Book Review: Already Gone

In my quest to learn more about the importance of Genesis 1-11 on the gospel message and the overall implications of biblical authority on a myriad of moral issues, I picked up the book Already Gone by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer.  Ken Ham is the president of Answers in Genesis and Britt Beemer is a researcher and director of America’s Research Group.  These men have joined forces to provide a very insightful look into the state of the church in America.

This is one of those books that would be easy to avoid because the news isn’t good.  This generation of students is leaving the church in droves.  The good news…we can do something about it!  Already Gone is aimed towards parents, pastors, youth pastors, Sunday School teachers, and Christian educators with an urgent message to return to the foundation of God’s Word in every area of our lives.  As a Christian school administrator, my job is to keep this conversation in the forefront of everything we do as we seek to educate students that are going to impact culture for Christ.

I highlighted several things while reading and have pasted those notes below…

  • The decline of the Church has followed the plummeting spirituality of a nation that has lots its roots–its foundation.
  • Guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called “knowledge”–which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith.  Grace be with you.  1 Timothy 6:20-21
  • It’s time to wake up and see the tidal wave washing away the foundation of your church.
  • My wife and I (Ken Ham) testify that God called us as missionaries to America–particularly the American Church–to call it back to the authority of the Word of God.
  • Radical renovation is needed urgently.  We are losing the next generation–we are losing the culture.
  • If your parents shirked their responsibility for training you spiritually, you will need to break the chain of biblical illiteracy and spiritual irresponsibility in your family tree.
  • Imagine if we started (in our homes and churches) raising generations of children who stood uncompromisingly on the Word of God, knew how to defend the Christian faith, could answer the skeptical questions of this age, and had a fervor to share the gospel from the authority of God’s Word with whomever they met!  This could change the world.
  • God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.  1 Samuel 16:7
  • Central to this study was the issue of belief.  You simply cannot explain the behavior without understanding the beliefs behind the behaviors.
  • Two-thirds of the people who have left the Church are either planning on coming back or they might be considering coming back.  All it might take is a sincere invitation from a friend to encourage them to make the jump.
  • If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?  John 3:12
  • As the Church compromised on the issue of millions of years, subsequent generations were put on a slippery slide of unbelief.  The millions-of-years idea not only undermined the creation account, but it began to undermine the historical account of the Genesis Flood as well.  Soon the idea of a local flood rather than a global flood was popularized.
  • Our current generation of children is leaving the church in droves.  We are less than one generation away from being a nation of hollow, empty churches.
  • President Obama summed it up in his autobiography, published just before his election as president of the United States of America: “Whatever we once we, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of unbelievers.”
  • Compromising Genesis has contributed to the loss of biblical authority in our nation and helped open the door to the secularization of the culture.
  • We are preaching about these things, but the truth is that the next generation doesn’t believe when these things are preached against and biblical morality is taught, because they don’t believe in the authority of Scripture.  The Scriptures have become irrelevant to them; they don’t make the connection between spiritual, scriptural things and real, practical things.
  • Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine…they will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.  2 Timothy 4:2-4
  • But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  Do this with gentleness and respect.  1 Peter 3:15
  • In the vacuum of answers, her doubts begin to solidify.
  • In this day and age, we must see that an attack on the Word of God is an attack on the gospel.  Without the Word of God, we have no gospel.  Without the Word of God, we have no morality.  Without the Word of God, we have no record of our past and no prophecy for our future.  Without the Word of God, Christianity cannot stand.
  • The whole meaning of the gospel is dependent upon the account of the Fall of man, and thus original sin, as given in Genesis.  Ultimately, every single biblical doctrine of theology, directly or indirectly, is founded in the historical account given in Genesis 1-11.  And Genesis is written as typical historical narrative (not like the Psalms that are written as typical Hebrew poetry).  If one undermines this history, or reinterprets it, or tries to claim it is myth or symbolic, then one undermines the foundation of the rest of the Bible, including the gospel.
  • If we teach our children (or anyone) to take God’s Word as written concerning the Resurrection, the miracles of Jesus, and the account of Jonah and the great fish that swallowed him but them tell them we don’t need to take Genesis as written but can reinterpret it on the basis of the world’s teaching about millions of years and evolution-we have unlocked a door.  The door we’ve unlocked is the door to undermine biblical authority.
  • By staying silent and not defending Genesis, we are “teaching” our children that we don’t have to take God’s Word as written, and man can reinterpret God’s Word according to what the majority in the culture might believe.
  • If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?  Psalm 11:3
  • Truth makes us relevant.
  • The Bible is not some “pie in the sky” philosophical book.  It’s a real book that is really connected to the real world.  It is a history book that connects to dirt, fossils, stones, bones, tsunamis, earthquakes, oceans, mountains, death, and so on.  It has everything to do with geography, biology, anthropology, and sociology.  The Word of God has never changed, but the Church’s perception of the Word of God changed when it failed to engage the scientific community on matters of fact as well as faith.  It’s time to change that and be true to the challenge that Peter left for each of us to follow in 1 Peter 3:15.
  • When it comes to the modern-day church, I think one of the most piercing passages of Scripture is this: “They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.  You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”  Mark 7:6-8
  • Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.  James 3:1
  • Teach Bible history, not Bible stories.
  • Consider the possibilities of a revolution, a reformation, and a renovation of church as we know it in America today.  What if our churches were to truly become gatherings of individuals who defend God’s Word and live by God’s Word?  Imagine the potential as millions of Bible-believing Christians in this country evaluate their own lives, their own families, their own churches, and their own country, and begin to strategically do their part by allowing God to use them in any way that He sees fit to protect the vital Body of Christ and to reach out to those who have left her and those who meet her.

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