This is Scotland, right? I know the Isle of Lewis is of a different country, but it's still Scotland. I understand that. Last time I was here, I think I told people, you better get used to this accent because you're going to speak it in heaven anyway. And you can't prove I'm wrong yet. So I have to wait on that. We actually got a PA system that translates into Scottish but not Gaelic. Sorry about that. But I don't understand your road signs around here. But then again, I don't understand the road signs in Wales either. That's another interesting place. Well, I come from an organisation called Answers in Genesis. We just opened the first of its type in the world, a creation museum in the Cincinnati area in America. I'm going to give you a little sort of run through that tomorrow night before we start our main session. I'll just give you a little photographic run through. It's quite incredible. Animatronics. It's a walk through biblical history. Planetarium. have special effects theater that the seats vibrate and blow water and air on you and tells people that the Bible's true. It has a number of theaters. It's quite an incredible place. And if you get to America, you need to come there and visit. It actually received world headlines, international headlines. And it was thrilling to see a lot of the European media there. In fact, the European media who are over there, they would interview me and say, how come people still believe in God in America? We don't believe in God in Europe. Because as you know, Europe is fairly spiritually dead, isn't it? But then again, the United Kingdom is not that spiritually alive either, is it? When you look at today. We're going to talk about that tonight. What I thought I'd do is to just start off with, we have, we produced 50 videos throughout the museum. We have all sorts of signage and other things too. And I thought I'd start off with one You know, the Israelites were warned not to worship the sun like the pagans, but to worship the God who made the sun. And I wanted to just show you this is one of our short videos that we have in the Creation Museum. And as you listen to this, by the way, if you don't understand the words from an American accent, if you look on the bottom, you'll see them printed out in English, not Scottish, but English. Here we go. The sun, created on day four of creation week to rule the day, to give light upon the earth, and to mark signs and seasons. Astronomers have found only a handful of stars, anything like the Sun. It is among the top one percentile for mass of stars. It's an ideal size to support life on Earth. Not too small, not too big. A huge red star would swallow the Earth, and a blue-white supergiant would blind us. The sun is an extremely efficient source of constant energy. Every second it produces enough energy to run one billion major cities for one year. Secular astronomers believe that the Sun formed from a nebular cloud of dust and gas four and a half billion years ago. If true, as the gases collected, the Sun would have spun faster and faster, like an ice skater pulling in her arms. And in this case, it should be rotating once every few hours. But in fact, the Sun spins only once every 25 days. The Sun is well-behaved, as stars go. Sure, it has a few flare-ups now and then, but some other stars have super-flares, 100 million times worse than the Sun's biggest flares. Just one super-flare would destroy life on Earth. Stars also blast hot gases into space called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. These CMEs would cause radiation poisoning and death on Earth. But our sun's CMEs are mild by comparison to our stars. And not only that, the Earth, unlike the Moon, is surrounded by a protective magnetic field. When this field is disturbed, we can see the results. It's called the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. A beautiful reminder of how God has created and protected the Earth. Would you like to see videos like that on the BBC? It would be great, wouldn't it? But unfortunately, the BBC wouldn't play those sorts of programs. So we made them ourselves so that we can get them shown all over the world. I just want to make sure, can you hear me up in the balcony there, OK? You can understand Australian? Getting used to it? OK. And I know Australians talk fast. You know what? You just have to listen fast. So we'll see how it goes. No, I live in America currently. My wife and I moved to America 20 years ago as missionaries to a pagan culture. And I know Americans pride themselves, you know, that their founding fathers had great convictions. Hey, I come from Australia, I tell them over in America, our founding fathers had great convictions too. And if you understand Australia and English history, you'll know what that means. But America has been and still is the greatest Christian nation on earth. Did you know America has the largest number of churches and seminaries and Christian colleges, Christian bookshops, Christian resources, Christian radio, Christian TV. Right now in America they have more Christian resources than they've ever had in their history. By the way, really the same is true of the United Kingdom. You have access to more Christian resources right now than in your history. But you know, I ask in America and I speak to audiences of thousands of people across America and I say, tell me, America as a culture, is it becoming more Christian or less Christian every day? What do you think the answer is? The answer is less Christian every day. For all the Christian resources, for all the churches and seminaries, America is becoming more pagan every day. And in fact, these are the issues we see right across America. I'm sure you'll recognise some of them from your own nation, won't you? Increasing abortion and homosexual behaviour and lawlessness and euthanasia and suicide. The gay marriage issue is rife across America right now. School violence. They're removing the Ten Commandments out of public places. They're removing nativity scenes out of public places. There's big battles when it comes to Christmas over having the word Christ in Christmas. America is becoming less Christian every day. You know, 90%, well actually it's more like 95, 95% of students from church homes attend public schools in America, or public schools are the government schools. I know you have different terminology over here. Do you know of those students that attend the government schools, the secular schools, do you know that 70% of them are going to walk away from the church? It's the same sort of thing happening over here, by the way. See that? And in fact, you know, I want you to think about about the United Kingdom. Do you think the United Kingdom, in its culture, in its morality, was more Christian in the past than it is now? It was much more Christian, wasn't it, in its morality. Something has happened, hasn't it? In fact, when I travel across the United Kingdom, I see churches everywhere. I remember the first time I came over to the United Kingdom, I thought of, you know, the land of Spurgeon or Wesley, Whitfield, you know, some of the great Bunyan and so on. And I found there were churches everywhere. Let me show you some of the churches in the United Kingdom. For instance, this one here that was turned into a Sikh temple and this one here that was turned into a rock climbing centre and this one here that was turned into a theatre, a museum, this one that was turned into a theatre and this one here that was turned into an information centre and this one here that has become a habitat shop, this one here That is now a place where they basically, as it says, they worship pop music instead of worshipping God. This one here, a former church here in North Wales, and you can see that it's become an interesting store. This one here in Bedford, home of John Bunyan. I remember when I was there a year or so ago, we took this photograph, turned into a nightclub. And then this one here, turned into a tattoo studio. I think something's happened across the United Kingdom. There was an article in our newspapers in America about Europe talking about all these churches, these church buildings that were closing down and they were being turned into nightclubs and bars and all those sorts of things. And you know, if we're really honest about it, you see the same sorts of issues, many of the same sorts of issues across the United Kingdom as we see in America. In fact, most of our Western world was much more Christian in the past than it is now. And Christianity is almost dead across Europe. We know something dreadful has happened. What has happened? Why has this happened? And a lot of times we see that the younger generation are not attending church or they walk away from church. And in America the statistics are alarming for the next generation. So churches recognise they're dying because it's many that only have the older generation there, the younger generation of God. Now, there are some churches that grow, that's true, and there's some churches in the United Kingdom that are fairly lively and might be growing, but stand back and have a look at the culture as a whole. Something has happened. What is it? You know, people don't listen like they used to. You know, if you think back to the days, and I'm not in any way endorsing anyone's theology when I say this, it's just a matter of history, but when you think back to the days of Wesley and Whitfield and so on, You know, they could get up in a field and preach and thousands would listen. There might be some in trees beating drums trying to stop people listening, but thousands would listen. If you got up in England today in a field to preach, you'd probably have a sheep and a cow. It's a different world, isn't it? In those days, if you said the word God, people would tend to think of, oh, the God of the Bible. But if you go Main Street in London and say the word God, you have 30 different definitions in 15 seconds. It's a different culture, isn't it? You know, the same is true in the schools. Same would be true in the secular schools in the United Kingdom. In America, generations ago, 40, 50 years ago, you say God to the students and they automatically would think of the God of the Bible. You say God today and it's which God? The New Age God? Hindu God? Muslim God? Buddhist concept of God? Which God are you talking about? It's a different culture. People don't listen like they used to. I'm going to talk on this tomorrow night. Why don't they listen to that? How do you evangelise a culture that no longer listens, that no longer has the same understanding of God? And I want you to think about this too. For instance, think about Martin Luther. Do you think anyone came up to Martin Luther in his day and said, Dr. Luther, what do you do with carbon dating? Well, no, carbon dating is a 20th century invention. Or do you think anyone came up to John Wesley and said, John Wesley, what do you do with dinosaurs? Well, the word dinosaur wasn't even invented until 1841. Tell me, do you think anyone went up to Peter and Paul and asked them questions like, now, the age of the earth is supposedly 4.5 billion years old and they've used uranium-lead dating and so on. What do you think of that? No, they weren't issues in those days. In fact, Peter, Paul had to deal with different issues. Gnosticism, modalism, all sorts of issues. But see, we live in a different era of history and that's what I want us to understand. We live in an era of history, said to be a scientific age, where supposedly scientists using geology and biology and anthropology and astronomy have shown that the Bible's history in Genesis is not true. And so today people ask specific questions like that. You know, as I travel all over the world, I get asked the same basic questions wherever I go. Well, how do you know there's a God? But science has disproved the Bible. But what about the millions of years? But Noah couldn't get all the animals on the ark. Where did Cain get his wife? How do you get the different races of people? What about dinosaurs? Don't they disprove the Bible? What about the days of creation? They're not ordinary days. You can believe in evolution, it doesn't matter. You heard those sorts of things? How many of you have heard those sorts of questions today? Put your hands up. Oh yeah, look at that. Do you know why you've heard those? Because you live in an era of history where these are the very issues that are told to the culture to tell them you can't trust the Bible. And you know what many Christians do? They say, oh, don't worry about that, just trust in Jesus. But you see, you know what the problem is? The problem is, the message of Jesus comes from this book. And why is that a problem? Well, I want you to think about this for a moment. I presume that most of you in this room would be born again Christians. You believe Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead? Do you believe that? How do you know that? Were you there? Didn't see it happen? You got a movie rerun? You don't have a movie of it? Well, how do you know that's true? Well, because the word of God's... Oh, the word of God, of course. You take these words as written. I see. Okay. Do you believe that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish? How do you know that? Were you inside the fish videoing? No? How do you know? Well because the Bible says, oh the Bible, that's right it was recorded as history. Of course I understand. You know over here written as historical narrative it says God made everything in six days and there was a global, oh it doesn't mean that. Oh, it doesn't? Why not? Well, because the scientists... Oh, I see. Because of outside ideas, the written word doesn't mean what it clearly says. Oh, I see. And you tell your children that, and what do they say? That doesn't really mean what it says. And you can use man's ideas to reinterpret this. That unlocks a door for the next generation to say, well, maybe we can do that elsewhere as well. And eventually, you know what'll happen? You'll lose biblical authority. You know what the real issue is in the United Kingdom? You know what the real issue is in America? We've lost biblical authority because the older generations, and I'm not, don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing fingers, I'm just trying to explain what happened. We didn't take a stand on the authority of God's word in Genesis. Many of us didn't know what the answers were to dinosaurs millions of years and so do you know what many of them said? Because it happened in England in a big way and then it infiltrated the church. The Christian leaders in particular in England, back in the 1700s, late 1700s, early 1800s, when certain deists and materialists popularized the millions of years, they looked at layers with fossils and they said, because they were looking for excuses not to believe the Bible, and they popularized the idea the layers were laid down over millions of years, and you know what many of the clergy in England said? Well, we can believe in the millions of years, we'll just reinterpret the days of creation. And then along came Darwinian evolution. You know what they said? We can believe in evolution. We'll just say God did it. Then along came the Big Bang. And you know what many of the clergy said? Well, we can believe in the Big Bang as long as you say God did it. And I have many people say to me, well, I tell my children, you can believe what the secular world says about dinosaurs and millions of years in evolution as long as you trust in Jesus. And as long as you say God did it, what's wrong with that? And you know what I say? Well, what did God say he did? So see if you believe in the Big Bang as many Christians do and many Christian leaders and they say that doesn't matter. But see when you read the Bible it says God made the earth first covered with water and the sun wasn't made till day four. The Big Bang has the sun and stars before the earth and the earth was a hot molten blob for millions of years before it had water. So you see when I look at the Big Bang and I look at God's word then if the Big Bang is true God's word is not. And if I told my children that, you know what you've actually done? You've unlocked a door to say you don't have to believe this bit. As long as you believe this bit over here about Jesus, that's important. This bit doesn't really matter. And you know, many Christians have done that with their kids. They've said to them, Genesis doesn't matter. It's not important. By the way, when you say that, you know what you're really saying? God's word doesn't matter here. Hey, what do you notice in the Bible? And when there's compromise or sin in one generation and it's not dealt with, generally speaking, you notice it to a greater or lesser extent in the next generation. To a greater extent. See, the issue, I want people to understand, at Answers in Genesis, we're not just on about creation, evolution, the age of the earth, fossils. Do you know what we're on about? The authority of the Word of God. And you know what the real issue is about? Upholding the authority of the Word of God. Do you know what's happened across the United Kingdom and across our Western world? Many generations and many of the Christian leaders did not take a stand on God's word in Genesis. And they said, but trust in Jesus anyway. And the next generation saw the inconsistency of that. And so that doubt in one area leads to unbelief that goes through the rest of scripture. Friends, there's a Bible verse you all should be familiar with. It's 2 Corinthians 11 3. Paul has a warning for us. He says, beware lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtleties so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. You know what Paul is saying? Satan is going to use the same method on you as he did on Eve to get you to a position of not believing God's word. And by the way, you know what that method was? You go back to Genesis 3. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said unto the woman, did God really say? What was the attack in the beginning? It was on the word of God, wasn't it? Wasn't that the attack? Yeah, you don't have to believe God's word. You'll surely not die. He just added in one little word, not. That doesn't matter. That doesn't change the meaning, does it? Just adding in one little word. Instead of you'll surely die, you'll surely not die. Isn't it important to take God at his word? And see, what I want us to understand is this. There's been an attack on the word of God down through the ages. In Peter and Paul's day, there was an attack on the word of God. In Martin Luther's day, there was an attack on the word of God. In John Wesley and Whitfield's day, there was an attack on the word of God. But that attack manifests itself in different ways in different eras of history. We live in what's called a scientific age and there's been an incredible attack on God's word. And you know what happened? A lot of the church succumbed to it. And now we stand back and we're reaping the consequences of the loss of biblical authority. I want you to remember these two verses here tonight of scripture. In John 3 in verse 12, in the context of talking to Nicodemus, Jesus said, if I tell you about earthly things and you don't believe them, how are you going to believe when I tell you about heavenly things? And then this one here, 1 Peter 3 15, always be prepared to give an, what's that next word? Answer. By the way, the Greek word there is apologia, from which we get our word apologetics. And what it means is to give an answer back. In other words, to defend your faith, to defend the Christian faith, give an answer back. We are an apologetics organization. That doesn't mean we apologize for our faith, quite the opposite. We want to teach people how to have answers to the skeptical questions of this age to uphold the authority of the word of God and defend the Christian faith. And you know what I find? Most churches do not teach apologetics. Most Bible colleges do not teach apologetics. Most seminaries do not teach apologetics. There are many Christians, and you can be a born-again Christian, but if someone stops you in the main street and says, are you a Christian? You believe in God? How do you know there's a God? Where did God come from? What about the millions of years? Where did Cain get his wife? How could we all be descendants of one man and one woman? Look at all the different races. What about the dinosaurs? Do you know what many people say? I don't know how to answer all those. Just trust in Jesus. But you know what that person's thinking? The message of Jesus comes from this book. And if you can't help me understand that that book is true and I can trust it, why should I listen to the message of Jesus? You see, that's where we are in this day and age. By the way, let me apply this for you. If I tell you about earthly things, here's some earthly things from the Bible. Geology, biology, anthropology, astronomy. Tell me, does the Bible touch on those things? Yes or no? Yes. Now, the Bible doesn't touch on them in this sense. It's not teaching us about the types of rocks out there. It's not telling us about the structure of a cell. See, the Bible doesn't deal with what we would call operational science in the sense of helping you build a motor car or build computers. The Bible is a book of history, primarily. And it's giving us the geological history, the biological history, the anthropological history, the astronomical history of the universe, so we understand who we are, where we came from, what this world is all about. Incidentally, If I went to the average church, say this weekend, I went to the average church and stood up in the average church all across the United Kingdom, all across America, and said, tell me, in church, do you come to learn about geology, biology, astronomy, anthropology? What do you think the usual answer would be? Yes or no? No. Oh. You mean the Bible doesn't deal with those things? You know what the problem is, friends? We handed over the geological, biological, astronomical, anthropological history of the universe to the schools and the universities and we said, you can deal with that and we'll let our generations of kids learn what you teach them. We're just going to tell them to trust in Jesus. And we wonder why we lose them. When they learn a history at school and university that contradicts the history in the Bible, then they start saying, well, how can we trust the message of Jesus? Because if this part of the book's not true, How can the rest be? See, that's really what has happened, to put it in simple terms. It's what's happened across Europe, across the United Kingdom, it's happened across America. Let's look at some of these things. Noah's flood, if there really was a global flood, that'd be a geological event, wouldn't you agree? And if there really was a global flood, you'd expect to find billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. You know what you find? Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. which is also a description of haggis, but that's another issue. Do you realise that whole generations of kids from church homes have gone to school where they're told there never was a global flood? If you walk into the Natural History Museum in London, you know what one of the signs says? The myth of the global flood. And if you've let your kids be taught that, do you know what they're really being taught? The Bible got it wrong in geology. What about biology? The Bible says God made the animals and plants after their kind. Ten times it says after their kind. You know what the implication is? Each kind produces its own kind. I'll tell you what I have observed. Dogs always produce dogs. Have you seen that? I knew it would be remarkable for you to hear that. Did you know that elephants only produce elephants? Startling. Well, you hear this one. Humans only produce humans. Wow, I never would have thought that. Hey, by the way, do you know what they're taught in our schools and universities? They're taught that one kind of an animal changed into another over millions of years. Ape-like creatures turned into people. You know what they're really being told every day? The Bible's biology is not true. What about the Bible's anthropology? Hey, the Bible says we're all descendants of one man and one woman. You know what that means? There's only one race. There are no different races. It means we're all related. Did you know you're all related to me whether you like it or not? See, I just came here for a great family get-together. Isn't this fantastic that we can do that? We're all related. You know, I have people stop me in the main street sometimes in America and they say, do you know you look like Abe Lincoln? I say, yeah, he's one of my relatives. And they look at me and they say, you're related to Abraham Lincoln? I say, sure, isn't everyone? Anyway, I'm trying to make a point. But do you know what they're being told in our schools and universities? Oh, there are different races. Darwin proposed the idea of lower races and higher races and man evolved from lower races and actually it's been used to justify racism and all sorts of prejudices. Do you know what the Human Genome Project is in America? They mapped the human genome, the human genes, and when they did that, they made a statement. Do you know what they said? Guess what we found out? There's only one human race. Wow, who would have ever thought that? See, they're catching up to the Bible, aren't they? Incidentally, I'm not giving a talk on races. You can buy the book later on on this, or I've got a video on it. But really, there aren't any different races, there are only people groups. But I have people tell me, well, how do you get black people and white people in? Well, there aren't any black people or white people. Well, wait a minute, you're a white person. I hope not. Let me show you why. Let's do a scientific experiment. Here is white. Am I white? If I was, I wouldn't be standing here speaking to you. I'd be dead. Did you know that everyone has a pigment called melanin? You can have a lot of it. It's a brown pigment and there's a couple of forms of it. You can have a lot of it or a little bit of it or anywhere in between. Actually, Adam and Eve were probably middle brown. You might have seen some of the examples from, I know there's a couple over in England, where there's been twins, one dark and one light. And that's easy to understand from either a dark parent and a light parent or two middle brown parents, very easy to understand. And by the way, do you know what students are being told every day? The Bible's anthropology is wrong. God didn't take dust and made a man, took his side and made a woman. I remember when I was in Dublin a couple of years ago, I was interviewed by a reporter for the Catholic newspaper. And he said to me, he sat there and he said, But the Pope believes in evolution. This is the previous Pope at the time. He said, but the Pope believes in evolution. And I just looked at him and said, oh, the Pope's wrong. Boy, that got a good response. He nearly fell off his seat. And he said, but, but, but, I said, look, I said, I thought you believed in marriage. Do you believe in marriage as one man for one woman? Well, yes. And you believe in the family? Yes. Well, I said, the Bible says God took dust, made a man, took his side, made a woman. In the New Testament, it talks about the one flesh because you were one flesh because the woman came from the man. But if you believe in evolution, the woman came from an ape woman and the man came from an ape man. You've destroyed the whole basis of marriage in the family. And he looked at me and he said, I'm just a reporter. I'm just a reporter. You know, the Bible talks about astronomy. It says God made the sun, moon and stars on day four for signs and for seasons, the earth was made first covered with water. Oh, but whole generations are being taught, oh, the Big Bang. And you know, here's the sad thing. And I've already explained to you the Big Bang contradicts the Bible. Do you know what's happened in our churches? Many parents unwittingly, I believe, but have said to their kids, I don't know what to do about the Big Bang. I don't know what to do about these things. Look, as long as you trust in Jesus, that doesn't matter. But friends, it does matter because what you've effectively said is this part of God's word we don't believe. You know what the clergy should have done back in the 1800s? Instead of trying to mix millions of years with the Bible, you know what they should have said? Wait a minute, the fossil record is full of dead things. The Bible says death came after sin. I don't know how you got your millions of years, but it does not fit with the Bible. There's something wrong with what you're saying. But instead of starting from Scripture, they were influenced by the world. And here's the point I want to make to you. If the Bible's earthly things in geology, in biology, in anthropology, in astronomy, if those Bible's earthly things are not true, then neither are the heavenly things or the spiritual things based on those earthly things. You see, to remind you, the Bible says here in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, Paul says, Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. And see, that's the point when Jesus was tempted by the devil. Have you not read? It is written. You see, Christianity is based in history. Christianity is not some pie in the sky religion. If the events of Jesus Christ's birth, death, resurrection didn't happen in history, how can we be saved? But friends, if the events of geology, biology, astronomy, anthropology and so on didn't happen in history as the Bible records, how can the rest be true? Because it's all founded in that history. See, you know those passages of the Bible you like to read before you go to sleep, so-and-so, forget, so-and-so, forget, so-and-so, forget. Boring passages. Actually, you know why they're there? I like to say there's two reasons why they're there. There's a number of reasons too. One is when you read them it says, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died, and it reminds you about something. The other is, it traces us all the way back to Adam. I can't believe the number of clergy in the United Kingdom that have said to me, Genesis is just myth, it's just symbolic. Excuse me, who are we descendants of? Where do we come from? Well, Genesis just tells us about creation. Well, why are we sinners? What does it mean that there's sin? Why is there death in the world? See, if that history is not true according to the Bible, what is sin? Where are we? Who are we? What's it all about? In our creation museums, And in Answers in Genesis, we sum up the history of the world according to seven C's. Creation, corruption, catastrophe, confusion. That's Genesis 1 to 11, Christ's cross consummation. That's the whole history of the universe according to the Bible. The first 11 chapters, that's the geological, biological, astronomical, anthropological history of the universe that's foundational to the rest. If this is not true, neither is the rest. By the way, if you want to destroy Christianity in our nations, one of the best ways to attempt to do that is to get rid of the history here, because once that history's gone, eventually the heavenly things, the spiritual things based in this history, they'll go too. That's exactly what's happened in this era of history. In other words, if you start to think about it very, very carefully, you see, if you give up, if you give up the first part there of the Bible, eventually the next generations will give up the rest. You've seen the consequences right now of that across the United Kingdom. We need to understand what has happened, a particular attack on the Word of God in this era of history. And can I be blunt and say to you, let me give you a practical example where we're really missing the boat. If I can dare say this, I'm an Australian, Australians are pretty blunt, sorry about that, tell it like it is. Are the Scottish like that? Yeah? Good, good. I love a culture like that. Australians tend to insult their friends and the more you insult someone, the more you like them. Are you like that? You're not like that? Oh, okay, I better be careful. Okay. We have a big problem in our Sunday schools, in our Bible studies, in our youth groups, in our evangelistic outreaches. I'll tell you why. You know what we tend to do? We tend to teach Bible stories. You say, what do you mean? Well, you know, Jonah and the great fish, the feeding of the 5,000, Paul's missionary journey, Jesus on the cross, Adam and Eve. Wait a minute, wait a minute, don't you believe those? Yes. What's wrong with that? Let me ask you a question. If you went to the average Sunday school teacher and said, excuse me, or Bible study teacher or youth group leader, do you teach geology, biology, anthropology, astronomy in your youth group, Bible study, or in your Sunday school, what would the answer primarily be, yes or no? No. Oh, where do you go to learn about those things? Oh, you go to... Oh, you go to school. Of course, how silly of me. The Bible doesn't touch on those things. Of course, we go to school to learn those things and we learn them in a way that contradicts the Bible. Of course. Anyone see the problem? Do you know what we've done? Here's what happened. Think about this. When the church didn't know what to do with the millions of years of evolution and so on in this scientific age, And I'm going to explain all that in the next session, which is much shorter, by the way. Sometimes I go on for millions of years. But the second session will end at 10 o'clock regardless, OK? Even if I'm in the middle of a sentence, I'll end it. But in the second session, I want to really teach you this is radical. I'm going to teach you how to think. That's radical for education today. We're going to do that in the second session. But see, what's happened is this, the church didn't know what to do with these things and by and large, much of the church said, well, you can believe what the world believes, we don't need that bit, we can reinterpret Genesis, or it's just myth, or it's simple, it doesn't matter, trust this bit over here. What they effectively did was, they handed over the earthly things to the world and said, you teach our kids and generations to come with the earthly things, we'll teach them the spiritual things. You see what's happened? And so mostly in our churches we concentrate on the spiritual things, on the moral things, on relationships and so on, and we don't deal with the earthly things that have been eroded to cause the next generation not to listen to the spiritual things. Let me give you an example. I had a lady come to me and she said, well wait a minute. She said, in our Sunday school, we teach them about Noah's flood, that it was a global event, the animals on the ark, and eight people on that ark and so on. We teach them that it really happened. I said, oh really? Yeah. Tell me. Do you know what the questions the skeptics are asking today? What do you mean? I said, you only got to go into the schools and universities, you only got to go on the websites. You know what the skeptics are saying? Noah couldn't fit all those animals on the ark. The fossils were laid down over millions of years. There's not enough water to cover the earth for a global flood anyway. And the Bible's account of Noah's flood is not true, it's myth. Tell me, did you teach the kids apologetics? Did you teach them how to answer the questions of this age? Did you teach them how to answer how did Noah get all the animals on the ark? Did you teach them that the flood connects to the fossils? Did you teach them the problem with the millions of years? Did you teach them about death and that death is a consequence of sin? You can't have millions of years of death before sin. Did you teach them those things? Well, no. You see, they just taught it as a story. And friends, do you know what I believe a lot of Christian homes have done and a lot of churches have done? We teach the Bible as a set of, a book of stories. And then they go to schools and universities where they're taught, here's the real history of the world. We can explain the Grand Canyon. We can explain fossil layers. We can explain dinosaurs. We can explain the origin of the universe. What do we do at church? We tell them about Jesus and all these wonderful Bible stories. Do you see what I'm saying? It's a massive problem. And we've lost biblical authority. Can I give you, we'll just do one example tonight. Take the example of death and suffering. Tomorrow night, in the second session, I want to do this in a bit more detail to show you how we can have answers for the world. Have you ever heard this question before? How can you believe in a loving God? There's all this death and suffering in the world. Who's heard that sort of question? Heard that? The second session tomorrow night will deal with this in more detail to show you how it's only Christians who can actually answer that question, who believe in Genesis. But tonight will be a little introduction. Take the death and suffering issue, and the reason is this relates to geology. Do you know why the death and suffering issue relates to geology? Because guess what geology is full of? Dead things. Dead things. If you take Genesis, the way Jesus took Genesis, do you know how Jesus took Genesis? Jesus is the truth, right? And he's the word. If he takes Genesis a particular way, do you think we should? Absolutely. When Jesus was asked about divorce, a concerned marriage, he said, haven't you read? Oh, I love those passages. The authority of the word of God. Haven't you read? He which made the beginning made them male and male. I'm just trying to see if you're awake. Made the male and. Oh, we're not going too fast for anybody here. Made the male and female and said, this is the reason a man leaves his father and mother cleaves under his wife and they'll be one flesh. You know what Jesus was saying? The anthropological history in Genesis is true. The actual history concerning anthropology is true. God took dust, made a man, took his side, made a woman. You're one flesh. They were one flesh. Eve came from Adam. It's to be a man and a woman and not a man and a man. Why? Because God made a man and a woman, not a man and a man. Is that going too fast for anybody? You take whole generations through an education system and you teach them Genesis is not true, the history is not true. You teach them that life evolved by natural processes. Tell me, what is marriage? It's whatever you want to make it to be. You know in the book of Judges, when they had no king to tell them what to do, they all did what was right in their own eyes. Do you know what's happening in our education system, friends? You see, in America, the same is true across the United Kingdom. They once had Bible readings in the school, they once taught creation according to the Bible's account in Genesis, but they threw the Bible out, they threw prayer out. And they say, we threw religion out, now we're neutral. They threw Christianity out, now they're teaching students that all of life is explained by natural processes. Do you know what that is? It's the religion of atheism. It's an anti-God religion. Do you know what's happened? Whole generations have come through an education system where they're told, you arose by natural processes. God has nothing to do with that. And the Christians are being told Genesis is not true. And many in the church have even said to the kids, well, we don't have to believe Genesis. It doesn't matter. So what happens? Well, the Bible is not the absolute authority. And if we're the result of natural processes, we own ourselves anyway. Marriage is whatever you want to make it to be. They start doing what is right in their own eyes. Do you see that happening more across this nation? Absolutely. By the way, not just marriage, do you realise ultimately every single biblical doctrine of theology, directly or indirectly, is founded in Genesis? Can you name one doctrine that's not founded in Genesis? Think about it. Why did Jesus die on a cross? Genesis 1-11. Why is there sin? Genesis 1-11. Why do you wear clothes? I notice you all are. Genesis 1-11. Why do we have a seven day week? Genesis, God made everything in six million years and rested for seven million years. That's why we have a seven day week. Doesn't make any sense, does it? No, a seven day week because Genesis is true, literally true. Why is Jesus called the last Adam? Genesis 1 to 11. Why do we need a new heavens and a new earth? Genesis 1 to 11. Tell me one doctrine that ultimately is not founded in Genesis 1 to 11. And yet, do you know what most of the church has done? The church all across our western world has said, Genesis 1 to 11 doesn't matter. Excuse me, it's the foundation of all of our doctrine. You get rid of Genesis 1 to 11, the whole structure will collapse. Oh, has it? Now, if you say Genesis the way Jesus did, in Genesis 1, 29 and 30, God told Adam to eat fruit, he told the animals to eat plants, originally we're all created to be what? Vegetarian. Everything was very good. And you might say, wait a minute, I had some dead chicken for dinner tonight. That's OK, because after the flood in Genesis 9.3, God said, just as I gave you the plants, now I give you everything. The only place haggis is technically defined in the Bible. Do you realize there was no haggis before sin? You understand that, don't you? It's only a result of sin that you people eat haggis. That's the way I like to put it. Now, let's look at this. Why the change? What happened? Adam, first man, you can eat of all the trees. There's one tree you're not to eat of, because if you do, you'll surely what? Die. The Bible says Adam sinned. We sinned in Adam, and death is a consequence. Friends, when Adam sinned, and we're descendants of him, we have his nature, what he did, we did. We in Adam said to God, we want life without God. We don't want God. We want to decide truth for ourselves. By the way, If we got what we wanted, we wouldn't even exist because God holds everything together by the power of his word. But you know what God has done? He withdrew some of that sustaining power so we run down and die. The older you get, the more you notice it. Isn't that true? Yeah. My wife marches me off to the doctor each year for my annual check-up. It was really encouraging. He said to me, you know what, last time you were here, now you're down here, you are degenerating just like you're supposed to. This is extremely encouraging. Because you see, we run down and we die. Death is a penalty for sin. But we have a soul. We're made in the image of God. It's going to live forever. We'd be separated from God forever. Where's our loving God? He stepped into history to say, I'm going to save you from what you did. He died on a cross, raised from the dead and offers a free gift of salvation. Wow. Our loving God stepped into history to save us from what we did. Think about that. Now, see, here's the problem. So many Christians say, evolution, millions of years, doesn't matter. Wait a minute, as soon as you believe in millions of years, you've got all these layers of fossils. They're dead things, not only dead things. I want you to understand something. The fossil record shows evidence of diseases like cancer. If that existed before Adam's sin, do you think God calls cancer very good? Drill it, the Bible says thorns came after the curse. The fossil record has thorns supposedly millions of years before man. See the fossil record is a horrible record. See what the clergy should have said back in the 1800s, how can you have all this before sin? God's not calling all that very good. These two can't be true at the same time. See the Bible says the whole of creation groaned. We'll talk more about this tomorrow night. It groaned on 9-11 a couple of years ago in America. It groans when we see someone who dies. We groan, don't we? It groaned when that tsunami hit Indonesia. It groaned when Hitler did what he did there in Germany. But you see, it's not God's fault. It's our fault because we sinned against a holy God. What a difference it makes when you understand the true history. We'll talk more about that tomorrow night in a particular way. But I want to apply this to geology. You see, when you go all over the world, you notice all these layers of dead things. If there really was a global flood, you'd find billions of dead things buried in rock layers, laid down by water all over the earth. And when you look in these layers, they are full of dead things. Now, here's the interesting thing. You see, I was on a radio program just recently, and someone said to me, It was a secular program. Why are you so zealous about the age of the Earth? And I said, well, evolutionists and people who believe in millions of years are very zealous about the age of the Earth, aren't they? Well, yes. They get very emotional over the millions of years. You know what I find, even in the church? Evolution is not really the problem. It's the millions of years. When you start to say, I believe in a young Earth just thousands of years, wow, you're out on a limb. You are radical. There is something. No way, because the majority of scientists believe in millions of years. What does the millions of years have anything to do with any of our technology, our daily living? Tell me what the millions of years has anything to do with, in regard to our daily living, technology? Nothing. Why are people so zealous about the millions of years? I'll tell you why. If you don't have millions of years, you can't even postulate Darwinian evolution. You can't even suggest it. You've got to have the millions of years. You know why I'm zealous about the age of the earth? Because I'm zealous for the Word of God. and standing on God's Word. You can't have death before sin. The word for day in Genesis 1 anyway in that context means an ordinary day. But see, you know what happened back in the 1800s? Theist materialists in England looking at layers like this and they said, when you see layers, thousands of layers in the fossil record, you see this layer upon layer upon layer upon layer, thousands of them, hundreds of thousands of them. They assumed one layer a year and then you count them up. Oh, this had to take hundreds of thousands. They extended it to millions of years. That's where the idea of millions of years came from, incidentally. But do you know where these layers come from? They come from a deposit from Mount St. Helens. When Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980 in America, catastrophic processes laid down hundreds of feet of layers. See the man here? This is 30 feet thick and this whole 30 foot thick section, which consists of hundreds of thousands of layers like this, was laid down in three hours. If a little inky dinky catastrophe tiny, small, not very big catastrophe could do that. What do you think fountains of the great deep breaking open all over the earth over the period of the many months and months of the global flood, what do you think that would do? I think you'd find billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. Let me show you. On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens, located 95 miles south of Seattle, Washington, erupted. The eruption was triggered by an earthquake centered beneath the mountain that measured 5.1 on the Richter scale. The lateral blast swept out the north side of Mount St. Helens at 300 miles per hour. With temperatures as high as 660 degrees Fahrenheit and the power of 24 megatons of thermal energy, it snapped 100-year-old trees like toothpicks and stripped them of their bark. Before the famous eruption at Mount St. Helens, scientists were mostly familiar with slow-acting examples of geologic change. But at Mount St. Helens, geologists watched the Earth's surface change quite rapidly. Icebergs were buried in hot avalanche material. They melted and formed badlands in days. Eruptions on May 18 and June 10 produced fine layers in hours. On June 10, mud flows cut zigzag canyons 100 feet deep in soft sand and mud, complete with perpendicular side canyons. Canyons that are reminiscent of the geography of Grand Canyon. only 40 times smaller and clearly produced within hours. Mud flows over the following decade cut hundreds of feet into solid rock in just days of cutting time. Fallen trees formed a log mat on the surface of Spirit Lake and dropped bark to the bottom of the lake accumulating up to three feet of bark peat in just a couple years. and vertically floating logs sinking to the bottom of the lake resulted in buried trees in only a decade. Similar to the trees of Yellowstone's fossil forest, which are also buried in volcanic layers. Even though Mount St. Helens is a very small catastrophe compared to the flood or the major catastrophes immediately following the flood, it provides a better clue to what happened in those times than the slow geologic processes which are most commonly seen in the present. See the whole point is you don't need millions of years to form canyons, you don't need millions of years to form those rock layers. But you know, I have people say to me, but doesn't it take millions of years to make a fossil? Let me show you one of my favourite fossils. One of my favourite fossils is this one. It's no relation of mine, by the way. Somebody left it on a table in a village in New Zealand, it was covered by volcanic ash, and when they dug it up a few years later, they found it petrified. That didn't take millions of years, did it? And because the rock layers with the fossils, because this is really the issue, by the way. Do you realise Darwin could never have had his ideas of evolution take off without the millions of years. The millions of years was integral to him being able to postulate his ideas. So I wanted to show you one more quick video here to deal with those rock layers and fossils, because this is such a very, very important issue. Dead organisms usually don't last long. Scavengers and bacteria consume them quickly. Soft tissues rarely last more than days or weeks, and hard parts like bones or shells only a month or two. But the rocks of Earth contain billions and billions of fossils, and in many places, millions of fossils are exquisitely preserved, even soft parts. How could this be? To preserve a body, it needs to be put in a safe place. Extremely cold or dry places would protect them, but most organisms don't live in those conditions. There is another solution. Rapid burial. If a body is sealed from oxygen and out of reach of burrowing animals, then it has a good chance of fossilizing intact. Rapid burial is uncommon today, but there's much evidence of massive burials in the past. Not only are many fossils well preserved, They're found amidst very fine sediment layers. Fine layers rarely last in the present because all sorts of animals are digging around in the mud and soil, searching for food. In just a few weeks or months, the original layers are destroyed. But in the fossil record, churned up sediments are rare. If these sediments were laid down rapidly, however, they'd prevent burrowers from doing their job. and there are thousands of feet of such layers in the fossil record all over the world. This suggests that moving water laid down mud and sand rapidly over a wide area, and the process lasted several months. A year-long global flood, as described in the Bible, is the best explanation we know for the well-preserved fossils and fine layering throughout the rocks of the Earth. See, you don't need millions of years for fossils. In fact, the millions of years doesn't work. You know, it's interesting, when I went to university, I was told that the fossil layers were laid down slowly over millions of years. Now, more and more, even evolutionary geologists realise fossilisation is a rapid event, so now they teach that the layers were laid down quickly over millions of years. But at least they're acknowledging they had to be laid down quickly, by and large. By the way, there's lots of other things that we could look at. I want us to just quickly look at this for a moment. Do you realise once we understand this history and then you look at the whole world this way, what a difference it makes. For instance, dinosaurs. I don't know what to do with dinosaurs. Wait a minute, when did God make all the land animals? Day six. What were dinosaurs? Land animals. So when did God make T-Rex? Day six. Who else was made on day six? Adam and Eve. So you're saying that dinosaurs live with people? Yeah. But wait a minute, they would have eaten Adam. No, because originally all animals were what? Vegetarian. OK, but what about these fossils? Could they have been... You have fossils of dinosaurs with evidence of abscesses and cancer. Could that have been laid down before sin? No. So what makes sense of the fossils? Ah, because of sin, death entered the world. Dinosaur fossils, probably from the flood. Uh-huh. Two of every kind of land animal went on board Noah's Ark, right? Seven of some. Uh-huh. Well, dinosaurs couldn't go on board, they were so big. Actually, the average size of a dinosaur was the size of a sheep. Many were as small as chickens, some were as small as mice. A few grew to large sizes, only a few, particularly sauropods, but even a sauropod as a young adult wasn't that big. Was there plenty of room on Noah's ark? There was so much room on Noah's ark, he didn't need an ark that big. I believe he had an ark that big because God is a gracious God And just as he tells us today we need to go through a doorway to be saved, the Lord Jesus Christ who said, I am the door, by me if any man enter in he'll be saved. Adam and his family had to go through a doorway to be saved. I could imagine Noah for the last seven days preaching as a door was open, comes through the doorway and be saved, there's plenty of room on the ark, the animals are on board, we're on board. Then the door shuts. By the way we have a similar message today don't we? Come on board the ark to be saved. There's a judgement coming but not by a global flood next time. And you see, then the animals come off the ark, so dinosaurs lived in the present world. Yeah. Well, what happened to them? They died. That's pretty easy, isn't it? Tell me, have lots of animals become extinct? Yeah. Well, is it any mystery? Oh, no. Why is it a mystery with dinosaurs? Because we believe in millions of years. That's why it's a mystery. But if you don't believe in millions of years, you believe what the Bible says, it is not a mystery. But when was the word dinosaur invented? 1841. What do you think dinosaurs were called before they were called dinosaurs? I believe they were called dragons. Do you know what you've got all across Europe? Dragon legends. The country of Wales, its national emblem is a dragon. And the Scottish flag, don't you have some dragons on the Scottish flag? See, just as we have flood legends that have a basis in a real flood, we have dragon legends that I believe have a basis in real animals. But today we call them dinosaurs. See, it's not a mystery, is it? And incidentally, when you find dinosaur blood cells like these in a T-Rex bone, supposedly 65 million years old, evolutionists get excited. Creationists did too. And they even found preserved tissue that was soft. You know what the evolutionists said? There's some mechanism in fossilisation that we don't understand. You know what the creationists said? They're not that old. Different way of looking at the same evidence. Okay, let me just... Wrap this up here and we're going to have a break for 15 minutes or so. Some people call them, in America, potty breaks. Some people call them coffee breaks. I call them book breaks. Because one of the most important parts of our ministry is to equip you. You won't remember what we say. I don't even remember what I say. So how are you going to remember what I say? But we want to equip you. And you know what? We need answers for our kids, for our neighbours, for our friends. We need to be able to defend the Christian faith in today's world. And if you say, but I can't remember all that, here's a book, here's a DVD, that's what they're for. That's why the Lord has raised up this ministry, to equip you so you can go out there and witness to others. I can't reach everybody in a stolen way, but you can. You can reach all your neighbours and friends, and all across Scotland. Here's the bottom line. If God's word is true, God is the absolute authority, who sets the rules? God. Who decides right and wrong? God. Who decides good and evil? God. But if you're just a result of natural processes, And the Bible's not true. Who sets the rules? You do. See, here's the point. As a Christian, why do I believe in right and wrong? Marriage, one man for one woman. Rightful place for sex within marriage, one man for one woman. I have a worldview consistent that's built upon this foundation, because this is true. The history is true. That's why the moral things are true. The history is true. That's why the gospel is true. The history is true. That's why our doctrine is true. But If we start with a different history, and I want to explain this in the next session, it's just a shorter session, but to help us understand, you know there's only two ways of understanding the universe. You either start from God's word or human reason, autonomous human reason. There are only two ways. And if man determines truth, and you realise, even if you're a Christian and you believe the Bible is God's word, if you believe in millions of years, you didn't get that from the Bible, you got that from autonomous human reasoning. You don't dig up rocks with labels on them. It's man determining truth by himself. then why not apply that to the rest? Understand what happens. In one generation, you see, you can believe in millions of years and be a Christian. You can believe in evolution and be a Christian. Because we can believe in all sorts of inconsistent things. The Bible says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart God has raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. It doesn't say, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart God has raised him from the dead and believe in six literal days in a young earth, you'll be saved. It doesn't say that, does it? So does believing in evolution of millions of years affect your salvation? No, not in that sense. But you know what it does affect? How the next generation views scripture because of how you taught them. And that's what's happened in many of our colleges and seminaries. When one generation compromises, it doesn't necessarily affect, you know, their salvation in that sense. But you know what it does affect? How the next generation takes scripture. And when you start to erode it in one generation, what do you notice in the next? A greater erosion. What do you notice in the next? A greater erosion. Before long, what happens? You lose it. That's what's happening in our homes, in our churches, in our colleges, our seminaries in the nation. And you know, we see in America today, just like you see in the United Kingdom, the collapse of Christian morality and an increase in moral relativism. Don't we see that? You know why? Because foundationally there's been a change from building our morality on the Bible to building our morality on human reason. You know, Australia has never been a Christian country, but it inherited the British system, which built the morality on the Bible. But as more and more, the nation has gotten away from believing the Bible can be true in any way whatsoever. Now, what do we see in Australia? This sort of thing here. And I like to summarize it this way for people. Here's the castle diagrams. Human reason. The castle of humanism. moral relativism, God's word, castle of Christianity. The secular humanists know. How do you get rid of this structure, the doctrines, the morality? You've got to attack God's word. That's what happened in Genesis 3. That's what's happened all down through the ages. In this day and age, particularly attack on Genesis 1 to 11. What do many Christian leaders and Christians say? It doesn't matter. We don't need this foundation here, particularly in Genesis. As long as we keep this structure, you can believe in millions of years evolution. As long as you say God did it, friends, this structure will not stand on this foundation. It'll collapse within two or three generations. And then we look up here and say, look at all the problems in the culture. They are not the problems. They are the symptoms. This is the problem down here. And what our ministry is all about in Answers in Genesis. And, you know, in England, it's a small ministry that's growing because more and more people in church are starting to recognize what we're telling people is you need to get out there and restore the authority of the Word of God. You need to help people understand this history is true. This is the wrong history. We've got to deal foundationally with things. Then you can deal with these problems here and then we can build this. You want the next generation, your kids, your grandkids, to have this structure? They've got to have this foundation. If you don't do something about this foundation, this structure will not stand in the next generation. It's a very important issue. You know, Martin Luther said this. If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady in all the battle front beside is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." I thought it was an interesting quote. I'm not necessarily saying you'd agree with all his theology or anything, it's just a fascinating quote that I think is very applicable to today. I'm going to get Monty to just make an announcement. We're going to break for about 15 minutes or so.