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Creation 35(3):18–19, July 2013

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Getting the Word out

chats with organic chemist and businessman Gary Baxter

Gary-Baxter

Dr Gary Baxter has a Diploma of Applied Chemistry from Swinburne Institute of Technology, a B.Sc. (Hons) and a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry, both from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He has been a research scientist at Nicholas Research Laboratories, on the development of alternative drug delivery systems. He later worked as a research scientist and manager for the large multinational Elders IXL. After that, he branched into the development and growth of his own businesses, also involving analytical and organic chemistry as well as environmental testing. He is now a Board member of a family business managed by one of his sons. He has co-authored a number of papers in his scientific field.

I first met Dr Gary Baxter a few years ago while on a ministry trip, and his passion for defending the total truth of God’s Word soon became very apparent. In fact, he had just published the first edition of his book A Defence of the Bible.1

Defense-bible

This covers not just creation, but other evidences in areas beyond CMI’s main ministry focus, including prophecy and more. A successful scientist and businessman, Gary took early retirement so he could devote more time to sharing with others about the truth of the glorious Gospel.

Gary did not grow up in a Christian home, but in the Australia of his childhood, before the current evolution-underpinned secularization, it was common for children to go to Sunday School. So he went from the age of six, and he recalls that in his first year there, “Our teacher told me Jesus was my Saviour and I believed her. From that time on I knew God was real.” Later, Gary and his wife were greatly strengthened in their faith through attending a Bible-believing church. He says that through Bible Study Fellowship, “I learnt much of the Scriptures during the next eighteen years, and I was strengthened and equipped by Creation magazine as well.”

Dr Baxter well recalls a time of very serious financial difficulty during a recession some years back, when the bank was about to foreclose his business. The family went through much heartache trying to sell the business. Despite much prayer, things looked hopeless and he was going to have to take the best offer, leading to financial ruin, when a buyer ‘popped up’. He says, “This firm offered to pay nearly double the previous best offer, just enough to pay the bank what we owed.” Though fully aware that the sovereign God was not under any obligation to bless their family, Gary says: “I think the Lord rescued us, not because we were particularly good people but because we were supporting four missionary organisations financially on a monthly basis, even through the difficult times.”

evolution-get-the-facts

As a trained scientist, Dr Baxter finds it difficult to understand how today’s atheist cosmologists can hold to the idea that “‘in the beginning there was nothing and one day it exploded to produce everything’. No-one has ever observed something coming from nothing, and it is illogical; ‘nothing’ can’t do anything, least of all create everything. And the idea violates several laws of science, including the First Law of Thermodynamics which is that matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed (by any natural process). It also violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics which states that the total entropy of the universe must always increase. That is, it will go from order to disorder. So the idea of chaos (an explosion) going to cosmos violates this law.2

“The only alternative”, he says, “to this illogical and unscientific notion is creation by a Supernatural Being. This is logical; though outside the realm of science, it fits with the facts and laws of science that we know of. In fact, such a Being has contacted us and told us that it was He who created, and we can read about it in Genesis 1 and 2.”

Gary is deeply concerned about what he calls the “all-pervasive” effects of evolution in today’s world. He says, “Evolution denies the existence of the biblical God; it attempts to use science, which people see as almost miraculous in what it can do (put men on the moon, heart transplants, the internet etc.) to do this. And there is no escaping evolution; from museum displays to nature documentaries to popular science journals it reigns supreme and it is not allowed to be challenged. I have written articles and letters to newspapers and journals about this, but they are never published.”

It was frustration at this, in fact, which caused him to personally fund eight billboards displayed around Sydney, Australia’s biggest city—“just so I could get the message out.”3 The sites were specially chosen to be in ‘slower’ speed zones. All displayed the illustration above, right, for two months. This directed people to a website featuring not just his book defending the Bible, but also a Gospel message, as well as CMI’s 15 Questions for Evolutionists.4 It also directed people to creation.com for further information and answers to their questions.

Though more aware than ever of not just the apathy, but rank hostility that exists to the plain truth of Scripture, Gary is nonetheless encouraged that many will have been made aware of the information in this way. (Readers might consider similarly displaying things that lead to the information on creation.com. Even just the website name can arouse sufficient curiosity—e.g. the bumper sticker pictured below, available from creation.com/store.)

creation-sticker

Eternity will reveal how God will have used such a heart for His truth in the lives of others, perhaps in ways one will never be able to know about in this life. We thank God for Dr Gary Baxter and others like him who know the importance of spreading the truth about biblical creation.

Posted on homepage: 28 July 2014

References and notes

  1. Baxter, Gary J., A Defence of the Bible, 2010. Return to text.
  2. Unless there were some greater disordering process going on elsewhere; importantly, since the universe is winding down overall, but has not already reached maximum entropy, it can’t have existed forever, and must have started in a more ‘wound up’ start, which no process internal to the universe could achieve. Return to text.
  3. He lives in Melbourne, Australia’s second biggest city. Return to text.
  4. See creation.com/15-questions. Return to text.

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