Proverbs chapter 30 verses 5 and 6 there's a warning for us. Every word of God is flawless or every word of God is pure. And then verse 6 it says don't add to his words. I believe one of the greatest problems that we have in our church today is that God's people have added to the word of God. I believe that particularly so in regard to the book of Genesis and in fact particularly in regard to the first verse in Genesis. Genesis, the first chapter, I should say, in Genesis, that begins with the very first verse, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. You know what's interesting? If I was to preach that particular message, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, in church after church after church across America and other parts of the world, I would hope, and I'm sure it would be true, most people would say, of course we believe God created, whatever that means to them. But if I was to preach something a little differently, if I was to preach, in the beginning God created in six literal, approximately 24-hour days, approximately 6,000 years ago, what do you think would happen? I can tell you right now. I believe I can say this. I believe I can generalize on the basis of all the experience that we've had in speaking across America and England and Australia and many other countries around the world as well. Spoken in many Bible colleges and seminaries and, you know, I've spoken in every state, every one of the 50 states in the USA. Being in this ministry for now well over 25 years, I believe I can generalize on the basis of what we have found out and say this. The majority of Christian leaders in our Western world, the majority of pastors, the majority of Christian college professors, the majority of seminary professors, the majority of people who attend church in fact, the majority of deacons, the majority of elders, the majority of Christians in general do not accept or will not take a stand on God creating in six literal days just a few thousand years ago. Now why is that so? How come the majority are so against that position? It's one of the reasons why at Answers in Genesis I find it's in a way more difficult for an organization like ours to get support from foundations and other sorts of places simply because you always find that even on the boards of many organizations that designate funds that you'll find people who believe in millions of years. It doesn't matter what you believe about the days of creation. This is just a side issue. That is right through the church. There's no doubt about it. But why is that? You know, it's interesting. I had a man call me up on radio in Florida, actually, and he says, I agree with you, he said, that evolution's wrong, but he said, I can't agree that the word day in Genesis 1 means an ordinary day. I said, oh, you can't? He said, no. I said, oh, well, could you tell me when the word day does mean an ordinary day, then? He said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, if you know the word day doesn't mean an ordinary day in Genesis 1, you must know when it does mean an ordinary day to know why it doesn't mean an ordinary day, so I'd like to know when it does mean an ordinary day. He goes, huh? Well, see, here's the point. He knew it didn't mean an ordinary day in Genesis 1. He didn't know when it did mean an ordinary day, but he did know when it didn't mean an ordinary day. And on that basis, he knew that he was right. Something's sort of wrong there, you know. See, it's like another pastor who came to me once and he said, but the word day can mean something other than ordinary day. And I said, well, that's true. It can, but it can also mean an ordinary day. He said, but it can mean something other than ordinary day. I said, of course it can, but it can also mean an ordinary day. He said, but it can mean something other than ordinary. This went on for millions of years. It was incredible, you know. See, he was trying to say that because the word day can mean something other than ordinary day, that the argument was, therefore, in Genesis 1, it's not an ordinary day. I'm saying that's not even the point. The point is, my argument is, well, it can mean an ordinary day, right? It's not a matter of whether it can or can't mean an ordinary day. It's a matter of when does the word day mean day? That's what I said to him. I said, look, Pastor, does the word day mean day? If day does mean day, when does day mean day? I mean, then I go and get an answer. You know, any word has two or more meanings dependent upon context, doesn't it? I mean, if you think about it, I mean, you could say, I am sitting with my back against the back of the chair at the back of the room and my back is sore and one day I might come back. Did you get all those different meanings there? How did you understand those different meanings? Well, you understand because of context, right? See, as I'm talking to you, or Dr. Terry Mortens is talking to you, or whoever it is that's talking to you, as I'm speaking to you, I'm giving you certain words in certain contexts that because you understand English the same way I do, well, sort of, I realise there's some differences there, but you are interpreting those words the same way I am because if you weren't doing that, we wouldn't communicate, would we? We wouldn't have a hope. You know, how do we study scripture? Well, you go and you look at the words and you say, well, this was originally written in Hebrew, this was originally written in Greek, so you look up a Hebrew dictionary, you look up a Greek dictionary and you say, oh, this word means this in this context, this with this verb, and so it goes on, and so therefore, In this particular verse here, the meaning is such and such because I understand the grammar and all the rest of it. Isn't that what we do? Of course that's what we do. You see, here's the interesting thing to me. Do you realize that the word day in Genesis, the Hebrew word for day, yom, in the singular or plural form, is used 2,301 times in the Old Testament? You know the thing that fascinates me? 2,301 times it's used in the Old Testament, but the only place I find most people questioning what it means is Genesis chapter 1. Have you noticed that? I mean, do you hear people arguing about what the word day means in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth? You don't, do you? It's always Genesis, Chapter 1. I mean, you ever been to a Bible study where they spend two hours talking about, well, how long do you think Joshua did take to march around Jericho? I mean, you know, what does the word day mean, do you think? 100,000 years? Do you ever have arguments like that? You say, well, that's nonsense. Of course we know what the word day means there. You know, why is it then that most Christian leaders don't believe that the days in Genesis 1 are really literal 24-hour days. Why is that? I mean, they know what the word day means everywhere else in the Bible, basically, in the Old Testament that I'm talking about here, but they don't know what it means in Genesis 1. Why is that? You know, it's interesting walking into the British Museum of Natural History in London and there's an exhibit there, Earth's Age, thousands or millions of years. Then they said appreciating its age is central to an understanding of the Earth's processes. Well, I tell you what, this whole issue of the age of the Earth is central. There's no doubt about it. It's central to understanding of what's happened in Christianity. And that's really what Dr Mortensen was talking about in one of his sessions. And he'll develop that more in the other session. And see, then you go on, they have these signs here. For instance, stories of the origin of the world and people. in both folklore and theology, or you notice how they put folklore, theology there together, often share a common theme. People are seen to appear soon after the earth is formed. The history of the human race parallels the history of the planet. The Judeo-Islamic Christian tradition, the world and everything on it was created in six days. The literal interpretation of the Bible, you know what is very interesting here? The secular world knows that if you take Genesis literally, it teaches six days. And then they go on to talk about Archbishop Usher. Well, you know, if you take a literal interpretation of the Bible in Genesis there, it means God created only 6,000 years ago. And then they go on to say this, today most scientists agree the earth formed as a result of a swirling mass of dust and condensing in space, and so it goes on And evidence today indicates, and they go on to say, we know the solar system and the Earth itself are about four and a half thousand million years old, 4.5 billion years old, and so on. So now we know the Earth is billions of years old. That folklore, that stuff, you know, literally interpretation of Genesis and that. No, that's out. You know, it's interesting. As you go back in history, what happened back in the 1700s, the 1800s? The idea of millions of years started to be popularized. And as the idea was millions of years popularized, and this is the key to understanding what's happened to inerrancy in the church. Because what happened was this. This is that attack that I talked about in one of those other sessions. This attack in this era of history that really was that missile that helped consolidate that attack on the authority of the Word of God and the church succumbed. because many of the theologians said, oh, we can take the millions of years and we'll reinterpret the days of creation, and we'll reinterpret the Bible's geology, and along comes Darwin, we'll reinterpret the Bible's biology, and Big Bang, reinterpret the astronomy, and reinterpret its anthropology, and so on. We can accept the world's history, that's okay, as long as we cling to the spiritual things and the moral things, that's the most important, but we don't have to worry about the history. We can accept what the world is saying. By the way, people often say to me, but don't you have all these deity methods that prove things are millions and billions of years old? Well, actually, Some of the other speakers will deal with that in other sessions in detail. I'll just mention a couple of brief things here. Often when people say to me, what about all the dating methods that supposedly prove the Earth is billions of years old, I say to them, what about the majority of dating methods that go against the secular accepted dates right now? Because you see 90% of the methods you can use, and there are hundreds and hundreds of methods you can use to age date things on the Earth, but 90% of them actually contradict the accepted secular dates. Let me just give you a couple of examples here. For instance, creation scientists have worked out from the data, from secular data, that the oceans are becoming more salty every year. You see, they can calculate the net amount of salt, how much salt is building up in the oceans, how fast it's building up. And if you assume the oceans were distilled water to start with, and you assume the rate at which salt has been building up has been the same as what it is today. And you say, but you don't know those things. And my point is, that's exactly right. That's the point. You don't know the initial conditions. You don't know all the things that have happened over time. And those sorts of assumptions basically apply to every single dating method. But you see, if you make those assumptions, the ocean's supposed to be 3 billion years old. Actually, there's only enough salt to account for 62 million years. Now, that doesn't mean that I believe that the oceans are 62 million years old. because, you see, Noah's flood would have upset the salt content in the oceans and maybe there was salt concentration there to start with anyway. It could be as young as 6,000 years, but the point is, the method is fallible. But you see, every method is fallible that man devises. You know, that's why we even get things like this and we record these sorts of things in Creation magazine. Of course, had you subscribed, you'd already know this. In Australia, there's a basalt layer that a lava flow had covered some forest and there was some woody material in there, it hadn't been petrified, some of it was burned. But when that basalt lay engineers drilled down and found this, when it was dated by potassium-argon dating, it dated to something like 45 million years old, but when the wood was dated by carbon dating, the wood that was in the rock, it dated to something like 45,000 years old, 45,000 year old wood in 45 million year old rock, slight discrepancy, because you see, there are problems with these dating methods, they all are based on assumptions, that's the point. So what I want to get across to you is this, Man's dating methods, and you'll get more on this in some of the books, Dr. John Morris' book on the young earth and some of the other lectures, you'll hear more of the details and all this sort of thing. All I want to do is to say to you, understand that any dating method man devises is fallible and it's based on fallible, unprovable assumptions concerning the past. Why is it that so many people would take man's fallible dating methods and use them to judge an infallible word? You know, if you just take the Bible on its own, nothing else, just the Bible, do you ever get the idea of millions of years? Absolutely not. You only get the idea of thousands of years, that death came after sin, that God created in six days. You would never get the idea of millions of years if you start from the Bible. But if you start with the Bible and you add man's fallible dating methods, and they are fallible, and you get the millions of years, then you've got death before sin, then what happened in history is just what Dr. Mortensen said in his lecture. What arose in history? These compromised positions. theistic evolution, gap theory, progressive creation, other compromised positions as well. You see, the thing I want you to think about is this. Remember that verse of scripture we started with? Do not add to the Word of God. If you think about those genealogies, so-and-so begets so-and-so, you start with Adam, and by the way, when you read Jude, in Jude it says Enoch was the seventh from Adam. You think God's Word says those genealogies can be trusted? Because when you count them up, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, oh yeah, seventh from Adam. If you're trying to fit millions of years into the Bible, because you don't get millions of years from the Bible, you get it outside the Bible. So, if you're trying to fit millions of years in the Bible, like these theologians wanted to do, where are you going to fit them? You see, all those baguettes, if you tried to fit millions of years in between those baguettes, you've got a problem. Adam baguetting so-and-so millions of years later sort of doesn't work, does it? You put millions of years in the baguettes, you totally destroy them, even if you think there are some gaps in the genealogies. I don't believe there are, unless you can show me from Scripture that there are. But even if there were, you can't have millions of years, it would totally destroy them. So where are you going to fit the millions of years? Do you realize, if you think about it, the only place you could even try to do it has to be before Adam, before the baguettes, which means the six days of creation. I'm going to make a statement to you. I believe, ultimately, in 99.9% of instances, the major reason, the ultimate reason, that most Christian leaders and others in the church will not stand on six literal days has nothing to do, ultimately, with what the Bible actually says, but everything to do with outside influences used to reinterpret the Bible. It's bottom line. See, when you have a look at all those positions, local flood, progressive creation, gap theory, theistic evolution, day age, we could add framework hypothesis. Some of you have probably heard of that as well. You know, I often go to churches and they'll say to me, oh, we believe in a local flood here. Oh, we accept the framework hypothesis in our denomination. Oh, we're gap theorists here. Oh, we're progressive creationists. Oh, we're theistic evolutionists. They say to me, what's your position? And I say, oh, the biblical one. Because you realise something? Not one of those positions comes from the Bible. They're man-made positions and they all have, if you think about it, they all have one common factor. You know what it is? They want to add millions of years into the Bible. That is the common factor with all of those positions. Every single one of them, they want to add millions of years into the Bible. Now look, let's think about this word day in a little bit more detail. So let's have some Australian English here. You see, context is very important. I remember when the Australian was talking to the Texan, and the Texan said to the Australian, you know it takes me three days to drive across my property in my car? Australian said, yeah, I had a car like that once too, mate. So, context is important, isn't it? Now, read this sentence. Back in my father's day, it took ten days to drive across the Australian outback during the day. Okay, back in my father's day, that doesn't mean an ordinary day, that means time, doesn't it? You understand that from the context. Ten days, that means ten ordinary days. During the day, well, that's a daylight portion of a day. Okay, it could be twelve hours, or if you live in Alaska, it could be two hours, certain times of the year. But the point is, there's three different ways the word day is used in English, and it has three different meanings. See, any word has two or more meanings dependent upon context. That's true of Hebrew words, too. The Hebrew word day, you look up the Hebrew dictionary, a lexicon like Brown Driver Briggs, you'll find a number of different meanings for the word day. You know, when people say to me, but the word day doesn't always mean an ordinary day, I say, well, you're right. By the way, it mainly means an ordinary day, which is interesting, but it can mean other things. It can mean year, it can mean time, in the day of the Lord, in the time of the judges, in the day that the Lord created. It doesn't mean ordinary days in those particular contexts. But see, that's not the point that the word day can mean something other than ordinary day. Of course it can. The point is, when does the word day mean an ordinary day? And so what we're going to do, we're going to look at the contextual usage of the word day and we want to apply it to Genesis chapter 1. Now, I'm going to look through the rest of the Old Testament at the way in which the word day is used and when you understand the Hebrew language and so on, you talk to a Hebrew scholar, he'll tell you, well, this is where day means ordinary day, and this is where it means year, and this is where it means time, and so on. And we're concentrating on the when it means an ordinary day, a 24-hour day. Now, here's the interesting thing. Outside of Genesis chapter 1, the word day is used with a number 410 times. Remember what Dr. Kelly said to you, Dr. Douglas Kelly? Whenever day is used with number, it means what? An ordinary day. 410 times, no exception. By the way, Hugh Ross tries to point to one of those, I believe it's usage in Hosea when it's used in prophetic sense to try to say, well there's one instance where it doesn't mean an ordinary day, but if it doesn't mean an ordinary day, the prophecy doesn't make any sense. Day plus number means an ordinary day. Whenever the phrase evening and morning is used anywhere outside of Genesis 1, 38 times in fact, it always means an ordinary day, no exception. Whenever The words evening or morning are used individually with the word day, 23 times each. In fact, outside of Genesis 1, each time, evening with day, morning with day, always means an ordinary day. And whenever the word night is used with the word day, 52 times outside of Genesis 1, it always means an ordinary day. So day plus number means an ordinary day. Evening and morning means an ordinary day. Evening with day or morning with day means an ordinary day. Night with day means an ordinary day. That's when the word day means an ordinary day. Now let's go to Genesis chapter 1 and let's Have a look at this and see if there's any hint at all as to what the word day might mean in Genesis 1. Now, this is a very difficult task because it's going to be very hard to see this. Night, evening, morning, number, day. Evening, morning, number, day. Evening, morning, number, day. I'm getting a very strong hint about something. Evening, number, morning, day. Evening, number, morning, day. Evening, number... Did you get any hint what it might mean in Genesis 1? You know, you look at day one, night, what's the Hebrew writer saying? Look, it's an ordinary day. In case you didn't get it, evening, it's an ordinary day. In case you're really thick, morning, it's an ordinary day. In case you're intellectually challenged, number, it is an ordinary day. Of course it's an ordinary day. You realize And Dr. Kelly said this as well, if you remember, if you saw the word day written the way it is in Genesis 1 anywhere else in the Old Testament, you would not even question it meant an ordinary day. It wouldn't even come into your mind that it couldn't be an ordinary day. Why Genesis 1? It's the only place you can try to fit the millions of years. That's the reason. You know, Hugh Ross says, but in Genesis 2 it says, in the day that the Lord made the heavens and the earth, it doesn't mean an ordinary day there. Well, that's right. Is it qualified by evening? No. Morning? No. Night? No. Number? No. What's it mean in that context? Time. In fact, some translations do that. Some translations say when. Of course, that's correct. And I want you to think about this. Where do we get the idea for our week from? Think about it. Measurement of a day is a rotation of the Earth on its axis, the month, the Earth and the Moon, the year, the Earth and the Sun. Do you realise the week has no basis in astronomical observations? The week comes from the Bible. Exodus 20 verse 11, in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, based on Genesis chapter 1. Rested for one day. Hey, if God made everything in six million years and rested for a million years, that'd be a very interesting week. I'm sure trade unions like it that way sometimes, but that's not what the Lord meant at all. You know his little cartoon our artist did for us, little boy and girl talking. Six days, yep. Six truly, really days, yep. Sure it says six days, yep. Wonder why he took so long. Because if you think about it, do you think God could create everything in six hours? Yeah? Six seconds? No time at all? He's an infinite creator. How come he strung it out? For an infinite God, six days is an awful long time to take. You know, let me tell you a true story here. A young man came to me once and he said, you wouldn't believe it, he said, I'm in a seminary here in America, And he started sitting there and the professor said to us, we don't know what the word day meant in Genesis 1, it could mean anything. And the student said, excuse me prop, anything? Oh yes, anything, we don't know. Could it mean 6 million years? Oh yes, it could mean 6 million years. Could it mean 6 seconds? Oh I doubt it, but yes, it could mean 6 seconds. Could it mean 6,000 years? Oh, it could mean anything, yes. Could it mean 6 days? No, not 6 days. The student said it just blew him off the seat. You see, right away there, he wanted to believe anything but six days. By the way, did you know there are a lot of Hebrew words you can use to mean long periods of time other than an ordinary day, but they're not used in Genesis chapter 1. Then I get people who call me up, oh, you ever had these? I'm going to lose my hair over this one. I'm sitting on the end of a microphone in a radio station. Somebody calls up, Mr. Ham, yes, but the Bible says a day is like a thousand years. You ever heard that thing? Oh, man. You know what I say to them? Yeah, read the rest of the verse. It says a thousand years are like a day. That just cancels that right out. And you know what's interesting? See, first of all, you can't use a phrase from the New Testament to determine the meaning of a Hebrew word in Genesis. Where else do you ever do that? I mean, the New Testament helps show meaning on the Old Testament, but when it comes to individual words, you've got to look at that language. But you don't use a phrase from some other place to determine the meaning of a word in a language. I mean, there are rules of grammar and so on. I mean, that's ridiculous. You don't do that. But people quote it so glibly, it sounds so good, doesn't it? How come the word day in Genesis 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 The days were three hours. See, people don't do that, do they? All they're saying is God's outside of time. That's all the context is. That's not defining the word day. But do you know what the interesting thing is to me? Intriguing. People only use that verse that way and apply it to Genesis chapter 1. Have you noticed that? I mean, if that were consistent, they'd say, oh, you know, Jonah had to be in the wild 3,000 years. I mean, you know, a day is like 1,000 years. You never hear that, do you? You see, they just don't want to believe the days in Genesis 1. And by the way, 6,000 years wouldn't help you anyway when you're trying to add millions of years into the Bible. Why would 6,000 years help? But you know, what I want to do is this. I'm going to do something that, oh, people sometimes get upset by. I'm going to quote some scholars who might even be some of your favourite Christian heroes. I don't know. And some people get upset when you do that. By the way, when I quote these people, I'm not attacking them personally. When Terry Mortensen is quoting all those people, he's not attacking them personally, but if people make public statements to influence how people think, we have a right to check them publicly, and to be Bereans to search the Scriptures to see if these things be so. Some of you might, you may or may not be shocked by some of these things, but one of the famous Christian leaders in America who does not believe in six literal days, does not believe in a young earth, who does believe in the Big Bang in billions of years and makes no apology about it and even has it written out in a form letter he'll send out to you and tell you that, is Dr. James Dobson. And one of the statements he makes is that, and this statement to me sums up the problem in the church to be honest, but the sun wasn't created until the fourth day, so was the first day really a day? I don't know. How can you have day and night before the sun when the sun wasn't made until the fourth day? By the way, when he said the sun wasn't made until the fourth day, he's quite right, but he took Genesis literally to say that. Now, here's the argument. The argument is the sun wasn't made till day four, how can you have day and night without the sun? Do you know why I believe this is a problem with the church in general? Friends, do you know what we've gotten away from in our churches? I see very little expositional preaching these days. Where we open it up and say, here is the word of God, and we're going to study it verse by verse and word by word here, to let God speak to us and tell us what he's saying. I don't hear much of that sort of preaching anymore. because we've grown up in a culture where we take our ideas to the Bible. And we get a Bible verse and say, that's a good one for the day, now we've had that Bible verse, let me get on with my sermon. Here's the problem. It's not a matter of our problem with the sun and saying it can't be an ordinary day. You know what we should be doing? Okay, what does the Word of God say? If the Word of God says here, and for the first three days, if the word for day, in the context here, means an ordinary day, and that's what the Word of God says, as it does for the next three days, then regardless of my problem with the sun, they have to be ordinary days. Otherwise, I can't take the Word of God as infallible. Now, if we do it that way, then we should say to ourselves, now let me have a look at this sun issue. In other words, it's the other way around. Instead of starting with a problem imposing on the Bible, we start with the Bible and say, now let's try to solve what we think might be a problem. And if God's word is true, it's infallible, God's not going to say something theological or inconsistent. We look at it and you realize, oh, wait a minute. Just like Dr. Douglas Kelly said yesterday, you don't need the sun for day and night. All you need is light and darkness and you have light on day one. Let there be light. Wow, what a revelation. People say to me, why doesn't God tell us where it came from? Have you ever thought about how much he hasn't told us? It's an infinite amount. If he told us everything, we'd never graduate. But you know what, he's given us enough information He made the sun to be the light bearer from day four onwards. We already have light and darkness. The word day means an ordinary day. What is the problem? Just because we don't understand something totally and don't have all the answers, we think there's a problem. And by the way, sun's not the only source of light. The source of light in this room is not directly coming from the sun. There's lots of other sources of light out there in the universe now. God obviously had some sort of sense of, some source of light for the sun, some source of light. for day one. But you know the real reason, ultimately, that Dr. Dobson doesn't believe in ordinary days is because he believes in the Big Bang. Do you believe in the Big Bang? Yes. And he goes on and says this, for those who say such a notion contradicts scripture, I hope they'll point out the specific verses that concern them because I haven't seen them. Dr. Dobson's own statement said the Sun wasn't created until the fourth day. If he believes that, he's just contradicted the Big Bang, which teaches the Sun came before the Earth. See, a lot of these Christian leaders have not even thought through the consequences of what they're saying. Now, what I want to do is go through and quote a lot of other people, and what I want to share with you is this. As I quote these various people, theologians, seminary profs, Christian college professors, and so on, I want you to see that there is a common element. Here's what I found. If you look at the commentaries, particularly since the 1700s, 1800s, you usually see that the majority of these would say, yes, the word day in Genesis 1 does mean an ordinary day, but, and there's a big but, but it can't mean an ordinary day because of millions of years. Let me go through and show that to you. Here's a Christian scholar who believes in millions of years, and he wrote in this book published by Christian Publisher, he said this, Christians are often inclined to take the young earth position simply because it appears to be the plainest reading of the Bible. Yeah, I agree with that. But you notice the accusation? You just take the Bible as written. It seems to say young and old. Really? I remember once debating Dr. Paddle Pund from Wheaton College in Illinois. He's a progressive creationist like Hugh Ross, believes in billions of years, big bang, local flood, the days are long periods of time. I debate him for two hours on Moody Radio. In one of his articles on progressive creationism, he says, the most straightforward understanding of the Genesis record is God created in six solar days. But he doesn't believe that. Why not? Look at the bit I left out. without regard to all of the hermeneutical considerations suggested by science. And by the way, what he means by science is really not what I mean by science. By science, I mean operational science in the present, you know, using your five senses and so on. He's talking about big bang, billions of years. Well, that's stepping outside of that sort of science. But the point is, what he's saying is, yep, if you just take the Bible as written, seems to say six days, but it can't. Why? Not because of billions of years. Let's look at another one. How many of you have heard of Dr. James Montgomery Boyce, the late Dr. Boyce? He was a great man of God, by the way, and I appreciated sermons that I heard of his on radio. I really did. The sad thing is, you know what I noticed? There's a lot of these guys, some of their material is fantastic, and it's great to use it from Genesis 11 onwards. But from Genesis 1 to 11, I see this, some great men of God, they seem to miss it. Dr. Boyce, in his commentary, he didn't believe in six literal days. He said, the exegetical basis of the creationists is strong. You know what that means? The arguments from the words of Scripture are strong. I'm proud of that. Not arrogantly so, just, you know, yeah, of course. But he goes on to say, but data from various disciplines points to a very old earth and even older universe. See, the arguments from Scripture for six days are very strong. But, what's a but? Millions of years. Gleason Archer, in his Old Testament survey, well-known Old Testament scholar, He made a statement which I think is a little sarcastic in a way. He said, a superficial reading of Genesis 1, I think it could be said in a little sarcastic way, oh yes, if you just take a superficial reading of Genesis 1, it seems to say 624 hour days. But, oh, let's have a look at the but. Seems to run counter to modern scientific research which indicates planet Earth was created several billion years ago. By the way, have you seen a pattern so far? Oh, let me continue on with this pattern. How many of you have heard of Probe Ministries down in Texas? A number of you. Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not attacking Probe Ministries. In fact, they're a great ministry. They do some great work in regard to talking about ethics and issues like cloning and abortion and they have some great stuff. In fact, we would certainly support a lot of what they say there. But when it comes to the days of creation, here it is again. Look at this. The question concerning the age of the earth comes down to a matter of interpretation both of science and the Bible Biblically, we find the young earth approach of six consecutive 24-hour days in the catastrophic universal flood to make the most sense. However, here it is, the but. We find the evidence from science for a great age of the universe and earth to be nearly overwhelming. Therefore, we believe we must approach this question with humility and tolerance for those with different convictions. What's happening here? Over and over again, these scholars are saying, well, if you just take the Bible, it seems to say six... but! By the way, if you tell generations of people that the Bible says something but it doesn't mean what it says because of outside influences, you've just unlocked a door. And the door you've unlocked is you don't have to take it as written and you can use man's fallible ideas outside the Bible to reinterpret the Bible. You know what's going to happen? You know what you notice in the Bible? When there's sin, rebellion in one generation that's not dealt with, you often see in the next generations, is it there to a greater or lesser extent? Greater extent. I even think of the curse of Canaan in regard to that. And I believe what has happened here, back in the 1700s, 1800s, the influence of millions of years, the theologians reinterpreted Genesis, reinterpreted the dates, unlocked a door. And the door they unlocked was, you can take man's fallible ideas outside the Bible, you can reinterpret the Word of God, and subsequent generations pushed that door open further and further and further and further until today, we get to a place where the Bible is not looked on as the absolute authority in this culture. Let's go on. Charles Hodge from Princeton. I mean, Charles Hodge died quite a number of years ago, obviously, and he's in heaven. He was a great man of God. But, you know, Hodge and B.B. Warfield, both of Princeton, great men of God, wrote on the authority of scripture, but when it came to the days of creation and issues in Genesis, same problem. In fact, Hodge said this about the word day. It is, of course, admitted that taking this account by itself would be most natural to understand the word day in its ordinary sense. It means ordinary day. But, oh, here it comes. If that sense brings a mosaic account of the conflict with facts, and what he means by facts are interpretations, because there are no such things as brute facts anyway, and he's talking about the age of the earth, by the way, in the millions of years, and another sense avoids such conflict, it's obligatory to adopt, not scripture, but that other. And then he went on and said this, the church has been forced more than once to alter her interpretation of the Bible to accommodate the discoveries of science, but this has been done without doing any violence to the scriptures in any degree impairing their authority. I wonder if he were here today if he would say that. Some of you might have heard of Davis Young from Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Davis Young wrote a book called The Biblical Flood to try to convince the church the flood was just a local event. And by the way, it's very obvious, he believes in millions of years and that's why he does this, but you know what he admits in the book? If you just take the Bible as written, it means a global flood. But he made the statement, the contemporary church would benefit immensely from a rediscovery of the compelling writing of Smith, Hitchcock and Miller. Terry Mortensen mentioned Miller, for instance, and Smith. The specific, and they believed in millions of years, the specific exegesis of Genesis espoused by these individuals may be open to criticism. Do you realize what he's saying? Yeah, the way they actually take the words of scripture, you could certainly, you know, criticize that. But, oh, here it comes. It is to their credit that they viewed the growing body of extra-biblical evidence, devastatingly opposed to the traditional ideas of the deluge, which is the billions of years, not as a threat to faith, but as an occasion for reaching a better understanding of Genesis. And this is what David Young says we should return to. Hitchcock concluded that even though new interpretations of the biblical narrative did not seem to be the most natural meaning, and the most natural meaning is a global flood, yet But, here's a but. If geological facts unequivocally require such an interpretation to harmonize the Bible with nature, science must be allowed to modify our exegesis of Scripture. What's going to happen to whole generations of students going through a college being taught that? They're not going to have a foundation in the authority of the Word of God. How many of you have heard of Bruce Waltke? Professor of Old Testament and Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. wrote a commentary on Genesis recently. He says, the days of creation may also pose difficulties for a strict historical account. In other words, those who just take it as written in the grammatical historical sense, they're going to have a problem. Why? Well, here's the but. Contemporary scientists almost unanimously discount the possibility of creation in one week and we cannot summarily discount the evidences of the earth sciences. Oh yeah, because the majority of people And of course, remembering the Bible says men love darkness rather than light, and there's more in the broad way than the narrow way, but we don't worry about that. Yeah, because the majority of scientists, you know, to save the Earth's millions of years old, how can the strict creationists be right? Well, because we're reading the Word of God, that's why. It's like a pastor who came to me once and he said, but surely the majority couldn't be so wrong about the age of the Earth. I said, but Pastor, the Bible says there's more in the broad way than the narrow way. He said, but how can the majority of the Zionists be so wrong? Billions versus thousands? I said, Pastor, the Bible says men love darkness rather than light. He said, but I don't understand how they could be so wrong. I said, in a frustrated way, Pastor, look, the majority of Zionists didn't survive the flood either. Some of you might have heard of Henri Blochet. French theologian. And you'll see the same sorts of things. Actually, there are several schemes that will provide minimal reconciliation between Genesis record and reliable scientific theory. In other words, you don't even talk about whether we should take the Bible as written. You've got to fit it with what the world's saying anyways, one way or another. How many of you have heard of Meredith Klein from Westminster Seminary and Escondido? And he's popularized the framework hypothesis. The framework of apotheosis is so difficult to explain to you. I mean, I have a paper that I don't know, 140, 150 pages of technical Hebrew theological jargon. I've even had professors who support him, his position, tell me, we don't even understand the paper. And I mean, I read through all of that and I haven't got a clue. I'm not a Hebrew scholar. Douglas Kelly would, I'm sure, understand it. But I look at all... Do you know what I look for? See, I have a different way of looking at things. I'm a big picture person, you know what I mean? And I can go to Hebrew scholars that we trust and they'll help us analyze these things, that's what we do, but I look for the motivation. And when I find the motivation there, I say, oh, so that's why he's doing what he's doing. And by the way, if the Bible's that hard to understand, we might as well throw the lot away, if you ask me. Well, Meredith Klein said this. And by the way, the framework hypothesis is basically the days of creation are ordinary days in the literature, but not ordinary days in history. But they are ordinary days in the literature. And even though, you know, there's a historical atom and those things are history, this bit is not history. Well, it sort of is, but it isn't, you know? I never did understand it all. He says, in this article I've advocated an interpretation of biblical cosmogony according to which scripture is open to the current scientific view of a very old universe and in that respect does not discount the theory of the evolutionary origin of man. Right there you have the but. In other words, it's not because of what scripture says, he wants to fit millions of years into the Bible and so he comes up with this massive theological detailed treatise that's so technical. And everyone looks and says, ooh, I don't understand it, but he's good. And then he goes on and says this, but while I regard the widespread insistence on a young earth to be a deplorable disservice to the cause of biblical truth. See, you see his motivation. You know, a number of years ago, Scripture Union in the United Kingdom, it's an organization that influences schools and teaches the Bible and so on, had published an article and they've never withdrawn it. And this article said, when was the universe made? The study of paleontology has rendered it virtually impossible for a serious scientist to make a case for a six-day creation about 6,000 years ago, as Christians would have once believed without question. Not a study of the scripture, but a study of paleontology, which is man's interpretation, fallible interpretation of the evidence. That's why you can't believe the Bible. Let me go on. How many of you have heard of the Expositors' Bible? You know a lot of the older generation pastors use the Expositors' Bible? You have a look at this. Imagine a lot of the older generation pastors, this was one of their major resources for their sermons. If anyone is in search of accurate information regarding the age of the earth or its relation to the sun, moon and stars, or regarding the order in which plants and animals have appeared upon it, he is referred to recent textbooks in astronomy, geology and paleontology. No one for a moment dreams of referring a serious science student of these subjects to the Bible as a source of information. Does that blow you away? And he goes on and says this, that you think about this in regard to understanding the infallibility of God's Word and the inspiration of Scripture, that the compiler of this book of Genesis did not aim at scientific accuracy in speaking of physical details is obvious. See, God's not interested in accuracy. By the way, that's from the same reference. Focus on the family, Dr. James Dobson, Whether that event of creation occurred 6,000 years ago or 4 billion years ago, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, where do you get the 4 billion years from? That doesn't come from the Bible, that's man's interpretation of the evidence. Or within a space of 6 inch or 24 hour days, he doesn't know nor is he comfortable with those who claim without qualifications that they do know. Whoa, whoa, stop for a moment there. You mean you're accusing me of the one of being intolerant? You're uncomfortable with me because I say I do know? And you say you don't know But you're saying you do know because what you are saying is my position is wrong. See, you ever had that happen? Oh, I've had that happen. Professors say to me, oh, we're very tolerant with UC University, we allow all views. I say, oh, really? Yes. What about the view it has to be six literal 24-hour days, 6,000 years? Oh, no, we don't allow that view because we allow all views here. Now, what am I saying to you here? Friends, I want you to think about this. If the word day in Genesis 1 means an ordinary day, but it can't mean an ordinary day because of millions of years, you've just said the Bible's fallible. If the Bible's fallible in Genesis chapter 1, how do you know it's not fallible elsewhere? When the world looks on at the church, and over there in the British Museum in London, they say, a literal interpretation of Genesis means six days, And you say, yeah, but we don't believe that. You know what they do? They just smile. Yep, these Christians, their Bible's not true. Yep, they know it's not infallible. Yep. And we wonder why we've got a problem. See, when you take God's perfect word and man's fallible opinion, when people try to make them agree, which one usually gets modified? It's usually the Bible. And friends, I want you to understand that as you put all this together with what Dr Mortensen is saying in his lectures, what happened back there in the 1700s, 1800s, and the issue of the age of the earth was one of those major missiles. That when the theologians said, yes, we can take that and reinterpret the days, right there, there's the attack on scripture in this modern era to overcome the effects of the Reformation, which was a movement to get back to the authority of the Word of God, so Satan introduces Something now to get people away from God's Word. Just as Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11 3, beware, he's going to use the same method on you as he did on Eve. Did God really say six days? Did he really say global flood? Did he really say there was no death before sin? Did he really say these things? Well, no, he didn't really say those things. Ah, so the Bible's not really true here. You know, I've had people say to me, yeah, but you know, the older generation, you know, Christians and so on. It didn't, believing in millions of years, it didn't affect their Christianity. I mean, is B.B. Warfield in heaven? Oh yeah, I'm sure he is. And Hodge in heaven? Yeah. See, it didn't affect them. Well, I think it did, in one particular way. But I think the effect is not so much with them as it is with those to whom they gave this information. and then to the generation after them, and the generation after them. And by the way, I do think it affected them in this way. They didn't understand the big picture of what was happening in the culture so they could teach people how to deal with that. And in fact, I think they contributed, as great men as they were, unwittingly or whatever, but contributed to the undermining of Christianity in the culture. As I sum all this up, and I've got a whole series of slides here I want to use to sum this up, but I want to read you a quote from someone. I get this sort of statement almost every week. We get letters at the office all the time. This is just one example. I wanted to let you know that in a recent Bible study I attended at my church, a well-respected Sunday school teacher, ordained Southern Baptist minister for over 20 years and former missionary gave a startling comment in class. One of my fellow students was talking about how great your ministry and books are at AIG. The teacher said we should take these resources with a grain of salt and we don't need to be so dogmatic about a literal six-day creation, even though he claimed to believe the six-day creation is written in the Bible. And by the way, when they say we shouldn't be so dogmatic, they always dogmatically assert that. Because whatever position you have, you have a position. When someone says we're neutral, they've just taken a position. Because you're either for Christ or against. You're either walking light or darkness. You either gather or scatter. There's no such thing as neutrality. He said we should concern ourselves with the more important truths of the Bible, such as salvation, virgin birth, etc. Let me ask you a question. How many of you have had someone say something like this to you, as I've had to meet many times? Look, the most important thing is you've got to believe the gospel. The most important thing is you've got to believe the message of salvation. Genesis, creation, evolution, age of earth, days of creation. Look, that's not important. That's not a side issue. For instance, someone will say to me, I believe the days were long periods of time, millions of years, but I'm a born-again Christian. Am I still going to heaven? You know what my answer is? Yes. Can I be a born-again Christian if I don't believe in ordinary days? Hey, I think the majority of born-again Christians probably don't believe in ordinary days. See, it's a side issue. It doesn't matter. It's got nothing to do with salvation. They say, can I believe in millions of years and still be a born-again Christian? Well, yes, you can. Hodge did. See, it's just a side issue, it doesn't matter. The most important thing is the gospel. Who's heard something like that said to them? Have you heard that? Yeah. So, how do you answer that? Let me share with you how I answer that. So I say to these people, so you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead? Yeah. How do you know? Were you there? No. Got a movie rerun? No. How do you know? Well, you know, I've got all this circumstantial evidence and so on, got these books to talk about. Yeah, but wait a minute, that's just circumstantial evidence. Ultimately, how do we know? Well, because in the Bible it's, oh, wait a minute, you're quoting that book? Yeah, but over here it's, oh, you want me to take that as written? Oh, I see. But wait a minute. Science today has never shown a man can rise from the dead. Don't you think we should reinterpret the bodily resurrection and make it into a spiritual resurrection? You can't do that. Why not? Because the Word of God says, oh, the Word of God. Oh, I see. Tell me, do you believe in the virgin birth? Yes. How do you know? I mean, even if you were there, you'd have to take Mary's word for it. I mean, how do you know, ultimately? Well, because here in the Bible, oh, you're quoting that book again. Oh, I see. You mean you want, but science has never shown there can be a virgin birth in humans. Oh, but you can't, you can't take man's ideas like that and reinterpret the Bible. Oh, I see, you can't. Now, over here in Genesis it says God created in six days. Oh, yeah, but they can't be ordinary days because they're millions of years. Oh, I see. Friends, do you realise what's happened? I don't know how to get this across to Christian leaders. This is such a burden that I want to get this across. It's so much bigger than the age of the earth. It's so much bigger than just talking about the days. You've got to stand back and look at the big picture. We are dealing with the authority of the Word itself. And here's the thing. There's been a shift philosophically in this culture. You see, a lot of Christians look out there and say, you know what the problem is? We took prayer out of the schools. No, no, no, that's not the problem. That's a consequence. Well, wait a minute, they threw the Ten Commandments out. No, no, no, that's not the problem. These are just the consequences of what's happened. Well, you know what? They legalized abortion. No, no, that's not the problem. You see, Christians look out there and say, oh, look how bad the world is. I'm saying, don't you understand? Look what happened to the church. That's why the world is the way it is. Because what happened was, back there in the 1700s, 1800s, you unlocked the door. This was this attack in this modern era. And we've missed the attack. There was a whole philosophical change in our attitude to scripture. What you told the world was, we don't have to take the word as written. Now, the scriptural geologists were saying, wait a minute, wait a minute. But they weren't the ones in the press and having the main effect on the churches. They were there on the sidelines saying the same things we're saying today. But you see, those that had the greatest influence said, no, we can reinterpret the days and reinterpret the geology and reinterpret the biology. And as I said in that other lecture I gave, we disconnected as a church the Bible from the earthly things. We disconnected the spiritual things and the moral things from the earthly things. But what we're saying at the same time to the world is, your history is true, the Bible's history really is not true, we can reinterpret the Bible over here on the basis of these things, generation after generation, people become more consistent in the church and apply the same hermeneutic to the rest of scripture. And today, There is this whole sense that the Bible is not the absolute authority. And whereas generations ago you could go out and say, thus saith the Lord, have you not read? It is written. People today say, oh, that's from that book. Because no longer do they have that respect, because the church doesn't have that respect, by and large. In other words, to picture it for you, science proves The six-day creation can't be true, and me and the church say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. But then today, we also have the world saying, well, science proves these things. The virgin birth resurrection can't be true either. And the church is saying, well, no, no, no. And what I'm saying is, you've got to understand, they're just being consistent and applying the same hermeneutical principle. Really, this revolves around two words, eisegesis and exegesis. This word, eisegesis, if you look up, for instance, a Random House, Unabridged Dictionary, it says, eisegesis, an interpretation, especially of scripture, that expresses the interpreter's own ideas, bias, or the like, rather than the meaning of the text. I'd like to suggest to you, in taking millions of years and reading the word dei to mean long ages, is actually an example of eisegesis. And as our cartoonist, Dan, put it, God called the light day and in the darkness he called night, so the evening and the morning were the first day. You cross out the word day and you say millions of years. And let me ask you this, where in scripture does God ever give man dominion over God's word? Now, if you start with the Bible and build your thinking on the Bible and let God's words speak to you, and this is how so few in our seminaries and Bible colleges are taught, in regard to how to preach the Word of God and teach the Word of God. There's a different term, it's called exegesis. The same dictionary, Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, says exegesis, critical explanation or interpretation of a text or portion of a text, especially of the Bible. So, you look at the text and you say, what is this word? The word yom, okay. What language is this? This is Hebrew. What does the word yom mean? Here are all the different meanings. What's its context? We're using what we call the grammatical historical interpretation method, interpretive method here. And as you do that, you say, well, according to the language, according to the context, right here in Genesis chapter one, you know, with a number and evening and morning, yep, the word day, it's an ordinary day. Exodus chapter 20 verse 11, yep, the word day is an ordinary day, it's exegesis. I want to suggest to you that eisegesis and exegesis are two keys that unlock different doors. Your interpretive method is called the grammatic-historical interpretive method. Eisegesis, I suggest to you, is nothing more than using man's fallible ideas to interpret the Bible. I see two doors out there. Here's the word yom. This can be for any word, but we're going to take the word yom, or the word yom, however Which are we going to choose, the left door or the right door? Well, this key, exegesis, unlocks the left door. When you take that grammatical historical context and you apply it to the word day, you're using God's word as authoritative, working from scripture, according to the language, according to the literature. We're taking it as history, as Dr. Kelly said it was, which it is. So you have a literal Genesis and And when we apply that same interpretive method elsewhere in Scripture, we believe in a literal virgin birth, a literal resurrection, we apply the same method in the New Testament as well. Now, there are books of poetry and there's prophecy and so on in the Bible. I'm saying according to the type of literature, you take it naturally, which is what I mean by literally, and of course, you know, we're believing the Word of God. But you see, the other key, eisegesis, unlocks the other door. And what you're doing there is you're saying, human authority has dominion over the text of the scripture. So we question what it says. We don't let it speak to us. We question it. And eventually when you apply that method elsewhere in scripture, you will question the virgin birth and the resurrection, as the liberals do. In fact, I look at liberal theology as nothing more than, in a sense, millions of years applied to the Bible. Because millions of years really involves the philosophy that man determines truth. And that leads to unbelief. You know, I like what Martin Luther said. You know, Martin Luther's day, he had a problem. Some of the church leaders were saying God took only one day to create everything. He had to convince them that it was longer than one day. He had the opposite problem we have. And he made this statement. When Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and whatever is in them in six days and let this period continue to have been six days and did not mention or devise any comment according to which six days were one day. then this next statement of his is my favorite statement of Martin Luther's. But if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are. Don't you like that? And then the rest of the statement from Martin Luther sums up the problem. Remember what we said? Nothing new under the sun. Satan's going to use the same method on you as he did on Eve. He's going to use the same method right throughout history, which he has done. What happened back in the Garden of Eden? Did God really say that? And there's always been an attack on the authority of the Word of God, and there is today. And in our modern era, it really started a big way in the 1700s, 1800s, which much of the church has ignored. And you see, the problem today is, when you think about it, the problem today is most of our church leaders are saying that has nothing to do with the attack. We've got to preach the gospel. saying, don't you understand the gospel? It comes from the Word and if the Word's already been undermined, people aren't going to listen. Don't you see it's so much bigger than what you realise? Martin Luther went on and said this, for you are to deal with scripture in such a way that you bear in mind that God himself says what is written, but since God is speaking, it is not fitting for you wantingly to turn his Word in the direction you wish to go. You know what the problem is today? I will stand here and say this, There are theologians and Christian leaders today who are head and shoulders above me. But I will stand here and say that I believe the majority of them today are turning the word in the direction they want to go to accommodate the fallible theories of man. And I don't care how great a Christian leader. I want to be respectful. I want to honor them for who they are. But I don't care how great they are. I'm not going to let the fallible ideas of man, no matter how great a scholar or how great they are in the culture, override what the Word of God says. That we have too many gullible people in the church that think, oh, because someone has a big radio program or TV program or there's some great leader, we shouldn't question what they say. We need to be Bereans and search the scriptures to see if these things be so. It doesn't matter how great they are in the culture. We need to challenge our Christian leaders. And if they won't listen, vote with your checkbooks. Or do something. You know what I mean? Put the pressure on them. Revolutions come from the people anyway. Now, of course, I'm not going to deal with this in detail because we've done that elsewhere, but then you've got that issue that even the scriptural geologists were saying, you can't have death, bloodshed, disease and suffering before sin. The Bible says in Genesis 1, 29 and 30 all the animals and men were vegetarian. You believe in millions of years there are animals that were eating other animals in the fossil record anyway. It goes against what the scripture says. You've got thorns hundreds of millions of years old. It goes against what the scripture says. Besides which, using the same fallible dating methods of the world, there are human skeletons that date back almost two million years. What are you going to do with those? Because you know in those genealogies you can't think two million years. You've got to list death and disease before sin. No, you can't have that. You can't add the millions of years to the Bible. That makes God an ogre. As Terry talked about, dealing with the nature of God, you're saying God's responsible for death and disease and suffering. No, not at all. We are responsible. You know what the problem is? Remember, Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent. Somebody once said, and the serpent was left without a leg to stand on. We don't, we're just like Adam. Do you know we're like Adam? We don't want to believe we're responsible. We're responsible for September 11th. Oh yeah, we are. We're responsible for that little child that died? Well, yeah, we are. We're responsible for someone's in agony and with some horrible disease in hospital? Yep, we sure are. Because we sinned in Adam. We're responsible. But we don't want to think we are. We want to blame someone else. Blame God. Millions of years, in essence, blames God. Now, let me bring it back to What I often do is apply this to our morality and salvation, because I want you to now crystallize this thinking even more. What you believe about your history determines your whole worldview. You see, if you believe in millions of years, or you believe in a biblical history of thousands of years, it has great bearing on how you view morality, and I want to share why that is so. You see, if you believe in biblical history, six days, thousands of years, what you're really saying is, man must start with God's written revelation to determine truth. We must start with the Word of God. And so if we start with God's Word, believing in six days, we're saying God's Word is authoritative, then we have a basis for right and wrong. We have a basis for marriage. We have a basis for our Christian worldview. We're saying the Word of God is authoritative. We let it speak to us. We build our thinking from the Bible. We don't take man's ideas and oppose them on the Bible. But you see, if you believe in millions of years, Even as a Christian, if you believe in millions of years, what you're really saying is man determines truth by himself without revelation, because you do not get the millions of years from revelation. You get it from man's fallible interpretation based on fallible assumptions about the past when man wasn't there. I mean, where are you going to put your faith and trust? In the words of one who knows everything, who's always been there, whose word doesn't change? Or the words of fallible, sinful human beings who haven't always been there, whose theories change all the time? Where do you put your faith and trust? And so you see, when you see man determines truth by himself, this is what I want us to grasp hold of. It's not just an issue of the age of the earth. The more you teach generations, even in our church, you can believe in the millions of years, in essence what you're saying, they might not understand it exactly this way, but what you're really saying is man determines truth. Man determines truth. Man is in dominion over the word of God. You can accept man's fallible dating methods. And you're really creating that way of thinking. It happens generation after generation, slowly, until today we have whole generations, even in our church, who believe in the millions of years, doesn't matter, and so man determines truth, and so you even see in our church people trying to defend abortion, and homosexual behavior, and ordaining homosexual pastors, and lots of Even people who claim to be born-again Christians, who have no real basis for ethics in some ways, and right and wrong, and don't really act as a Christian should act, and don't have a Christian worldview. Do you know what I find, by the way? Even the majority of students, I believe, that come through even homeschool and Christian schools, don't really have a consistent, real understanding of a Christian worldview. Because we've been so pervaded by this secular philosophy. So you see, this battle between six creation days and millions of years is a battle between two worldviews. That God's word is truth and we have an absolute authority and a basis for a worldview versus one that says man determines truth and we have a worldview that says all is relative and I can decide what I want according to my own eyes. You know, I see this in the church, all these opinions. Well, I think this, and I think that. You go to a Bible study. I think this, and I think that. Well, let's see what the Word of God says here. Well, wait a minute. Have a look at this. George Varner Research. He said, four out of every 10 individuals currently involved in a Christian discipling process contend there is no such thing as absolute moral truth. It's 40%. The survey also revealed that only half of all church leaders, 53%, believe that there are moral truths that are absolute. While there is more than one third of the non-leaders, 36%, who hold such a belief, it is substantially less than might be expected among individuals who extol the Bible as a source of moral truth. If what I'm saying is true, by the way, and we've had this unlocking of the door that gets opened further and further and further, if what he's saying is right and 40, 50% of church leaders and so on are saying that there are moral truths that are absolute. If this philosophy I've been talking about, that man determines truth, is debating the culture, the next generation down, would you expect to see more believing in absolute truth or less? Less. A minority of born-again adults, 44%, and even a smaller proportion of born-again teenagers, 9%, are certain of the existence of absolute moral truth. We see the collapse of Christian morality and Christian worldview, not just in the world, but in the church. And we see secular humanism taking over. You see, when you look at those castle diagrams, I want you to understand now why on the left where I have the foundation, millions of years, I say that equals man is the authority. And out of that comes a castle that says you can do anything you want if you can get away with it. Because that's really the philosophy that comes from that way of looking at things. And on the right we have the foundation, six days equals, God is the authority because you're saying, I'm taking the text as written, according to the language, the literature, this is the word of God. And you build the Christian structure. And see the humanists are clever. How do you destroy the Christian structure? Oh, you don't aim for the virgin birth or resurrection. See, that's so obvious. See, the church knows it's got to cling to those things. If Christ be not raised from the dead, our faith is in vain. It doesn't say, if God didn't create in six days, our faith is in vain. If Christ went to raise from the dead, our faith is in vain. But you see, most people have missed the subtlety of this attack. That it is an attack on the gospel. It is an attack on the cross because it's an attack on the word of God that teaches us the gospel. And so back in the 1700s, 1800s, those guns were aimed at the foundation, really to overcome, as I agree with Terry, the effects of the Reformation. to destroy the authority of the Word of God in people's eyes. And much of the church said, that's okay, give us a canon, we'll aim at our foundation as well. And then we look up in our culture today and we see abortion, homosexual behaviour, pornography, racism, see all these things rampant and we say, look at all the problems in the culture. I've got news for you, they're not the problems, they're the consequences of the problem. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't stand against these evils and say something about them or deal with them, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is if you don't understand what's happened, in the long run, you will not be successful in dealing with them. See, if someone came out to me this morning and said, this afternoon, and said, I'm a homosexual. If someone came out to me and said, I'm a homosexual, what are you going to do about it? You know what many in our church, some of our conservative, so-called fundamentalist Christians would do? That's evil, that's wrong, get on your knees and repent now. I'm not going to do that. You know why? How can I impose Christian morality on someone if they don't have the foundation to understand it? See, one of the reasons the church today, by and large, is looked on as narrow-minded, bigoted, biased, unloving, isn't that how increasingly Christians are viewed? We're trying to impose a Christian morality from the top down on a culture that has a different foundation that the church allowed to be laid there. And you can't impose a structure on a foundation that will not allow it to stand. It won't work. And that's why I believe through the Creation Museum, the Ministry of Ancestors and Genesis, I do believe it is a Reformation ministry for today's world. The Creation Ministries around the world, they're Reformation ministries for today's world. They're not just on about the age of the earth. We're not just on about creation versus evolution. If I can say, and tread on dangerous ground, Personally, it's one of the reasons I have a problem with, say, the intelligent design movement. I don't say they don't do some good in engaging the evolutionists, but most of them are old earthers. I know one of their leaders who's a moony, an ordained cleric of the Unification Church. You know what they're all about? They're really telling the culture, look, there's design out there. And naturalism is not the explanation. You know what we're all about in Answers in Genesis? This is the Word of God and you need to respond to the Gospel. That's the difference. You know what our heart is in Answers in Genesis? We want to see people saved. You know why we search the world and get every book and resource that we can? We want to see people saved. We want to combat the forces of secular humanism. I get so frustrated if I find something out there that you can't make available to the public. We've got to get this out there. We let people know. There are people out there who don't even know. They don't have this information. We need to have a heart for the Gospel. We need to have a heart for the authority of the Word of God. Not just building a big church. Not just building big programs. We've got to have a heart for getting the Word of God out and combating the forces of evil in our culture, secular humanism. And that's why we have the vision we do to build this Creation Museum and to run these conferences. We want to equip people, we want to restore that foundation of the authority of the Word of God, teach people how to defend their faith. We want to oppose the forces of secular humanism from a foundation up, so that we can preach the gospel and see people's lives changed. You know, I want you to remember, next time you hear a scientist say very thoroughly, well the earth is billions of years old, take my word for it. I want you to remember what God said. I created in six days. How about take his word for it? Because that's where we need to be. Are we really going to take the word of God over the fallible theories of man? Now, let me add this. We're not going to have all the answers. There'll be some things like the issue of light from the furthest star in the young universe. We don't have all the answers. But I want to remind you of something else, too, here. And that is this. something my father really taught me. And really to me, the book of Job is such a wonderful book in helping me understand this. Job in chapter 38 and verse 4 said, God said to Job, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Some of you have heard me teach children, next time you hear millions of years, ask that question, were you there? And then 38, 39, 40, 41, Job, what do you read? Job, do you know this? Do you know that? Do you know this? Do you know that? Do you know this? Do you know that? Do you know this? Do you know that? What about this, Job? What about that? Do you know this? Do you know that? Do you know this? What happened at the end of Job? He fell down in dust and ashes and basically said this, Lord, I give up. I don't know anything. You can have a million PhDs, but friends, I've got news for you, compared to what God knows you know next door to nothing. Now, we certainly want to see people with PhDs and Master's degrees and people associated with Answers in Genesis who research all these areas and get answers. Do you know when I came home from school, when I was a teenager, we had none of those books out there, none of those videos, nothing. I said, Dad, what are the answers? But because my father had taught so authoritatively from the word and had opposed liberal theology, had lots of answers to liberal theology, and I've seen him do that, that had such an effect on my life. He said, son, I don't have the answers in this area, but if you don't believe Genesis 1 to 11, you may as well throw the rest of the Bible away. And he said, we need to wait for answers. We didn't have the answers in genetics and geology and biology back then that we have today. But you see, if I'd listened to the Christian leader, the minister in my church, he said, oh, he can believe millions of years, doesn't matter, he can believe the Bible, you know, it's obvious, you know, evolution's fact and so on. I'm glad my father taught me the authority of the Word of God. And as time went on, we found answers in geology and answers in biology. You know, one of the first major books I read was the Genesis flood. I said, Dad, look at the answers. He was so excited. And then the Lord gave me a burden. It's a fire in my bones, sort of like Jeremiah. I just wanted to get every bit of information I could around the world. Just suck it up. And we got all these books and things, and we ran our first seminar in Australia, and people come to look at those books, and they said, we want those books. Then the Lord just gave us a burden, and my wife and I had a little room in the front of our house, got a loan, and we started importing books, and the relationship developed with Creation Life Publishers over here, then associated with ICR and so on, and today Answers in Genesis in Australia is one of the largest Christian ministries in that country and is spread around the world. And you know what, people? As I look back on that, it's all because, to me, a father took a stand on the authority of the Word of God. What we need to really do, I believe, as God's people... See, I see Answers Genesis as a conduit. We've got to get the videos out there. We've got to get the tapes out there. We've got to get the books out there. You know why? I know how much of an effect that had on me when I got Answers. And then down through the ages, I've seen so many people think, I read this book, became a Christian. This helped me defend my faith in school. Wow, now I'm witnessing to my friends and neighbors. It's spreading.