This post was first released on January 12, 2025. It is reposted here with only minor edits as part of this series on ancient flood accounts.

How old is coal? Evolutionists usually suggest around 300 million years old.

How old is man? Evolutionists usually suggest around 6-7 million years.

How old is the discovery of iron? Historians suggest around 4-5 thousand years.

So, what if a man claimed to find an iron pot inside a large lump of coal?

Possible answers:

Have you ever heard the story of Frank J. Kennard? In 1912 Frank found an iron pot inside a large lump of coal. Ever since it’s been a point of contention between evolutionists and folks like myself (whom evolutionists love to label as “pseudo-scientists”) who point to Frank’s find as at least anecdotal evidence that coal does not require millions of years to form and that the catastrophic deposition of sedimentary layers during a global flood could explain the discovery of that pot inside that lump of coal.

But let’s hear directly from Frank himself in his notarized statement about the find,

“While I was working in the Municipal Electric Plant in Thomas, Oklahoma in 1912, I came upon a solid chunk of coal which was too large to use. I broke it with a sledge hammer. This iron pot fell from the center, leaving the impression, or mould of the pot in a piece of the coal. Jim Stull (an employee of the company) witnessed the breaking of the coal, and saw the pot fall out. I traced the source of the coal, and found that it came from the Wilburton, Oklahoma Mines.

What might we conclude after reading this document, assuming no theoretical contamination of Frank’s coal?

Google confirms that man-made objects (in addition to Frank’s pot) have been found inside lumps of coal, so this story is not a one and done.

God confirms in the Bible that a worldwide Flood destroyed the earth during the time of Noah, which buried massive amounts of material (both inorganic and organic) and created the necessary conditions for a much more recent formation of coal. Did Frank actually find that pot inside that lump of coal? If not, then we can move on to substantial arguments for a global flood. But if so, it brings us to a stark conclusion. Men lived before coal.

-Daniel McCabe

Trivia

Which biblical feast is connected with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year?

Life in the Land: Oriel’s Rock-throwing Ritual

A thirty-something, single, Jewish woman who believes in Yeshua, a rock, and a quiet desert east of Jerusalem. That’s how this story begins.

Oriel loves the desert behind her home and often vlogs from there. Beautiful sunsets, a warm breeze on her cheek, an occasional “rock bunny” sighting and of course her favorite place to sit and pray—these are the memories that draw her back to it again and again. She is particularly at home in the desert where she has so often found healing from past and present wounds. How we all need a place like that!

Which brings me back to the rock, for Oriel has an unusual, but wonderful way that she finds solace in the desert. When she’s haunted by a hurtful memory or can’t find hope in her circumstances, she walks to a high point, picks up a rock, associates that rock with her hurt and then hurls it down to the desert’s bottom. In that action, accompanied by worship, she finds renewal and joy.

I don’t live in a rocky desert, and Oriel’s hurt may not always match my own, but whether your favorite spot is a desert, a dock or a deer stand, consider creating your own version of her rock-throwing ritual. But don’t forget to worship from your special spot. “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you” (1 Peter 5:7, RSV).

-Daniel McCabe

Christology—the Humanity of Jesus, part 3

To be freed from the bondage of sin means that sin is no longer our master. As Christians we don’t have to sin. We can always choose obedience, for God provides a way out of every temptation. The Holy Spirit helps us and strives with us, and that’s why we should always honor Him and not grieve Him by choosing sin and falling into temptation. As long as we live in this physical body of ours, even as believers, we will sin, for it is a constant wrestling match with the flesh. In Romans 7, for example, Paul talks about how he does what he doesn’t want to do and he doesn’t do what he wants to do. He was very honest about his wrestling with the flesh, a struggle with which we can all relate.

But Jesus is our perfect example, the perfect human who always chose righteousness and never sinned. Being the second Adam, being man’s substitutionary sacrifice for sin and being the mediator between God and man, His human nature was necessary for the salvation of mankind. In other words, Jesus had to be both God and man.

Being God, Jesus’ sacrifice was of an eternal quality. When we sin, we offend an eternal God. Therefore the quality of our punishment, our separation from God in hell, must likewise be eternal. Thus, only Jesus’ sacrifice was capable of securing forgiveness for the sins of all mankind. The blood of bulls and goats could never truly take away man’s sin, for they are just animals. Only the sacrifice of Jesus could truly represent us on the cross. Bulls and goats are insufficient sacrifices for my sin because they are unlike me. They’re not human. Humanity sinned, therefore, the redemption of humanity required a human representative—Jesus. In His full humanity He was able to take on my sin, for He is one of us. He was the perfect representative for mankind and the perfect substitutionary sacrifice for my sin.

-Adam Keim

Life in the Land—the Black Hebrews

Bethlehem we know. Mary gave birth to baby Jesus there. Jerusalem too we know. Our Savior died there and came to life. Then there’s Nazareth, Jericho and Capernaum. All are well-known cities in Israel. But have you ever heard of Dimona, a town of 35,000, twenty miles southeast of Beersheba in the dry, hot desert of Israel? Dimona is home to a group of five thousand African-Americans, many originally from the Chicago area, who maintain that they are the descendants of the ancient Israelites. They have a complicated, but fascinating story.

Known loosely as the Black Hebrews, but more specifically as the African Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem, they believe that long ago when their Israelite ancestors were expelled from Israel by the Romans, they migrated to western Africa. From there in the modern era they were taken by slave ships to America. In the late 1960s a former metallurgist named Ben Carter, who had been raised in a Baptist home, announced that he had been visited by the angel Gabriel and told to return to Israel with the African-American children of Israel to establish the kingdom of God. Taking on a new name, Ben Ammi Ben-Israel, and adopting the title of Messiah, Carter and four hundred others sold their cars, homes and businesses. Passionately convinced of their new purpose, they first moved to Liberia for a two-year period of purification and then on to Israel.

The Black Hebrews practice polygamy, veganism and communal living. They enjoy tofu, hip hop music and rigorous physical exercise. They make their own natural wines and clothing, abstain from drugs, and grow most of their own food. Some members of the community serve in the Israel Defense Forces, but they reject traditional forms of both Judaism and Christianity, have no doctrine of the afterlife, and see Jesus as only one in a long line of messiahs sent by God to keep his children on the right path.

-Daniel McCabe

Answer to the Trivia

C. Trumpets