Pays our bills, allows us to keep on traveling, doing the ministry. But as we travel around, speaking on behalf of Answers in Genesis, I can imagine that you would think, well, this guy probably gets a lot of questions. And it's true, I do get a lot of questions. And one of the questions I get sometimes, people are thinking, well, why is Genesis so important? Why concentrate on the book of Genesis? I know God did it. Who cares how he did it. Why concentrate on the past. Concentrate on the present of how the gospel message that's what we are doing. People are wondering why would you build a creation museum. Why dwell on creation evolution type of thing. and why would you have things like dinosaurs and a planetarium and Noah's Ark? You heard about the Noah's Ark project, the full-scale ark down in Kentucky? Well, why would you do that stuff? That money could be much better used to spread the gospel. So people are thinking, really, is this that important? One lady says, what you're doing is nice. In other words, it's a nice thing to do, but it's really not the most important thing. You know, I might be biased. But I think really that the message of answers in Genesis is the most important message for the Church of Jesus Christ today. Sounds like I'm biased, but why? What is that? Why is that? Well, people are thinking. Well, what we're all about, we're all about creation, evolution, kind of a side issue. Not really. No, we're all about answers in Genesis. Really, it's all about upholding the authority of God's word from the first page and proclaiming the gospel and confronting the forces of humanism. They're taking over our culture. So why do we put the authority of God's word is the most important message. Do you know without the authority of God's word, we have no gospel to tell, do we? We have no foundation for morality. We have no sure word from our creator to keep us from going into self-destruct mode. Now, the Bible today is being attacked from all corners, especially the book of Genesis. People are thinking, well, you can't believe the Bible. The science has proven that it's all wrong. Evolution of millions of years. That's been proven to be fact. Now, what is evolution of millions of years anyways? You ever think about that? People think, well, it's science. You know that it really isn't science. It's the pagan religion of the world. It's a fallen sinful man's idea of how we got here without having to believe in God. Now, is it really a religion? Oh, yes, it is. See, a religion is something that people hold to as a belief system very, very strongly. That's it. It determines our whole way of thinking. And it answers questions like, who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? How do I find truth? Does evolution of millions of years answer those questions? It certainly does. Who am I? Well, I'm just an evolving animal. Now, where do I go? When I die, I just cease to exist. Where do I find truth? Well, I find it in myself. See, it answers all those questions, gives all the wrong answers. The Word of God gives the right answers to those questions. But you see, it is the pagan religion of the world. That's their belief system. See, it's a belief system, pure and simple, folks. But see, we have scientists using their credentials. to say this has to be fact and to convince our kids and a whole generation that you can't believe the Bible. So, as a result, we live in a world today that is militant against the Bible. It's in the news all the time. You hear that? It's coming to a crescendo of people out crying against the Bible. And why would our president use the Bible in his in for his inauguration and things like that? It's just if it's just a myth and a fairy tale, why would you do that? The people are thinking the evidence is all on the side of evolution. But the real issue is not evolution. See, there's a deeper issue involved here. The foundational issue really is where are you going to go to find truth? Are you going to find it in God's word? Are you going to find it in man's opinion? That makes sense. You see, God designed us in a certain way and he gave us the instruction manual on how to function. What happens when people don't follow the instruction book? Everybody gets something for Christmas and you try to put it together without the instruction book. Usually, you know, when all else fails, you've got to go to the instruction book. But that's what the world is doing. We have a whole culture that's throwing out our manual directly from our Creator. And what happens when you throw out the manual? Well, can you begin to understand while our culture is beginning to collapse and go in the wrong way? See, we're just beginning. as a culture, as a nation, to reap the consequences of a culture that turns its back on God's word. That's very important to understand that. See, we are in the middle now of a cultural war. The sides are lined up as never before. What's the pivotal issue? Well, some people think, well, maybe it's about abortion or gay marriage or now it's guns or it's about the Constitution. Those are all peripheral issues. You know what the key issue that divides us? What is it? Who's in charge? Where are you going to find truth? You're going to find truth in God's word. You're going to find truth in man's opinion. See, our founding fathers founded our Constitution and our country on biblical principles. To these guys, it was self-evident that we were created. It was obvious to them that were created and they understood that for any society to function properly, it has to be based upon biblical principles. So our founding fathers based the Constitution on biblical principles. Just a couple here to tell you about. How about the rule of law and limited government? Do you realize in 1776, the concept of rule of law and limited government was totally unheard of? I mean, England was starting to come close because of their biblical principle, but they still had a king that could do whatever he wanted to. The people had to obey the laws, but the king didn't. Right. So when that with the revolution, they said, we don't want to have a government that the people are servants of the government. We want to have a biblical idea of government where the people in government are ministers of the people. They serve the people. And that's why England has that idea of the minister of such and such and things like that's where you get that idea. But that's where that's where it came from. So what what did they do? They put within the Constitution checks and balances to make sure that the government wouldn't rise up and become all powerful and the people had to serve the government. So it's it's not that America did everything great, though. We have to understand that. But this principle holds true. America has a lot of a lot of things that we did wrong. A lot of part of the culture that was part that was part of the culture. We had a long ways to go for for scripture to come into the cultures of people to begin to realize that you ought to treat people in certain ways and things like that. So, but, you know, all that people are doing now is looking back at our culture back then and they look at all of our faults. But you see, we're still founded on biblical principles. And this principle holds true that the closer an individual and a family or an entire nation adheres to biblical principles, the more likely they are to have freedom and also prosperity. The opposite is also true, isn't it? Think through that. Where are we today? See, America has been a shining example to the world of what biblical principles do for a people. America has experienced more freedom, more prosperity than any other nation in all of world history. See, America leads the world in charitable giving and humanitarian aid and things like that. But do you realize today, because of the Loss of the authority of God's word in our culture. And we're beginning to reap those consequences. America now leads the world in some very shameful areas. Let's take a look at some of these things. America leads the world in the number of school shootings. The highest divorce rate. 89% of all pornography worldwide is made right here in the U.S. of A. America leads the world in the most child abuse. The highest teen pregnancy. The highest percentage of population in prison. and the largest national debt in the history of the world. Pretty shameful. Our culture has changed, hasn't it? We're beginning to see the consequences of rejecting God's word. Our president made an interesting comment about our culture, and it's a true observation. Let's listen to what he had to say. We are no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation and a Buddhist nation and a Hindu nation and a nation of non-believers. At one time, we were one nation under God, indivisible. Today, what are we? Because of the collapse of the authority of God's word today, we're one nation under many gods, many belief systems tearing itself apart. So we're not only seeing this shift in our culture as we look out there, but we also see this shift right in the lives of our young people that are growing up even in our Bible believing churches. The Bible was once the foundational document, the foundational book for our public schools. Kids learn their ABCs with biblical concepts. Then they took religion out of school, right? Did they take religion out of school? Now, they didn't. They did not say they they took Christianity out of school. They took this book as the authority. They took that out of school. You know what they replaced it with? They replaced Christianity with another religion, the pagan religion of the world. How do we get here without having to have a God? And so where do you find truth? You make up your own truth. That's what's being taught in school. So we have where Christian in schools, if there's a whole nother religion being taught, it's not about science, folks, it's about a religion. So we're in a war, there's a war raging for the hearts and minds of our kids, everywhere you look in our culture, it pulls kids away from the scripture. So how are we doing in this war? Do you think we're doing pretty good now? some places better than others. I would say in this conservative community, we're probably doing a little bit better than maybe in some urban centers. But in general, all the way across the country, what's happening? Let's take a look and see what's happening. George Barnett did research of Bible believing churches all across America. And he says of kids that went to church on a regular basis, two thirds of them are leaving the church by the time they go off to college. Southern Baptists did their research and they said of the children raised in evangelical homes, 88% leave the church at age 18 and never return. Now with a casualty rate like that, that's unsustainable. We're not doing very well in this war. That's why we have a book is called Already Gone that talks about these statistics. That's what the first part of the book talks about. Where is the church? Where is it going? And in the last part of the book, it what it does, it said, well, what can we do about it? We've got to rise to the occasion and to reach a whole nother generation. My talk, just after lunch, will be a lot of the things that are in this book. It's a must-read for moms and dads and pastors and youth directors. Here's a little bit that's in the book here. We ask children that have grown up, they're now in college, that used to go to Bible-believing churches and now they don't, we ask them, if you don't believe, when did you first have doubts? Now, most of us think, well, you know, Johnny went off to college and he did this and that, and he just doesn't come back to church very much. Well, if we ask them when they first have doubts, was it in college? How about middle school and high school? And that's that's the key place. And the key area to make sure we catch him is in elementary school. So we ask another question. She says, which of these makes you question the Bible the most? And for the most part, it was creation, evolution, the age of the earth. If science has proven the Bible's a myth. Now, you'd expect that kids that went to Sunday school regularly, as opposed to maybe just Sunday morning church. Now, they had more. They had more, right? Going to Sunday school. Would you expect that they would fare a little bit better than those that didn't go to Sunday school? It sounds logical to me. Now, here we have two different groups, the ones that did attend Sunday school on a regular basis, the one that just went to church. But here's what we found out. The ones that went to Sunday school on a regular basis, two services in the morning. That's like we have today. Let's take a look. They were more likely not to believe that all the accounts or stories of the Bible were true. They were more likely to doubt the Bible because it was written by man. They are more likely to doubt the Bible because it was not translated correctly. They are more likely to believe that God used evolution to change one kind of animal into another. More likely to question the Bible because they believe the earth is not less than 10,000 years old. And it gets worse. They're more likely to defend abortion, more likely to defend premarital sex, more likely to accept gay marriage. You know what it looks like to me? It looks like to me that Sunday school is detrimental to our children's spiritual well-being. Does it look like that? No. I see some Sunday school teachers looking daggers at me. I don't know. I'm not saying we shouldn't do Sunday school or have like like we're doing here, two different services, that type of thing. But maybe we need to rethink how we do Sunday school. So you thought I was here just to talk about creation and evolution. Really, what I'm here to do is is to talk about our culture and how it has changed. and how the church needs to rise up and maybe make some changes. That's going to be my next message this afternoon. Now, if the church isn't, you know, still has its head in the sand, doesn't realize that the culture is coming up and marching over top of them, the world realizes it. Here's a Newsweek article. The decline and fall of Christian America. They're inside the end of Christian America. So what is happening in America? Why isn't the church influencing our culture like it once did? Back 200 years ago, there was a man named George Whitfield, a missionary from from England, came to America, stood on a street corner, Philadelphia. He had a booming voice. He didn't need one of these Mike thing. He could literally preach to thousands at once. And actually, in Philadelphia, in that square, thousands gathered to hear him preach. And it was preaching like that all up and down the colonies. that changed the culture. People were coming to Christ by the thousand, changing their lives, changing their behavior. It changed the culture so much. You know what we call it? We call it the first great awakening. Now, I got a question. Why isn't the church affecting our culture like it once did? I suggest to you that the church no longer is influencing and touching our culture like it once did, because in many cases, the world's ideas have sort of infiltrated right into the church. We can't even realize it. You say, oh, not this church, not my church. Well, if you want to know what the water's like, you don't ask the fish. They were too close to it. So let's take a look and try to figure out what would happen. How is a culture? What would cause a whole culture just to switch and turn totally secular away from scripture and so on? Like like we're heading. Let's take a look at the country of England. Let's listen to this. Britain is officially a Christian nation, and in fact at one time was missionary base for the entire world, even sending missionaries to the new American colonies. But Britain today in practice is increasingly anti-Christian, and the cases of anti-Christian bigotry and discrimination are beginning to pile up. Doctors, nurses, adoptive parents deemed unfit because of their Christian beliefs. Christians are told not to speak about God in the workplace, or they're punished for offending homosexuals or Muslims. Now the British government wants to pass a new equality bill that would force churches to hire practicing homosexuals or transsexuals. Let's think about that. At one time, that small island nation sent out more missionaries than any other country in the entire world. Today, more people attend mosques than the Church of England. Now, what would cause a culture to just shift away from biblical Christianity? Got to explain this. Let's go back in history just a little bit. You see, the 1500s, we had reformers like Martin Luther that brought the church back to the concept of the authority of God's word. And in the 1600s, we have scientists like Isaac Newton that accepted Genesis, just like it said. He did more writing on creation and the genealogies and things like that than he did science. A lot of people don't realize that. And he believed in six literal days and about 6,000 years ago, he stood on the authority of God, but to him, He saw science as confirming the word of God. That's what he saw. And really what happened when science was rooted on scripture, it brought more knowledge and more scientific learning and progress than the world had ever seen. But then man started to get pretty proud of himself. 17, 1800s, people are thinking, well, we don't even need God anymore. But they couldn't figure out how we got here at the beginning. So what they did was they said, well, we want a God that we're not accountable for. But at least we have somebody that started the whole ball rolling. So they made up their own God. You know, they called it a first cause. I mean, that was that was our God that they had. So now they now what they're thinking is that there there isn't a God that would tell us what to do in this word. He just left us alone to do whatever we want to do. And he certainly wouldn't judge the world in a worldwide flood. So they're thinking, well, then where did all the rock layers come from? Well, they must have been laid down over millions of years. This is where the idea of millions of years came from. It's not a, it's not science, it's a belief system. And so the scientists came to the theologians and they said there was no worldwide flood. The rock layers, they were laid down over millions of years. You have to believe me, I'm a scientist. What did theologians do? They caved in, didn't they? They said, oh, we don't know. We know the Bible doesn't say that. But wow, that's science. Your science. I guess we have to fit it in the Bible somewhere. And they came up with all kinds of ideas to fit millions of years in the Bible. And what they did, they made a really big mistake. First of all. If this isn't really true and you've got to try to work around it, then see the undermine the authority of God's word right there. And then the church really is separated the gospel message with their preaching back then from our real history. And we're going to see the problem of that in just a minute. But then along came. Charles Darwin and evolution, things like that. You know what? People clamped to this idea like, well, it's got to be real science, not because it was science, because now it gave him a reason to get rid of the first cause altogether. Now we have a way to figure out how we got here without God. What did the theologians do? Well, by that time, the first part of the Bible was considered a myth anyways. He had no problem ripping out our true history, replacing it with the pagan religion of the world. Charles Darwin is buried in Westminster Abbey. The symbol of the Anglican Church, where the royal wedding was. See, he's buried right in the floor. How symbolic is that? And the man that proved, so-called, that Genesis is a myth, he's buried right in the foundation. They took out the foundation of God's word and they replaced it with man's ideas. And look how quickly the culture shifted and turned. Today, Churches in our Western culture, majority of them bow down to the pagan religion of the world. And look how quickly the cultures changed. Is America heading in that same direction? That's where England is today. America will be tomorrow unless we do something about it. Well, I mean, what do we need to do? Get a lot of prayer. Now, let's put some feet behind our prayer, too. See, that's why answers in Genesis is going around, not talking about creation and evolution. We're talking about the authority of God's word. Let's get back to it, because without the authority of God's word. You know, why pray, why, why witness, why do anything right? That's that's the key. Well, America had a similar turning point back in the 1920s, the scopes trial. How many people have heard of that? The monkey trials. Basically, it was a highly publicized trial to put the new evidences of evolution on trial and said that the Bible can't be true. And what happened? Well, from that point on, those who believed in creation were considered ignorant, uneducated, unscientific. Why? Evolution. That's science. The church in America split. By and large, churches in Europe just except the whole client sinker, but the church in England in America split over this half the church says, oh, we don't want to seem unscientific so we can fit millions of years or evolution or whatever into the Bible somewhere. And we'll still preach the gospel. Well, many of them were still doing it then, but they separated the gospel message from its history. Now, the rest of the church, I mean, like like this one and Bible believing churches, they said, well, we still want to believe the Bible just as it says. But we don't know how to answer those questions like Piltdown Man, Neanderthal Man, radiometric dating, things like that. We don't have answers to those. So we'll just let kids learn science in school, and in church, we'll resign ourselves just to the moral and spiritual things. We'll teach Bible stories. Isn't that what we do? See, what's the world's concept of truth? A real truth is what you get in school. Now, if you want to get some mystical, spiritual stuff and things like that, you can learn that in church. But, you know, haven't we fallen as a church for the world's concept of truth? so insidious and just filtered right in. We just teach moral and spiritual things. We don't talk about dinosaurs in Sunday school. We don't talk about rock layers and things like that. We don't. That's not. We just tell Bible stories. So that that's what's happened. And so here we have a church dividing on this. And the church didn't come, you know, rise to the occasion like it should have and said things like this. No, the Bible hasn't. It hasn't been proven it's a myth. We can defend the word of God. And we didn't come out and tell people no science hasn't proven the Bible's a myth. No, actually science confirms the Bible. The church did not rise to that occasion and do that. They sort of caved in, let the kids learn a different worldview in school. And we just teach moral and spiritual things. And when that happens, you see, if people are just not quite sure when you open the Bible, that's really, really true. I mean, maybe what happens to the Bible becomes a just a spiritual book, kind of a mystical book. And mystical books can be interpreted any way you want to. Isn't that what we're seeing all across the world, across the country? Exactly right. But when we read the book of Genesis, are we reading mystical readings or ancient mythology that was added to the Bible? So is that what we're really reading? Or how about maybe we're reading true geology, true biology, true astronomy, true anthropology. Is it really the true history of the universe? But we live in a world today that says, oh, no, no, that's not what happened. Geology, the rock layers laid down over millions of years. Genesis is wrong. And biology, evolution is true. One kind of animal changed into another. Can't trust the Bible again. How about anthropology? Ape-like creatures turned into people. Adam was a myth. And astronomy, the big bang happened. Then the sun. But the Bible says the Earth came first. The Bible got it all wrong. Is there any wonder why we have people right in our churches that are not sure they can trust the whole thing? One young lady says as she started to read the Bible, she's thinking, when does God start telling the truth? Because of this, we now have raised up within our churches a whole generation of college Bible school Bible school seminary professors that are not sure that they can trust this entire word. There's one one professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. At least he was there. He said a young earth seems to be required to maintain a traditional understanding of the fall. And yet a young earth clashes sharply with mainstream science. Historical, observational, remember we talked about that? He just clumped it all together with science. That's the problem. They say, well, science says this. The theologians say these things. He also says Noah's flood, though presented as a global event, is probably best understood as historically rooted in a local event. Now, what did he just say? He said, I know the Bible says that the Genesis is, you know, in Genesis, that it was a global flood. I mean, how do you cover all the high hills? And if it wasn't a global flood, that's that's what the Bible says. But I don't want to believe it. Why? Well, not because of what God says, because of what who says the pagan religion of the world that has tripped in and says you can't believe in a goal. What's he done to the Bible? He undermined the authority of God's Word right from the beginning. He just said the Bible's fallible. When you open it, you can't trust every part of it. Now, here's the reason. He's thinking, you've probably heard of that, that it's obvious the rock layers were laid down over millions of years. Anybody ever heard that concept before? Is that strange? The rock layers, they've got to be laid down. Look, it's obvious. Stand at the Grand Canyon. It's obvious. Maybe obvious to them if they have evolution glasses on. But if you put biblical glasses on, you can see right straight through it. Let me give you a couple of reasons to help us to see that there's no evidence for millions of years at all. All right. See, if. Take a look at that. The rock layers were laid down quickly in a worldwide flood. How do we know that? Well, one is there's a lack of erosional features. Rock layers are laid down. They're laid down like this, right? And then you have erosion that will come in. And then you have more rock layers. And eventually over a long, long period of time, you ought to have something like that. But what do we have? We have something that looks about like this. So here's a cross section of the Grand Canyon. At the top, there are massive erosional features up there. And you see those? And it eroded quite a bit. But let's take a look here. See, these layers were supposedly had laid down over 300 million years with virtually no evidence of erosional features between the layers. Where's the evidence of millions of years? I don't see it at all. Do you? Isn't it exciting being a Christian? We shouldn't be intimidated at all. The evidence just supports what God's word said. Here's another one. How do we know that the rock layers will lay down quickly? Well, soft sediment deformation. Here's what happened was there was an up warp that deformed the rock layers. Like what the Bible says, the mountains rose and the oceans sank and the water ran off the earth. Here's a cross section of the or a section of the Grand Canyon. Can you see how the rock layers are bent? Let me give you a little hint there. Here's some people down there for scale. Now, if these were bent over millions of years with heat and pressure. Anybody have any idea what kind of rocks they would be? Sedimentary, metamorphic, or igneous? Geologists here? Metamorphic rocks are changed rocks and pressure and heat and things like that. You know what they are? They're still sedimentary rocks. Now if they were bent with maybe a violent earthquake and they'd be cracked and bent and things like that, well, how about this? They're nice smooth layers. It looks obvious to me that the rock layers were laid down, soft sediment, upwarped, bent those layers up, and then they turned into hardened rock. That's why we see this all over the world. You can go through Pennsylvania and see lots of illustrations of that down the highway and so on. This is our real history, folks. We don't have to be embarrassed about it at all and think, oh, I got to fit millions of years in there somehow. How did Jesus think about this? our history in Genesis. Did he think it was real history? Let's take a look and see what he said. See, he was asked the question about marriage one time. That's a good question for our culture today. Anybody ever get a discussion about marriage? Maybe an argument, you know, a Chick-fil-A and all these different things. Usually what it boils down to is, well, I think this and this is my opinion and things like that. You know what? Even the church people say that, but I could break it to you. It doesn't make any difference what we think, does it? What is it? What makes the difference? What did God actually say? So when Jesus was asked a question about marriage, did he say, well, I think this. I suppose if anybody could say that, it would be God, right? Because what he thinks counts. But he didn't say that. You know what he said? He quoted scripture. And he kind of chided them a little bit. He says, haven't you read the Bible? Haven't you read any quotes? Well, what pastor says he which made them at the beginning made them male and female. He's saying, don't ask for my opinion. We've already got an authority. God already told us this is our real history. We can go to what God's word said. He's saying this is our real history. This is absolute authority. So that's what that's how we know what marriage is all about. But unless you believe in a literal Genesis, in a literal garden, in a literal man, in a literal woman in a garden, marriage can be anything that you want it to. Isn't that right? We get used to it, don't we? It's like the frog in the kettle. He found out there's consequences to complacency. We're beginning to reap the consequences, aren't we? So people either accept God's word or they're going to accept man's word. So when you do that, except man's word, marriage can be whatever you want it to be. If you accept God's word, you got to accept exactly what God says. It's not just marriage. What about the sanctity of life? What if I believe that I was specially created in the image of God? That means I'm tremendously valuable to God. And there is absolute truth, God's word, and that God owns my body. Well, I suppose then I wouldn't want to kill unborn babies. Right. But what if I believe that? Well, I'm just rearranged pond scum. There's no absolute truth. There's no value human life. I own my own body. Well, why not kill unborn babies? How about the foundation for law, the biblical principle of rule by law? Where'd that come from? We talked about that a little bit ago, right? You see, if Adam's in your past, then who makes, who owns you, who makes the rules? Who does? Yeah, that's an easy question. They'll get harder. So, all right. So yeah. But what, what if, uh, H's in your past and who owns you, who makes the rules? One man raised a hand, says my wife. But who makes the rules? If you're just pond scum, you've gradually evolved, then what? You've got ape in your past, then you make up your own rules. You're your own authority. You own your own body. And then, so you have what? Survival of the fittest. That means might equals right. Whoever has the most power is the one that's in charge. What happens to rule by law? Limited government. Which way are we heading? All right, just think about that doesn't make any difference which political party is in charge. The federal government is heading in that direction, right? Because of the lack of the authority of God's word and the idea of limited government. How about euthanasia, mercy killing? There's one for you. In the medical journal of medical ethics, one man wrote, say, after birth abortions, should the baby live? See, babies are not actual persons, he writes, and do not have the moral right to life. And parents should have the right to get rid of them if they want to, up to 28 days. How do you defend against that? I mean, they're already killing babies before they're born. Why not just after they're born? I mean, who's to say? But my question is, why do you pick 28 days? What about two or three years? What about if they don't pick up their room? Some of you kids are in trouble, right? I mean, it's just one person's opinion opposed to another. How do you defend against that? See, I propose that we need to argue the way Jesus did. If you just say, well, I think this, this is my opinion, it all boils down to one opinion against another. But if you say, well, don't ask for my opinion. We've already got an authority. God already spoken. We need to go back to Genesis. Why don't we do that? When we defend moral principles in our culture, why don't we say they're biblical principles? No, we do. We hide behind things like traditional values and conservative values. I believe in family values. Why not biblical values? Why don't people just stand up and say what they really are? A lot of people don't realize that they are, for one thing. OK, but. Here's the reason why I believe that all churches don't do that. See, if we did that, then we'd have to be able to have the. Apologetics, the thought out reasoning to say this is why I trust Genesis, like Peter says, we have an answer. If somebody were to say, well, why do you trust that Bible anyway? Well, I just trust that God said it. I believe that that settles it. Or. And so they say, well, that's just your opinion. All right. How do you get away from that? Well, it's not just my opinion. This is our real history. I've got good reasons to believe it's my real history. That's how we need to deal with that. You see, I'm convinced the average Christian across America can't defend their faith to themselves. And if somebody comes to them with a question, I don't know how to answer that. Well, I just believe what God's word. They can't defend the Bible to themselves, much less to try to defend it to a scoffing world out there. We can't do that. And we certainly don't know how to teach our children how to defend their faith. We're just hoping that they hang on. Right. So, really, this whole issue of evolution, that's just the tip of the iceberg, folks. It's a visual representation of a deeper problem. What's the deeper problem? Who's in charge? Where do you go? See, the Word of God, starting with Genesis, is the foundation for all of our morality. You begin to get the idea why Genesis is important? It's not just morality, how about all of our doctrines? All of our doctrines in one way or another go back to this first book of the Bible. Now, we don't have time to go through all of our doctrines, aren't you glad? Anybody getting hungry? We're going to talk about one, okay? An important one. Now, why did Jesus Christ have to come and die? In order to understand that, guess what book of the Bible we're going to have to go to. Anybody want to take a guess? You're beginning to catch it. Very good. All right. Let's go back to Genesis. In Genesis, God says everything was very good when he made it. So what was it like? Well, it was a world in which the wolf and the lamb could lay down together and the wolf wouldn't eat the lamb and the lion ate grass like an ox. Now, that's what Isaiah was talking about. Was he talking about Genesis or what's he talking about? He's talking about in the future when Jesus Christ will come back. Right. But when he comes back, we're going to be restored back to much like it was at the beginning. So what was it like at the beginning? It was a world where there wasn't death and suffering and tears and the animals didn't eat each other. They were vegetarian, just like Genesis says. Right. Are you looking forward to a world like that? Exactly. So that's very important. You see, if there was death and disease and pain and suffering and animals ripping each other apart and survival of the fittest and all those things, you know, for millions of years, then I guess God's idea of very good isn't very good. But here we have, we talked about this this morning, how the Bible says that all the animals were vegetarian, they did not eat each other. So what happened? Why is that? It was Adam's sin, remember? That's when God came in, cursed the earth and brought in death and disease and suffering, separation from our creator. It all started with who? Millions of years ago, it started with Adam. Isn't that what the Bible says? Paul says, wherefore, as by one man, sin entered the world and death by sin. Who's that one man? Adam. And he goes on in Romans, as he says, the whole creation groans and travails and pain together. What is what you mean? See, the earth is cursed. We live in a sin cursed earth. That's why there's death and suffering in this earth today now. Now, there's a lot of Christians, though, that are thinking in their mind here. Now, you know, maybe I can believe my science teacher and my Sunday school teacher, you know, maybe God, you know, who knows how God did it at this type of thing? Well, let's take a look at this a little closer, because I know many of us have grown up and that generation with, you know, gap theory, age, age, date theory and all these things that maybe it's not important. Let's take a look at it. When you look at the rock layers and you see fossils in the rock layers, Those fossils are what? What are they? They're what? Yeah, in order to be a fossil, first thing you have to be is you got to be dead. So if you believe in millions of years and you look at the rock layers, you are convinced that the rock layers are a history of millions of years of death and suffering. Right? What else do you see in rock layers? You see fossilized thorns. But when did the Bible say thorns came? Thorns and thistles, they came after the fall. You also see in the in the rock layers, you see brain cancer and dinosaur bones. You see, if death and suffering and cancer has been around for millions of years and then God made Adam and at the end, Adam and Eve, and at the end, he said, pronounced everything very good. He just said that brain cancer was very good. So we got to ask this question, if this is true. If death and suffering has been around for millions of years and death and suffering is not the consequences of our sin, we got to ask, why did Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe, and have to take on human flesh and come down to this earth and suffer and die? to take our punishment. We know that we deserve death because of sin. See, that's why God poured out his wrath upon his son. He suffered. He died to take our place. But you see, death and suffering has been around for millions of years. And I guess Jesus didn't even have to come and die. Why would he have to do that? Maybe the death and burial resurrection of Jesus Christ really isn't that important. You realize that over 50% of the Christians in America believe that, well, those people believe other religions, that they're sincere, that God will let them into heaven, that Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection isn't important. And this is being preached. This is the politically correct gospel. All roads lead to heaven. So how do you argue against that? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, the only way? That's very intolerant, don't you think? It is intolerant, isn't it? Jesus wasn't very tolerant, was he? But how do you argue? It's just one opinion against another. You know where we're going to have to go? What book? Thank you. All right, let's go to the book of Genesis. You see, it was Adam's sin that brought about death and pain and suffering and separation from God. As a result, God killed the first animal. See, he was showing that without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. Now, this is what I call a graphic object lesson for Adam and Eve. He was using a physical thing to show a spiritual lesson. Now, remember, Adam and Eve had never seen blood, never seen death and suffering. And here God takes an animal, kills it, skins it, puts the skins on Adam and Eve for clothing. Sounds like a horror movie or something like that, right? What God was saying is this is how bad sin is. It results in death. And you too, you're going to surely die just like this animal did. He was illustrating for the wages of sin is death. See, God showed Adam and Eve what the creator of the universe would have to do to buy humanity back from the curse of sin. What a wonderful promise when he talked about the promise seed that would come. Adam and Eve realized they wouldn't have to stay in the sin cursed earth forever. Someday God will restore them back. to what it once was like. And God used the same object lesson down through history. See, a holy and just God required a sacrifice, a substitute. But can animal sacrifice take away sin? Why not? This is important. We didn't evolve. See, we're made specifically in God's image. We're different than the animals. See, we needed one of our relatives to die in our place. Needed a kinsman redeemer, you might say, like the Old Testament talks about. That's why God himself took on human flesh, related all the way back to Adam, because only somebody from Adam's race could die in the place of Adam's race. But it had to be somebody who didn't have sin on their own, right? That's why it had to be God himself. How many people have read the genealogies and gone through those things? So-and-so begat so-and-so and lived so long. Do you have anybody else? If you haven't, let me give you a hint here. It's really good reading before you go to bed. What are they there for? There's got to be a reason why God takes so long to do that. They are there for an important reason. They show that the physical lineage of Jesus Christ goes all the way back to Abraham, back to Abraham. Now that from David to Abraham to Noah, all the way back to a metaphor, maybe an eight man, Adam. No. Okay. Oh, that's a real man named Adam. Begin to understand why Genesis is a key. See, without this literal history, we don't have any gospel to tell. Do we? Now, how many people have heard this? How could a loving God do this? Anybody heard that before? Questions? Usually happens around tsunami time or things like that. It's probably the most used argument against a loving God. What do we say? You know, if you believe in millions of years, you don't have a single word to say. Because death and suffering has been around for millions of years. God used it in order to evolve people. That's God's idea. You know, death and suffering is God's idea. You have to look and see what the Word of God says. You see, when God created the world, it was a perfect world. There wasn't death and suffering. But what happened? Adam sinned. That's when death and suffering came into the world. It was a result of our sin. See, death is an intrusion. It's the enemy. That's why Jesus Christ came to defeat that enemy. He died. and rose again. So sin and death and Satan can be destroyed. So someday we can be brought back to a new heavens and a new earth where there's no death and no suffering. Are you looking forward to that? That's so important. But do you have to believe in a literal Genesis with a literal six days in order to be saved? I mean, doesn't the Bible say, if thou shalt believe in six literal days and young earth, thou shalt be saved. Does it say that? See, it's not a salvation issue. You know what it is? It's an authority issue. I've worked with people in schools that want to fit millions of years into the Bible. I know they're born again. I know I'll see them in heaven someday, so what's the big deal? Well, here's the big deal. Where'd you learn the idea of the virgin birth? Where'd that come from? Oh, from this document? OK, how about the resurrection of Jesus after three days? Where'd you learn that? I saw the movie. Where'd it come from? Oh, this document? Well, what else does this document say? God created in six literal days. Oh, no, scientists say you can't believe that. We've got to scratch that one off. What else do those same scientists say? They also say the virgins don't give birth to babies and dead bodies don't rise. So if we have to somehow make the Bible fit what with the pagan religion of the world, what happens to our Bible? Well, it gets blown full of holes. People are thinking, well, we can't trust the Bible. So let me conclude with a little slideshow that kind of wraps everything up to help us understand what's happening in our country with churches all across America. Not just I'm talking about this one. All of us, to some degree or another, have kind of fallen into this idea. Now, the church has been saying, come to Jesus, come to the cross and be saved. And that's what we should be saying. But what happened 200 years ago about there was an attack and was in the form of millions of years and it hit boom and the church is always didn't get the cross. But really it was an attack upon the foundation of the gospel. The book of Genesis. Now if Satan were attacking the cross, we'd get upset, right? We defend the cross. Satan's fly. He attacked an area that we weren't sure about. Maybe the church didn't rise up to the occasion. It's just a side issue, right? He attacked down here at the foundation. The church, not a problem, didn't hit the cross. So if that worked, why not continue to attack? And he did. Millions of years in evolution and eight men and all these different types of things. And what happened because of that? Well, the world says it was a direct hit. The church says I didn't hit the cross, but in reality, it was undermining the word of God and the authority of God's word right from the beginning. And now, as a result, the whole culture is permeated by unbelief. Even within the Church of Jesus Christ, there's a whole lot of people saying, well, How could Noah get all those animals on the ark? What about the dinosaurs? What about cavemen? What about radiometric dating? I'm just not sure about these things. I still believe in Jesus, but I'm not sure. What happens? Well, here's what happens when these people, they got all these questions in the back of their mind. They're not sure. They come to Sunday school and says, well, what about these things? What about these questions? Average Sunday school teacher across America will say, Those questions aren't important. Don't worry about those. Just trust in Jesus. Does that help you? See, what happens, they begin to realize, well, maybe there aren't any answers. Maybe that's what I learned. That stuff in school is really true. Maybe this is just spiritual stuff that I could take any way I want to. And eventually, what's happened to our kids is they're saying, hey, if I can't trust the first part, why would I trust any of it? And they're throwing the whole thing away. No wonder we're losing a whole generation. So this is why Answers in Genesis and Creation ministries exist. That's why we're here. We want to help Christians know how to defend their faith, be able to give answers to those type of questions, All right, that's key. So what about this? Answers in Genesis wants to rebuild that foundation that's been destroyed. It's been destroyed in our culture. You go out there and talk with anybody, even a lot of Christians, and they're thinking, well, you can't trust. The Bible's nice. It's got a lot of good things to say, but Genesis and six days, you can't trust that. Well, we've got to rebuild that. That's key. To help people say, no, science hasn't proven that the Bible's myth in Genesis. Actually, science confirms that it is. It sounds like a story, a talk, doesn't it? That's going to be the last one that I do. The church really didn't do that, but the church really needs to rebuild that foundation. And then when those attacks come, we can give people the ammunition that blow those things right out of the sky. Actually, what we want to do, we want to be in the background. We want that everyone in the church to know how to answer the questions and know how to be not just say, well, the Bible says it. You know, I believe that that settles it. You know what our world says when we say that? They say, well, did God say that? I doubt it. That settles it. I'm the only authority. Just one opinion versus another, right? Unless you're able to defend the word of God. The Bible says it. Here's the reason why science hasn't proven it. It's a myth. I'm going to talk about this in the next session. But, you know, evidences aren't going to lead someone to Christ, are they? The only thing that leads someone to Christ is God's word. But if they refuse to listen to God's word, they're not going to hear. So we have to get them over those hurdles. And that's the key of tomorrow, what I'll talk about. So let me conclude here. How do we do this? Did I mention the answer books? Probably one of the best source to be able to give little kids all the way through adults answers to those questions and most. Ask questions that cause people to think I can't trust this Bible. They're in there about 90 of them and all three books and we've got the answer books for kids. Kids ask hard questions. Here's a dragon book and a dinosaur book. They've got lots of pictures of How about dragons drop about Europe and every place that really were dinosaurs. I've got things for high school students, videos for kids and adults and curriculum. Whose responsibility is it to teach this? Is it the church? Now, really, it's moms and dads, right? It boils down to... Now, the church needs to teach moms and dads. That's the key there. But, see, when we're sitting, when we're walking, when we're lying down, when we're getting up everywhere, we need to be teaching not only what God's Word says, not only why we believe it, what we believe, but also why we believe it and how we can defend it. This is important. So when you're driving down the road, you're going by the way and your children say, Father, what mean by these stones? What do you say? I don't know. Millions of years of evolution doesn't make any difference. Or how about dads know enough to say, you know what? This is a record of a worldwide flood. Every place you see these rocks, it shows that there was a global flood. God judged the world one time in the past. He's going to judge the world again. Are you ready? See, that's why Jesus Christ came. He came and he died and he rose again. So if we put your trust in him, we don't have to be a part of that judgment. We can be restored back to a fellowship. We can have perfect fellowship with our creator. How cool is that, kids? Put the whole package together. Help them to see that. So when we say come to the cross and come and be saved, you know, we need to start with the authority of God's word first. Then people will say, oh, I understand. It makes sense now. God judged the world in the past. He's going to judge the world again. I better get in the arc of safety. I can imagine with a congregation this size, there's probably somebody that's not sure that they're in the arc of safety. If you're not sure that you have trusted Jesus Christ and you've been taken from Satan's family in the God's family and you're safe from the from what's coming, this be a great day to take care of that. Talk to somebody here, a pastor. But also, if you're already in the arc of safety, the key is, are you able to defend your own faith in this culture and teach your kids to be able to defend their faith? Give them the right pair of glasses so they don't put on the world's pair of glasses. Can you do that? All right. We'll talk about that next session. It's really very, very important. But that's that's the key. The key message for the Church of Jesus Christ. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we want to pause just for a moment and just thank you for giving us your word. You didn't leave us here to flounder around and trying to figure out how to live on our own. Your Creator, You gave us Your Word directly from You that we can trust every word. Help us, Heavenly Father, to just absorb it and help it to become so much a part of our lives that we become thinking like You. Pray that, Heavenly Father, that You will kindle a new vision for Your Word, an excitement for Your Word to learn. I thank you, Heavenly Father, for pastors and for churches like this that stand on your word. I pray that you'd richly bless each one. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.