And friends, I greet you this morning in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, so thankful for his majesty and glory as we have just sung together. And it was 64 years ago last month that I came to know him as my savior while I was an evolutionist at Princeton University. And God spared me through the Second World War in Europe, in the Battle of the Bulge, brought me back to Princeton to finish, and prepared me for a lifetime of teaching and proclaiming and writing about Christ, the creator of the world and our savior. By his mighty word, everything came into being. By his mighty word, all things are upheld, directed and controlled in his providence. By his precious blood, we have been redeemed. His resurrection from the dead, about to be celebrated all over the Christian world, is the assurance that we, too, will be with him forever. And we look for his kingdom to come, especially Dr. Larson's emphasis this week, as you know, God's prophetic plan of the ages. And what we say in the creation perspective this week, I trust you'll understand, is an introduction to what he will complete. I'm the Alpha and he'll be the Omega of our Alpha Omega conference. Thank you so much for including me in this wonderful opportunity to share together. Friends, I have to begin this morning with some rather sad things to say, and we'll begin with a little picture here of the typical public school system. And this comes not from a Christian magazine, but from Time magazine just recently, seven or eight years ago, which is still true more or less today. The teacher asked the question, let's begin today's discussion question. Is a moral foundation really necessary to save public education? As you look at the cartoon, do you see that school building is in serious trouble? I immediately have to make an apology. I thank the Lord that there are exceptions to this disastrous picture. There are some Christian teachers. There are some Christian students among the 45 million young Americans who are in public schools today. But the textbooks are all totally, completely atheistic, secularistic, and evolutionary. Watch what's happening. Three and a half hours the typical adolescent spends alone today. Guess what the average child does with that time alone? Television and whatever. Where they're being fed, poisoned, inoculated against the truth of God, hour after hour, day after day. In fact, a child by the time he graduates from elementary school, on the average, has seen how many murders, 8,000. It begins to subconsciously affect the mind. Anyone who gets in my way, that's it. Now watch what else is happening. 11 fewer hours children spend with their parents each week compared to the 1960s. And I say, well, Lord, this is a trend that I am absolutely shocked to consider. Look at this 300% increase in teen suicide between the 60s and today. Why, if a child is told you just came here by chance. Through lifeless chemicals, billions of years ago in a primeval sea. And you have no significance, no meaning, no purpose, no dignity. There's no God who loves you, has made a plan to provide for you. Why not just end it all? Why not? 700 plus percent increase in the number of minutes Evening News spends covering homicide. What's that mean? Murder. From the from 93 to 96, just that four year period. Actually mean without trying to be sensational. Let's be realistic, shall we? When the school is teaching the child There are no absolutes. Life is an accident. People are evolved animals. Millions of years of violence, killing, death, disease, pain, suffering brought humans into existence. That's what I was taught and believed as an evolutionist. And my father, too, and my grandfather. I was raised in a totally godless, evolution oriented family. I was an only child. That's all I ever heard. OK. We just remove the Bible and prayer and the Ten Commandments from the school and stand back and wait. And the child says, oh, the Ten Commandments say thou shalt not murder. Why not? Good question. Why not? Well, friends, the only answer I can find that the living God has given us is very difficult to fathom. Now, watch carefully. God says, you will understand how the world began and who I am and who you are and how we relate to each other by creation if you have what? Faith. Did you see that? By what? By faith. We understand. Now, God guarantees we'll have what? Not just more guesses and debates and arguments and theories and opinions. We'll have understanding of something. Now, what's the condition? By faith. Well, I'm among many who would say, oh, Lord, I was afraid you'd say that. I was hoping it'd be by science, by logical, rational demonstration that we can prove that you created the world. Now, friends, there's an enormous new movement that is sweeping the world of Christianity today. It is called what the intelligent design movement. I never knew such a thing would ever happen. When dear Dr. Henry Morris, who died just a year ago this month, my co-author of the Genesis Flood book, and I saw that book being, of course, attacked by all kinds of theistic evolutionists and day age theorists. And so we understood we weren't shocked. We tried to answer that in subsequent books, especially in my case. the world that perished, a response to 17 of the major objections to our arguments in the Genesis flood book. Little did we realize that by the 1980s, there would be an enormous new movement called what? Intelligent design. And I said, Lord, what does this mean? Because here are brilliant writers starting with Michael Denton in New Zealand in his book Evolution, A Theory in Crisis, and Philip Johnson, University of California, Berkeley, and Michael Behe, Darwin's Black Box, Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, an enormous movement which is dedicated to what? to rationally, scientifically, logically, evidentially proving that evolution is impossible. You say, well, praise the Lord for this new movement. Oh, but there's a problem with it. Have you heard? They will never tell anyone ever openly, publicly who the designer of the world is. They are deeply ashamed of the Bible and of Jesus Christ, the Lord. And I understand the mentality of this, don't you? How can scientists pay us any attention if we give them a religious agenda in our arguments against evolution? Let's just destroy evolution horizontally, rationally, you see, evidentially, without bringing religion or God or the Bible into this discussion at all. Well, I have a sad word for you about that. You ready? The Lord Jesus said, This is the last verse of Mark, chapter eight. Whoever is ashamed of me. And my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his father with the holy angels. Did we hear that? Jesus said you can't keep me out of the picture. I'm the creator. And that qualifies me to be your savior when I died on the cross and rose from the dead. Now, think deeply with me for a moment, friend. Intelligent design is absolutely essential to creationism, to Bible revelation. Romans chapter one, the invisible things of God are clearly seen by the things he's made, even his eternal power and God has. So they are what? Without excuse. Paul preached intelligent design. at Areopagus, Mars Hill, to those Greek philosophers, how God created the world. But you know what? He didn't stop there. He also told them that God has designated a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, and he'll judge the world by that man whom he has ordained. whereof he's given assurance to all men in that he has raised him from the dead. Guess what man that is. It's the one he had been preaching in the marketplace for days and days. Jesus and resurrection. Jesus and Anastasis. Jesus resurrection. You can't talk about Jesus resurrection without talking about Jesus death. Now, friends. Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork day into day, night into night. But the passage goes on to tell us the essential glory of the written revelation of God in the scriptures, the word of God. Watch the balance. The Pharisees and the Sadducees who crucified Jesus all believed in intelligent design, didn't they? They believed, in fact, in the literal interpretation of Genesis. Chapter was one and two all the way through 11. the pre-Abrahamic history of the world, but they missed the essential, namely the creator himself. Jesus said, if you if you had believed Moses, you would believe me, he wrote of me, you must come to me, the savior. Now, friends, if that weren't enough, we have another gigantic movement that Dr. Henry Morris and I at least never dreamed could happen. It's called progressive creationism. It's also totally opposed to evolutionism. And this movement headed by Dr. Hugh Ross and his reasons to believe movement tells us the Bible is absolutely true, but it's insufficient. You have to have a 67th book, namely modern science. And modern science tells us the world is billions of years old, that the universe began with a big bang explosion, and that the days of creation are millions of years long, and animals were dying millions of years before Adam and Eve ever sinned, and the Genesis flood was local and limited and regional in extent. Totally anti-evolutionist, because he believes and teaches that every once in a while God created something new and added it to the living world and finally created Adam and Eve. But it took how long? Millions of years. And of course, here you have a very drastic perversion of biblical interpretation, biblical hermeneutics, namely an outside philosophy, you see, that is added to the scriptures and twist them into harmony with this agenda from outside God's word. Very sad, as this movement is taking over Christian colleges in America and Christian broadcasting networks and so forth. And I say, Lord, I can't believe that this would happen. So what we have in addition to our creation science movement, which is now worldwide, of course, prominent would be the Institute of Creation Research that you're familiar with. It's Dr. John Morris, now the president. And she's in Genesis in Kentucky with Ken Ham. as director, which is about to open a $25 million museum in two months from now. And I say, well, Lord, I'm amazed. I'm amazed at all the gigantic movements you've raised up that are against evolution. But may I be realistic with you, dear friend? Evolutionism still dominates, permeates Every major institution of higher academic and scientific learning in the world. I mean, there isn't one major university accredited, recognized university in the world that is not dominated by evolutionism. I say, Lord, help us, please. How can we help people understand creation truth? It's essential. And the answer is by what? By faith. You say, Lord, why did you tell us that? Now the evolutionists will really laugh at us. They say, there you are, you people, you have faith. Well, we have facts, we have science. And children by the millions are being told creationism, see, is what? A faith position. But evolution is facts, science. Would you like the truth? Evolution takes more faith than creation does. Now watch carefully. Let's go back to our previous picture just for a moment. Our previous picture. Thank you. In Hebrews 11, we could have the evolutionists say this himself, like I would have to say if he's honest. By faith, we evolutionists understand. If he's honest, he'll have to say by faith because he never saw anything ever evolve anywhere ever. By faith, we evolutionists understand that the worlds were not prepared by the word of any living personal God, so that what is seen was indeed made out of previously existing simpler forms through endless ages of time by chance. Now, how does he understand that? By what? Faith. And friends, across America today, schoolchildren are being given one faith system, evolution. in total contradiction to another faith system called creation, which God has revealed in the only book he's ever written. So I say, well, Lord, help me, therefore, to understand that faith, according to this verse, does not mean blind incredulity, just sort of leaping into the dark and hoping against hope that these precious things our grandmothers taught us might be true. When we're deeply suspicious, they're not. That's not biblical faith. Do you know what kind of faith this is? Certainly you do. It's taking God at his word because of who he is. And you don't close your eyes or your mind anything to him. You open up everything. Lord, speak. Your servant hears you. God has never lied, never deceived anybody ever. May I add this footnote? He's extremely intelligent. He's been here a long time. And I say, Lord, you're the one. I believe in now. OK. All right. That's what Psalm 33, 6 says, isn't it? By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. God willing, tonight we'll see the host of them includes all the planets and the moons and the stars and the galaxies and how they got there. Yes, look. By the breath of his mouth, it goes on to say, for he spoke and it was done. He commanded, it stood fast. An instantaneous response of a vast, complex universe to the mere spoken word of an omnipotent, omniscient God. That's powerful. All right. Now, it becomes serious, a little bit heavy, friends, when you turn to Jeremiah chapter 10. Now listen to what God told Jeremiah. You ready? The Lord is the true God. He is the living God and the everlasting King. By the way, that means that all other gods that have ever been imagined in the hearts of men are what? Are false, dead and temporary. I wonder if you notice here is an absolute statement of the character, the attributes of our God. Now it gets heavy. At his wrath, the earthquakes And the nations cannot endure his indignation. I don't like those words very much. Do you? Wrath, indignation. What's that mean? It means God has a heavy case against the human race, mankind, created and still possessing his image and likeness. See, now distorted, yes, but still functioning. Verse 11 is the only verse in the whole book of Jeremiah written not in Hebrew, but in Aramaic, the language of the Gentiles. And here's what God told Jeremiah to tell the Gentiles when they came to Jerusalem. Merchants, diplomats, visitors, whoever. He would go to a Gentile dignitary, visitor, whoever, and say, Sir, I have an announcement to make to you. The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall what? Perish from the earth and from under the heavens. Really? That's serious. Because the one qualification God announces here to be a true God worthy of worship is what? That God that you worship must have created the heavens and the earth. By the way, that that narrows the field of competition somewhat drastically. You know what we're in a universe not a multiverse, one mind, one plan, see, one system of physics, astrophysics, chemistry, thermodynamics permeates the whole universe, friends. And that is one of the most spectacular discoveries God has permitted human beings to make. The universe was made by one God. And he alone is to be worshipped. And do you know what his name is? Jesus Christ the Lord. Now watch what else it says about him. Verse 12. It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding he stretched out the heavens. Did you know it took power to create the universe? Do you know it took wisdom to establish the world? Do you know it took understanding to stretch out the heavens and say, I can't imagine any person being that great. I would like to name him. Next picture. Jesus, the word. Of God. Incarnate. Now, I hope you've read these verses sometime in your life, but they're not easy. Watch some complexities here. Ready? In the beginning was the word Logos. the communicator of God's mind to our minds as humans. OK, now here, now here it gets complicated. You ready? And the word was with God. You say, now, wait a minute, the word was with God, that means he's not God. Well, God knew you'd think that, so he adds another statement. And the word was what? Was God. Now, what's that mean? Well, Jesus explained this to us. That there's a management structure, an administrative structure in the Godhead. He said, my father is greater than I am. You say, well, you mean Jesus isn't God then? No, he then added this note. I and the father are what? One. We share the same essence of deity, but we are totally different persons, you see, in identity. There's three persons who share the same nature. within the administration of the Godhead. And the father is number one, the son is number two, and who's number three? The Holy Spirit. And they are equal, eternal in glory, majesty, power, wisdom, love, truth. Now, friends, no human mind can fathom that. God doesn't expect us to. He just says, trust me. OK, verse 12, verse two. He, the word, the Logos, was in the beginning with God. You say now. Now, wait a minute. You're saying that's Jesus Christ. How could that be? Now, we're going to get more confusion here if we're not careful. I thought everything before Christ was born was B.C. What's B.C. mean? Before Christ. I'd like to make an announcement. Nothing was before Christ. He was in the beginning. Then what's B.C. mean? before the Son of God added a human nature to his divine nature by miraculous virgin conception and incarnation. That's the point. Because in his deity as a person, he is the same yesterday, today and forever. But as God-man with, see, one person with two natures now for our redemption, you see, he's been in that form, function, for only 2,000 years. But before that, he was a person with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever and ever. All right. Conclusion. Let's go back to verse 3 here, please. There we are. All things came into being by him. By the word. He's the creator of everything. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. Kindly agree with me, that covers everything. Thank you. Wow. It's sort of like Colossians 1.16. Now notice the tremendous emphasis of the New Testament on the identity of the Creator himself. To the glory of God the Father. God the Father planned everything, but Jesus did it by his creative word. And the Holy Spirit followed up, you see, what Jesus did. Now, did you know that's the way redemption is too? God, the father so loved the world, he gave his only son who actually paid the price on the cross. But the Holy Spirit wrote a book to tell us about it and applies the truth to our heart and changes us through new birth. So there's no competition, no jealousy within the persons of God and everything. Trust me, friends, the Bible says that over and over is under total control in the third heaven, in the Godhead, see, and Jesus of Nazareth. Born of a woman is greater than the Holy Spirit, administratively in the Godhead. My, thank you, Lord. This is very hard to imagine, but you told us you wrote a book, you expect us to believe it, and I want to trust you. OK. OK, now, if the Lord Jesus Christ was here when the world began, don't you think He has tremendous credibility when he tells us what the world was like when it began. He was here. Now, you can go to any science teacher in any public school and say, were you here when the world began? You speak with such authority. You tell us the order of events and how things evolved through billions. You must have been there. No, but that's ridiculous. But Jesus was here, and here's what he says it was like in the beginning. You ready? Mark 10, 6. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Did you know that? Did you know that Adam and Eve were created when? At the beginning of creation, not hundreds of millions of years after the earth came into being. See, that's the evolutionary view or theistic evolutionary view or progressive creationism view or framework hypothesis view or even the gap theory view, which I used to hold and teach. This is amazing state. Adam and Eve were here when the Earth began its existence. In Mark 13, Jesus said, For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not occurred since the beginning of creation, which God created until now and never shall. Now watch. From the beginning of the creation, which God created, there was a time of what? Tribulation. Well, that's talking not about animals, but people. And the point is this, friends, that Adam and Eve, so soon after they were created, experienced horrible tribulation. You know what? They were cast out of the garden. They lost their relationship with God. They started accusing God and each other. And friends, they had fallen into a spiritual death situation. From the beginning of what? Of creation. Luke 1150, in order that the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation. Who was the first one who spoke for God and suffered for it by being murdered by his own older brother? Abel. And that was not millions of years after the earth began, but at the beginning, you see, the foundation of the world. Are you shocked? The apostle Paul agrees with Jesus. Look what he said about it. Since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. Now, again, that's not animals, friends, that's people. People saw the universe as the handiwork of God, beginning when? At the creation of the world. Amazing. In the light of what? The fact that A recent creation position, which Jesus taught and Genesis teaches, is a very small minority of origins positions today in the Christian world. Because the evolutionary world system says it was billions of years, Christians just line up and say, well, it must have been billions of years because all the scientists can't be that wrong. But the formula that amazes me, friends, is one person with God is the majority in truth. One person who believes what God wrote is in the truth majority with him. But look what John said. The devil has sinned from when? The beginning. Now, how long did it take, do you think, for Satan to fall? Just think a minute. After Adam and Eve were created in Genesis 1, it says in the last verse, and God saw everything that he had made and it was still what? Very good. Very good. Everything he made included Satan, all the other angels. All the stars, galaxies, planets and moons, plants, animals and people were still perfect. See? And so Satan fell probably just, what should we say, a couple of weeks after Adam and Eve were created. I have a number of reasons for believing it was extremely short period of time. And I say, well, Lord, that is amazing, because the devil sinned after Adam and Eve were created. But his fall was still in the beginning, within a very small confine of the earliest chapter of Earth history. Oh, friends, here's the hard one. People don't like the Ten Commandments anymore. But shall we dare look at them for a minute? Look at this one. The fourth commandment, God said to Israel, six days you shall labor and do all your work. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested in the seventh day, therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Now, you say, I can't believe that. All my teachers, all my books, all the major universities tell us that it took billions of years for this system to appear. You asked me to believe that the whole world came into being in six days. Now, friends. Notice what else is included here. The earth. The sea. And all that is in them, including the heavens. God willing, that'll be our topic this evening. The origin of our solar system and the universe. Even that Jesus managed to create in a very, very short period of time. Amazing. And I say, well, Lord, I'm ready. I want you to tell me something. How do I know these days were literal 24 hour days if the majority of Christians question this? All right. There you have it, the creation time block. I've chosen the word time block to suggest it's not some fluffy, frothy thing that you can manipulate it according to the latest opinions of men. There's something solid about this. I wonder if you get the feel. You ready? Number one, those days are 24 hour days because every one of them has a numerical adjective. Day one. Second day, third day, fourth, fifth, sixth. And whenever the word day, yom in Hebrew, has a numerical adjective with it, it means a 24 hour period. There's no exception. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. In fact, that's the same as it is in English. You ask a friend, well, how was your vacation last summer? And he might say, well, we had a wonderful 12 day vacation with our family in Wisconsin last summer. You don't say, well, Twelve day, how long were the days? The number 12 does something special to the word day. You know what it does to it? It makes it a 24 hour time block. No more, no less. That's what that means. But watch what happens when you take the numerical adjective away. Watch it now. You ready? America is now suffering days of great perplexity and stress. Well, how long were those days? Nobody knows. I hope they're short, I'm afraid they're long, but we're totally in the dark. Because you did what? You left the numerical adjective off. You see? And I say, well, Lord, I think you're saying something to us then. Through this grid, see, this time block, you're telling us something about your greatness, your power, your wisdom to create the world in a very short period of time. Something special here. Keep watching. You say, are you sure those days are 24 hour days? Yes? Point two. The evening-morning formula. Every creation day had an evening-morning formula added to it also, which sounds like this. Ready? And there was evening and there was morning day one. And there was evening and there was morning second day. And there was evening and morning third day. Evening and morning. Evening and morning. Evening... What's that mean? It means one cycle of this planet rotating on its axis in reference to a fixed astronomic light such as the sun. And trust me, folks, that doesn't change on Thursdays or whenever you feel like it. We're locked into something astronomical here. Evening, morning. Hmm. OK, but look at look at Exodus 2011. He said to Israel, you work six days for I work six days. You rest one, I rested one. No Israelite could possibly have thought, well, God's days are long indefinite periods, so let's work six long indefinite periods and rest one. I can't imagine one Jewish rabbi on this planet saying to his congregation in his synagogue, next Sabbath will be 10 hours long or 55 hours long. There's some kind of a mysterious corporate entity of memory. We were brought into existence as a world of living things in six days and we work six days and rest one in commemoration of what God did. Very interesting. And I want to add this point. There is no scientific support whatever for six days plus one. You know that. What's the scientific evidence or support for the fact that we have a month? The relation of the moon and its phases to this earth. How do we know there's such a thing as a year? Why the orbiting of this planet around the sun? Think of it, friends, but for a week, the only basis the whole human race has is what God said in Genesis and Exodus. That's it. God said to the Jews, you remember that and you observe it. Six days plus one. Oh, but what do you do with 2 Peter 3, 8, which says one day is a thousand years. You do what is highly recommended. Look twice. It doesn't say that at all. It says one day is with the Lord as a thousand years. That means that God can do in one day what would take us a thousand years if ever. God is greater than we are. It's a contrast which is destroyed if you don't take day and thousand years literally, you see, in that context. But what about Genesis 1.14? Here's an amazing statement. It tells you why he created the whole universe of stars and moons, planets. You ready? Three reasons. I've often pointed out it's significant. There's no fourth reason, namely so that there'll be places for extraterrestrial beings to live on. Just three reasons that are there. Let them be for signs. That's what? The heavens declare the glory of God. There's a God out there of infinite wisdom and power. Second, let them be for seasons, days and years, a clock calendar that never fails. And let them be for lights, luminaries to shed light on a once totally dark plant, namely Earth. But think of that second reason, friends. Seasons, days, and years. Well, wait a minute. If days aren't days in Genesis 1, then what are years? Now we know what a year is. It's the exact amount of time to the split second that it takes this planet to go 600 million plus miles around the sun. And friends, if anybody ever asks you again, how old are you? Why not say, I have been around the sun 55 times. That communicates. Look, do you get a feeling here? There's something about Genesis 1 that has to do with chronology. Time units. Yes. That's the way the whole Bible is structured. Because God wants you to know, friends, that these things really happen in the real world with real people. These are fairy tales. So, the Bible begins with six days plus one. And as Dr. Larson will explain to us this week, It'll end with a thousand years preceded by seven years divided into two parts of three and a half years. And guess what else? The gospel includes chronology, too. That Christ died and rose again to what? The third day. That means it really happened in a real world to a real person. And I said, thank you, Lord. I understand, you know, you're being real serious. You created the world in six literal 24-hour days and rested one day. I have some questions about that, Lord. But tonight we'll talk about them, God willing, on one condition, that our questions are humble and reverent ones. Do you know what a humble and reverent question is, Lord? I don't deserve to have any further answers. You've already given me 66 whole books of answers of everything I'm expected and required to know. But if you explain this for me, Lord, I'll just be so thankful and appreciative. I'll believe you if you tell me in your word what you meant by what you said, and God willing, that'll be our goal tonight. Hope you'll join us as we discuss the origin of the solar system, how those planets got out there, those moons, and especially how planet Earth relates to the system into which he has placed us. All for the glory of God. Special focus on Jesus Christ, of whom Paul said in Colossians 1 16, these amazing words. All things were created through Jesus Christ. Things in heaven, things on earth. Things visible, things invisible. You say, what things in heaven that are invisible did Christ create? And he names four of them. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. Those were angels. And the dominions of them were also created by Christ the Lord. Just as the earth was about to be created, angels suddenly sprang into existence. Job 38.7 says they shouted for joy when they saw planet earth created by their own creator. That's where angels are focused in their purpose for existence. Hebrews 1.14, are they not ministering spirits sent forth to minister to those who should be heirs of salvation? Angels have no ministry function whatsoever on Mars, Jupiter, Mercury, Saturn, Uranus, only planet earth. There must be something special about this home that God created for you and me, for now. Planet Earth, friends, come join us tonight as we see further the marvels and wonders of how He did what He said He did. Let's pray. Now, Father in Heaven, I am overawed by the power with