1 Timothy 6, I'm going to begin reading in verse 3, and I'm going to jump through the chapter a couple of different places. Verse number 3 says this, If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings. perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness. From such, withdraw thyself." Go down to verse 11 with me. I'm reading multiple verses. I kind of want you to get the idea, because we're going to look at one specific verse, but I want you to see the context of some of the things the Lord is talking about here. So in verse 11, it says this, "...but thou, O man of God, flee these things, follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith. They hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses." And then drop down to verse 17, if you will. "...Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded." nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who giveth us richly all things to enjoy, that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they hold on eternal life. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings and those who now here's the phrase we're going to kind of zero in and oppositions of science Falsely so-called. Oh, we're not just simply science but science falsely so-called which some professing have aired concerning the faith grace be with thee Amen now I want you to imagine with me just for a moment. I Think it's a wonderful thing that the Lord gave us a record of his miracles what I believe about the Lord I believe based on this book right here that's what I believe and be honest I have a bias everything you tell me I'm going to filter through his word so if you say and I've had people tell me they believe in that that people who have died have gone back and talked to them and and people who outside of that conversation they seem to be credible people So how do you deal with it when someone says, well, I saw my uncle, and he was just as sure as I see you, Pastor White, I saw him. How do I filter that? I filter it through God's word. And the Bible tells us there's a heaven, there's a hell, and there's no place in between. And those who die in Christ go to heaven. Those who die without Christ go to hell. The Bible says the rich man died, and when he opened his eyes, he was in what? Hell, in torment, in hell. Now, Lazarus, when he died, where was he at? He was in heaven, Lazarus' bosom, Abraham's bosom, sorry. And so the Bible tells us there's no in-between. So if there's no in-between, there aren't spirits walking the earth. You say, well, preacher, but I saw, okay, I'm gonna tell you, you saw something, but my bias is I believe the Bible. Now, the Lord gave us a record of his miracles. Now, that's the only record we have. I imagine if we could, if we could tell someone, go to YouTube and there's a video that the children of Israel took when they crossed the Red Sea, when the Red Sea parted and they crossed it, wouldn't it be kind of neat? Could you imagine all the Israelites when they're walking and they see the Red Sea parting, they're all grabbing their phones and they're all filming it and they're walking through and they're saying, look, look, look. And they come out and they're filming it and it goes, shhh. That'd be kind of neat to watch, wouldn't it? But there is nothing. There's nothing on the Internet. There's not. If you're going to believe the miracles of God, you have to believe it based on the word of God. That's the only place it's recorded. There's not on the Internet. I mean, I understand there's sermons you can hear and such. But as far as the actual record, all we have is the word of God. Now, you may ask yourself, we could ask, well, why did God choose to do his miracles before TV and Internet? If God did it today, wouldn't it be so much better? I mean, we have satellites and TV. We could broadcast it around the world. Let me tell you, I don't know why God did what he did when he did it. I just know that God did it. I believe it. And I think it was the best time and the best place because God does everything good. And that's what I believe. I can't give an answer for all why God did, because if I knew all that God knew, then I would be God. And as we all know, I'm not God. Thank you for agreeing with me. Finally got an amen out of some of you. Now, ultimately, God, in all of His miracles, must be believed and received by faith. What you believe about God, you're not always going to have statistical or physical evidence. You can't always hold it and touch it or observe it. The Bible says we walk by how? Faith. The Bible says without this, it's impossible to please God. What is this? Faith. And faith is not the same thing as sight. Because if you saw it, you wouldn't have to have faith. You would see it. And so the Bible tells us that we receive the things of God by faith. Now, that means this. Whatever evidence is produced for whatever thing you want to believe, there will probably be evidence that points to God, and there will be evidence that points away from God. And you have to choose by faith whether you're going to believe God or not believe God. If you're waiting, if someone says, well, I'm going to wait until all the evidence comes in, then I'll make a decision. All the evidence isn't ever going to come in. And you have to choose by faith to believe God and to believe his word. Now, I believe there's evidence. I just think this, that there's not enough evidence to, in just the evidence alone, to convince you. If you believe in God, you look at the evidence and say, yep, it fits. If you don't believe in God, you look at the evidence and say, yep, it don't fit. But ultimately it comes back to believing God by faith. Now here's what I'm saying. There will never be a smoking gun that completely convinces one side or the other. There is nothing, you're never going to have the one thing that will convince everyone on creation. Some people are going to believe evolution no matter what you say to them. And the flip side is true, that there is no smoking gun that's ever going to make me not believe in creation. I think that was one of the questions in that debate. Is there anything that someone could tell you or show you so that you would no longer believe what you believe about origin? There's nothing you could tell me that would make me not believe that God created. The heavens and the earth, and He did it in six days. You say, well, why? Because I believe the Bible. Whatever you say, I'm going to filter it through the Word of God. That's my faith is based on what God said. And whatever you show me, I'm going to say, OK, here's what you're showing me. But here's what the Bible says. And the Bible is going to be that filter. And I'm going to believe it based on the filter of God's word. That's what I do by faith. So then we can ask this question. Why have a debate then even on creation evolution? Why even do we even why even talk about it? If one side isn't going to convince the other side, why talk about it? Well, I think that's a good place to start in our Bible study tonight, and we'll give you three thoughts about this that helps us now start thinking about how we should approach this idea of creation, science, and evolution. Here's the first thing I want you to consider tonight. The debate format, now not the debate itself, just the format of the debate, will not convince enough people to make a major change in thinking. If we were hoping this, And probably not our group as much as some other groups. Probably the evangelicals were probably much more hoping of this. But if we were hoping that this debate would convince our nation on creation, then we were fooling ourselves. In a debate, we're not going to put forth someone who doesn't have any idea about creation. We're going to try to put forth someone who knows some things. Ken Hand knows some things. about young earth creation. And the world is not going to put forth someone who is just totally ignorant about evolution. Bill Nye, I would say, knew his facts. Anyone who saw him, he knew his facts. He knew what he was talking about. So, the debate format was not going to convince anyone, sorry, I shouldn't say anyone, enough people to make a major change in thinking. Now, that type of format would only work if you had one who was real good and one who was real bad. And then a lot of people may say, well, wait a minute, this guy doesn't know anything about it. But both did pretty well. And so not much changed in a large scale. I would say this, if you took a poll of American people, how many believe in creation, how many believe in evolution before the debate, after the debate? Probably not even a statistical change. Here's a second thing to understand. The benefit of such a debate is it raises, now this is the kind of direction we want to talk tonight, it raises the awareness of the issue. It makes it what we call a water cooler issue. You know what a water cooler issue is? Things people talk about at work. Things when maybe you're sitting in lunch with someone or you just meet someone and say, hey, did you see that debate? Yeah, so what'd you think about that? What about this? What about that? And they're just chit-chatting. Maybe if there was no debate, they wouldn't have talked about it. But now they're talking about it. It raises that awareness of the issue because that debate happened. So the debate does not convince people necessarily of position, it really makes them aware of the different position. Let me put it this way. Now think about this, many people watch that debate for the very first time they learn that people who have intelligence believe in creation. Because most people think this, I should say many people think this, do you believe in creation? Yeah, although you must be stupid. You didn't go to school, did you? You're from West Virginia. You're just dumb, aren't you? How could you believe in creation? All the smart people believe in evolution. But then you start talking about scientists and people who are scholars who hold on to creation. People say, wait a minute then. Maybe there's something to this. If people with PhDs, people who have years of experience, people who are well-educated, who are well-known scientists, they believe in creation. Well, maybe we ought to start thinking about the other side. So, it raises that awareness of the issue. So, it means this, sometimes you have to create the interest in the question before you provide that answer to it. Then, here's a third thing. Now, I want you to think about this. The downside of such a debate is that TV promotes style over substance. Now, here's what I mean. I don't know how many actually watched the debate, heard the debate. Okay, so I'm talking to just a couple of us. Now if you were to watch that debate, it was available for free on the internet, but if you were to watch that debate, and Ken Ham presented what I would say a good argument for young earth creation. Young earth means God created the world in six days. Okay, young earth creation. And also means he did it 6,000 years ago. So that was Ken Ham. what I believe the origin of the Earth, the universe. Bill Nye presented a very good argument for evolution. He did a very good job of it. He knew his facts. He was good at it. And so, if all we saw was the content, we'd say it was a tie. But, you know, Bill Nye has done a lot of TV shows. Anyone ever seen any of his TV shows? He's pretty good at it. He has a good way of presenting things. Other than evolution, I mean, other things he presents that, you know, the real educational. Now, evolution, obviously, I don't agree with, but, you know, presents that in the same slick format. Now, Ken Ham doesn't have that experience. So if you watch this debate, here's what you found. That Bill Nye won hands down when it came to style. If you're giving style points, Bill Nye kind of wiped the floor with Ken Ham. He knew how to present himself. He knew how to turn a word. He knew how to say things and even the way he stood and looked at it. Now, substance, tie. Style, well, I would say Bill Nye won pretty much hands down. Now, why am I telling you that? Now, here's why I'm telling you that. Listen to this statement. Many will accept a well-spoken lie over a poorly spoken truth. That's why we ought to know a few things. Because there's well-spoken lies out there. So we need to know some things, truth about creation, so at least we can carry ourselves a little bit and be able to talk. I'm not saying Ken Ham did a terrible job. I'm just saying Bill Nye was, as far as presenting things, that style, he was real good. Let me see if I can give you an illustration. Here's an old one. I'll give you two of them. Here's an old illustration. Way back yonder, I'm talking about years ago. I'm talking about decades ago. 1960, what was it? 1960, I think it was. Yep, it was 1960. The Kennedy-Nixon debate. Remember that, right? You remember that? Okay. The Kennedy-Nixon debate. Here's what everyone says. That if you heard it on the radio, you said, Richard Nixon wiped the floor. Or I shouldn't say wiped the floor. He won the debate. If you watched it on TV, everyone said, John F. Kennedy won the debate. Richard Nixon walked in. It was one of the, I think it was the very first televised debate. He didn't understand the power of television. He didn't shave. He had a five o'clock shadow. He didn't have a lot of makeup on. He didn't really kind of have a pale appearance. He was sweating. But JFK had a, you know, he came in early. He had the right makeup on. He was well shaved. He looked real good on TV and was real smooth. So if you just heard it, you'd say, well, I agree with what Nixon is saying. But if you saw it, you'd say, boy, I think JFK is the man. I'll give you another example, and this is probably a little bit more current for us. Whether you like President Obama or not, let me tell you something about him. He knows how to talk. That's about all he can do, but he knows how to talk. He knows how to give a speech. He is, in that way, he's kind of slick. I don't agree with what he's saying, but when he says it, I'm thinking, he sounds good when he says it. I mean, he knows, to be honest, he knows how to tell a good lie. Because I know some things he's saying is not true, but he says in such a convincing way. On the flip side, you look at someone like a George W. Bush. I'm not saying I'm 100% Bush. I'm saying I'm 50% Bush. But anyways, but some of the things he said was real good, but he looked like a doofus saying them. And people made fun of him all the time. He looked like, you know, his eyes were kind of crooked and he had this weird look on his face. And, you know, you felt like you want to stop and say, can someone kind of help him out there? I mean, he just looks stupid sometimes. He said America and he said, you know, he had that Texas. Now, I think he's a great American. I think he's a good president. But he didn't really know how to present himself like an Obama. If he was like President Obama, he probably would have done better in polling. And so what I'm saying is we have to make sure we, I'm not saying be well polished. I'm not saying try to be slick. I'm simply saying this, that it's important not just to say, I believe creation. It's important to be able to present it in a way that we can get it across to people to open the door to present the gospel to them. And so we need to make sure we understand that. So that brings us to our Bible study then. Ready? Let me move quickly. Sounds like everything is settled down there. Ready? I'm gonna give you three main thoughts. This is gonna lay a foundation for the next couple Wednesday nights. Okay? We're not trying to get you to be, I'm not claiming to have all the facts. I'm not claiming to be super smart. You're not claiming I'm super smart, okay? So we're all in the same agreement there. What I'm trying to do is this. I'm trying to get us some things so that when we're talking to someone, that we can carry the conversation enough to get to the point to present the gospel to them. Now, if creation comes up and you sound like a complete doofus, Okay. And then you try to witness to them. They're going to say, well, wait a minute. You didn't know this about the Bible. Why would I want to believe that? Okay. There's a lot to be told. I'm condensing it because I'm not saying I know it all. I'm just saying, there's a few things I think that would help us to understand how to talk in a way that would at least open the door to witness to people. Ready? Here's the first thing I want you to understand. Number one is this. Science is neither good nor bad, which is actually totally opposite of what I said last week about music. The world likes to say, music's not good, music's not bad, it's whatever you want it to be. Well, that's not true about music. Music is something very biblical. We can look at it in that way. But when it comes to science, science is all moral. It's not good or bad. I'm not anti-science. You should not be against science. You shouldn't be like, science, oh yeah, man, that's of the devil. No, it's not. If anything, it's of God because it's observing what God has done. It's an observation of creation. So science is neither good nor bad. Now we started with that verse in 1st Timothy. I want you to look at it with me. And that is verse number 20, 1st Timothy 6, verse 20. Oh Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science, falsely so called. And this way it's used in a bad slant, I guess. And we can look at that verse and say, oh yeah, that's the problem. The problem is science. He's not saying that. what people say is science, but it's being falsely used or falsely applied. Let's look at a positive side, if you will. The book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 1. There's only two places in the Bible the word science is found. That's one of them. It's used in a, we'll say, kind of a negative connotation. But it's used in Daniel, that's the second place, and that's used in a positive connotation. Daniel chapter number 1, and look with me at verse number 4. Now he's talking about these people that the king is going to choose. Verse 4, children in whom was no blemish, but well favored, and skillful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science. And such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, in whom they might teach the learning of the tongue of the Chaldeans. And here science is used. There's nothing bad or negative said about it. It's just a fact. They understood science. They had some knowledge about this. And so it could be good or it could be bad. So what is science? Science is simply this. It's knowledge about our world, our universe, and our body attained through what? Now watch this. Observation. Can I tell you, this is the key word right here. Observation. That's the key word, observation. They've observed it. Now, there's some things they observe and they therefore make theories and they say, well, because we see this, therefore we believe that. But they didn't observe that. Therefore, you can't say that's technically science. Now, watch this. It is not the observations that are the problem, but the conclusions made by man. You get two people, one who believes God and one who doesn't, and they can look through a telescope and they can see, well, not that type of telescope, but a big, like a radio telescope or used a Hubble telescope, and they could see stars that are thousands of light years, maybe millions of light years, at least find through mathematical equations, these millions of stars, millions of light years away. And they can say this, how can the earth only be 6,000 years old if that star has existed for millions of years based on how far away it is? Can both be true? Yeah, they both can be true. So you did not observe the beginning of that star. You're observing that star right now millions of light years away. We both observed the same thing. Our conclusion is in the beginning God, that's for creationists, For the evolutionists, well then, that must have somehow through evolution came about millions of years ago. Could not God created it 6,000 years ago and put it millions of light years away? Sure He could have. You see, it's what the conclusion is. Observation is what it is, whether you're saved or unsaved, whatever you believe, but the conclusion is what changes based on the bias that you have. So the observation may be correct, But a man's bias will direct his conclusions. This is probably at the heart of the issue. You believe what you believe about something because what you believe before you knew about it. You already believe something before you knew about it which control what you believe after you knew about it. So some observations can be used to support creation or evolution. You take the same observation and say, well, that supports creation. Nope, supports evolution. And it all goes back to your bias. So that would help us to understand big number two. Here's what I want you to understand secondly. There are four major, and again, this is wordy and we're gonna look at some more verses here in a moment, but we're trying to lay a foundation for some future studies. I always say that in the very first one. And we'll build on it in the next couple of weeks. There are four major biases. biases, biases that unsaved men hold to that cloud their conclusions. Now, we can say they're not saved, they don't have faith. Oh, that's true. But there's something they believe that clouds what they think. What are they? I'm going to give you four major ones. Number one is this. It's called naturalism. You want to know what naturalism is? I'm a preacher, I think it has something to do with nature. Yep, you're right. Here's what naturalism is. There is nothing beyond the natural. In other words, nothing supernatural. If you have watched this debate or if you've not watched this debate, either way, what I would challenge you to do, if you take what we're talking about tonight and go back and watch it or watch it again, you'll start seeing why Bill Nye says what he says. One of the things he believes is in naturalism. He does not believe in the supernatural. And he kept trying to lay a trap for Ken Ham. Ken Ham was smart enough not to fall in the trap. Because the debate was over creation. Bill Nye spent the whole debate trying to change it over to the Word of God. And Ken Ham didn't fall for it because that wasn't what the debate was about. And it was wise of him to do that because the debate is on the young Earth's creation, origin, however they call it. So, naturalism simply says this, there's nothing supernatural. Everything has to be tied back to nature. Now, let me ask you this, when God created the heavens and the earth, he did in how many days? At the end of the sixth day, what is the last thing he created? Man and woman. And he saw that it was good. And so here you had, you had these two little infants, because they're only a day old. You ever see a day old baby? So there were two little infants. And so then he had to create some robots, like cyborgs, to watch these babies because, you know, it couldn't be another human being because Adam and Eve are the first human beings. And so they watched, they had to change it. Isn't that what happened? Then, how? Who took care of them? Is it possible that God created man and woman in a already adult state? It's completely possible. And it's also most likely. Now, you say, well, how can someone be created as an adult? Well, I mean, if you're creating, I guess you can create them any way you want to. See, I believe God did it. He did it supernaturally. It doesn't have to be a natural reason for what God did. God is not limited by the laws of nature. Nothing about nature limits what God does. God created, God, the Creator, God created nature, the creation. The creation does not dictate to the Creator what the Creator can do. The Creator is not bound by any laws of the creation. He created it. He can change the laws. He can do what he wants. He's not bound by those laws. He's the Creator. Now, let's give you a biblical verse, because someone may say, well, how did all that happen? Simple. God did it. Kind of the definition of being God, He can do all things, right? That's kind of the definition of being God. So let's look at the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 11. I believe this verse actually came out in the middle of that. And I think it's a good verse. If you get in a discussion, this is a good verse to know about. Because it all goes back to this idea of faith. That's how we started the Bible study. Now look at verse 1. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtain a good report. Now look at verse 3. Through faith we understand. that the worlds were framed by the what? Word of God. God spoke and it happened. So that things which are seen, that's creation, were not made of things which do appear. In other words, God was not limited. God didn't have to take something to make what we have. God didn't start with anything. God started with Himself. out of nothing, ex nihilo, out of nothing, God created all things. So all that is, all that can be seen, was not created by things that do appear. It didn't come out of something. There was no laws of nature that had to be followed. God created supernaturally all that there is. So if God can create man and woman, let's just say they're 20 years old. We don't know what age, we just say they're 20. If God created a man at 20 years of age and a woman at 20 years of age, could he not create a tree at a thousand years of age? Yes. That's why tree rings mean nothing. That's why the distance of stars away from the earth mean nothing. Why? Because God, in the beginning, God created it. So God is not bound by nature. And so when you use those type of things, you simply say, How can nature bind he who is supernatural? It can't. By definition, supernatural means above natural, above nature. That's who God is. Then there's a second one. This is not, we'll go through this quickly, but just so you know what the second one is. The second one is pantheism. And that simply means this, and it comes out, not in necessary debates like this, but it may come up a little bit if you get in this discussion. That is, God is contained in all natural things. Now if you wanna know these type of people, these are your wacko environmental type people. Don't cut down a tree because God's in the tree. Gotta save the whales because God's in the whales. We gotta save that little seal, even though we let him go and then the killer whale eats him. We gotta save that seal because God's in the seal, which is interesting because none of them ever say let's save the babies. Save the whales, abort the babies. That tells you I guess their thinking. But anyways, That's one of the reasons they get caught up in all of nature because they think nature is their God. God's in their nature. Not their nature, but in nature itself. Number three is this. Scientism. Now this gets back to where we were a moment ago, naturalism. It simply means this. Here's what they believe. All answers can be found in science. All answers can be found in science. Anything that we do not know can be known if enough time is given for it to be known. I'll give you something to think about. If you were to start where evolution, now evolution actually started prior to Darwin, but he's the modern proponent of it. If you start in the 1800s with what they started talking about evolution, and then read what the following generations talked about evolution, one thing you'll find is this, the time period keeps expanding. We started at the Earth was evolved out of nothing millions of years ago. Then they said tens of millions of years ago. Then they said hundreds of millions of years ago. Then they said billions of years ago. Then they said tens of billions. You know why the time keeps increasing? Because if you give something enough time in science, then eventually it will work out. That's what they think. How can evolution happen in a million years? Well, it couldn't. So they added and made it 10 million. It didn't work. Added and made it 100 million. Then they made it a billion. Then they made it 10 billion. Then they made it 100 billion. Now, pretty soon, you know, they'll make it in trillions. And so the idea is give it enough time that science, there's enough science, all these answers can be found if enough time is given for those answers. Now, go with me to 1 Corinthians. Give you a couple of verses about this. I didn't say much about pantheism, Genesis 1 would be one answer, in the beginning God. God exists prior to creation. Romans 1 would be another place that tells us that God exists outside of nature. So God cannot be nature. He cannot be in that way in nature. He exists outside of nature. But now we're in 1 Corinthians. We're in chapter 2. We're looking at verse 9. Again, we're not trying to be experts. We're trying to have something that we can converse around the water tank or the water cooler. Talk enough to bring that conversation to about Christ. 1 Corinthians 2, look with me at verse 9. But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard neither entered into the heart of men the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit For the Spirit searched all things, yea, the deep things of God. So that tells us some things are only going to be learned through the Lord, not through science. We go to another place, 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3. Look at verse 1. This I know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affections, truth-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Then it says, having a form of godliness. Having a former God in this, but denying the power there, from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses and leave captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lust." Those are great verses, aren't they? Those are great verses. I like all those verses. Okay? But those are not the verses I wanted to share with you. But I like those verses. I'm not sure why I typed those verses in. Somewhere, if you take those numbers and those letters and rearrange them just right, I'm sure you'll find the one I'm looking for. verse 7 up there it is I stopped too soon wow look at verse 7 ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth Wow great verse great lesson don't stop until you've done to the bottom ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth and that's kind of if you read verse 1 all the way down to verse 6 which we did and then continue the verse 7 You'll see something here that describes sometimes people we know, but they're always learning. They never come to the knowledge of truth. So, scientism doesn't work. All answers can't be found simply by time. Then here's number four, and this is really the crux of the matter. It's called uniformitarianism. So, it either has something to do with the uniform we wear, or it has something to do about something about uniform. Now, before I tell you what it means, in this debate, as things started progressing, Ken Ham gave the argument, it was a very good argument, he said, there is observable science, there's things we observe. And then there's historical science, things that we believe happened in the past, based on the things we observe. We didn't see this happen in the past. How many people saw God create in heaven and the earth? None. By the way, how many people saw life evolving out of nothingness? None. No one's ever seen man evolve, have they? Nope. No one's ever seen man created. Neither one is by observation. They're both by faith. And so, he said there's observable science, that which we see. There's historical, that which we say that we believe, but we never really saw it happen. We just, based on this, we apply it to that. Well then, Here's what their argument is. If we look at it today, now listen carefully, because it sounds a great argument, and this is usually how they carry the day. If it happens today like X, then we can back up the clock, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. It says we know how X works, and we can apply it to the past, and that's how it works back then. If this is how science works today, and I mean this is the laws, this is how they work, Why can't they work this way a million years ago? Okay, let's try a law of gravity. Ready? If I drop this book, which way is it going to go? How many times do you think it'll go down? Well, I mean, every time I drop it, right? Only one time, because you're going to... Oh, yeah. It won't keep bouncing back. It's not rubber. Okay, every time I drop it, it'll go down. How many times when I let go, will it go up? So if I go back 10 million years ago, if there was such a thing, and drop this book, which way would it go? Down, because you'd say, well, okay, and now we can understand that. But let me ask you this, would it go down as fast? Would the gravity be the same? Would it be different? Well, those questions we don't know. And that's where the argument comes in. Because all things are not always the same. Here's a uniformitarianism. The same natural processes are always working at the same rate. If you ever get really talking to someone, you talk to your neighbor and they say, well, I just think, you know, evolution is the way, it just makes sense, this is how it happens today, it always happened this way. Well, who said it always happened this way? How do we know it always happened this way? There's a statement they'll give you, and here's one of the statements they love to make, evolutionists. is the key to the past. Let me tell you what the key to the past is. This book right here. That's the key to the past. Everything has not always been the same. As soon as God does something in nature, it changes nature. If we dug a big ditch here and filled it full of water, and the water level went up to here, Let's say up to here at this stage. So I'm above the water. You would say, no matter how many times you fill it, it would always be there. But what if God miraculously parted the water and we walked across some dry ground? Would that be different? Things have changed, haven't they? If God says, I want you to fight these enemies. and keep fighting and they fight them all day long to the point where now it's getting dark and they can't continue battling and they cry out and say, God, we're running out of time. And God holds the sun in place so they have more time to fight. Doesn't that kind of change some things? Every time God puts his finger into nature and works, does it not change nature? Isn't it making an impact? All things are not being the same. And so we have to understand this, by supernatural acts of God, all things are not remaining the same. I can give you two major things that have changed. Number one, the fall of man. It's different today than it was 6,000 years ago. What do you think is the number two big change? The flood. The flood changed everything. It changed the atmosphere. It changed what's under the ground. It changed the face of the ground. It changed the way the continents are laid out. Everything changed because God did something supernatural. There's not a consistent process that you can go back millions of years and it always was the same. Things have changed because God supernaturally involved Himself into nature. Look with me at 2 Peter. Hebrews 11 is a very critical verse. 2 Peter 3 is the second critical verse. The first thing they're going to say is, well, I just think, you know, what we see is what we got. Hebrews 11 says, are seen are not made by things which appear." The second thing is to understand this is not everything remains the same. 2 Peter chapter number 3, look at verse 1 all the way down this time to verse 7 before we stop. This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both which I stir up your pure minds with a way of remembrance, that you may be Mindful of the words which are spoken therefore by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Savior knowing this first That there shall come in the last days. Those are the days we live in scoffers Walking after their own lusts and saying where is the promise of his coming? You even talk about Jesus coming hasn't come yet for since the father's fell asleep. Now, here's what they're saying. I All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. Nothing has changed from the very beginning of creation to today. Nothing has changed. That's the scoffing. That's the lie that they believe. Now look at verse five. Here's God's answer for this. They willingly are ignorant of. In other words, they are purposely ignoring and being stupid about something. What are they being stupid about? For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished, some of the flood. But the heavens and earth, which are now by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." What he's saying is they purposely ignore the fall of man. They purposely ignore the flood. And they keep themselves ignorant of that. And that's why they're scoffing about what the Lord is saying. So that brings us to big number three. Ready? Now I'm gonna take a few minutes to explain this because I think this is, if we're not careful, this is when people start thinking we're kind of whacked in the head because we go a little wacko in this area. The battle between creation and evolution. Notice this is not a battle over science. We are not anti science This is how they paint us in the corner They make us look like Bible believers like we're a bunch of a bunch of buffoons who and they're saying but we know so many things they're denying and they and they make us look like we're denying scientific facts and scientific observation when they make us look like a bunch of idiots because we simply won't believe in evolution now the battle is not between Sorry, the battles between creation evolution. It's not a battle over science. I It's a battle over faith. That's the battle. I believe in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. They believe in the beginning, boom, big bang, all these things happen over a process of time, given enough billions, eons, gazillions years, all of this panned out. They have their faith, we have our faith. But the things of science, we both agree. Now that's important because here is really how they attack us. Go with me to Psalms 119. Psalms 119. I'll give you this one, explain it to you, give you a couple of thoughts, and we'll be done for the night. Psalms 119. Psalms 119. Look with me at verse 160. Psalms 119, 160 says this, thy word is true. Now, what's the next three words? From the beginning. And every one of thy righteous judgments endureth forever. Some people say, well, preacher, I really don't think it matters. Not everyone believes in creation. Not all Christians believe in it. But here's why we take a hard stand on it. If you go to Genesis 1, 1, the very first, let's turn to Genesis 1, 1. You turn to the very first page in your Bible, the very first chapter, the very first verse, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. If the Bible is not true from the beginning, why would you even go further than that? If you're talking to an unsaved person and the first thing you have to give up, okay, well, maybe God didn't create the world. They're going to say, well, if the Bible is lying in the very first verse, I don't really want to hear anything else it has to say. And so the whole reason we need to know some things is not, we're not trying to have slick marketing. The whole idea is this, is that we're trying to at least be somewhat intelligent about this and say, you know what, the most important thing. In fact, someone wrote me an email a couple of weeks ago and asked, and I don't know who this person is, and I have an idea of what was being set up, but I answered the email. And they asked me, they said, well, what is your, you know, we're looking for a church, what does your church believe about homosexuality? copied out of our Constitution, have a digital format of it, digital copy of it, copied and pasted to the email and said this is what our Constitution says. And then I talked a little bit and made sure they understood what that meant. And then I said, but the most important thing that person needs to know is Jesus Christ is their Savior. And then I talked a little and gave the Gospel. Because no matter what you believe, if you're not saved, you're going to hell. So the whole idea of being able to talk about creation is to open that door and say, to a lost person, the reason I'm concerned about creation, because the first verse is true, and these verses are true that talk about Jesus came and died for us. And then you can get right into the gospel. And so we believe that it's not a battle over science, it's a battle over faith. Some of the, now I want you to think about these next couple of things. Some of the greatest scientists, some of our greatest scientists believed in God and creation. People like Isaac Newton. You know what he invented? Big Newton, right? Isaac Newton. That's an old joke. But he is a very famous scientist. Isaac Newton. Robert Boyle, not as well known, but very famous among scientists. Louis Pasteur, very famous. Werner Von Braun, guy who did help with the rocket program in the early 50s, maybe even up until the 60s. Very famous. Now, these men Very clearly you can read that gave testimony about believing in God, believing in creation. So some of our greatest scientists believed in God and believed in creation. So what does that mean? It means several things. You can believe in God and be a creationist. Yep, you can. You can believe in God and be a scientist. Yep, you can. The only thing is, you can't believe in God and be an evolutionist. It has nothing to do with science. It has everything to do with faith. That's the argument. The argument is over faith. One last thought. before we close out. Back to that debate. If you were to watch it, here is how, it's slick. Bill Nye was slick at this. About halfway through the debate, He started saying something and he repeated it multiple times. He said this, he said, oh, you know, evolution, blah, blah, blah. Here's all the facts. And then he said, and we need, we need to advance our nation in science. We got to be prosperous again. I'm kind of paraphrasing. We, we, we, we should take the lead in science. We need, we need to believe in science. I'm thinking, why does he keep saying that? Ken Hamazos believes in science. He named scientists who believe in creation because here's the, here's the, here's the marketing or here's the lie. Bill Nye was simply saying this, creationists will hold us back in our science. You're the problem with America. You're the problem with America. Us Bible believers are holding America back. We're a bunch of buffoons, and because we believe in creation, all of a sudden, what, we want everyone to have outhouses? No one wear shoes anymore? You know, what does that mean? Because we believe in creation, we're anti-science? No, but that's what they, so the world all of a sudden looks at us and says, you're the problem, you're the problem. It's like, no, they believe they have their faith, we have our faith, but we both agree, science, 99% of it we probably agree with, we simply don't agree the fact, or I shouldn't say the fact, but the faith about evolution. That's what we don't agree about. So what is the modern, this is what Timothy called it, the opposition of science falsely so-called. Here's how they stated it. Science can only be advanced by those who believe in evolution. That's the lie. I believe this. I believe you can be a Bible-believing Christian, believe in creation, believe in young earth, and still be a great scientist. You don't have to believe in evolution to be a great scientist. Science, all science is, is trying to look at God's creation, observe it, and make some deductions about it. It has nothing to do with evolution. Evolution is all about faith.