Atheists know how important it is to teach children at a very young age, for such early evolutionary indoctrination will greatly influence what they believe for the rest of their lives.
God’s Word has many passages that instruct parents to teach their children the truth, including:
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” (Deuteronomy 6:6–7)
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)
As expected, as soon as AiG announced that all children 12 and under would be admitted to the Creation Museum for free in 2014 (with at least one paying adult), atheist bloggers responded with their usual vitriol against us. In doing so, many of them questioned our motivation for offering free museum admission. One mocking blogger stated:
Ken Ham has cooked up a new way to increase the gross number of people coming through the turnstiles at the Creation Museum. This coming year, all children under the age of thirteen will be admitted free of charge.
Now, is it our real motivation merely to “increase the gross number?” Well, in one sense it is: we want to reach as many people (including children) as possible with the truth of God’s Word beginning in Genesis. AiG makes no apology for the fact we want to see more children, teens, and adults visiting the Creation Museum. However, it’s not for numbers’ sake, but for the Great Commission:
And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15)
Our motivation for building the Creation Museum was to help reach as many people as possible with the soul-saving gospel message.
The blogger continued:
Now Ham knows this will NOT increase the amount of income for the Creation Museum, so he is using the time-honored, guilt inducing tactic, DO IT FOR THE KIDS, to get people to give money to the Creation Museum.
The secularists often seem to bring it all around to money. Apparently for them, everything we do should be for free. Now, are other private attractions like Disneyland and Universal Studios free?
It costs a lot of money to run the high-tech, state-of-the-art Creation Museum. Thousands of dollars are needed each day for maintenance, repairs, etc. That’s why we charge a realistic admission fee. It’s also why Christians support us with their donations so we can design and build new exhibits, and also maintain other outreaches of the AiG ministry that impact millions of people with the creation/gospel message.
Now, is our motivation to offer free admission to the Creation Museum for 12 years old and under a “guilt inducing tactic” to “get people to give money”? Anyone who knows AiG at all recognizes that such an accusation about our motivation is false. But because secularists don’t understand our Bible-based burden to reach the lost, they must try to figure out some other supposed motivation—and it usually comes back to false accusations about finances.
As I have written many times, secularists want to lead little ones astray. They want to capture their hearts and minds for their worldview, which will ultimately lead them to the devil!
AiG takes its responsibility very seriously about teaching children the truth. We want to reach as many children as we can and do our best to see their hearts and minds captured for the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to see them in heaven! But also, there is a warning the Bible has for those who lead little ones astray:
“But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42).
I pray you will help us reach as many children as we can for the Lord in 2014!