not any description of the earth or any of the animals before the Flood. Therefore, it is not a surprise that the Bible doesn’t talk about dinosaurs. God had more important things to tell us in the Bible. It doesn’t describe the world before the Flood, except for the brief description of the Garden of Eden. That leaves the possibility that dinosaurs could have been real animals a long time ago.

“Now we will see what science says about dinosaurs. Paleontologists have dug up thousands of very real bones of dinosaurs and put them in museums. They have found complete skeletons of dinosaurs, from little ones the size of chickens to huge monsters more than 120 feet long. These skeletons have been found in many places all over the earth. It seems that dinosaurs were real.

“The next question is, Did God create dinosaurs? Well, think about that question. If God did not create them, where did they come from? I was not there, but I will tell you what I think. I think God made the original dinosaurs, but they were not mean, vicious animals. Many other animals on the earth have changed since Creation and become mean and vicious. We don’t want to get in their way! Probably the same changes happened to the friendly dinosaurs that were created.”

“How do paleontologists know what dinosaurs looked like?” Carson asked.

“They start with the skeleton. Then they compare the dinosaur skeletons with other, smaller animals. From this comparison, they can estimate how much muscle a dinosaur skeleton would need to move an animal of that size. They can also estimate how much room would be needed for its stomach, lungs, and all that good stuff. Then they need skin on the outside.

“Fortunately, a few dinosaurs are so well preserved that we have impressions of what the scaly skin looked like. This gives us a pretty good idea of the appearance of the dinosaur. You may have seen pictures of dinosaurs with pretty color patterns. Of course, those colors are only a guess! Nobody knows what color dinosaurs were or what kind of sounds they made.

“Dinosaurs are fascinating, but they are only a small group of the animals that lived before the Flood. Many, many other types of animals and plants are found as fossils that don’t live today. They are extinct. These include flying reptiles as big as small airplanes, huge swimming reptiles, and many types of extinct fish, mammals, birds, and invertebrates.

“From those fossils we can tell that before the Flood, the earth had much more abundant life on it than it does now. Probably no barren deserts or other wastelands existed then. Everywhere there was an abundance of life and many habitats with their unique animals that no longer exist today. It looks like some types of marshy, lowland habitats lay alongside some oceans. During the Flood, these habitats and all their animals and plants were destroyed. After the Flood, these habitats were not reestablished—they don’t exist now.

“This could have been at least partly because the earth had changed so much. The earth may have become too cold for those habitats. The fossils tell us the earth used to be warmer, with a more uniform climate than it has now. The earth was originally wonderfully designed to support a lot of life. Since sin and the Flood, the earth has been seriously damaged, but someday the new earth will be restored to how God made it in the first place. That will be a fantastic surprise He has planned for us.”

“I believe you, Uncle Leonard,” Carson said. “But I am just a kid. I can’t really teach my teacher. He won’t listen to me. Do you think you could come talk to my class? Maybe you could bring along some fossils and pictures. Maybe they will listen to you.” He sounded a little worried.

“I would be happy to, Carson. However, we would have to get permission from the school. I will see what I can do.”

CHAPTER 18

Let Them Stretch

Carson was excited that Uncle Leonard would be coming to speak at his school. None of the other kids had an uncle who was a paleontologist. Sometimes at recess, friends asked Carson about dinosaurs. But after the talk given by the friend of the teacher, they were confused. All the kids had seen movies about dinosaurs. They had read books about them. Many had even seen them in museums. Who should they believe?

“Uncle Leonard,” Carson began when he and Jane next went to their uncle’s office. “Remember the other night when my friend Bryan had a problem with our discussion about dinosaurs? I think one of his problems is that he hears so many people making fun of Creation. He is always saying that there are so many kinds of animals, they couldn’t all have been created.”

Jane had a question. “Uncle Leonard, can you explain how there are so many different kinds of animals? My teacher says they were all created like they are now. But our neighbor, who is also a scientist, says everything evolved.”

Uncle Leonard thought for a moment. “Let me begin with a story that can illustrate how it might work. Think about carmakers. Let us suppose that the owner of a car factory and his assistant are having a conversation about building a new factory.

“The owner of the factory says, ‘In the new car factory, I think we should make just one kind of car. It will be simpler that way. It will have room for three passengers and three suitcases. That is a perfect combination.’

“His assistant says, ‘That will indeed make things simple, but some families have more than three people, so our car won’t work for them. If most families have more than three, then our factory will go extinct.’

“The boss says, ‘You do have a point. Our factory will need to be able to adapt to the neighborhood. If many families start having more children, we will need to make large cars.’

“Now imagine God and His Son, Jesus, discussing the animals they created on the earth. Jesus says, ‘There are so many animals now. Of the ones we made, my favorite is the big furry one with a very long neck, the one Adam called a giraffe.’ ”

“I like that one also, but my favorite is the smaller fluffy cat that says meow when it wants to be petted,” Jane said.

“Right now, my favorite animal is Comet,” Carson said.

“Comet is one of my favorites too,” Jane said. “But we can’t have a dog in our house. So we are thinking of getting a kitten. We can have a cat.” She was thoughtful for a minute. “That doesn’t mean I don’t like Comet. Comet was our friend first.”

Uncle Leonard laughed. He knew how much the children liked Comet the schnauzer. “We all probably have a favorite animal, but we need to answer a question about all those animals and what abilities God gave them. Did the cats always stay the same, or have they changed? Have they adapted to their environment, like the car factory adapted to making bigger cars?

“To answer that question, we will start with the Bible, which is always the best place to begin. The story of Creation in Genesis 1 and 2 doesn’t give many details, but God tells us in Genesis that at the end of Creation week there were birds, fish, creeping things—which are probably insects—other invertebrates, and reptiles, along with humans, cattle and other mammals, and many plants, including fruit trees (Genesis 1).

“That makes it clear those groups of living things did not begin by evolution but were each created by God during the six days of Creation week. Now our question can be a little more specific: Did God make all those animals and plants so they can change and adapt to changes in their environment, or will they always stay just as they were created?

“Picture another conversation between Jesus and His Father. ‘The earth will have a variety of different climates, and in time the animals will move around from place to place. We will make them so they can change, so their characteristics can stretch in various ways, allowing them to adapt to different climates. If the people should sin and bring changes in the earth, the animals and plants will also need to change even more to adapt to those climate changes.’

“All living organisms have DNA in their cells, which contain genes. Those genes are like an instruction book, with information to determine how animals look, how their bodies function, and how their embryos will develop into babies and then adults.”

“We haven’t studied all that science stuff in school yet,” Jane said. “Do you have a video we can watch about DNA and genes?”

“Yes, we can find one. But until we do, let’s talk about cats.”

“Yes, let’s talk about cats!” Jane said loudly.

“Some cats, such as lynxes, have characteristics that make them well adapted to live in very cold climates, like northern Canada. Other cats could never survive there because they live in warm, tropical countries. Certainly, God could have made each of them different like that in the beginning. However, a lot of evidence, including fossils, tells us even northern Canada used to be warmer than it is now. We would expect that God would create the earth as an ideal home for His creatures, but after the Flood, the earth changed in many ways and became colder in some places and hot in the tropics. The animals had to change and become adapted to the new environments after the Flood.

“Now, that didn’t catch our Creator by surprise. He made animals and plants in the beginning with the ability to adapt to changes. They have genes with the information to allow the cats to grow longer or shorter fur, and larger or smaller feet for walking on snow or in the jungle.

“Research by scientists who study DNA and genetics has shown that animals and plants have a lot of information in their genes that allows them to change and adapt to new environments. Just think of the many breeds of dogs and how different they are from one another. There are Great Danes and Chihuahuas and everything in between. Even in one breed of dog, individuals are not all the same.

“If owners choose only the biggest individuals to breed, after a few generations the average size of the dogs will be a little larger. Other characteristics also can change by the same process. They are still dogs, but the original dogs were created with the genetic information for making everything from Great Danes to Chihuahuas. God must have had a lot of fun creating animals with the possibility for this much variation already in their genes!

“Many groups of animals were not designed to change that much. Chipmunks are a group of small squirrels. There are twenty-two species of chipmunks, but they are all very similar. My students have a hard time learning to tell the species apart, even when they have mounted specimens in front of them. It seems that chipmunks were not created with the genes to allow much change. Their calls are a little different, and although I am not a chipmunk, I learned to identify the calls of different chipmunk species out in the forest.

“There are minor differences in chipmunks’ color patterns, and they prefer different habitats. Each species probably also smells a little different. We can’t tell the difference, but most mammals have an extremely sensitive sense of smell. Slight odor differences are important to them, so they can identify who is a member of their own species and who is different. If a male chipmunk tries to get friendly with a female of a different species, she will give him a chipmunk message that says, ‘Get lost—I don’t know you, and you smell funny!’

“God created dogs with the genes to make many kinds of dogs, but chipmunks were created in the beginning with only the possibility of small variations. Our great Creator God is so creative that He did not intend His created universe to be all the same! He made chipmunks to look alike, but He must have enjoyed planning how many unique types of dogs there could be. He knew we would need dogs to protect us, to be our companions, and to help us herd sheep.

“Cats are another group created with a limited possibility for variation. You might question that statement because there are so many kinds of cats. There are big lions and leopards and smaller tabby cats, Siamese cats, calico cats, and Persian cats. However, they are different mainly in color patterns and in size. They do not have the wide variation in body shape or in the shape of their ears and tails that we see in dogs. The exceptions are cheetahs, bobcats, and lynxes. They are a little different from other cats, but they still don’t show the great variation we see in dogs. There simply are no poodle cats or bloodhound cats! Cats have such interesting personalities. I think God put a little extra of His creative talent in designing cats!

“Because of the Flood, our world has many extreme environments, and animals have an amazing ability to adapt to such difficult conditions. These adaptations have not surprised God, but He made life with the ability to adapt to the earth, which has changed so much after it was created perfect in Creation week.

“Here are just a few examples of these adaptations. Moose and other big mammals in the Arctic have a type of ‘antifreeze’ in their legs so they will not freeze in the extreme cold. Some bacteria are able to live in scalding-hot water. At the end of the spring rainy season in the desert, the desert toads dig into the mud and sort of seal themselves in so they will not lose water through their skin during the dry season. There, they sleep away much of the year until the next rainy season comes.

“A species of marmot lives in high mountain meadows, where the summer is too short for young marmots to grow up in one year. Their young take three years to mature, in contrast to their relatives the woodchucks, which are really a species of marmot. Woodchucks live where summers are long, and the young mature in one year.”

“What do the marmots in the mountains do? Do they hibernate during the winter for three years?” Carson asked. He thought that sounded strange.

“Yes, they do hibernate each winter. It is just one example that shows how one kind of animal can have species that develop different characteristics. They are still marmots, but they live in different places and have different habits,” Uncle Leonard explained. “Some scientists call these changes evolution. But we need to be careful to understand the different meanings of the word evolution.

“One kind of evolution is called microevolution. The changes or adaptations we have been discussing, which occur within created groups of animals and plants, are examples of microevolution. They also involve speciation, which is change that causes one group of organisms not to breed with another group. Both of these processes occur within a created group using the genetic information created in the beginning by God. They may not even require evolving new genes that did not exist before.

“God created animals and plants to adapt, to stretch their characteristics to deal with new environments. They were designed so these changes occur only within certain limits. These limits were set up by God. However, some other changes are random genetic changes, or mutations, that may have results that God did not intend. These changes are most often harmful, and we will discuss these more in a later visit. Right now, I need to get back to work,” Uncle Leonard said.

“We’ll go home and look up DNA and genes on the internet. We’ll find some websites to ask you about next time,” Carson said.

CHAPTER 19

Why You Might Be Mean to Your Friends

Carson and Jane found lots of sites on the internet that explained DNA and genes. A couple of days later, they called Uncle Leonard to see if he had time to talk with them. When they got to his office, he was ready for a discussion.

“Carson and Jane, you have been asking lots of questions. Today I want to start our discussion by talking about questions. Some people may think asking questions is rude. I think asking questions is the best way to learn. You get answers to things you are interested in. Just about everybody likes to ask questions. We learn a lot about our friends or about a favorite subject when we ask questions.

“I am going to ask you a question. It may sound like a silly question, but there is a reason for asking it, so think about how you would answer it. Pretend I do not really know you. I meet you on the sidewalk, and you can see that I have something important on my mind. I ask this question: ‘Why are you mean to your friends?’

“What would you think if I asked that? Perhaps it would make you wonder what kind of a person I am. Why am I asking that question when I do not have evidence that you really are mean to your friends? Where did I get the idea that you are mean in the first place?

“Now think about this. What if, instead of asking that question, I said, ‘Tell me a little about yourself. Tell me how you treat your friends. Are you always kind to them? Or do you sometimes make mistakes and say something that is not so nice, which you have to go back and say you are sorry for?’

“I hope you can see an important difference between those two questions. The first question does not try to find information about you. By asking the question that way, you can tell that I already think you are mean to your friends. I would be judging you for no reason. When I make an assumption like that, I am very sure I know something without asking the right questions or looking for the evidence to show what is really true.

“What about the second question? It is different because it is asking for information from you without making any assumptions or judgments. With that question, I am honestly trying to learn more about you. I don’t assume you are mean or anything like that.

“We now have two types of questions. The first kind may be stated as a question but is not an honest question at all because we are making an assumption; we think we know the answer already. We are asking a question that tries to hide our assumption that you are a mean person, and we are not honestly seeking to learn what you are like. The second type is a more honest question; we are trying to learn something without thinking that we already know the answer. I’ll write out two short lists to show you the difference.”

On a piece of paper, Uncle Leonard wrote:

Assumptions

Honest Questions

Why are you mean to our friends?

Are you kind to your friends?

Why don’t you stop throwing rocks at your friends?

Do you sometimes make mistakes and treat your friends poorly?

Assumption: You are mean.

No assumptions: Searching for the truth

“When we are thinking about other important questions—such as Where did the first living creatures come from? or Where did humans come from?—we will also find those same two kinds of questions. We can ask, Did God create life, or did it evolve all by itself? When we ask that question, we want to learn something—we want to know what the answer is.

“In many books, scientists say confidently that life did not have a Creator but that it began all by itself. How can they be so confident of that answer? It is because many scientists make a big assumption. They assume that life did not have a Creator, that there were never any miracles, and God did not make life. They are so sure that statement is true that they do not ask, Was there a Creator?

“They don’t even think a person can be a good scientist if they ask that question. Those scientists do ask questions, but they ask questions with their assumptions built into their questions. These questions are not asking if life was created but are only asking how or when life evolved.

“But other scientists don’t make the assumption that life evolved. These scientists do want to know if life had a Creator, and they are willing to study the Bible as well as science to look for the answer to that question.”

Uncle Leonard wrote another list on the piece of paper, with these statements:

Assumptions

Honest Questions

Did life evolve one billion years ago, or was it five hundred million years ago?

Did God create life? Or did life evolve?

What kind of animal did humans evolve from?

Were humans created in Eden, as the Bible says?

Assumption: There was no Creator.

No assumptions: Searching for the truth

“Science is very good at answering some questions, such as how gravity works or how the heart pumps blood through the body. These are questions about how life or the universe works today—these questions can be answered by observations, by collecting evidence. This can be done because we can observe how gravity makes things fall toward the earth instead of upward. And by examining living animals with blood flowing in their veins and arteries, we can study how the blood flows. Even this may not always be easy to study, but we can keep collecting more and better observations and gradually answer our scientific questions about things we can observe.

“But no living human scientist saw the first living things or the first humans. No human scientist was there when the earth was put into place in its orbit around the sun. When we seek to know the true story of the beginning of life, of humans, and of the history of the earth, it is wise to study the Bible, the only book from the One who really knows that history—the God who created it all.

“The book of Genesis describes how, in one week, God prepared the earth with seas and dry land and created all different types of life—fish, birds, trees, creeping things, cattle and other mammals, and Adam and Eve. Then in the fourth commandment, which we find in Exodus 20, He wrote with His own finger a description of how everything was created in six days and that the Sabbath was given to remind us of that Creation week.

“When something is so important that God writes it down on stone, we can have a lot of confidence in it. Our confidence in God tells us that even if we can’t understand all the scientific explanations about the origin and history of life, we can trust the Bible as the reliable explanation of where we came from.

“There is another step in this thinking process. We do not have to keep wondering whether God created life. We can learn from the Bible to have confidence that God is alive and that He is the Creator. Then we can study nature, beginning with the assumption that life was created.

“At this step in the process, everyone makes some assumptions because none of us were there at the beginning. Some scientists assume there never was a Creator. However, we assume life was created by God. If we know our Creator God well and know the Bible well, we can have confidence that scientific study based on the assumption of Creation can be more successful than scientific study based on the other assumption.

“Now, I didn’t say it will be more successful, but that it can be more successful. This is because our success also depends on how carefully our scientific work is done. If we use the minds and energy that God gave us, and if we trust His Word, the Bible, we have the best chance of success in whatever we do.”

“Uncle Leonard, sometimes my friend Bryan says to me that I am narrow-minded because I believe in the Bible only. He says that his teacher says we need to think for ourselves, and that listening to people who believe in the Bible is biased. He keeps telling me to be more open-minded.” Carson felt confused and upset by this thinking. He wondered if he was believing only what other people said and not studying for himself.

“Let me ask you a question, Carson,” Uncle Leonard said. “Does not believing the Bible mean one is open-minded? Or does believing evolution mean students are thinking for themselves?”

“Well,” Carson said, starting to think about this, “believing one way or the other could just mean we are listening to a teacher who believes one thing or the other.”

“Right. Remember when we talked about looking at the evidence? We all have access to the same evidence. We have to decide what the evidence means, or how we should interpret it. Cats, dogs, mice, and donkeys all have four legs, two eyes, two ears, and a tail. That is evidence. Does that evidence mean they all evolved from the same ancestor, or does it mean they were all designed by the same wise Creator? That is a choice we make, and that depends on whether we have confidence in Jesus and the Bible or assume there is no Creator.”

“We didn’t talk much about genes today. Let’s talk next week, and you can bring your evidence and we will look at it.” Uncle Leonard smiled at Carson and Jane. “This evidence is likely to come from the internet, so bring the websites so we can study them.”

CHAPTER 20

Why Can’t We Stretch Farther?

After school one day, Carson walked home with a group of friends. Bryan joined them as they walked past his school.

“What’s up?” Bryan asked. “What are you planning to do now?”

“Going home,” most of the boys responded.

“I’m going to look up stuff on my computer about genes and DNA,” Carson said. “I have to find some websites to take to my uncle Leonard the next time we talk. He’s going to explain genetics, DNA, and genes.”

Bryan was quiet for a moment. He asked, “Carson, do you think it would be all right if I go with you? We’ve been studying about evolution at school, and one thing they talk about is DNA. It seems like we had to evolve and we’re almost the same as monkeys. At least our DNA is similar.”

“Sure, Bryan,” Carson said. “Do you need to call your parents?”

“Not today. They are both at work. I’ll just text them to let them know where I am.”

As Carson and Bryan walked up the driveway to Carson’s house, Carson turned and saw his sister get off the bus from her school. She ran and caught up with them.

“Jane, we’re going to do internet searches this afternoon. Want to help?”

“Just give me a minute to grab some cookies,” Jane said, running to the kitchen. She said hello to her mother, who had just taken a batch of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.

The three children set out two laptops, three notepads, and some pencils on a table in the family room. Carson explained to Bryan what he and Jane had last talked about with their uncle Leonard.

“He talked about how animals and plants were created so that their genetic characteristics can stretch and adapt to new environments. Uncle Leonard said they can also divide up into different species that don’t interbreed with one another. The differences between the species may be very slight, but they prefer to reproduce only with their own species.

“He said many scientists also claim there are no limits to these changes. They claim there is no limit to the genetic stretching, and an ancestor animal could evolve, through long periods of time, into very different kinds of animals. They claim that dogs, cats, chipmunks, monkeys, starfish, and humans have evolved over millions of years from simple organisms like bacteria. Those changes he called large-scale evolution because they’re the large changes proposed by the theory of evolution.”

“Come on, Carson,” Bryan interrupted. “Are you telling me that your uncle actually does not believe that we all evolved over millions of years? Everybody knows we did. All the textbooks say so.”

“Bryan, don’t you think a person should at least consider there could be a Creator? Uncle Leonard told us important reasons why evolution could not produce different types of living things, like humans, other mammals, reptiles, fish, starfish, clams, spiders, orange trees, and bacteria.

“He says that the biggest reason why nature points to a Creator is biological information. We all know what information is. Words and sentences. Computers are based on information. A book has a lot of information. Information can be a recipe for these cookies, for instance.

“He says that we understand this information because the letters are arranged exactly as needed to give us the information. We understand the sequence of letters that form the words ‘chocolate chip cookies,’ but a random sequence of letters”—Carson typed “dmeltide dighihres tupldem” on the screen—“doesn’t provide any information. You could never bake cookies with that!”

“I don’t know,” Bryan said. “We learned that DNA directs evolution. That doesn’t need a Creator. Nature does it on its own.”

Carson could see he was getting in way over his head in this discussion, so he suggested they give Uncle Leonard a call. As it happened, Uncle Leonard had some free time between his research for the day and his
next class. So he invited the children to come to his office.

Carson asked his mother if she could drive the three of them to the university so they could go quickly and see Uncle Leonard.

In Uncle Leonard’s office, Carson began their discussion by saying that he, Bryan, and Jane were bogged down by wondering about information and DNA.

Uncle Leonard began, “Life exists because of a form of information, biological information. Every cell in every plant and animal contains DNA. DNA is a long molecule made of a chain of small compounds called nucleotides. The sequence of nucleotides is exactly comparable to the sequence of letters in the sentences you read in a book. It has an alphabet of four letters, and each word has three letters. A short piece of DNA can look like this.” On a piece of notepaper Uncle Leonard wrote “ATC-AGG-TAC-GTA-TCA” and showed it to them. He continued, “Longer pieces of DNA form genes. Genes contain instructions for making proteins, for when and where each protein should be made. For example: how long your nose should be.”

“Are you saying that the longer pieces of DNA are like a sentence?” Jane wanted to know. “If every piece has three letters like a three-letter word, wouldn’t several of them be a DNA sentence?”

“Good point, Jane. But now we are going a bit deeper in this discussion. We are going to talk about proteins,” Uncle Leonard continued.

“I know about protein,” said Bryan. “My mother makes me sandwiches and puts meat in them. She said it is because meat has protein. Is there only one protein? It sounds like it when people talk about it.”

“Actually, the human body contains about a hundred thousand protein combinations. Proteins are also biological information. A protein is a long molecule made of a sequence of small compounds called amino acids. About twenty amino acids exist, and the sequence of amino acids is also comparable to letters in a sentence. A short example of such a sequence could look like this, with each letter representing one amino acid.” He wrote the letters on a piece of paper: “ADRGFNOLEDLRGODETMJD.”

“The sequence of amino acids in a protein determines if the protein will carry oxygen in the blood or digest your cherry pie or be useless junk that just gets in the way.

“How does a cell know how to put the amino acids in the correct sequence to make a protein with the right information? It knows because the instructions are in the DNA. That is just like the written information we use. DNA has information, it uses that information to make proteins, and proteins make you and me into capable human beings!

“The question now is, How did the information get into the DNA in the first place? We know from the Bible that our great Creator God put it there, but naturalistic science will not accept that explanation. Knowing how assumptions influence scientists helps us understand why many of them do not believe in Creation. But there is another important question: Is it even possible for those molecules and their biological information to turn an animal into a really different type of animal? Or is there some reason why large-scale evolution just isn’t possible? There is a reason why it is not possible, and we can illustrate it with the instructions for making a cherry pie. But first we need an understanding of something called mutations.

“First of all, remember that according to the theory of evolution, there are two processes: mutation and natural selection. Mutations are random changes in genes, and the changes could be good or they could be destructive. Most often, mutations are destructive. Cancer and bacteria that cause disease are examples of these harmful mutations. Another example is the mutation that causes some people to be color-blind. Natural selection decides if the changed gene is better than the old one, if it allows the creature to reproduce better than the old one.

“Now let’s consider the theory of large-scale evolution. If reptiles were to evolve into mammals, they would need many new types of proteins and body organs that reptiles do not have. Instead of laying eggs, they would need to produce live young, and that requires very different organs and complex sets of proteins.

“They would also need a complicated new mechanism to make them warm-blooded and a much different brain. There are so many other changes that would be needed, but let’s begin with just one small reptile protein and think what would be needed to change it into a new mammal protein.

“Let’s say the reptile protein has the sequence of amino acids that we talked about a few minutes ago, which can be represented by these letters.” Uncle Leonard pointed to the letters he had written down: “ADRGFNOLEDLRGODETMJD.”

“That is a gene with instructions to make that particular protein. If a mutation made an extra copy of that gene, then, according to the theory of evolution, that gene could change so it could make the new, different protein.

“But in the evolutionary theory, there isn’t any kind of intelligent Designer who knows what changes are needed. That means the evolution process does not have any idea what the new protein should be like. It has to just depend on random changes—those mutations—to gradually change the gene until it happens to be right for making the new protein with the different letter sequence.” He wrote down “ATRKLEOHNLDRGOUKVMJK.” “Only after a new protein is made is it possible for natural selection to check to see if it is better than the old protein.”

“That sounds like it is all chance,” Carson said.

“It is like playing games where we roll the dice,” Uncle Leonard responded. “No one is directing it. And the dice can only cause random changes.”

“Like in the game we played the other day, Carson,” Jane added. “You thought you could win because you knew more answers than I did. But the dice rolls were in my favor. So I won.”

Uncle Leonard went on. “We can illustrate this with part of a recipe for making cherry pie. The recipe says, ‘Add cherries and sugar and mix.’ If I want to make that into a recipe for pumpkin pie, the recipe will need to change to ‘Add pumpkin, sugar, and cinnamon, and stir.’ An experienced, intelligent pie maker can easily change the recipe because he or she knows all about pumpkin pies and how to spell words.

“However, to illustrate evolution, the change to the recipe must be made without any intelligent help, by a random process of changing letters. Whatever is changing the letters cannot know anything about pumpkin pies because it does not know what it is trying to make. Only after most of the random changes are made can natural selection check to see if the new recipe works.

“Perhaps a monkey is sitting there, poking the computer keys and changing the letters. Its first changes result in this.” He wrote, “Ald chmrrius ang sugbr and mix.”

“If you check the letters, counting from the beginning, and remember to count spaces and punctuation marks, you will find that two of the changed letters, m and the first g, by chance, do match the new recipe. Maybe we are making progress! But the monkey keeps poking at the keys and happens to change the m to a p. The new recipe is . . .” Uncle Leonard paused and wrote more letters: “Ald chprrius ang sugbr acd lix.”

“It seems that we are now going backward. There is nothing to keep new correct letters from randomly changing to wrong letters again. If the monkey keeps typing, the result will almost certainly be something like this.” He wrote, “TLDJ HPXRI SLONGBSMGBR PCDTLID.”

“Try that recipe and see if it works! Random changes easily produce garbage, but they are not likely to make a new, tasty recipe.

“This example illustrates the theory of large-scale evolution because evolution is not intelligent. It can’t know what an animal will need in the future in order to become a different kind of animal. The changes in large-scale evolution would have to be made by random mutations, just like the monkey typing on a computer.”

Bryan looked puzzled. “Sometimes my books say some animal knew it needed something. Like a fish to change to a land animal, it knew it needed legs. According to your theory, that could not happen. But my books say it did.

“I need to go home now,” he said, “but when I come back again, I’ll bring books that will show you that real scientists don’t agree with you.” Bryan picked up his school things and left. He did not even wait for a ride.

Carson asked, “Why didn’t you correct him, Uncle Leonard?”

“Well, Carson, there are at least two reasons. One, we can never make anyone believe what we know is true. They have to look at the evidence and decide for themselves. Second, we want Bryan to continue to be our friend. It would not help to make him mad.”

“You mean, if we continue to be his friend and talk to him, maybe he will change his own mind?” Jane asked.

“That’s right, Jane. We must first of all be kind to people who do not agree with us. So let me finish what I was about to tell you,” he said. “Natural selection does not make new genes or new proteins. Natural selection can only cause animals with better genes to survive better. The new gene and new protein would have to be first produced by the random changes—those mutations. That process has no better chance of working than our monkey is likely to make a new recipe by poking at computer keys.

“Somebody actually tried this experiment. They gave a chimpanzee a typewriter with paper in it. The chimp banged away on the typewriter, typing random letters. Then it concentrated on one key and made lots of that letter. Then it got frustrated and smashed it against the wall.”

Carson and Jane laughed. “Sounds like a smart monkey. Even he could see he was getting nowhere.”

Uncle Leonard continued, “The genetic changes that allow animals to stretch, to adapt to new environments, can only work because during Creation week, God made the animals with the genetic ability to change in that way. Scientists also call those small changes evolution, but it is very different from large-scale evolution.

“The small changes or adaptations are the only kind of evolution that will ever happen, and these changes will happen only within the limits that God put into the genes. Microevolution can produce dogs that run faster, but it will not change dogs into cats. Dogs and cats were created separately by our wise Creator, and He apparently does not want one to change into the other. Dogs were not intended to meow or cats to bark! And the Bible clearly tells us that humans did not evolve from other animals but that Adam and Eve were created during Creation week. We were created as sons and daughters of God.”

Just then, Mrs. Lawson came to the office door, and Carson and Jane gathered up their things. “One more question, Uncle Leonard,” Carson said. “Couldn’t we just say change or adaptation rather than microevolution? It seems to me that using the word evolution for both ideas is confusing. I’ll talk to Bryan again and see how he is doing. Could we bring him back again?”

“Of course, Carson,” Uncle Leonard said. “I look forward to it.”

CHAPTER 21

Assumptions in Science

Bryan stopped Carson on his way into school the next day.

“How did your little talk with your uncle go yesterday, Carson?” Bryan asked. He was clearly not going to back down on his attitude about science and assumptions. “I’m going to ask my teacher if I can take some books home to show you and your uncle. I’ll bet he’ll give me some good answers about evolution that I can use on your
uncle.”

Carson looked at his friend. “Bryan, I’m glad you still want to talk with us,” he said. “I know my uncle Leonard will be happy to see your books. You know, he has a PhD in paleontology, so he’s already read science books on evolution.”

“Then how can he still believe in that old Creation stuff? Why doesn’t he get up-to-date with science?”

“I think he would be happy for us to ask him that question. Jane and I are going to have him come to our house this weekend to talk about it. Do you want to come over?” Carson asked.

“You know, I think I would, if I can bring my books.” Bryan seemed sure that he was ready to take on Carson’s uncle.

The next weekend, Uncle Leonard came to the Lawsons’ house for lunch. At about two in the afternoon, Bryan arrived with a backpack full of books and a list of websites that said things against Creation.

Before Bryan could make his arguments, Uncle Leonard opened the discussion with a question.

“How can there be two groups of scientists, equally well educated in science, and one group believes in large-scale evolution and the other group does not?” Before anyone could volunteer, he answered his own question.

“The answer begins with our previous discussion about the questions we ask. Are we asking questions and truly searching for answers? Or are we making assumptions about what is true and not really seeking to know the truth?

“To figure that out, let’s remember some recent events, when buildings were destroyed by terrorists. Many people were busy doing their work in government buildings or office buildings. Police officers and firefighters worked hard to protect them, while another group of people used bombs or airplanes to try to destroy all of them. Both groups had access to the same information about the office workers. So why did the two groups act so differently?

“The difference was not in the evidence they had but in their attitudes or beliefs. One group began with the assumption that all people are valuable and should be protected from harm. They believed people should be protected even if we disagree with how they think.

“The other group assumed it is OK to destroy people they don’t like or whose ideas they don’t like. The two groups have different philosophies of life. In other words, they have different worldviews.

“A worldview is a set of assumptions, accepted by faith, that determine how we understand the important questions about where we came from, how we should live, and what is true.

“One worldview is based on the belief that God exists, that He has communicated to us in the Bible, and that the Bible is a reliable guide to truth and life. Another worldview is based on the assumption that modern science’s ideas are more reliable than the Bible. Those who accept this worldview assume the Bible did not result from any God who gave information to the Bible writers, and they assume those writers made up the stories in the Bible. We call this a secular worldview, and it assumes that science can find truth only if it rejects any stories about a supernatural Designer, or Creator, and only explains everything by the laws of nature, without God.

“Where did this secular worldview come from? It began to develop about two hundred years ago among scholars who deliberately left God out of their thinking and tried to explain life and the universe without a Creator. This worldview is called naturalism.

“The great scientists who developed the modern scientific method did not believe in naturalism but believed in a Creator God. Some examples were Isaac Newton, Galileo, Robert Boyle, and Johannes Kepler. Later on, the secular worldview was accepted by more and more scientists. That worldview has become so strong and accepted in the minds of scientists that today a scientist who believes in a Creator may have difficulty even keeping a job in a public university. As we will talk about, the naturalistic worldview has a very strong influence on how scientists explain their evidence.

“Let me give you an example of how different the thinking is between the two worldviews. If I am doing research on the genes of humans and chimpanzees, and I find evidence that, for example, their Y chromosomes, which are the chromosomes that determine a male instead of a female, are very different, I can see that God created humans and chimpanzees separately. However, a scientist who accepts the assumptions of naturalism can’t explain it that way because he assumes there was no Creator. His assumptions will not allow the possibility of Creation.

“The difference between these two explanations does not come from the fact that the evidence favors the evolution of humans and chimpanzees from a common ancestor, but because a naturalistic worldview will not allow any conclusion that requires a Creator. Do you follow what I’m saying?

“In this case of the Y chromosome, the truth is that the evidence is very difficult to explain without a Creator who created humans and chimpanzees separately. This example is not a made-up story. It has been discovered that the Y chromosome is very different in humans and chimpanzees. How did that happen? Our Creator God made humans different from all other animals in some important ways.”

“But wait,” Bryan interrupted. “My textbook says that humans and chimps are about 98 or 99 percent the same in their DNA. So we are very close relatives. Here, let me show you in this book. Aren’t there a lot of similarities between humans and some other animals?”

“You’re right that humans are like other animals in many ways,” Uncle Leonard replied. “We have the same basic physiology, so our bodies work the same. We are all made of similar proteins and other molecules. We all eat, drink water, and breathe. Other mammals even have similar basic emotional responses of fear, anger, and even happiness.

“The difference is in humans’ higher thinking abilities, our spiritual ability to know and worship God, our ability to make and enjoy music and poetry and to know that we want to live forever. These human abilities are not necessary for us to just survive by natural selection. So how can they be explained except that a great, loving God gave them to us?

“The reason many scientists don’t believe this is that their secular, naturalistic worldview does not allow them to see it,” Uncle Leonard continued. “Their attitudes and assumptions give them only one choice—to try to explain everything by evolution, no matter what the evidence is.

“That explains why many scientists strongly believe that all types of animals and plants are the result of evolution from simple ancestors like bacteria. It is not really because of the evidence but because of their assumptions. When we read books or watch TV programs about evolution, their explanations may not sound like assumptions. It may sound like they have convincing evidence. It takes a lot of experience to understand why it sounds so convincing. They may describe, for example, three differences between humans and chimpanzees. Then they talk about how these differences evolved. That is where the assumption comes in. They did not see humans evolve; they are assuming humans evolved, and they are describing how they think that evolution happened.

“The real evidence in this case is simply that there are three differences between humans and chimps. That is all. The evolutionary explanation is the way they interpret the evidence. If they believe in the naturalistic worldview, with its assumption that all creatures resulted from evolution, they have to explain the differences as the result of evolution. Their assumption does not allow them to recognize that God made humans different from chimps.

“Now, if we believe in God as Creator, we can recognize that God made humans that way. We accept that He did because of our faith in God, but there is also a lot of evidence supporting that faith. There are many more reasons than we can cover in this short discussion about why it is most reasonable to believe in God as Creator, just as the book of Genesis tells us. If you wish to learn more about it, there are books that describe those reasons.”

“I heard that the ENCODE project showed that humans and chimps have some things in common but not nearly as much as the evolutionists claimed. Is that true, Uncle Leonard?” Carson asked.

“Yes, it is. But Jane seems to have fallen asleep. Maybe we can save that for another time. Can you bring your books along again, Bryan?”

“I think so. I am interested in what the ENCODE project showed about DNA because the textbook says we are 98 to 99 percent the same. The scientists who wrote the book say we evolved from a common ancestor.” Bryan was thoughtful. Then he said, “I think I’ll read about the ENCODE project online. I want to know about the project and the scientists who did the research.”

“That’s good, Bryan. Is this a good time to meet again? Same time next week?” Carson asked.

Everyone gathered their books, papers, and laptops and got ready to go.

Jane suddenly opened her eyes. “Maybe next time I can stay awake,” she said with a grin.

CHAPTER 22

The Hero and the Deception

Bryan was not able to meet with Carson and Jane the next week. His family had decided they needed to get out of the city and go camping before the fall weather turned too cold.

Uncle Leonard came over to the Lawsons’ house anyway. He had a story he wanted to tell the family.

“Everyone loves to hear stories about heroes,” he began. “The hero saves someone from harm or saves their life, and we love the hero. Carson, I have another nephew, one you don’t know, who is a genuine hero. His name is Darren. He is the oldest of four children. He has two younger sisters and a younger brother.

“One day, when Darren was eleven years old, the children were all playing in the backyard while their mother was working in her garden on the other side of the yard. Darren and the others were having a good time when a neighbor’s dog, who was very mean, managed to get out of his yard. The dog jumped over their fence and came running straight for the youngest of the girls. Darren jumped in front of his sister. He took some nasty dog bites on his arm and shoulder before his brave mother could get there and chase off the dog with a stick. Darren was wounded in the attack, but he saved his sister.”

“Wow, that is terrible! Is Darren all right?” Jane asked.

“Yes, he is. Actually, this true story is also a parable. A parable is a story that has a bigger meaning than the story itself. Jesus told many stories, including parables, because He knew that people love to hear stories, and He could teach them important lessons with parables and other stories.

“In a story about a hero, there is always a villain who has to be defeated. That is how we get heroes because they act to save someone. Darren’s villain that had to be defeated was the mean dog. In this world, there are other heroes and villains, and I want to tell you another story about a hero. It is a parable.

“There was once a man who liked dogs and wanted to raise a lot of dogs on his ranch. One problem he had to solve was that in the woods there lived a big, mean wolf. The wolf was not like other wolves who live in the far north. This wolf was especially mean and hungry. The man knew the wolf would eventually catch and kill his dogs. This was a serious problem he had to solve. He thought and thought, but he did not know how to solve the problem.

“Finally, he decided that he would raise a lot of dogs—so many dogs that the wolf couldn’t get them all. He knew that most of the dogs would get killed, and they would go through a lot of pain and suffering before the wolf killed them, but he didn’t know what else to do. He decided that if he had enough puppies, some dogs would survive, and at least the few who survived would be the strongest ones. Does this man sound like a hero? I see you shaking your heads no.

“Nearby lived another man who also wanted to raise dogs. He knew about the wolf in the woods, and he also had to solve that problem. But this man was different. He was smarter, and he loved his dogs and was not willing to stand by and see them suffer. He built a big fence around his ranch and trained the dogs to stay inside the fence.

“One day, he saw a little dog go outside of the fence. He saw the dog going toward the woods and the wolf coming toward him. The man could have thought, ‘I taught that dog to stay inside the fence, but he is foolishly going outside of it, so now he will get what he deserves.’ However, the man loved his dog way too much for that. As the dog and wolf got closer and closer to each other, the man ran past the fence and jumped between the wolf and the dog. The man took a terrible mauling from the wolf before driving the wolf away, but he saved his little dog.

“What does this story mean? It is a story about Creation. The Bible tells us that when God created, He spoke and immediately there were living animals and people. God created the world, the people, and the animals perfect. There was no evil or pain or suffering or death. Those bad things began when Adam and Eve sinned.

“But some people think Creation happened a different way. They think that God did not know how to create instantly as the Bible says He did. They think that God created by allowing plants and animals to evolve over millions of years of natural selection. He let them evolve into new types of more complex creatures, but there was a lot of death, disease, and pain during that whole process. This theory is called theistic evolution or evolutionary creation, which means that evolution happened, but somehow God was involved in the process, and He used evolution as His method of creating the living things on the earth.”

“That doesn’t sound like a God who loved His creation,” Jane said. “Why would someone think that was what God would do?”

“Let’s try to understand the difference between God’s way of creating, described in the Bible, and theistic evolution. Let’s review the parable about the two dog owners. What the second man did is like what we find in the Bible story. He was not willing to allow his dogs to be painfully killed. The people God created, Adam and Eve, were without sin when they were created, and they did not experience pain or death. However, they made a mistake, just like the little dog who went beyond the fence. They disobeyed God, and all were in danger of being destroyed by the villain, Satan. But Jesus jumped between us and Satan and died on the cross to save us from the results of sin.

“The first dog owner in the story didn’t know how to raise dogs without the pain and suffering from wolf attacks. That is like theistic evolution. If life had developed through ages of evolution, there would have been millions of years of death, disease, pain, and suffering as multitudes of worms, fish, reptiles, mammals, and finally humans died as all these kinds of animals evolved through the survival of the fittest or strongest. Moreover, if God had used that method to create, then God, not Satan, would be responsible for all the pain and suffering in this world because God would have made the evolution process.”

“But,” said Carson, “we know from the Bible that the second part of the dog story is the right one. God didn’t create pain and suffering, and it was Adam and Eve’s sin that brought evil and pain and suffering. Isn’t that right, Dad?” Carson looked at his father, who was sitting nearby.

“That’s right, Son. Jesus paid the price by dying on the cross and earned the right to take us to heaven, where there will be no more death and suffering. He stood between us and Satan.

“Satan is determined to fool us and keep us from believing in Jesus. He knows that most Christians will not be fooled by the theory that there is no God, so he had to invent a cleverer theory that might fool us. His invention is theistic evolution.

“Since God is still the Creator in theistic evolution,” his father went on, “although it is in a vague sort of way, this is enough to convince many Christians that theistic evolution is true. However, it is just a way to get us to forget the truth about the God who created us in six days and died on the cross to save us from sin. Instead, Satan’s theory gives us a God who supposedly ‘created’ us through millions of years of pain and suffering. If that had really happened, then the Bible would not be true, and we would also not have any reason to believe what the Bible tells us about Jesus and the salvation He offers us.”

Uncle Leonard added, “Darren saved his sister from the dog, but Jesus suffered a million times more as He jumped between us and Satan!

“The theories that scientists and even some Christian leaders and teachers tell us about the evolution of life can seem very confusing. A lot of scientific evidence can be explained to us in ways that make theories of evolution and theistic evolution sound convincing.”

“How can we be sure of what we should believe?” Carson asked.

“There is only one way,” Uncle Leonard replied. “Remember that God knows much more about all of this than any human. We can read the Bible, study it with care, and be sure we know and trust Jesus as our most wonderful Friend. That is the only safe route through this earth with its villain, Satan. He will use any way he can to trick us into turning away from the path to salvation and happiness and heaven.”

CHAPTER 23

Animals on the Dunes

The next morning, when Carson and Jane went outside to play, they saw Uncle Leonard walking up the street toward their house.

“Uncle Leonard!” Jane called. “What are you doing here this morning?”

As he reached them he said, “Well, I had something I wanted to tell you. It is a story. So I called Bryan to see if he could come over to your house too. He said he could. He should be here in a few minutes. When he gets here, let’s find a spot under a shady tree. Then I will tell you the story.”

“Here comes Bryan now,” Carson said.

“Hi, everyone,” Bryan called out. “It sounds like you’re going to talk about the Grand Canyon. I read about it in one of my books. Seems like it fits with the theory of evolution. Maybe we’ll see how evolution really works.”

When the four were settled in the backyard, Uncle Leonard began. “I wondered if a story that I read could be true. The story is that at one time, long before there was a Grand Canyon, desert sand dunes covered the area that is now northern Arizona. The winds blew and kept depositing one thin layer of sand on another, forming more sand dunes. As the sand accumulated on the sloping faces of the dunes, some of the sand would come loose at the top of a dune and slide down the dune face.

“Some lizard-like reptiles lived among the dunes, and they often climbed up the dune faces and left their trackways in the sand. More sand covered the tracks and protected them. Finally, the desert went away, and many layers of lime, mud, and more sand were carried into the area by water. They all became cemented together by chemicals to become layers of rock. Finally, a river cut a giant canyon through all these layers to form the Grand Canyon.

“This story is how most geologists explain the fossil animal tracks in the Coconino Sandstone, a thick layer of sandstone that you can see as a whitish cliff near the top of the Grand Canyon’s walls.

“Certainly, part of the story is true,” Uncle Leonard continued. “Water, and much less often wind, does deposit layers of sand, mud, or pebbles—called sediment—that become rock, just as the story says.

“I wondered, Is it true that the Coconino Sandstone is from sand dunes in the desert? But it seems like this part of the stack of rock layers in Arizona would have formed in the global flood described in the book of Genesis. If so, could there have been a mass of sand deposited by wind, in the middle of that great flood?”

Bryan was excited. “Wait! The books are right! It was a desert. I knew the Flood story could not explain sand in the desert. This just shows that evolution is true.”

“Of course, the Flood might have been more complicated than we thought, but desert sand dunes in the middle of it?” Uncle Leonard asked. “The reptile tracks were the interesting part for me because it seemed that we could figure out if they were made in dry desert sand or in some other condition. Just how can we answer that question?

“We can’t go back in time to see what happened, but we can study how animal tracks look today in different types of sand. Then, by comparing those modern tracks made by living animals with the fossil tracks, perhaps we can decide if the fossil tracks were made in dry desert sand.

“Deserts are not the only place where dunes, or something like dunes, form. Flowing water makes underwater dunes that in some cases are very similar to desert dunes. Could that be where the tracks were made? I decided to do some research.

“First, I needed some animals to make tracks. That was the easy part. There were lizards and salamanders living nearby my house, and I knew how to catch them. Then one of my students made an artificial sand dune in a wooden box he constructed. We also made an underwater dune in an aquarium. Now we could put the animals in a place where they would walk and make tracks on dry sand, damp sand, wet sand, and underwater sand. We did these experiments, and what did we find?

“At first, it looked like the underwater tracks would not look like the fossils. And the dry sand tracks were much worse. They didn’t look at all like the fossil tracks. Maybe the right ones would be on damp sand, like after a light rain. I needed one change in the experiments—my sand was not very similar to the sand in the Coconino Sandstone, which was formed of consistently very small, round sand grains.

“A trip to southern Utah solved that problem. In some parts of the Utah desert, the red sand came from another sandstone, the Navajo Sandstone. It has sand grains just like those in the Coconino Sandstone. With two big cloth sacks full of the red sand from Utah, we were ready for more experiments. In addition, the sand must be clean like the Coconino Sandstone, with no mud in it.

“Now with the clean red sand, the results were more interesting. When salamanders walked underwater on the sand, they left clear tracks, and these were very similar to the fossil tracks. However, tracks on dry sand were not at all like the fossil tracks. I now had something that might give a better understanding of the fossils. Would other scientists believe it, or even let my observations be published in any scientific research journal? Most geologists were quite sure the Coconino Sandstone was a desert sand dune deposit, and my results were disagreeing with that.

“I would have to do many more experiments. Because I believed what the Bible says about the history of our earth, it allowed me to think of research ideas I would not have considered otherwise. The Bible doesn’t give details about how the Coconino Sandstone formed, so I had to do careful research to be sure I had the right explanation for the tracks.

“After pestering many more little animals and making them walk up my sand slopes, my evidence was even stronger. It supported the conclusion that the underwater tracks are most similar to the Coconino Sandstone tracks, and it is very unlikely the fossil tracks were made on desert sand dunes. My research seemed ready to publish, so I wrote up a research paper and sent it first to another scientist who is an expert on fossil animal tracks. I asked him to read it and tell me if he could find any weak points in my explanation. He did not find any weak points, and he liked my work very much. The paper was published in a good research journal and was later published again in a book, a collection of the best research papers on that subject. I was surprised and happy with this success.

“That wasn’t the end. I had seen some Coconino Sandstone fossil trackways with strange, amazing features. Some of the trackways began suddenly in the middle of a smooth sandstone surface, or they would suddenly end and disappear. How could that happen?

“These animals didn’t have wings, so how could they suddenly drop onto the sandy surface and begin walking, and then disappear and end the trackway? The only explanation that seemed realistic is for the animals to be walking underwater. They could swim down and land on the sand and later swim upward in the water, leaving trackways with an abrupt beginning and end. That could not happen on a smooth, flat sandy surface that was not underwater.

“Another type of fossil trackway was common. The tracks showed the animal walking sideways. Its toes pointed up the dune face, but the animal was moving sideways along the dune face. Reptiles and amphibians do not walk that way, so how can that be explained? My hypothesis of underwater trackways offered an explanation. The animals were trying to walk up the sand surface, underwater, and a gentle water current caused them to drift sideways. After more experiments, it was clear that salamanders will make tracks like that underwater. I wrote another paper, and it was published in an even more prestigious scientific journal.

“God does not directly give us the answers to these detailed questions about rocks and fossils, but if we have confidence in the information He did give us in the Bible, it helps us think of good research ideas. It also helps us notice things in our research that we would probably not otherwise have noticed or thought important enough to study.

“If I had not questioned the desert dune explanation of the Coconino Sandstone, I would never have thought of doing these studies, and I would not have discovered this new scientific information. Believing what God tells us is always the best way, even when doing scientific research. There are many more research projects like this, just waiting for someone to do them! Maybe someday you will be the one to do some of that research.”

“I would like to do research like that,” Bryan said. “I’d like to go to the Grand Canyon and do research like you did. Just think, I know a real scientist who does real research and has it published in a scientific journal.” He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Do you have to have a PhD to do research like that?”

“No, you can begin doing research anytime,” Uncle Leonard said. “It is good to follow careful procedures. I can help you with that.”

Carson and Jane said they wanted to do research too. “Could you show all three of us how to do it?” Carson asked.

“Yes, I can. We can talk about what research to do and then make plans. But let’s wait to do that on another day,” Uncle Leonard said as he got up. “I need to go now. Thank you for coming, Bryan. It is always good to see you.”

CHAPTER 24

The Great Flood Catastrophe

I would like to have been in the ark,” Jane declared a few days later. “Just think of all those animals. I could pet them and help feed them. I think it would have been fun.”

“Come on, Jane. Think about it,” Carson said. “All those animals. Can you imagine the smell? I don’t think you would’ve liked it at all. You don’t even like to go into the chicken coop.” He laughed.

“Well, maybe you’re right. Anyway, it’s time for Uncle Leonard to come. He’s coming earlier today than last time. Hopefully he’ll tell us more about the Flood.”

When Uncle Leonard came in, Carson told him that Jane wished she could have been on the ark.

“Try to imagine what the trip would be like, Jane,” Uncle Leonard began, “with just you and your family on a big boat full of all kinds of animals: lions, sheep, chickens, mice, sparrows, lizards, horses, elephants, crocodiles, monkeys, eagles, and so many others. Of course, the lions and sheep had to be in different cages! There were big rooms full of food for all the animals.

“The boat would have been tossed around by huge waves. Lightning would have flashed and thunder would have roared. The animals would have been terrified, so the racket from the roaring lions and screeching monkeys along with so many other frightened animals would have added to the hubbub.”

Carson and Jane stared at their uncle.

“How could the people stand it?” Jane asked.

“It must not have lasted very long,” Carson suggested. “I could have stood it for a week maybe.”

“Actually, this ride lasted for a whole year. What a ride!” (Genesis 7; 8).

“A year? Are you sure? Did the rain and the storm quiet down very soon?” Carson wanted to know.

“No, Carson, it did not quiet down very soon. It was not only a rough, scary ride but it was also a crisis for the entire earth. Noah built the ark very strong, exactly as God instructed him; but still, if God had not specially protected Noah and his boat, the ark would not have survived.

“In the Bible, the Hebrew word for Noah’s flood doesn’t just mean ‘flood.’ There were other Hebrew words for more normal floods, like local floods from flooding rivers. But the word for the flood of Noah is a different word. It is Mabbul (Genesis 6:17). It means ‘catastrophe.’ This was a huge catastrophe, and the flooding water was only part of it.

“Water and probably also steam burst from the ground as huge geysers shot high into the air, and all this water came down as rain that seemed like it was being poured out of a big lake.

“The continents began to move, with molten magma or lava rising up between them. You have probably heard of the theory of continental drift, that the continents have been moving around on the earth. This did not happen over millions of years, but the movement of continents was an important part of what happened during and after the flood catastrophe.

“Also, the old ocean floors were raised up, and the continents sank down enough for the oceans to flood over them.”

“Really? Is that how the continents moved? That’s very different from what Bryan’s books say. They talk about how it took millions of years to move the continents.” Carson was intrigued by this new information.

“The water didn’t just rise enough to cover the land and then quietly go down again,” Uncle Leonard said. “It was not a gentle flood—it was truly a catastrophe for the entire earth. The whole surface of the earth was changed in the catastrophe. The movement of the continents caused a large amount of water to move over the surface, eroding all the dirt, sand, and rock that formed the original surface of the earth and destroying the old mountain ranges and all the forests. All of this sediment was deposited as new rock layers, often covering many thousands of square miles.

“We now see those layers as the colorful, layered sedimentary rocks that form the surface of our continents, hundreds or thousands of feet thick. If you have visited the Grand Canyon or any of the other scenic rocky areas in the western United States, you have seen the thick, colorful layers of rock. Many other parts of the United States and other continents have just as much of this thick, layered rock, but it is covered by vegetation, and we don’t see as much of the rock.

“The moving continents pushed against one another, and this pressure wrinkled the continents, forming new mountain ranges. So, the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachian Mountains, the Andes Mountains in South America, the Alps in Europe, and the Himalayas in Asia are just a few of the new mountain ranges that didn’t exist before the Flood but were raised up during or just after the great catastrophe.

“A lot of exciting things were happening in a hurry! Our earth today is the wreckage of a drowned planet. And along with all of that, volcanoes were sending up clouds of ash that spread over the earth, and out of cracks in the earth came flows of hot lava from inside the earth. Thousands of cubic miles of this lava spread out over the land, forming what are called flood basalts.

“While all of this was happening, the animals and plants were being killed and covered by the new layers of sediment. Minerals in the water seeped through them and turned them into fossils. The land wasn’t all covered by deep water all the time. There must have been brief times when land surface was exposed, and live animals were walking around and leaving tracks in the sand or mud. These became preserved as fossil tracks, and then the animals themselves were finally killed and fossilized.

“Some types of animals died and were buried early in the Flood, while other types survived longer and were buried higher in the accumulating stack of rock layers. Since none of us was there to see the catastrophe, and no other event like it has ever happened again, we do not know all the reasons why different animals were killed at different times. Some reasons are easy to guess. The first animals buried in the Flood were creatures living in the ocean, and animals that lived in the high hills and mountains were probably killed and buried last, along with the birds that could fly.

“It is very sad to realize that all these innocent animals died when it wasn’t their fault. It was because of human sins that God had to bring on this catastrophe, to cleanse the earth of so much human violence.”

“Did the people all die?” Carson asked. “Did any of them survive the Flood outside the ark? Has anyone ever found human fossils from the Flood?”

“The Bible says that all the people died. So far no one has found human fossils from before the Flood.

“This great flood catastrophe was not a normal event. God began the Flood by a miraculous action, somehow disturbing the geologically balanced structure of the earth. We don’t know how He does such miracles, but geologists can study the processes that happened during the catastrophe—processes of earth movement, erosion of sediments, and the formation of new layered rocks deposited by water flow.

“Paleontologists can try to understand how the turtles, animal tracks, and whales all became fossils during and soon after the Flood. Since we were not there to witness the complex processes during the catastrophe, it is often difficult to answer some of our questions about rocks and fossils. However, we can figure out many fascinating things about how the rock layers formed with their fossils inside.”

“I remember the turtle fossils that you find and study,” Carson
said. “Are they from that time? I guess that would make sense. I would like to see more of them. Maybe we can go on a fossil hunt with you sometime.”

“I think you would really enjoy that,” Uncle Leonard said. “We talked before about your going on a trip with me. We still need to talk to your parents about it at some point.

“So, finally,” he continued, “the catastrophe was mostly over. The water level had gone down, and there was enough stable new land surface for Noah and his family and animal friends to leave the ark. They could begin a new life amid the chaos of broken rocks and still-shaking hills.

“Life was probably quite difficult for them for a while. The new vegetation was just starting to grow, and small catastrophes still happened as the earth gradually settled down to a new, quieter condition. The earth did gradually become calmer and stabler.

“However, we still experience events that are the results of the great catastrophe, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and big storms. The continents are still moving, but only a few inches each year, about the same speed that your fingernails grow. And the mountains are still rising an inch or two each year.”

“Really? I didn’t know the continents were still moving,” Carson said with surprise.

“About as fast as fingernails grow?” Jane commented. “That could be quite a bit in a year.”

“God must have acted to be sure the new structure of the earth would make it possible for humans and animals to live here,” Uncle Leonard said, “but it is not the perfect home it was when God first created it. The ideal watering system in the Garden of Eden was gone, and parts of the earth now do not get enough water. We have to work harder to make our food grow, and the earth is not so safe anymore because of those earthquakes and volcanoes and storms. All of this is the result of Satan’s temptations and human sin.

“The difficulties caused by our damaged earth apparently have one good result. We have to work harder to live and do not have as much time to be tempted by Satan as we did in the ideal, original setting.”

“We might even say we do not have as much time for war. We still have lots of wars, but I suppose there could be more,” Carson said.

“Someday soon, when Jesus comes to take us away from this earth, we will live again in the perfect world that God intended for us,” Uncle Leonard said. “This will be first in heaven and then on the newly re-created earth. It will be Eden restored, just like it was at first, with no evil angels to tempt us to mess it all up again.”

“You know what I will like about the new earth?” Jane asked.

“What?” Uncle Leonard asked with a smile.

“I will like for the animals to all be friendly with people. I will like that animals don’t eat one another or attack us. I will like it that people no longer sin or tell lies. I will like being able to trust my friends.”

“I think we will all like that,” Uncle Leonard said. “What a wonderful place the new earth will be.”

CHAPTER 25

Whales in the Desert

Uncle Leonard,” Carson shouted as he ran into his uncle’s office, “look what I found in a magazine! It’s an article about whale fossils found high in some mountains. Whales in the desert! Can you think of anything crazier? Where did they come from?”

“Slow down, Carson,” his uncle said, laughing. “Yes, I have heard of them. In fact, I have seen them. Imagine walking through a desolate area, entering a valley, and finding hundreds of beautiful dinosaur skeletons, just waiting for you to study them. I have dreamed of this happening—all those dinosaurs just waiting for me to study them and honor God by doing good research on the dinosaurs. Keep this in mind as we talk today about an adventure in Peru.”

Carson sat down in a chair, and Uncle Leonard continued.

“As a paleontologist, I study fossil animals and try to understand how they got killed, buried, and preserved as fossils. Many scientists who study fossils are convinced the animals lived and died millions of years ago.

“The Bible gives us a very different story, telling us that animals have only been on the earth a few thousand years, since the Creation described in Genesis. Many of the fossils were from animals killed and buried during the great Flood that covered the earth as Noah rode past in the ark. After the Flood, it certainly must have taken some time for the earth to recover from a catastrophic flood over the whole world, and during that time, more layers of sediment were being deposited and burying animals that became fossils.

“The Bible helps us understand that fossils formed during or after the Flood were all formed a fairly short time ago, and it didn’t take millions of years to make these fossils. Research by scientists also shows that changing a plant or animal into a fossil happens very quickly.

“One time I was at a university in Peru with several friends, giving talks about Creation. A teacher there asked us if we wanted to see some fossil whales. Of course we wanted to see them! So they drove us several hours away to visit a farmer named Chalaco, who lived close to the whales. We wondered if these were really whales or just some interestingly shaped rocks. As evening approached, Chalaco guided us up the hill behind his farm, and, wow, they really were fossil whales! There were lots of them. We saw sixteen whales in an hour and a half, before it got too dark for us to see. These were not just scattered whale bones but complete whales, with all the bones in their proper place—articulated skeletons of big whales. What a find!

“We returned to the university and soon flew home to California. But we knew we had to go back and study these amazing skeletons. We did return the next year and for several years after that.

“The first year of our research, we were there for two weeks and worked hard to gather information on the whales. We found one hundred fossil whales in that time, and we studied one whale very carefully. We named that whale Fernanda. Fernanda was almost completely buried, but the tops of a few bones were exposed at the ground surface to show us she was there. It took several days to dig up the sediment and expose the beautiful, articulated skeleton, with almost every bone in place.

“We read the research papers that other paleontologists had written about these same whales during the previous twenty years. We were not the first to discover the whales, but there was something about the whales we saw immediately, which no one had discussed in the published papers. The whales were buried in fine sediment, muddy accumulations of skeletons of microscopic plankton called diatoms. The other scientists were convinced that it took at least twelve million years to form this rock formation with its fossils. According to that idea, this sediment with its diatoms had been slowly sinking through the water and accumulating only a few inches of sediment on the ocean floor each thousand years. However, if that were true, it would have taken several thousand years to bury each large whale.

“Today there are scientists who study living whales and what happens to them when they die and sink to the ocean floor. Those whales do not last for thousands of years! In fact, scavenger animals remove their flesh in a few months, and then they eat holes in the bones, and the bones remain for only a few years. A whale skeleton that is articulated, with no holes eaten in its bones by scavengers, must have been buried in a few weeks or months. It was obvious that our whales in Peru were buried rapidly, not over thousands or millions of years. Why had other paleontologists not realized this and published papers about it?

“The reason is that most scientists are convinced that it took millions of years to form rocks and fossils. They could have discovered what we found, but they didn’t because their theory of the earth’s history didn’t give them reasons to think that the whales could have been buried quickly.

“We studied the Bible, and we did careful scientific work. And we also prayed each day for God to show us what we needed to find. Our biblical understanding of the earth’s history opened our eyes to notice things that others did not pay attention to. If we understand how a scientist thinks, we can see how the information in the Bible helped us think of the hypothesis that the sediments accumulated rapidly, quickly burying each whale. This hypothesis could be tested by studying the skeletons and sediments, and the evidence of the well-preserved whales supported our hypothesis.

“After we had carefully gathered this evidence and written it up in a paper, other scientists could see the evidence supported our hypothesis. The paper was then published in a very good scientific research journal. It is exciting to do this work, finding new things because we trust what Jesus, our best Friend, has told us about the history of the world since Creation.

“I didn’t find a valley full of dinosaur bones, but valleys and hills with many big whale skeletons are just as exciting as dinosaurs! God will lead us to discoveries that will bring honor to Him by helping people see that trusting the Bible can even lead to successful scientific research. Reading and trusting the Bible will also make many other improvements in our lives.”

“Did you take lots of pictures? Do you think we could see them?” Carson asked. “I would like to see whales in the desert.”

“Yes, I did. Let’s set up a time when you and your parents can come to my house, and I will show you all the pictures.”

CHAPTER 26

The Greatest Geologist Ever

Bryan had a question. “How could the Bible know more about geology than all the great scientists who study geology? I don’t see how that could be, since it’s a book written a long time ago,” he said.

Uncle Leonard thought about the best way to answer that important question without making Bryan feel foolish. After thinking a moment, he said, “The Bible gives only a little information about geology, but it is very important information. When my daughter was in school, she sometimes asked, ‘Daddy, how can I answer this chemistry question?’ I didn’t give her a detailed answer. I knew she could figure that out for herself. I helped her understand how and where she should look to find the answers.

“The Bible doesn’t give details about geology. It gives us some important direction, and then we will know where to look as we do research to figure out the details. It tells us that the rocks and fossils didn’t take millions of years to form but that they are only a few thousand years old. It also tells us that a huge catastrophic flood changed the world.

“This information tells us that we will not find correct answers to geological questions if we think there were millions of years in the earth’s history. The short biblical account of the global flood, which is called Mabbul, or ‘catastrophe,’ in Hebrew, helps us find better geological explanations because we know that the rocks and fossils formed in a short time and at least part of them were formed in a great catastrophe. Many scientists do not believe the Bible stories of Creation and the Flood, so they are often looking in the wrong places for answers to their questions.

“Now back to your specific question: How could the Bible know about geology since it was written so long before there was any scientific study of geology? I had not met you yet when Carson and Jane and I talked about the prophets who wrote the Bible. They did not make up the Bible themselves—God communicated to them and gave them correct information about the history of the earth. God knew we would need that information because Satan would try to deceive us and make us forget that God is our Creator.

“Scholars who study history have written many books telling us about what happened in history. How do they know what happened? They can know whether people who lived in the past left us written records of events and important people. They can also learn from the remains of ancient cities and the pottery and other items that have been preserved and that can be found by archeologists.

“An eyewitness is someone who saw an event happen. If someone was an eyewitness to an ancient event and left some written record of that event, that gives historians good information about what happened. How many geologists were eyewitnesses to the processes that formed rocks like those in the Grand Canyon, for example? There were no eyewitnesses. At least not people. But who was an eyewitness to those events?”

Carson responded quickly, “I know, God was the eyewitness!”

“Yes, God, Jesus, and the angels saw all of the history of our earth. They are the only ones who saw it. Do you think God understood what was happening when the Grand Canyon was carved out?” Uncle Leonard asked.

“I think He understood everything that was happening. He made the earth and knows all the things that have happened to it,” Jane said.

“You’re right,” Uncle Leonard affirmed. “God and Jesus are the Ones who know all about it, since They saw all that happened, ever since They created the earth. Therefore, God is the greatest geologist who has ever lived, and His Book, the Bible, gives us information about the earth’s history that we can trust. We do a lot of research and sometimes think we know so much, but we know very little compared to God’s complete knowledge about our earth and all that has happened here. We now have to choose whether we believe what God has told us.

“We will have the best success in understanding geology if we do two things. The first is to trust God and believe what He told us in the Bible. The second thing is for us to do the very best, highest-quality scientific work we can as we study the rocks and fossils and seek to understand the many fascinating details God left for us to study. If we do that careful work and treat other scientists with kindness, we may even be able to show others that believing God is a good thing to do.”

“I believe there is a God,” Bryan said. “I just don’t know about putting together all the things from the Bible with my science textbooks.”

“This issue is not uncommon for people who are searching for correct answers in both the Bible and in science,” Uncle Leonard said. “Sometimes people just give up and don’t look beyond what they are being told. You are going on a scientific and biblical journey, Bryan. I’m just glad you are willing to listen and examine ideas that are new to you.

“Next time we meet,” he continued, “we will talk about not knowing all the answers. But for now, let’s go home. We can meet after soccer practice tomorrow if that’s OK with everyone.”

“Sure, see you tomorrow,” Jane said.

CHAPTER 27

It’s OK to Not Have All the Answers

Bryan and Carson were playing soccer with their friends the next afternoon. Carson had just missed a goal. Bryan, who was on the opposing team, shouted, “You don’t know any more about soccer than you do about science!” He laughed.

At the end of the game, Carson walked off the field. Bryan’s team had won, two goals to one. Carson’s missed goal would have tied the game. He was disappointed, but he could not figure out what that had to do with science.

Bryan caught up with Carson after they had changed clothes. He was still laughing to himself.

“What were you talking about, Bryan?” Carson asked. “What does not scoring a goal have to do with my science knowledge?”

“Well, it just shows that you don’t have all the answers, that’s all. I think you act like you have all the answers.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever said I have all the answers,” Carson said as he looked at his friend. “Most of us have been asked a question, didn’t know the answer, and were embarrassed because we should know the answer. Or at least we thought we should know the answer.”

He went on. “Nobody knows all the answers, and it’s OK to be truthful and say, ‘I don’t know.’ Uncle Leonard tells us all the time that nobody has all the answers. Sometimes it feels good to admit I don’t know something. How would I learn anything new if I thought I had all the answers?”

A moment later, he said, “I have to take a book back to Uncle Leonard so he can return it to the library. Do you want to go?”

Bryan looked at his friend. “Yes, OK, I’ll go. Hey, I don’t think I know all the answers either. It would be nice to hear a scientist say he doesn’t have all the answers.”

A short time later, the two boys walked into Uncle Leonard’s office.

“Hello, boys,” Uncle Leonard greeted them. “What can I do for you today?”

“Uncle Leonard, awhile back we were talking about questions. You said it is OK not to have all the answers. Is that right?” Carson began.

“Sometimes people act like they think they know everything,” Uncle Leonard replied, “but they don’t. They may know some things, but nobody knows everything. In fact, when graduate students take their final exams, we often ask questions that we know they can’t answer. We do that to see if they have learned to be honest and say, ‘I don’t know,’ instead of trying to pretend they know when they really don’t know.”

Bryan asked, “Do scientists know all the answers?”

“Oh, no, they don’t. A good scientist will not try to pretend they know an answer when they really don’t. Sometimes we are so impressed with scientists that we think they know everything. A scientist will usually know a lot about the subject he or she studies the most and will know some things about other subjects. There is so much to know in this world that no one knows all the answers. It’s OK not to know an answer.”

“There is one thing it seems like scientists and other people argue about a lot,” Bryan said. “Everyone acts like they know the answers for sure. That’s the thing I’m most interested in. My question is, Does anyone know all the answers about the beginning of the universe? Or about the beginning of life on the earth?”

“Of course, God knows, since He created it all. But there were no scientists taking notes when those things happened!” Uncle Leonard said.

“I never thought of it that way,” Bryan replied.

“Think of it this way,” Uncle Leonard said. “When someone sees an auto accident happen, we call that person an eyewitness. That means their own eyes saw it happen, and they can describe what they saw. There were no human eyewitnesses when the universe was created, or when Adam and Eve were created.

“There were not even any human eyewitnesses of the global flood. Noah and his family were there, but they were in the boat. They could not see what was happening outside. The only one who knows all the answers is God, and He gave us a brief eyewitness description of Creation in the book of Genesis.

“Scientists have discovered many fascinating things about geology and biology. If a scientist is studying how muscles work, they have many live animals to study, animals with muscles. They can be eyewitnesses to muscles and watch how they work. They are studying how things happen right now, in front of our eyes.

“Other scientists study the history of life. They try to understand how creatures have changed, how they have moved over the earth as climates have changed. They even try to understand how life began on our earth. You can see that there’s one very big difference in their study compared to the study of muscles. Those who study muscles are eyewitnesses to live muscles. Those who study history are not eyewitnesses to ancient history. They did not see life begin.

“Historians who study human history during the centuries before Jesus lived on the earth also are not eyewitnesses, but they have written records of events at that time, written by people who were eyewitnesses of those ancient events.

“As we think of events farther back in time, such as at Creation, there is only one history given to us by an eyewitness, and that is the book of Genesis. No scientist was there to see how life began on the earth. No scientist was there to see how and when all the rocks and fossils were formed. All of us who study these things, the history of life and the history of rocks and fossils, have a problem.

“The problem is that we can’t go back and see what really happened. It is still fascinating to do research and try to understand the history of animals and of the earth. We can learn many things about geology and fossils. However, if we do not follow the eyewitness story in Genesis, we will make many mistakes in understanding the history of life and of rocks and fossils.

“Every scientist who studies the ancient history of rocks and of life has many questions they can’t answer. Notice I said every scientist. Even Genesis tells us only enough so we can know that God created life a few thousand years ago and that there was a global flood catastrophe. He did not give us many details. We can learn all about those details when we get to heaven and can ask Jesus about it. Here on the earth, we can learn some of the wonderful details, but can we answer all our questions? How long would it take to answer them all?”

Bryan looked at Uncle Leonard. “But I read lots of things in science books about geology, and they often say things like, ‘We now know . . . .’ Are they lying?”

“Think about this, Bryan, and I think you can answer your own question. Scientists have been studying in the fields of geology and paleontology for a little more than two hundred years. During that time, thousands of scientists were doing research, and there are still many, many unanswered questions. The subject is so big, and we were not eyewitnesses of the events we study. Careful detective work does bring answers, especially if we trust God’s description in Genesis. Perhaps if we had another three hundred years for research, we could come closer to understanding the earth’s history. Nobody would be realistic if they said they can figure it all out quickly.

“Since we don’t have all the answers, and since most scientists interpret all the evidence with the assumption there has never been a Creator or a global flood, it sometimes looks confusing. The way those scientists interpret the evidence, they claim the evidence shows that life has evolved on the earth for millions of years. If we know Jesus and have learned to trust the Bible, we know that can’t be right. We have been finding answers to many questions, and those answers support our confidence in God’s Word. But our life on this earth is too short to think we can answer all those questions.”

Carson suddenly spoke up. “Would it be better if the scientists said something like, ‘So far it looks like,’ instead of ‘We now know’?” he asked. “I read science books and science magazines and see lots of places where someone says we now know that the earth is billions of years old. Maybe they just need to be more careful with their words.”

“You have a good point, Carson,” Uncle Leonard said. “There are many questions about geology, about radiometric dates, or about fossils I can’t answer now. But I know and love Jesus too much to doubt the Bible. It is OK if we do not have all the answers. Jesus was an eyewitness to Creation and the Flood, and I know that someday when I can talk with Him, He will know the answers to my questions. I can’t wait to ask Him! While I wait for that time, I can say, ‘I don’t know the answers to your questions, but I know Jesus. He is the greatest geologist in the universe, and He knows the answers.’ ”

“I have lots of things I want to ask Him,” Carson said.

“Me too,” Jane added.

“And me!” Bryan exclaimed.

CHAPTER 28

Number 21—Super Wolf

Uncle Leonard called early one morning. Carson picked up the phone.

“Would you like to come over for a while? I have a story to tell you,” Uncle Leonard said.

“Sure,” Carson said, “we’ll come right away.” He hung up the phone and turned to Jane. “He must have an exciting story for him to call so early.”

Uncle Leonard met them at the door. “It is good to see you again, and I have a really interesting story for you,” he said, smiling. “I have been reading a fascinating book about animals. The stories tell what scientists have been learning about animals, how they treat others in their families and how they think. Do you believe that animals have feelings like we do?”[1]

Carson said, “I think they do. Watching how Comet acts when we come to see her makes me think she has feelings.”

“I will tell you my favorite story from the book, about wolf Number 21,” Uncle Leonard continued. “Scientists called him that because he had radio collar number 21. No wolves had lived in Yellowstone National Park for seventy years, so the scientist captured some wolves in Canada and brought them to Yellowstone.

“One of the first pairs of wolves brought to Yellowstone had pups, but then something happened to the father of the pups, and the mother wolf was left alone. Wolves usually live in a pack, which is a family, and they help one another. They bring food to the pups and to the adults that are caring for the pups. In this case, since a lone mother wolf would have a hard time surviving by herself, the scientists caught the female and her pups and kept them in an enclosure for a while to give them a good start in life.

“When the people brought food, the family of wolves was afraid and would crowd into the far side of the enclosure, except for one wolf, who would pace back and forth between the people and the other wolves. This was one of the pups! He was little, but he was taking care of his family. That male pup was Number 21.

“Eventually, that wolf family was released back into Yellowstone Park. Several researchers spent time every day watching the Yellowstone wolves, learning about their lives. They spent fifteen years doing this! They knew all the wolves and their life experiences in the wilderness.

“Now wolf packs have to defend their territories and their food supply, and this often results in fights between wolves. Wolves live in a tough world, and many wolves get killed in these fights.

“When wolf 21 grew bigger, he became the dominant male in a wolf pack. He had pups of his own, and he was a kind and playful father who loved to wrestle with his pups. When a pup would tackle him, he seemed to enjoy pretending to lose the encounter. He would roll on his back as the pup jumped on him and bit his fur. That would help the pups become confident in these play fights. But 21 was no wimp! He was a big, strong, and confident wolf, and during his life in the tough wolf world, he never lost a fight.

“On two occasions, the scientists saw wolf 21 get attacked by a group of six wolves. Six wolves against one! What would you expect to be the result? In both cases, 21 took them on and defeated the whole group and drove them out of his territory. Imagine such courage and fighting skill. The scientist who watched 21 was thinking to himself, I can’t imagine how a wolf can do what I just saw this wolf do.

“The scientists began referring to 21 as the Super Wolf. But there is one amazing fact in this. Although Number 21 never lost a fight, in all his life he never killed another wolf. The scientists used another word to describe 21—magnanimous! Magnanimous means to be generous and forgiving toward a rival, especially toward someone who the generous one could easily defeat or kill.

“So 21 was confident and strong but also forgiving. He seemed to have this attitude: defeat your vicious rival but let him go home to his family. That reminds me of how Abraham Lincoln treated the rival army at the end of the American Civil War—defeat your enemy but then let the soldiers go home to their families.

“Number 21 had another beautiful quality. He would bring food to his family, as other wolves did, but he would bring them the food and then wait while they ate first. One time he did this and began looking around. In the litter of pups, there was one who was little and not very strong. Number 21 found him, wagged his tail, and then just hung out with this sickly pup. That wolf was not only courageous and magnanimous but also kind. Have you ever thought of wolves as being kind? Number 21 was kind.

“The story of how Number 21 treated other wolves is a reminder to me of how things are supposed to be, of how God intended His creatures to treat one another.

“As 21 grew old, his black fur began to turn gray. He was one of the few Yellowstone wolves who died of old age instead of disease or fights. One day, 21 and his family were resting when they saw an elk walk past. They jumped up and ran after the elk, but 21 didn’t join them as he normally did. He waited, and later he deliberately walked the other way, across a meadow, by himself. In a day or two, a hiker reported seeing a dead wolf on a mountain.

“A scientist named Rick, one of the researchers who had been watching 21 for years, got on a horse and rode out to see what this was about. He told his friend he would come back and tell him what he found.

“High on a mountaintop, Rick found 21. Number 21 apparently understood that his last day had come. He used his last bit of energy to climb the mountain to a spot where, over the years, he had often met with his pups and the rest of the family. Would an old wolf think back over his life and all the good times he had on this mountain with his family? We can only guess, but I think maybe he would. Why else would 21 climb all the way up there? Then, like a tired warrior, 21 lay down under a big tree to rest and went to sleep for the last time.

“When Rick got back, he didn’t go to see his friend. He walked to his car, and beside the car he broke down in sobs. You can’t watch a wolf like Number 21 all his life and not love him.”

Jane had listened in silence, and then she said, “That’s a wonderful story. But even Number 21 had to kill animals for food. If God made animals to be kind to one another, and not kill one another, why do animals eat other animals? The people sinned and changed, but the animals didn’t sin.”

Uncle Leonard thought for a moment and said, “The animals didn’t sin, but when humans sinned, Satan was turned loose on the world, and even the animals suffer because of his evil influence. The Bible doesn’t give us details on just how the change in animals happened. Probably as people became violent and mean, they were mean to animals as well as to other people. Then the animals grew afraid and started fighting back, not only with people but also with other animals. They have learned some bad habits because of us!

“Someday, in heaven, the animals and people will again be kind to one another. I really look forward to that.”

“I do too,” Jane said.

Carson nodded in agreement. Then he said, “I hope Jesus comes soon so all the fighting and death will stop.”

“Me too,” Uncle Leonard said.

1.

Carl Safina, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel (New York: Picador, 2015).

CHAPTER 29

But I Can’t Change the World!

Would you like to come over for a while? I have a story to tell you,” Uncle Leonard said.

Uncle Leonard walked with Carson and Bryan when they headed home from soccer practice one day. It was getting cold because winter was coming, and it felt like it might snow. Then soccer would be over for the winter, and it would be harder for the boys to come to the office.

“I need to talk to your dad, so I think I will just tag along as you go home,” Uncle Leonard said to Carson.

“Dinner will probably be waiting for us. Mom always has a good meal waiting for us when we get home. Why don’t both of you eat with us?” Carson asked.

Bryan thought that sounded like a good idea. His parents would be working late.

“You know, I have been thinking about the word home,” Uncle Leonard said. “The word home means something to almost all of us. Some live in a mansion with beautiful gardens, others live in a smaller house, and some live in a cabin out in the forest. But wherever we live, it is our home.

“Think about your home and what it means to you. How would you feel if some stranger broke a hole in the roof, knocked out a window, and spread dirt all over the floor? A little child might be happy to see mud spread all over the floor. What fun to play in the mud! But as we grow up, we understand that mud belongs out in the yard.

“My baby sister still likes to play in the mud,” Bryan said with a laugh. “She even brings mud pies into the kitchen.”

“Mud we can clean up,” Uncle Leonard said, “but what if that stranger grabbed your much-loved pet dog or cat and broke its leg? You would certainly be angry at them. Do we break pieces out of the walls and use them to make a fence around the yard? That may be easier than buying fence posts, but how foolish it would be. Our house is our home, and we want it to be protected and cared for. We would not be happy if someone spoiled it. If there are fruit trees in the yard that produce our absolute favorite fruit, we would want the trees to be cared for, so they will be healthy and make lots of fruit. We would be sure our pet gets good food, plenty of water, and lots of loving attention.”

“We have a peach tree we care for like that,” Carson said.

Uncle Leonard continued, “Someone gave us a wonderful home and asked us to care for it. I am speaking about God and the planet He created (Genesis 1:28; Revelation 11:18). The planet Earth is our home, and God made it with loving care. He put many wonderful gifts in this home because He loves us. He made forests, flowers, rivers of clear water, clean air for us to breathe, and fruit trees with delicious fruit.

“Among the trees are every possible kind of creature—little frogs, friendly dogs, graceful deer, mischievous monkeys, and birds that soar through the sky. There are so many. Then God made human beings, the most intelligent living beings, and the only ones who can know God and understand our earth home. He gave us the privilege of taking care of this wonderful home. God is sad when we damage our earth (Romans 8:22; Revelation 11:18).

“The earth is made so each part does something to help all the rest. Dirt is a place where plants can grow, and plants release oxygen for all living things to breathe. Worms and mice dig through the dirt, loosening it so plants can grow better. Insects pollinate the flowers, and the flowers make seeds and fruit. Fruit is food for many animals. All plants and animals need clean water in order to live and be healthy. Plants that live in the water provide oxygen in the water, and fish need that oxygen to live.

“We humans need the help of all of those things in order to live and have safe homes. The Creator made nature like a complex family, and all living things and the earth need one another. Nothing lives selfishly, only for itself. All the animals and plants and the dirt help one another, taking care of one another in some way. That includes us. Our lives depend on all those interactions between us and other living things. The study of the amazing, unselfish relationships between all parts of our ecosystem is called ecology. The whole system of all living things and the earth we grow on is called the ecosystem.

“Humans are the only ones who sometimes think they can live selfishly, not caring about the earth or the other creatures. We pollute the air and water with harmful chemicals, or we do things that kill animals, sometimes making whole species go extinct.

“We cut down too much of the forest, and many animals no longer have a proper place to live, and there aren’t enough trees giving us oxygen. In some places, we cut down so many trees that it changes the climate, and the forest does not grow back—it becomes a desert. In other places, we use too much water, and there isn’t enough fresh water left for everyone.

“Do you know what paper is made from? Paper is made from wood. Trees are cut down then made into small fibers, and these are used to make paper. If we waste a lot of paper we really do not need to use, can you see what this does to the ecosystem? It causes more trees to be cut down. I might think, If I waste some paper, it won’t be enough to really hurt the earth. Maybe it won’t seem that way, but if thousands of people think the same way, just imagine how many more trees have to be cut down! The trees can’t speak up and say, ‘Please don’t cut us down—you need us.’ Who will speak for the trees?

“We use electricity for many things—for electric lights, for heating and cooling our houses, and for making toast in the morning. We would have a hard time living without electricity. But sometimes we are careless and waste electricity. If I forget to turn out the lights in my house and leave them on all day, will that be a problem? Or if I leave the air conditioner on and set at a low temperature when nobody is home, what will that do? If we use more electricity than we need, then more electricity has to be made. Some power plants make electricity by burning coal, and that puts pollution into the air. Others make electricity with the energy of water flowing down a river over a dam. Making more dams destroys the habitat of many animals, and the people who lived there must move away and find new homes.

“Why do we do these things? It may be because we do not understand that our actions will hurt the ecosystem that our lives depend on. In other cases, people are just selfish and do not care if they hurt other parts of the ecosystem. God is the Creator and the real owner of our earth home and its ecosystem. Imagine how He must feel about all of this! The harmful things we do bother Him not only because He owns the earth but also because He loves us and knows that we are hurting ourselves when we damage our earth home.”

“I’m just a kid,” Bryan said. “I can’t change the world and save the environment!”

“You might think that,” Uncle Leonard replied, “but every one of us can do something to reduce pollution and waste. If we each do some little thing, many little things can add up to a very big thing. We can help by not wasting water when we don’t need to use so much. You can be sure to turn off the lights when you leave home for school. If you recycle plastic, paper, metal cans, and bottles, and never throw trash along the street or in the park, the world will be a little bit better.

“We can’t control what other people do, but we can do what we can to improve our world. And we can encourage other people to take care of our environment. When you are old enough to vote, you can also vote for new rules that will improve the environment. It is a satisfying feeling to do what we can to help take care of the fantastic world the Creator God gave us! We can each speak for the trees and save some of them while we make our earth home a healthier, happier place.”

“I think I get what you mean about helping the planet a little,” Carson said. “I’m glad you pointed out how the little things help. I’ll be more careful with my water bottles from now on and be sure they get recycled.”

As the three walked up to Carson’s home, Carson said, “I think I smell chili. My mom makes the best chili.”

Bryan ran with Carson to the front door. The boys were hungry.

PART 3

How to Live and Know Jesus

CHAPTER 30

The Big Day

The sun was setting on Friday afternoon when Uncle Leonard rang the doorbell at the Lawsons’ house. He had promised something special for Carson and Jane.

Jane ran to answer the door. “Come in,” she said. Uncle Leonard was holding a paper sack.

Carson came running. “What is it? Can we see it now?” he asked.

“Let’s all go to the kitchen,” Mrs. Lawson said. “I think what Uncle Leonard has might be best looked at there.”

In the kitchen, the family sat at the table, and Uncle Leonard said, “When my children were young enough to still be living at home, we had a very special evening every week. That evening was on Friday. Since our Sabbath begins on Friday evening, we celebrated the beginning of Sabbath with a candlelight dinner.

“We turned the lights low, lit the candles, and ate a meal that was always one of our favorites. Then at the end of dinner we had ice cream! It might have been cherry pie with ice cream, ice cream cones, or a banana split, but it was always ice cream because we loved to eat ice cream, and this was the only day we ate ice cream.”

“Which is it going to be tonight?” Jane asked.

“I brought cherry pie and ice cream. So someone needs to put the vanilla ice cream in the freezer until we are ready for it.”

Carson took the ice cream to the freezer and sat back down. Mrs. Lawson placed the pie on the kitchen counter.

“Since Friday night is the beginning of Sabbath,” Uncle Leonard said, “it had to be special and more interesting than any other day. Then the rest of the evening was time for some of our favorite family times together. We took turns planning the family worship—what songs we would sing, who would have prayer, who would read a Bible verse or tell a Bible story.

“One of the children’s favorite worship activities was Bible charades. One or two of us acted out a Bible story, and the rest of us had to guess what the story was and tell about the story. Their other favorite could be called animal charades. Someone would act like a specific animal, perhaps jumping like a kangaroo or crawling like a snake, and the rest had to guess what animal it was. They almost always asked to do one of these activities either during or after family worship.”

“Maybe after we eat, we can do some of those things,” Carson suggested. “But right now I would like to get on with whatever else you have in that bag,” he said, grinning at his uncle.

“All right. Since I am staying the night, I’ll tell you that what is in the bag is for breakfast. I just wanted to be sure the ice cream did not melt before we could get to it. While your mom puts out the pie and ice cream, I will tell you about what is in the bag.

“On Sabbath morning at my house, it was my turn to prepare breakfast, and that’s what I am going to do for you tomorrow. The first thing I did was put a sign up on the kitchen wall that was used only on Sabbath morning. It looked something like this.” Uncle Leo showed them a piece of paper he had written on.

Leo’s Pancake House

Menu:
Full-moon pancakes
Snowman pancakes
Spaceship pancakes
Mickey Mouse pancakes

“Everyone gave me their order. Then it was my job to make the right shape. We had to use a little imagination, but the pancakes usually looked about right, and it was fun!

“In the afternoon, after church and Sabbath School, we planned some family activity that we could all enjoy. A few favorites were a hike in the mountains, a visit to the desert in wintertime, a trip to the zoo, a bicycle ride to visit friends, or a picnic in the hills behind our home.

“When the children were quite small, one of their favorites was to go to the dairy, as they said, ‘to see the cows and horsies.’ Another excellent Sabbath afternoon activity is going together to bring cheer to someone who is sick, elderly, or just lonesome. No matter what specific things we did, the goal was to make Sabbath the very best day of the week, a day the whole family spent together with God.”

Mrs. Lawson was placing slices of pie and scoops of ice cream onto plates, one for each person at the table. Uncle Leonard continued, “Why make Sabbath the best day of the week? Why not Monday or Thursday? Of course, on Sabbath we don’t have to go to work or school, but there is a more important reason.

“To explain this reason, let’s begin with a story. One of your friends is your very best friend. You know this friend very well, and the two of you love doing many things together. You and your best friend make plans for Tuesday evening. On Wednesday evening, you will visit another very good friend who you do not see often. But as the week begins you decide that you will go see your other good friend on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. You think to yourself, I want to go on Tuesday, so why do I have to go on Wednesday? I can do what I want, can’t I?

“If you have ever had a very best friend, you may think that is completely crazy! Of course you will go on Wednesday to see the other friend, the way you planned. You will do this not because you have to but because you would not want to miss the chance to spend time together.

“When young people are old enough to date and fall in love, they don’t think, Do I have to meet my lover for dinner at Olive Garden on Monday as we planned? Can’t I do what I want to do and go Sunday night instead? No, they will meet at the time they planned because they love each other and would not miss the chance to spend time together.

“The exciting secret is that God has asked us for a date. Can you imagine it? The God who manages the whole universe every single day has asked us for a date. He not only asked us for a date but also a date every week!

“That request for a date is found in the fourth commandment, in Exodus 20:8–11. God even carved it in a stone slab with His own finger. That is awesome—He loves us so much He wants to spend a day with us every week, so we can become better friends with Him. Do we love Him for creating us and planning a life forever for us in heaven? Do we want to know Him better so we can be like Him and have the most amazing life that He can give us? Keeping that date with God will help us become better friends with Him.

“If we think that keeping the Sabbath is something we have to do, whether we want to or not, we don’t understand what Sabbath is about. It is a date with our very best Friend, and if we love Him, nobody could convince us not to spend that day with Him. Of course, He wants us to not just spend the day with Him but to share our date with God with family and friends also, so we can all learn more about God together and make it harder for Satan to trick us into losing our love for our Creator.

“Jesus showed us some things to do that make Sabbath a day that draws us closer to God. He went to church, although for Him that was the synagogue. He visited friends, He told people about God, and He did many things to help people who were sick or in need. We can spend time out in nature, which brings us closer to the God who created all the wild creatures and the wonderful trees, streams, and meadows that are their homes.

“The Bible doesn’t give us a detailed list of what is best to do or not do on Sabbath. In fact, Jesus made a special effort to show the people that the long list of difficult rules they had made for Sabbath keeping was not needed. It is a day He made to bring great joy to His human family. It is a day when we have the privilege of putting aside all the hard work and study we have to do all week, so we can spend the time with God, family, and friends and help others.

“Many people have to work hard all week to earn enough money to support their families. A lot of students, perhaps especially students in medical school, have to study all the time. For all these people, it is a wonderful relief to put that work or study aside for the whole day on Sabbath and not feel guilty for not working or studying.

“The Sabbath was made as a celebration at the end of Creation week, and every time we keep Sabbath, we are being reminded of the God who created the world in six days. Satan’s hope is to keep us interested in things that will take us away from keeping the Sabbath and remaining close friends with our Creator God. The Sabbath reminds us every week that God is our Creator and that He loves us more than anyone else could. We are also reminded that this God who created us is the very same God who forgives our sins and who died on the cross to defeat Satan and give us eternal life in a world that is re-created with all the beauty it had before sin—a world that doesn’t have all the problems that are on this earth.”

Just then the doorbell rang.

“Are we expecting someone else?” Mrs. Lawson asked.

“Not that I know of,” Mr. Lawson said as he got up to answer the door.

When he opened the door, he said, “Hello, Bryan.”

“I was wondering if Carson is home,” Bryan said, “and if he has time to talk for a while.”

“Yes, he is. Why don’t you come in and have some cherry pie and ice cream with us? We have plenty.”

Bryan looked up at Mr. Lawson and said, “Thank you, I’d like that.” Sitting down at the table, Bryan said hello to the gathered Lawson family members.

“We are just talking about the Sabbath,” Mrs. Lawson told Bryan as she handed him a plate of pie and ice cream. “Uncle Leonard has been telling us what he and his family did when his children were at home.”

“Sabbath? I’m not sure what that is,” Bryan said. “Maybe Carson can tell me about it later.”

“We were just talking about God and Creation. Then we are going to play some games. Tomorrow we will go to Sabbath School and church. How would you like to join us?” Uncle Leonard asked. “Before we go, we are going to have pancakes. You could come by early and then ride with us.”

Bryan was quiet, and then he said, “That might be interesting. I’ll ask my parents, and if they say it’s fine, I’ll go. I’ll be here for the pancakes too.”

CHAPTER 31

Best Friends

The next morning, Sabbath morning, everyone gathered to eat Uncle Leonard’s pancakes. Carson and Bryan talked about some of their neighborhood friends. Some of their friends liked to play soccer, but one preferred baseball, so he didn’t come around as much. Another friend was into science experiments. They liked him but didn’t go to his house often for fear of an explosion if one of his experiments went wrong. They knew it had happened a couple of times before.

Most of their friends liked to swim in the summer. Maybe the favorite thing all the boys liked to do was ride mountain bikes. In the hills around the city were a lot of biking trails. A few people had broken an arm from a fall on the trail, but most of them had been safe.

Throughout the past year, the Lawson family had talked about being friends with God. Somehow it did not seem the same to Carson as having an actual friend you could see and do stuff with. Sitting at the breakfast table eating pancakes, he remembered that in the Bible several people were called friends of God, such as Daniel and David.

“Dad, how did the people in the Bible become friends with God?”

“Do you have anyone from the Bible in mind?” his father asked.

“Well, there is Abraham and Enoch and Elijah and Moses. Did they do something special that made them friends with God? Did they meet God?”

“Occasionally, they did meet Him, but that is not what made them His friends. They were His friends the same way you can be His friend. First of all, we know that God wants to be friends with all of us. So the first part of the friendship is already done. The second part is that we have to respond.”

“How do we do that?” Carson asked as he grabbed a syrupy piece of pancake with his fork.

“I know,” Jane said. “We read what He says in the Bible.”

“I know too,” said Bryan. “We follow the Ten Commandments.”

“That’s it?” Carson sounded surprised. “Do you mean that Abraham, Enoch, Elijah, and Moses all did those things? The reason I ask is because that isn’t really the way we have friends here. Bryan and I have a lot of friends. We are friends with each other. But we don’t have rules or write books to each other.”

Mr. Lawson laughed.

“That’s what it sounds like you’re saying, Dad,” Carson added.

“Well, Carson, you actually do have rules. Your rules may not be written down before you become friends, but you both know what the rules are. When you say to Bryan, ‘Come over to my house for Uncle Leonard’s pancakes,’ you mean it. You don’t wander off to do something else at that time. You stand by your word. You are here at the right time. So trust and kindness are some of your rules.”

Jane reached for another pancake. “Carson, you do, too, send each other letters. Maybe not an entire book. But you text each other.”

“That’s right,” Bryan said. “We do have rules, and we write to each other.”

“But Abraham couldn’t write texts or read the Bible,” Carson said. “He didn’t even have a computer or a pen. They hadn’t been invented. So how did that work?”

“Carson, I think you are beginning to understand that there is more to a friendship than a few rules or a letter. When Abraham was a friend of God, God did indeed meet with him, sometimes in a dream, but God also came to visit Abraham once or twice. Remember the time Jesus and two angels came to visit Abraham to tell him that Sodom was going to be destroyed? Abraham fixed a fancy meal and visited with his three guests. It apparently was a friendly visit. When it was over, the two angels left, and Jesus stayed behind to talk to Abraham. When He told Abraham about the plan to destroy Sodom, Abraham pleaded on behalf of the people in Sodom, that they be spared.

“Another time, God appeared to Abraham in a dream and told him to sacrifice his son. Abraham got up in the night, packed their things and left for the place of sacrifice. Why would he do that? It is evidence that Abraham knew God so well that he knew there must be a plan to work it out for good. Fortunately, there was, and God did not let him sacrifice his son.

“What God was doing was proving to Abraham how strong their friendship was and that they could trust each other” (Genesis 22:1–14).

“Whether friendships are between a person and God or one person and another, they are complex relationships of trust. There are lots of things we can do to show each other how much we value the friendship,” Uncle Leonard said as he sat down to eat his own pancakes.

“I’m full,” Carson said. “Full of food and full of talk. I’m going to get ready for church.”

Everyone laughed and agreed that it was time to get ready to leave for church.

CHAPTER 32

“Do You Love Me?”

On the following Tuesday, late in the afternoon, Bryan came to Carson’s house. He wanted to talk about some of the things he had learned about science. But he also wanted to know more about the Sabbath. He thought Carson could tell him. And if not, then maybe they would have to go see Uncle Leonard.

“I really liked the time I spent with your family and Uncle Leonard,” Bryan said. “But a lot of things I didn’t understand. I think I know what you mean about loving Jesus, but I don’t have a clue about how that’s done. I liked learning about Creation and the Flood. I want to know more. Not just about science but about God.”

Carson was surprised and glad to hear Bryan show interest in God. He wasn’t sure if he knew enough to help his friend, but he decided to try. If they got to ideas he was not sure about, they could always ask his parents or Uncle Leonard.

“What do you know about God already?” he asked Bryan.

“Not too much, really. I know about Him being the Creator. But beyond that, I don’t know.”

Carson realized he was going to need help, so he suggested that they ask his mother.

Mrs. Lawson had just finished making brownies for that evening’s dessert. She promised to give the boys a brownie as soon as they cooled.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“Well, Mom, Bryan wants to know about God. We’ve talked about science, and he’s been with us to church. But we need to know, where does God fit in?”

“First, let’s talk about the kind of being God is,” his mother said. “Then we can connect what we know to all the ideas about Him. So, before you were born, Carson, your father and I had grown up in our parents’ families. We knew they loved us, but as we got older, we knew we wanted families of our own. After your dad and I met, we got to know each other well. We went on dates. We went out to eat. We took walks along the beach. We visited each other’s parents, and then we realized we loved each other.”

“How did you know you loved each other?” Carson asked.

“Many ways,” his mother replied. “We told each other so. However, there is much more to love than saying so. We treated each other with kindness. We gave each other gifts. We learned to trust each other by keeping appointments. We listened to each other. We wrote each other notes.

“Then one day, your father asked me if I would marry him. Since I had known him for a while and knew that he was kind and trustworthy, I said yes.”

“We set a wedding date and told all our friends and families about our love for each other. We wanted the world to know, at least everyone in our small world. We wanted to commit to each other in front of other people.

“We did not start loving each other on the wedding day. We had grown to love each other by watching, listening, speaking, believing, and trusting each other.”

“What exactly does that have to do with God?” Bryan wanted to know. “You didn’t marry God.”

“Well, it illustrates the friendship we can have with God. We listen to what He says in the Bible, we watch how Christians act, we learn that what He says in the Bible is true, and we trust Him. It does not happen all at once. We learn more about Him all the time. That is one reason to keep reading the Bible.

“We keep the Sabbath because it is a gift from Him. We give Him gifts by helping other people. We talk about Him to our friends and families, and then eventually we have a commitment ceremony, where we show the world how much we love Him. This commitment ceremony is called baptism. After we have learned to know Him well enough and know enough about Him that we want to live with Him forever, we commit ourselves to Him.”

“Mom, that is really clear to me. I’ve never heard it quite like that before. What do you think, Bryan?” Carson asked.

Bryan looked at Mrs. Lawson and said, “I think I would like to know somebody like that. I think all kids like to have someone listen to them.”

And then he asked, “Do you mind doing a chart with me so I can remember this stuff?”

“Of course,” she answered. “How would you like to do that?”

“First you said you and Mr. Lawson treated each other with kindness. How do I treat God with kindness?”

“That’s a good question, Bryan. I think we treat God with kindness by speaking well and not swearing or lying; by being kind to our parents; and by treating other people with kindness.”

“Since a friendship is supposed to work both ways, how does God treat me with kindness?” Bryan was pretty sure she wouldn’t have an answer for that. He had never seen God. He couldn’t think of anything God did for him.

“You have been studying science for a while now,” Mrs. Lawson said. “Think of all the things God made. He made all the food crops, and He provides air and water and families.”

“Oh, I get it,” Bryan said. “God doesn’t have to appear in front of me for me to know He is being kind. OK, now my second question,” he continued. “You said you and Mr. Lawson gave each other gifts. What gifts does God give me?”

“Once again we can go back to science. He gives us the rain, water, food, and the ability to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. He gives food to the birds that spread seeds as well as gives us the pleasure of watching them.”

Bryan asked a third question, knowing it seemed strange. “You said you learned to trust each other by keeping appointments. What does that mean? How can I keep an appointment with God?”

“Remember our discussions about the Sabbath?” Mrs. Lawson asked. “God wants us to remember the Sabbath and to meet with Him on one entire day a week. That’s our appointment with Him.”

“You said He listens to you and you listen to Him. How does He listen to us?”

“I think He likes for us to pray to Him and tell Him what matters to us, which is a way for Him to listen to us.”

“Then how do we listen to Him?” Bryan asked.

“Remember that I said we wrote each other notes? Well, God wrote us a Book with lots of letters in it. We can listen to Him by reading His Book.”

“Do I have to get baptized right now so He will listen to me?” Bryan was a little concerned about that.

“Bryan, that is a good question,” Mrs. Lawson said. “You wouldn’t get baptized until you know God well and decide to commit to a friendship with Him. It’s like getting married. You do not get married until you are ready. That doesn’t keep you from reading God’s Book or praying to Him. You can do those any time.”

“It’s great that you talked to us,” Carson said to his friend.

“I have a lot to think about,” Bryan said. “I have to go home now. I’ll see you all later.” With that, he started out the door.

CHAPTER 33

Don’t Hurt Your Friends

Carson and Bryan had a group of friends that they often played soccer and rode bicycles with. One of their friends, Ethan, was always full of fun, and he liked to share good times with his friends. He was good at sports, he liked to hang out and visit with friends, and when he was around, life was enjoyable.

Aaron, another of their friends, lived near Ethan, so the two boys often spent time together. Aaron had begun to wonder why some things happened the way they did. He and Ethan had agreed to go to the skate park on Sunday afternoon, but Ethan didn’t show up. Later, Aaron learned that Ethan went to visit another friend instead. Why would he do that? He usually seemed to enjoy spending time with Aaron. Why had he not told Aaron that he had changed his plans?

Another time, Aaron and Ethan went for a hike and took a lunch along. It was a great hike, but at the end of it Aaron was feeling sick. Aaron didn’t think much about it until Ethan laughed at him.

Later he learned that Ethan bragged to other friends that he had secretly slipped something into Aaron’s sandwich that made him sick. Ethan thought it was a great joke. Aaron tried to forgive Ethan, and they continued to do things together.

One day, they were riding their bikes and Ethan was in a good mood. He decided it would be funny to give Aaron a push. Aaron’s bike went off the path, and he crashed into a patch of thorny berry bushes.

These things were making it very hard for Aaron to be with Ethan, even though Ethan was usually great fun to be around. Aaron wasn’t sure when Ethan would do something that made it hard to trust him and might even hurt someone.

The story finally came to an end one day when Ethan, who was too young to get a driver’s license, stole a car and wrecked it because he was driving too fast and ran into a tree. Ethan’s friends realized that even though Ethan could be a lot of fun, there was something very wrong—they could not trust him anymore.

Ethan was wrecking his own life because he wanted to do whatever he thought was fun and did not care if his choices hurt someone else. He thought rules were not important.

Carson, Bryan, and Aaron talked about what they should do.

Bryan said, “I like Ethan. He’s usually such fun. But if we keep hanging out with him, we could get in big trouble.”

“I didn’t like a lot of the things Ethan did to me,” Aaron said. “Most of the time it seemed like he was just trying to be funny, but he got meaner and meaner. Not showing up to skateboard was not too bad. But when he made me sick by putting stuff in my food and when he pushed me off my bike, that was not funny.”

“I agree,” Carson said. “Seems like he’s getting dangerous. What if he had hit someone when he was driving that car?”

Aaron said, “I think it’s time we talked to somebody about what’s going on. I know I could use some advice.”

“Let’s ask my uncle Leonard about it,” Carson suggested.

“I agree,” Bryan said, and the three boys headed off to Uncle Leonard’s office.

When they arrived, the boys found that Uncle Leonard had just finished talking to a student. He invited them in.

The three boys told Uncle Leonard about Ethan and the questions they had about their friendship with him.

Uncle Leonard was solemn when he spoke to them. “There are rules we all have to obey if we want to be safe and if we do not want to hurt other people. They are called the Ten Commandments. Let me tell you a little about them and maybe that will help you decide what to do.

“Carson, Bryan, and I have discussed how much Jesus loves us. He loves us so much that He told us how to be safe. The rules Jesus gave us are in the Bible. They are called the Ten Commandments. When Jesus was on the earth, He told us things about what the ten rules mean. Some people think they spoil our fun. But is that true? Are those rules that will spoil our fun?

“Jesus also told us that the most important rule is to love one another. Isn’t that enough? Love is indeed the most important thing, but we need to know what kind of behavior is loving behavior—just like Ethan needs to know. We do not automatically know what love is, and the Ten Commandments explain what it means to love. The rules do not limit us but preserve our happiness. If Ethan had learned what kind of behavior hurts people, and what behavior shows genuine caring and love for others, he would still have his friends.

“Picture a very high cliff with a sign at the top that says, ‘Don’t fall or jump off this cliff.’ Certainly, we are smart enough that we won’t ask, ‘Who made that rule? Why do I have to follow that rule? It would be fun to jump off and enjoy the thrill of falling through the air!’ If we break that rule, will it spoil our fun? When a person jumps and hits the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, their broken body and probable death would not be an arbitrary punishment for disobeying the rule; it will be the natural result of jumping. That is what happens when someone jumps off a tall cliff. Whoever put the sign there knew what the result of jumping would be.

“The Ten Commandments are like that. God didn’t make those rules because He wants to keep us from having fun. He made them because He knows that breaking those rules will have natural results like jumping off a cliff—it will hurt us or someone else. The commandments tell us not to tell lies because lies keep others from trusting us, and our lies may even hurt someone. It isn’t hard to see that stealing also destroys trust and that it isn’t fair to take someone else’s things instead of earning money so we can buy our own things.

“Husbands and wives are instructed to be faithful to each other, not because it will spoil their fun but because following God’s rules will increase their happiness. And if they are unfaithful, it will badly hurt someone. All of these commandments tell us what love is and how we can be truly happy.

“The first four commandments ask us to be true to God and to worship Him. These also are for our happiness, to keep us from being fooled by Satan. Satan’s goal is to make us think he is giving us freedom from rules, while he actually ruins our happiness and keeps us from enjoying eternal life. By his rebellion against God, Satan gave up his right to eternal life, and he is a poor loser. If he can’t live in happiness forever, he doesn’t want us to do so either.

“Some rules made by humans were not made very wisely—such as in the town that made a law requiring all cats to stay in their own yards. Have you ever seen a cat that understands what it means to stay in its own yard?”

The boys laughed. Bryan said, “I don’t think that’s possible. We have a cat, but I don’t think it even realizes that it’s ours! It goes wherever it wants. Sometimes it eats our cat food, but I have seen it eat the neighbor cat’s food too.”

Uncle Leonard smiled. He knew about cats. “The rules that God makes are not like the town’s rule for cats. He knows how to make wise rules that are only for our happiness and the happiness of our friends and families.

“So, if Ethan learns that lesson, perhaps he can win his friends back again. Keeping the commandments and loving others brings a natural result—happiness and a wonderful life forever.

“Jesus said we should love God and love other people. Ethan has not learned what it means to be happy. He seems to think that hurting other people is funny and makes him happy. When he learns to love God and other people, he will begin to act differently.”

Aaron, who had been hurt the most by Ethan, asked, “So should I keep being friends with Ethan? I don’t want to get hurt anymore.”

“Aaron, I think it might be good for you not to be alone with Ethan. If your parents can be around when you are with him, then you could be sure they are looking out for you. But given all the things he has done to you, I think you should not be alone with him.”

All three boys nodded in agreement. They could see that this was a bigger issue than any one of them could handle.

CHAPTER 34

How Much Jesus Loves Us Every Day

Soon after the visit with Uncle Leonard, Carson and Bryan were sitting in a workshop having a snack.

“Can you explain something?” Bryan asked. “If Jesus died to save us, and eternal life in heaven and the new earth is a free gift, why does God ask us to follow rules? Why does He ask us to eat some things and not eat other things? I saw that in the Bible. Is that why we should eat healthy food? Is that something we have to do to make Him think we’re good, so He will take us to heaven?”

Carson smiled. “Oh, no! We could never eat enough healthy food to earn our way into heaven. The salvation that Jesus gives us was earned for us by Jesus’ death on the cross.”

“Then why does Jesus care how we live and what we eat?” Bryan asked.

“My uncle told us that it’s like if you get a puppy and you give it a bed and you have a leash for walks, but you give it only junk food and snacks. When it grows up, it’s an unhealthy dog, doesn’t want to play, and has no energy. You wouldn’t do that. You would feed it right. So we are the same. We eat healthy food so we’re healthy.”

Just then Uncle Leonard came into the shop. “Hi, boys,” he greeted them. “I just came by for a cold drink. May I join you?”

“For sure,” Carson said. “Bryan wants to know what God wants us to do. We were just talking about food.”

“My question is, Why does God care what we eat if it isn’t going to help us get into heaven?” Bryan asked.

“God has always cared what we eat and drink,” Uncle Leonard said. “But not because it gets us into heaven. God told Adam and Eve that the fruits and grains were their food (Genesis 1:29, 30). Then when the Israelites left Egypt, God gave them many rules about what to eat (Leviticus 11:1–46; Deuteronomy 14:1–21), how to keep their camp clean, and how to clean themselves after touching someone who was sick (Leviticus 14:1–9; 11:29–40; Numbers 5:1–4; 19:14–22; Deuteronomy 23:12–14). It is obvious that God cares about these things. We do not keep those rules to convince God to love us, so why did He give the rules?

“The answer is quite plain. God does not care just about whether we get to heaven someday. He also cares about our life now. God wants to see us living well right now. He wants us to be healthy and strong and not suffer with sickness.

“He told the Israelites that if they kept His laws, they would not get the diseases that the Egyptians had. God did not try to explain all about diseases to them. They would not have understood anyway because it wasn’t until three thousand years later that people learned about germs and diseases.

“So even though God didn’t cause disease, He accepted responsibility for it and said, ‘If you will keep my laws, I won’t put upon you the diseases I put upon the Egyptians’ (Exodus 15:26; Deuteronomy 7:15). The result of the Israelites’ habits of eating and cleanliness was that they were healthy and did not have the diseases the Egyptians had. They did not understand the reasons for the rules, so they sometimes complained, just as we sometimes complain about rules. Nevertheless, the rules accomplished God’s purpose and kept the Israelites healthy.

“In our day, God has given us information about how to live even healthier lives. He knew that nearer to the end of our time on this earth, there would be more diseases, and how we eat and how we live would be important.

“God gave Ellen White some important health rules, such as drinking lots of water, breathing fresh air, getting enough sleep, avoiding tobacco and alcohol, eating lots of fruits and vegetables, and minimizing or avoiding meat. God gave us these rules 160 years ago, and those who have followed these rules are healthier and live longer than those who don’t live that way. Research by medical scientists has found that the rules God gave in the 1800s are in fact the healthiest way to live. He knows how our bodies work best because He made them.”

“He really wants us to eat lots of fruits and vegetables? Even broccoli?” Bryan looked upset. “But I like to eat sandwiches with white bread and sliced meat. Are you saying that might not be the best?”

“Let’s look at one example of someone eating a good diet,” Uncle Leonard said. “Remember the Jewish boy Daniel, who was captured by soldiers from Babylon and taken from his home in Jerusalem? He and his three friends determined to follow God in every way, including what they ate. They had to be brave to follow God’s way instead of doing what their Babylonian rulers wanted them to do. It is obvious they did the right thing because they were healthier and wiser than all the other students. Because of this, many people in Babylon, including the king, learned how wonderful Daniel’s God was (Daniel 1:8–20).

“This tells us there are at least two reasons for living like God says we should. It will make us healthier, and it will show other people that our God is a wise God and that He knows what is best for them. By following God’s health principles, we give glory to God, or, in other words, we show others how great God is.

“Jesus is our best Friend in the whole universe, and He died to save us. If this best Friend gives us advice on how best to live, how can we say to Him, ‘I don’t care what You say, I will live the way I want to’? If we do that, He won’t stop loving us, but it will make Him sad because He knows it will hurt us, and we miss a chance to help others find our loving and wise God.

“There is one other danger we face if we persist in following our own way when we know He has other advice for us: when we love going our own way, it may cause our love for Jesus to grow weak. To follow the good advice Jesus gives us is a fantastic opportunity to benefit from information from the King of the universe Himself! How could we lose that chance?”

“My mom cooks really healthy food. You always like what she makes for us, Bryan,” Carson said.

“I know. But I’m going to have to think about the vegetables. That is new to me. I have to go home now. I doubt I will be having veggies for supper, but you never know,” he said with a laugh. “See you tomorrow, Carson.”

CHAPTER 35

Want to Expand Your Mind?

Carson and Jane were curious by nature. They loved being at the farm because they could have adventures. They also liked the city because their friends lived there. It was great to see their friends and teachers at school.

One of their favorite things to do was search the internet on their computers. The NASA site showed them photos of space and other science information. Wikipedia was a great place to begin a research project or learn about history.

One day, the sister and brother were sitting on the floor in the family room, searching for things of interest. They had learned from Uncle Leonard and their parents the importance of the Bible. From it they knew that to strengthen their minds they had to use them. With dozens of Bible translations available on the internet, they sometimes looked up things on one of the Bible websites.

“What part of the Bible do you like the best, Jane?” Carson asked his sister. She had suggested once that she was not very happy with God for not killing Satan right at the beginning. So he wondered if she had changed her mind.

“I think I like the Gospels. They tell about Jesus in a good way.”

“Do you think what you read in the Gospels explains why Jesus had to die?”

Jane thought for a moment. “Yes, I think so. I think it’s like studying science. There is so much to learn, and nobody knows it all.”

“Uncle Leonard says we will study the science of how God saves us throughout eternity,” Carson said.

“I don’t know how that could be,” Jane said.

“Well, he says that even angels study it. He says that your mind is strengthened when you study the Bible. From the Bible we learn about God and the amazing things He made and the things He does. We learn that God created everything and that we are part of a great plan that is as big as the whole universe and will last forever. He also said that our minds have the power to choose what topics we will read, watch, listen to, and think about.” Carson kept searching on his laptop as he was talking.

“Do you think we’ll be happier in heaven if we learn now to think like people in heaven think?” Jane wondered.

“I just know that I want a strong mind now,” Carson said, “and if Uncle Leonard is right, and he usually is, then I think I would like to study the Bible so my mind will grow strong. Since God has laws that direct science, by studying science and the Bible we should be able to learn about the laws of both.”

Jane looked up. “I just was on the Ellen White website, and guess what I found? Listen to this. ‘The mind, the soul, is built up by that upon which it feeds.’[1] That is kind of like what you were just saying. I think I understand what is meant by a mind, but what does this mean by soul? Have you ever heard of that?” she asked.

“I think it just means that our being is our soul. I don’t think it’s something by itself. I know Bryan thinks that when people die their soul goes to heaven. But I asked Dad about that, and he said that is not the way it works. The whole person is the soul—body, breath, and mind.”

“Oh. I just wondered. It sounds simple really. I am a soul. But when I die, I will no longer be a soul. Is that what you’re saying?” Jane thought she understood. She had never liked the idea that dead people’s souls could be floating around.

“Yes, that’s what I mean. You know, I like that idea that Bible study will strengthen your mind. I don’t think we’re too young to do that, do you? We could do it together if you wanted to.” Carson looked at his sister.

“I think I’d like that. Can we read some of the stories Ellen White wrote too?”

“Let’s do.” With that, they closed their laptops and went outside to play. It had turned cool outside, and they liked it cool.

1.

Ellen G. White, Education (Nampaa, ID: Pacific Press, 1952), 126.

CHAPTER 36

“Do You Trust Me?”

Have you heard from Ethan lately?” Carson asked Bryan.

“No. But I heard he was having trouble at school. I heard he stole some tests from a teacher’s file that had the answers on them. Then he tried to sell them to other students. One of the other students turned him in after Ethan tried to sell him a copy of the tests.”

“What kind of trouble did Ethan get in?” Carson asked.

“At first, nothing. Then he found out who the student was who told on him and began a hate campaign against the student. The teacher said all that would happen to Ethan is that he would get an F on the test and have to take the course over.

“The problem is that now Ethan is doing some really bad things to the other student. He posted lies about him online. Then he poured paint on his bicycle.”

“Do the teachers know about what Ethan is doing?”

“I don’t think so. Everyone is afraid of Ethan now. His funny tricks aren’t so funny anymore. His attacks on his friends are keeping students from talking to teachers,” Bryan replied. “Someone should do something. Kids shouldn’t live in fear. They can’t be afraid to stand up for what is right. Ethan used to be our friend. Do you think it would help if we talked to him?”

“I don’t know,” Carson replied.

“If we believe what the teachers say, if they promise they will do the right thing, then we should be able to talk to them and tell them what Ethan is doing,” Bryan said. “I really don’t know what’s the right thing to do.”

“Let’s go talk to Uncle Leonard. He might have some ideas for us.” With that, Carson and Bryan started walking down the street away from the school.

When they were seated in Uncle Leonard’s office, they told him what Ethan had been doing.

“There are many ways to look at trust,” Uncle Leonard began. “The one you are talking about is trust between friends, but more than that, it is trusting people in authority to tell us the truth and to do the right thing. In this case, the teachers at your school.

“To begin with, let’s talk about trust in a slightly different way. Perhaps a person has an illness and goes to the doctor, and the doctor prescribes some medicine and tells them how important it is for them to take it. They tell others what a wonderful doctor they’ve seen and how he truly knows what he is doing. However, they don’t take the medicine. Do they really trust and believe the doctor? They are fooling themselves to think they trust him. Over time they get better acquainted with the doctor, and finally they know him well enough that they not only believe in him but they also take their medicine. The good results lead to more trust in the doctor, then their belief in the doctor and their action—following the doctor’s advice—go hand in hand.

“Let’s apply this to your trust in your teachers. First, they have told you they will protect you. But maybe they do not know the full story about Ethan. So what should you do?”

“It seems to me that we should trust them enough to believe them,” Carson said. “But to do that, we would have to go to them and tell them what’s going on and risk getting in trouble with Ethan. If no one tells them, Ethan will be free to keep on being mean to other students. We could get in real trouble with Ethan if he finds out.”

“How well do you know your teachers?” Uncle Leonard asked.

“Even though I don’t go to the same school as Bryan, I know the math teacher there really well,” Carson said.

“And I know the science teacher,” Bryan said. “Maybe if we get the two of them together, we can tell them what is going on.”

“At this point, all you can do is trust your teachers to do the right thing. The fact that you both know them and trust them is important. You may need to take the student Ethan is being mean to along with you.”

Two days later, Carson, Bryan, and the other student met with the two teachers. They told them what had been happening. At first the teachers didn’t know what to believe. Ethan was such a funny kid and never seemed to do anything so very bad. Then the math teacher reminded the science teacher about Ethan stealing the tests and stealing a car, which he wrecked.

The two teachers said they would talk to the principal and see what they could do. All of them agreed that they would not tell anyone else connected to the school.

“I think it’s important for us to be truthful and trust the teachers,” Carson said as he and Bryan left the school. “I think it’s like knowing Jesus. The better we know Him, the more we trust Him.”

The next time the two boys saw Uncle Leonard, they told him what had happened. Bryan had a question about Jesus, however. “Is it true that the more we know about Jesus, the more we can trust Him?” He wanted to know if Carson was right.

“Yes, I believe it is true. When we know Him well, we naturally follow what He says as well as we can, and He gradually gives us strength to follow better. This leads to more trust and love for Him, and the trust and love and our good behavior and our interest in helping other people all grow and improve together.

“But if we say we love Him and don’t do what He asks, such as follow the Ten Commandments and the other principles He gives us, we are fooling ourselves if we think we love Him (John 14:15, 24; 1 John 5:3; 2 John 1:6). A temptation for humans is to want Jesus to save us but to want even more to live the way we want to live, to love our own plans more than we love Jesus.

“I don’t know what is going to happen to Ethan. But it has been a good lesson in trust for you to work together and seek out someone who can help Ethan.”

Carson said, “In the meantime, I think we should pray for Ethan. He needs Jesus too.”

CHAPTER 37

It’s All About Who You Know

Early one morning, Jane’s friend April came to visit. The two girls had gone together on some of the visits to Uncle Leonard’s office with Carson, but not all of them. They still had some questions. Both girls were interested in what heaven would be like.

In Sabbath School, they had heard some things about heaven, but they wanted to know more about how to get there. Jane had told April that she wanted to go to heaven. She was sure it would be a wonderful place. She had heard she would be able to see her grandmother, whom she loved very much.

Jane had also heard that she could see Jesus, and to her that sounded fantastic.

“Jane,” April said, “do you think I can go to heaven? I would really like to. Is there something I need to do to make Jesus like me so I can go there?”

“I think anybody who really wants to go to heaven can go,” Jane said. “Not everybody wants to, so they don’t have to go.”

April said, “I wonder how God will decide who to take to heaven. Do we have to always be really good to get there? Maybe there are certain things we have to do, or maybe we have to belong to the right church. What if we don’t know what we’re supposed to do? Will we be lost because of that?”

“Those sound like questions everybody has. I’ve heard adults ask them too. Maybe we should ask Uncle Leonard.”

A couple of days later, Jane and April had a chance to see Uncle Leonard. They walked to the university, and as they waited for him outside his office, April was a little nervous.

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Jane?” she asked. She did not know Uncle Leonard as well as Jane did. She was afraid he might not take their questions seriously.

“If Uncle Leonard says we can come and that he has time to talk to us, we know that it’s a good idea. He always likes to talk with us,” Jane assured her friend.

In a few minutes, Uncle Leonard invited the girls in. They each sat down in a chair in front of his desk. “Now what is it you want to talk about?” he asked, smiling.

“April and I want to know how to get to heaven,” Jane said. “We think Jesus wants us to go, but is there something we need to do?”

“That’s a good question, and the Bible gives us the answer,” Uncle Leonard said.

“We also wondered how God will decide who to take to heaven,” Jane added. “When He decides, does He look at whether we have always been really good?”

April said, “If that is true, I don’t think I can ever make it! My sister and I fight all the time.”

“Maybe there are certain things we have to do,” Jane said, “or maybe we have to belong to the right church to be saved? What if we don’t know what we are supposed to do? Will we be kept out of heaven because of that? I even hear people saying they do certain things so they will be rewarded and go to heaven. What about that?”

Uncle Leonard looked at the two girls. He was amazed at the good questions they were asking. Their questions were much like ones he had heard from his university students. He had even heard people in church ask similar questions.

“I think we should start with an illustration,” he began. “The president of the United States lives and works in a big mansion called the White House. The White House is very well protected by lots of police officers and Secret Service agents. None of us can just walk in there and show up in the president’s office for a visit. If we try that, we will be quickly thrown out into the street and warned not to ever try that again.

“But there was a boy who did wander around in the White House and even played under the president’s desk. How did he get away with that? His name was John Kennedy Jr., and his dad was President John Kennedy. The difference between him and us is that he knew the president; he was the president’s son.”

“I never thought about kids living in the White House,” April said, laughing. “But I suppose it must happen. He didn’t have to do anything special to get in there, did he?”

“No, he didn’t. He was brought in by his father. And for us, whether we get to heaven depends not so much on what we do as on whether we know our heavenly Father, our very best Friend (Matthew 25:1–12; John 14:1–10).

“In the Bible, in the book of Hebrews, you find a list of faithful people, some of God’s heroes (Hebrews 11). They must have been very good people, who never did anything wrong. Do you agree?” Uncle Leonard asked.

“Well, it sounds right,” Jane said. “But how do you get to be one of those very good people? I’m not sure I could ever be good enough.”

“Before you worry about that, let’s take a look at the list. I think you might be surprised about them. One of them was King David. God called David a man after His own heart, which means David loved God very much. But if you have read the story of David, you know that David did some awful things. He committed adultery with a neighbor woman, Bathsheba, then he arranged to have her husband killed. The Bible tells of other things he did that you and I might think were horrible.

“So why did God say such good things about David? Does this tell us that God does not care what we do? No, it can’t mean that because God sent a prophet to David with a dramatic story to remind him how bad his sin was.

“The prophet Nathan came to David not long after he had Bathsheba’s husband killed. The story Nathan told was of a poor man who had one sheep that was a pet to him and his children. One day, a rich man had some company and wanted to feed them lamb. He did not want to kill any of his own sheep. So he took the lamb of his poor neighbor.

“David was angry and said, ‘Who is this man? I want him killed at once!’

“Nathan pointed a finger at David and said sternly, ‘You are the man’ ” (2 Samuel 12:1–14).

“What a horrible thing for David to do!” Jane said. “What did God do to David? Did He say David couldn’t go to heaven?” Both girls were appalled at what David had done.

“No, David was ashamed and truly sorry for what he had done, and he repented,” Uncle Leonard said. “Nevertheless, his sin caused him a lot of trouble. The first child he and Bathsheba had together died. God forgave David, but his family had trouble for the rest of his life.

“So why did God call him a man after His own heart? David made some very big mistakes, but when he thought about it and realized how badly he had behaved, he was very sorry about what he had done. He did not pretend that his sin was not so bad. He was genuinely sorry and asked God to forgive him and make his heart clean again. He did not blame other people for his sin. He took responsibility for what he had done.

“God appreciated David so much because to David, his friendship with God was the most important thing, and when Satan tricked him into sinning, he came right back to God for forgiveness and for strength to be a better person. He trusted God, thought about Him often, and prayed to Him regularly. In other words, he talked with God as with a close friend. David knew he had a Friend he could always trust, and he was willing to trust that Friend, God, with his life.

“Other people in the Bible did bad things, and God forgave them too. One is Moses. Do you remember when God said, ‘Speak to the rock,’ so the Israelites could have water? Moses was angry with the people and hit the rock with his walking stick. Because of this one sin, a sin that Moses said he was sorry for and that God forgave him for, he did not get to go into the Promised Land. He died and was buried. However, God resurrected him, and now he is in heaven.

“Think about this. If a man says he loves his wife but he never talks to her, how happy will they be together? Friendship and love develop between people who spend time together, talk together, and get to know a lot about each other. It’s the same way with us and God. We can’t see God and talk to Him in person. We learn about Him by reading the Bible, and we can talk to Him in our prayers. When we pray, we can talk to God just the way we talk to any friend.

“In the Bible, we read stories about how God helped people. These stories teach us how much Jesus loves us and how much He wants us to be in heaven with Him. How could we not love a God like that?

“Now to the part you asked about earlier. You wanted to know what we are supposed to do. It matters a lot how we live. God asks us to keep the Ten Commandments. If we choose to ignore God’s law, how could He trust us to be in heaven?

“However, we must understand that we do not keep the Ten Commandments to earn God’s love and earn our way to heaven. In a world polluted by sin and Satan’s deceptions, we would never be able to do that. We do not do good things to earn salvation—it’s the other way around. We get salvation because Jesus did the good things in our place. When we accept Jesus’ amazing love gift of salvation, it makes us want to live like Him and to live for Him because we love Him. The strength that Jesus gives us to live more like Him is also a free gift of love. And of course, if we love God, that love will also result in a desire to help other people.”

“What if I think I don’t love God but I wish I did love Him, or at least wish I could be like Him? What can I do? Is it hopeless for me?” April asked.

“Absolutely not!” Uncle Leonard said. “We can talk to God and ask Him to help us love Him. God will never turn away from a prayer like that.

“In a Bible story Jesus told about the prodigal son, a young man who didn’t want to live like his father went away from home (Luke 15:11–32). He finally learned that the sinful life he chose had destroyed his happiness, and he returned home. He no doubt realized that he loved his father after all and that his father did know what was best.

“Some people are different from him. They do not love God, and they wish they did not have to keep His commandments, so they are keeping them for the wrong reasons. They might think, I would rather live like the prodigal son, but I guess I have to follow those Ten Commandments so I can get into heaven. They are trying to earn a ticket to heaven by their own good works, without any love for God, but it will not work.

“We can follow God and praise Him only when our heart is full of love for Him—not by doing things because we think we have to do them. When we bring Jesus into our heart and life, the hope and peace of mind that comes from knowing Him affects our life and even our health. It is like this.” Uncle Leonard ticked off several points for the two girls.

“Jesus saves us by His love.

“Our response to Him is to accept His love and to learn to love Him in return.

“Our response is not what saves us.

“His love saves us.

“Even our response to Him is the result of His love at work in us, changing us.”

“That’s what we wanted to know. We would really like to go to heaven,” Jane said.

“Yes,” April added. “I really want to know Jesus. But I also want to enjoy heaven and see all the things He made. Do you think He’ll mind if I want to see heaven as well as know Him?”

“I think He wants us to do both,” Uncle Leonard said with a smile. “I think He wants us to greatly enjoy all the things He has made! That is why He made them. When you and I get to heaven, let’s run through the meadows together, praising God for His great love and His gift of salvation to us! Then we can thank Him for all the things He has made for us to enjoy” (1 Corinthians 15).

CHAPTER 38

Carson and Jane

School had just ended for the year. Carson and Jane were looking forward to the summer vacation. In order to get ready, they had to pack clothes and other things they wanted to take to the farm. Carson was sitting in a chair in Jane’s room.

“Jane, do you remember when you said you didn’t like God very well because He didn’t kill Satan? You said you would have killed Satan. Do you still feel that way about God?” Carson asked.

Jane thought for a moment then said, “I think I just didn’t like all the sin and death in the world. All those kids getting killed in wars makes me very sad. Maybe just a little bit I blamed God for that. After our talks with Uncle Leonard, I understand God better. He seems more like a good Friend even though He is powerful. We don’t need to be afraid of Him. Even though I know that, I think I might still be a little afraid. I think that is even OK. At least for a while.

“One thing I learned,” she added, “is that we don’t have to think we should know everything and that it’s OK to keep learning more about God and science and people,” Jane said, picking up her suitcase and placing it on the bed.

“I agree,” Carson said. “I’ve learned from Uncle Leonard but I’ve also learned from my experiences with my friends, like Bryan. We are better friends now that he has learned from Uncle Leonard too. I even learned from my experiences with Ethan. I keep praying for him, but he moved away, so I may not know how things end up for him.”

“I think we should talk to Mom and Dad and see if we can go on a geology trip with Uncle Leonard. I’d like to discover a dinosaur bone,” Jane said.

“That sounds awesome! Let’s talk to them. Maybe they would want to go too.”

Getting a chance to go on a geology tour and learn from geologists and paleontologists was an exciting prospect for the summer. It would show the brother and sister that science is not all about books but is real, hands-on work in the field.

All the things they had discussed about God gave Carson and Jane courage to continue learning more about Him. And they were eager to see more from the space telescopes online.

“It really has been an awesome year, I think,” Carson said.

“Yes, it has,” Jane said.

A summer with Comet, running through the fields, feeling the wind in their hair as they rode their bikes, eating fresh tomatoes from the garden, reading new books, and possibly going on a geology trip made Carson and Jane anticipate their summer vacation.