In the first section I dealt with relevance, theology, dealing with the book of Genesis, the importance, and also some of the scientific things, which I always like to introduce obviously. If you want a lot more to do with the evidence and that sort of thing, you get that from the books. What I want to do in this section is to teach us how to think about the origins issue and hopefully it'll help us understand really why that change has occurred. Tomorrow night, the first session is a practical session in regard to evangelism. How do you reach a culture that's changed foundations such as the United Kingdom, America, Australia and so on. And then the second session tomorrow night, we'll have a really uplifting session talking about death. I thought you'd enjoy that. But I want to answer that question just to show you the answers we can have as Christians. How can you believe in a loving God with all this death and suffering? Isn't God powerful enough to overcome all this? Is God unjust? All those children die in Indonesia from a tsunami. We'll deal with that tomorrow night in the second session. Well, did God create everything in six days just thousands of years ago or was there a big bang billions of years ago? In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth or As the late Carl Sagan said, the cosmos is all there is, wherever was, wherever will be. Let me ask you a question. Put your hands up if you exist in the present. That's a shame, it's only about 60% of you. Maybe it must be the Isle of Lewis, is that what it is? How many of you exist in the present? That's a bit better, we're getting up towards 80%, that's not bad. Hopefully you all do or you wouldn't be here, would you? Let me ask you this question. Fossils. When do fossils exist? Present or past? Some said past, some said present. Imagine my laser pointer is a fossil. When does it exist? Present. If it didn't, it wouldn't exist. Present, right? Okay, that's a little high there. When we're digging up dinosaur bones, are we digging up the past or digging up the present? We're digging up the... Okay, let's try this again. Here is my dinosaur bone in the present. I'm standing in the present on dirt in the present. My dinosaur bone in the present is in the dirt in the present. I have a shovel in the present digging up the dirt in the present. Am I digging up the present or the past? Present. You all went to secular schools, didn't you? We only have the present. Think about that. How's that for a revelation? And what we're doing, see what the origins issue is all about, we're looking out there, we see stars, how did they get here? What happened in the past to put the stars here? What happened in the past to put people here? To put birds here? That's one of our daughters I had to show you a picture of. One of our single daughters by the way. Good car, great salary, college graduate. I like to advertise wherever I can, I'm getting desperate. How did marsupials get here? Where did they come from? The ones with pouches, you know like the wombat that has a pouch that faces backwards and the young jump in at the rear end. What about dinosaurs? How do we explain them? Why is there death in the world? Why is there a world with life and death and love and hate all at the same time? What about fossils and layers of rocks? How do we explain them? And dogs, how come we have all these different species of dogs, different varieties, like this? Or these? How do you explain the different so-called races of people? What about the Australian Aborigines? See, in reality, there are only two ways of understanding the universe. Either there's someone who knows everything, or man determines truth. Think about it. You ever watched a murder mystery, maybe on television, or read a murder mystery in a book like an Agatha Christie book? You know, you get halfway through, you know who done it, the butler done it. Three quarters of the way through, the butler done it. One minute before the end, or one page before the end, the butler definitely done it. And then right at the end, they give you one little piece of information you didn't know, totally changes your conclusions. The butler didn't do it after all. Total waste of time reading the book or watching the movie. Been there? See, here's the point. Do you realise how many people have been jailed only to find out later on DNA testing shows they were innocent, but circumstantial evidence convicted them? See, friends, here's a problem we've got. When it comes to us trying to understand things, if we don't know everything, we could come to wrong conclusions, right? If we don't know everything. There could always be one piece of evidence we don't have that could totally change your conclusion. How many times have they said, oh, this is our ape-like ancestor, then they find something, oh, now it's not. How many times has that sort of thing happened? Over and over again. And see, when it comes to the origins issue, we've got a problem. The only way you could ever be sure of what happened is if there's someone who knows everything there is to know about everything. You know, the Bible claims to be a revelation of one who knows everything. And see, think about this, no matter how much you know, There's an infinite amount more to know, which means no matter how much you know, you don't know how much more there is to know anyway, which means no matter how much you know, you don't know how much you do know or don't know in relation to whatever there is to know, which means you just don't know much at all. That's the problem. And you see, the Bible claims to be a revelation from one who knows everything. By the way, as soon as you add man's reasoning, autonomous man's reasoning to the Bible, like adding millions of years of evolution to the Bible, your starting point is not the Bible, your starting point is human reason. Because as soon as you involve autonomous human reason in that, then you don't know that you've got all the evidence. You don't know you've got all the information you need. The only way you could ever come to right conclusions is if you start with one who knows everything. Now, in the secular schools and universities, by and large, it's autonomous human reason that determines truth. They teach that all life arose by natural processes. When you open up the biology textbooks, In the schools in the United Kingdom or in America, they say all life arose by natural processes including man. By the way, that is a religion. It's the religion of naturalism or atheism. You know what they say in America? You can have God as long as God's in the religion class. Ever heard that over here? Of course. God's okay in the religion class but not in the science class. Isn't that how they put it? But in the science class they're teaching that all life arose by natural processes including man, so what has the God of the religion class got to do with creating anything? Nothing. What's he got to do with me? Nothing. Then what is the God of the religion class? It's not the God of the Bible, can't be. We need to understand what's really going on here. When they threw God and the Bible and prayer out of the classroom, out of science classroom, they didn't throw out religion, they threw out Christianity and replaced it with a different religion. and anti-god religion. By and large this is what they teach in the secular schools and through the BBC or whatever. The cosmos is all it is or ever was or ever will be. There was a big bang billions of years ago. In fact they have this history. The history is of a big bang 15 billion years ago, 10 billion years ago the stars, 5 billion years ago the sun, 4.5 billion years ago molten earth. They know all this, they've got digital photographs and everything. Oh good, you're still awake at this time of night, that's great. 3.8 billion years ago, water forms on the earth and then life arises by natural processes and more and more kinds evolve. Charles Darwin popularised this idea because when he looked around he noticed that animals changed. By the way, did you know that Darwin was right about animals changing? He was. Animals change. Dogs change into dogs. Cats change into cats. But see, what Darwin said was, get enough time, all the little changes you see, like in finches and so on, they'll add up to big changes for molecules to man. Wrong. See, Darwin was right about natural selection. Did you know that natural selection is real? It happens? Do you know that many people think that creationists don't believe in natural selection because they think natural selection is evolution? Natural selection is not molecules to man evolution. And in America, when I'm interviewed by the media and they say, do you believe new species can form? And I say, absolutely. You observe it. Did you know a new species of mosquito formed in the London underground after the war? It's true. By the way, do you know what it is? A mosquito. Do you know what it was? A mosquito. Do you know what it's going to be? A mosquito. Or dead, depending on if they get rid of them. You see the point? See, natural selection is just, how do we breed dogs? We take dogs and we say, oh look, this must have genes for a little nose and this one has genes for a little nose. I'll breed these together. I want to get a breed that has the littlest nose you can get. And then we separate them from the others. Because if your breeds mix together, what happens? Don't you lose them? Because all the genes get mixed up. You know the same thing happened after Noah's flood. The animals come off the ark, you know what happens? They start to breed and then they move away from each other and you eventually get dingoes and wolves and coyotes and jackals and foxes and we bred our domestic dogs. But guess what they were, dogs? What are they, dogs? What will they be, dogs? That is not evolution. So we need to understand those things. But Darwin said, given enough time, ape-like creatures will turn into people. And of course, the evolutionary history of the record of life is supposedly left in the fossil record that they put in a textbook and call it a geological time scale. And they say that the older fossils are at the bottom and the younger ones are at the top. By the way, I agree with that. The older ones are at the bottom. They were led down early in the flood. The older ones are at the top, probably about a year later. A little different story, isn't it? The whole process happened over millions of years, millions of years of death and suffering, as we've talked about. And then, what's the end of it all? Well, Richard Dawkins, you've heard of Richard Dawkins, haven't you? He came across America not long ago preaching atheism, by the way, with his book, The God Delusion. He was asked a question in one of the magazines, the idea of evolution and natural selection makes some people feel that everything is meaningless, people's individual lives and life in general, Richard Dawkins. If it's true that it causes people to feel despair, that's tough. If it's true, it's true, and you better live with it. He has a message for the world. Life arose by natural processes. When you die, you won't even know you existed. Life is totally purposeless and meaningless. Don't you believe in creation? Believe in the message of atheism. It's great. Isn't that incredible? You know, I've often wondered, he's so emotional against creationists. From their perspective, when they're dead, they won't even know they're alive. When others who knew them are dead, they won't know they existed. He won't know they existed. They won't know anything existed. One day the whole universe is going to die a heat death and no one will know anything or any, and there'll be no remembrance of anything or any what or whatever. What's the point in fighting creationists anyway? I don't understand. Unless it's a spiritual issue, which it is. Now, the Bible says something very different. The Bible claims to be a revelation from one who knows everything. By the way, there is no other book like the Bible. Do you know the Bible gives an account of the origin of all the basic entities of life in the universe? The origin of matter, the origin of space, the origin of the sun, moon and stars, the origin of earth, the origin of water, the origin of plants, the origin of land animals, the origin of sea creatures, the origin of man, the origin of woman, the origin of marriage, the origin of death, the origin of sin, the origin of nations, the origin of languages, the origin of culture, You know any other book that does that? Not even an evolutionist book does that. The Koran certainly doesn't do that. The Koran's not even a chronology. It's a war poem and it has things that are contradictory and mixes things up. There's no other book like the Bible. It's because it is the Word of God. It says in the beginning God created. He created in six days and by the way those days were ordinary days. You know what's fascinating? You know, I find in the church, oh, I find this right across the United Kingdom and in America, I must admit, the majority of Christians or Christian leaders say, we don't know what those days were, they could have been millions of years, we don't know. You know what's interesting? You know, any word has two or more meanings dependent upon context, isn't that right? Take the word back. Some of you are at the back of this hall, you're sitting with your back against the back of the chair and you might come back tomorrow. There's the word back with a number of different meanings. The word day has a number of different meanings. If you said, back in my father's day, what does that mean? Back in my father's time. If you said, I worked during the day, that doesn't mean 24 hours, that means basically the daylight portion of a day, doesn't it? And if you said, it takes me three days to get across the mainland of Scotland, that means three ordinary days. See, the word day has a number of different meanings. Did you know the word day in Hebrew has a number of different meanings just like English? And you know how we know what it means? Context. You know there are Hebrew dictionaries that you can look up to look at words in context and their meaning. But you know what is fascinating? The Hebrew word for day, the word yom, in the singular or plural form is used 2,301 times in the Old Testament. And you know that we know what it means everywhere it's used except Genesis 1. Ever thought about that? When Joshua marched around Jericho, you know, how many days was it? Seven days marching? Did we ever say, how many millions of years? We don't know what the word day means there. Jonah, how long was he in the great fish? It says three days. I wonder what that means. Could it mean three thousand years? Three million? We know what the word day means. When it says in the day of the Lord, what does that mean? In the time of the Lord, in the day of the judges, in the time of the judges. We know what that word means. We come to Genesis and people don't know what it means. Why is that? You know why it is? It's not because of the Bible, because the word yom, whenever it's used with a number or morning or evening or night, when it's used in that context, always means an ordinary day. By the way, it's almost overemphasised in Genesis 1. It's written with evening and morning and number for each of the six days and has night for day one as well. I think God was saying, look, these people in the 21st century are going to be so thick, I'm going to overemphasise this for them to make them understand. I created in six days and then we still get it wrong. But think about this. If you're influenced by the millions of years, you can't put millions of years from Adam to the present because millions of years doesn't fit in the baguettes. So-and-so, baguette so-and-so. Millions of years later, baguette so-and-so. It doesn't work. And you know you can't extend those baguettes millions of years. It would destroy biblical history. So if you want to fit millions of years into the Bible, the only place you can do it is before Adam, which means in the six days, which is ultimately the reason most clergy, most, not all of course, but most, I would say the majority from my experience, and most Christians will not believe in six days has nothing to do with what the Bible says, but everything to do with the millions of years. And then I get people quoting, oh, but the Bible says a day is like a thousand years. Oh, I hate that. I'm going to lose hair over that. Where is that from? That's from the New Testament. Read the rest of the verse, and a thousand years are like a day. That just cancels that one right out. And besides which, you can't use a phrase from the New Testament to determine the meaning of a Hebrew word in Genesis. That is nonsense. Hebrew word depends upon the Hebrew language. And if you're going to say a day is a thousand years, why don't you do that everywhere a day is used? Jonah was swallowed by a fish. is in there for 3,000 years. It's just ridiculous. I hate that verse being quoted like that. When you come up to me and you say, but the Bible says a day is like a thousand years, you've got no idea what I'm thinking in here. I'm thinking things like, oh, no, I won't tell you what I'm thinking. Well, let's go on here. The Bible gives us this history. God created six days, what he did on each of the days, corruption, sin and death entered, in the flood of Noah's day. Do you know what the Bible is doing? Think about this. How can we figure out what happened? We can't do that. God says, I'm going to give you the basic history of the universe so you've got it all there. I created kinds of animals and plants. Death ended the world because of sin. You're a sinner. That's why you die. That's why there's death in the world. There was a flood. That explains most of your fossil record and your canyons. There's evidences all over the world. Tarot and Babel. That's why there are different people groups, different languages. Simple, isn't it? It makes sense. And everything you see fits exactly with what the Bible says. Isn't it exciting? It is. The Bible is the true history of the world. And the message of course of the Gospel is based in that history. And the purpose and meaning of life. It's not like Richard Dawkins. No, God so loved the world he gave his only son. Whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Wow, what a message. You know I have people come to me and they say, you know I have students come and say, You just gave us two totally different views of the universe. That's correct. Big bang? No big bang. Millions of years? Thousands of years. Death before man? Death has always been here. Death after man sent. Man evolved from ape-like creatures? Woman evolved from ape-like creatures? Man made from dust. Woman from his side. No global flood? Global flood. Very different, aren't they? They say, how can you have such different views of the origin of the universe? Whether you're a creationist, an evolutionist, a Christian or a non-Christian, do we have the same Earth or different Earth? You tell me. Same Earth. Do we have the same fossils or different fossils? Same. Same animals? Real animals, not mundane things like, I don't know what you have. Do you have any animals over here? Whatever they are. Rats or, I don't know what you got. Do we all have the same animals? The same animals. Do we all have the same canyons and rock layers? Do we all have the same world? Picture of the world, we all have the same world. Some of them are a little slow here, do you notice that? We have the same dinosaurs, we see the same death, we all suffer the same human death. Do you realise that creationist and evolutionist Christians and non-Christians have the same facts? You know why I tell you that? Because a lot of people have the wrong idea. I find a lot of Christians think Oh evolutionists have got all these facts and if we're going to win we're going to have more facts than them so that we can say we win. Wrong. We all have the same facts because we all have the same present universe. See the origins issue is a different issue to talking about building our technology which involves observation, understanding the properties of matter and then building on that. That builds our technology. That's totally different to an origins issue which is the past when we weren't there. What we're trying to do is to interpret the evidence of the present in the context of history. And there are two different ways of doing it. Man decides truth, or God's word is truth. And see, from those two different, what we call axioms, or I call them starting points to make it easy. From these two different starting points, we build a way of thinking. I put on here glasses. Did you know we all wear glasses? We all do. You all have a way of thinking. You're interpreting facts every second. When you come into this hall, you look at that and say you're interpreting it. That's a projector and that's a stand. But if you'd never seen a projector and never seen a stand, you wouldn't know how to interpret that. You've already been told that, you see. I don't know if any of you saw the movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy. Did anyone see that movie? I don't know, do they have such movies over here? Anyway, it's a funny movie where somebody dropped a Coke bottle into one of these tribe of Bushmen in Africa and they didn't know what it was. And so they interpreted it as something from the gods. And that was the funny part of the movie. But anyway, maybe you don't watch movies. Sorry about that. I don't watch them either except for scientific reasons and research purposes. Just in case. But you see, if you didn't know what a Coke bottle was, you don't know how to interpret it. See, what we've got to understand is you wear glasses all the time. And there's two sets of glasses you can have on. Autonomous human reason, or God's word. And we're looking at the same evidence trying to understand it in relation to the present. In the beginning God created, I'd expect evidence of intelligence behind the universe. DNA, that molecule of heredity that builds our genes, our chromosomes. Do you know when you look at DNA, it's like books of information read by a language, by a code system. Codes only come from an intelligence. Information only comes from information. In the beginning, God makes sense of DNA. In the beginning, matter doesn't work. In the beginning, the cosmos doesn't work. No one's ever seen matter produce a code or produce information. God made distinct kinds of animals and plants after their kind. Oh, great variation within dogs, so dogs will always produce dogs. No, Darwin taught one kind changing to another. Those changes add up to big changes eventually for Darwinian evolution. Genetics speaks against that, it doesn't happen. We're all descendants of Adam and Eve, one race. Darwin taught, no, different races that evolved at different levels. Now even the Human Genome Project says, guess what, we're all one race. Of course, they still believe in evolution. They believe that there are different races and we're all descendants of the race that survived. See, different way of interpreting it. When we look at the fossil record and we look at layers and canyons, it all fits with catastrophism like Noah's flood, no death before sin. But from this perspective, Noah over millions of years, but actually the more you look at it, the millions of years doesn't fit. Let me show you a real short video clip to help you understand it. I grew up fascinated by dinosaurs. Watching movies, collecting models, reading all about them. Dinosaurs were big. They were magnificent. They were awesome. I was taught that dinosaurs once ruled the world, but that millions of years ago, they disappeared from the earth. Everything I believed about the age of the earth, cycles of life and death, the evolution of humankind, began dinosaurs. And then I learned that the Bible presented a very different history. Kim here is my colleague, fellow paleontologist. We've been friends since college. Today we study the same fossils, we use the same techniques, but that doesn't mean we agree on what happened here. We do interpret our findings differently. You see, fossils don't come with tags on them. telling us how old they are, where they lived, what they ate, or even how they died. We have to figure that out from the clues that we find. We never have enough clues. So, our starting points usually lead us to different conclusions. Here's how I see it. I think this dinosaur died over 100 million years ago. It dried out in the sun for a long time. And later, I think this specimen was covered by river sediment. which was caused by a local flood. She's been lying here all this time until we dug her up. Where Kim sees millions of years, I see evidence of a different history. I believe this animal died in a flood, but it wasn't a local flood. It was a massive flood that covered the earth, Noah's flood, when God judged the world. The carcass was buried suddenly, before it could be eaten or decomposed, buried in a layer of sediment that stretches across the entire continent. Since the flood, according to the Bible, was about 4,300 years ago, that's how old I believe this fossil to be. We come to different conclusions because of our different starting points. I start with the Bible. My colleague does not. We all have the same facts. We merely interpret the facts differently because of our different starting points. So you see, those starting points really do determine how you interpret the evidence. It's very important to understand that. Now, people say, OK, but wait a minute, wait a minute. For instance, when I'm talking to an evolutionist, they'll say, but wait a minute, but evolution is science. Oh, when anyone says to you, I've heard Christians say this, do you believe in science or do you believe in the Bible? What do you think of the science versus Bible debate? Oh, I hate that. I think the same thing as when somebody says a day is like a thousand years and misquotes it. Don't ever say science versus the Bible or I believe in the Bible and not science. Because people, that is not right. Do you realise, see, when an evolutionist says to me, but we believe in science, you believe in the Bible, you know what I say? Wait a minute, I have the same science you do. When you're talking about observational science. See, when anyone uses the word evolution with me, do you know what I say? Could you explain what you mean by evolution? Most people, when they use the word evolution, are thinking molecules to man, and yet people use the word evolution for changes within finches or changes within dogs. So you've got to ask them, what do you mean by the word evolution? Because you know what the word evolution basically means? Change. So most people, when they use evolution, are thinking Darwinian evolution, but then in the textbooks they say, evolution is true, look at all these changes, therefore evolution is true, molecules to man. So you've got to define your terms. When it comes to science, if you look up the word science in a dictionary, you know what it says? Science, having knowledge, state of knowing, knowledge. You know what the word science means? Knowledge. You can have knowledge of the present and we gain knowledge of the present by observation and that's how we develop technology. Your knowledge about the past is your beliefs concerning the past. They're very different things. Observational science or operational science is what builds our technology and creationists believe in operational science, even putting rovers up on Mars, just like an evolutionist. We have the same operational science. So when someone says to me, do you believe in science? Absolutely. I got a science degree from a secular university and I was accredited with it by an evolutionist who said I could teach science in the public schools in Australia. I believe in science. But you see, when the scientists who built the rover that went on Mars start talking about millions of years ago on Mars, they've stepped outside of the observational science that built the rover. Now they're talking about historical science or origin science. That's concerning your history. And our students in the schools are not being taught the difference between observational or operational science and historical science. That's the problem. They're not being taught the difference. And see, what I want us to understand here, and hopefully this will help put it in context for you, when it comes to looking at all these things in the present, we can study DNA, our operational science. We can study the genetics of dogs, operational science. We can study the human genomes, operational science. We can look at the rocks and the fossils in them, operational science. But when it comes to, okay, what happened in the past to put all these things here, now you're talking about historical science, origin science. So what we can understand is this, we can have different starting points to interpret the evidence differently, but when we study observational science, such as when we look at DNA and study chemistry, we find observational science actually confirms an intelligence behind the universe. When we look at observational science applied to genetics, we find it confirms the Bible's account of kinds, not Darwinian ideas, so one kind into another. When we look at observational science and look at that in regard to geology and fossil formation, it actually fits with catastrophism, not millions of years of slow processes. You see, because the Bible is true. When we apply observational science to the humankind, genetics confirms one race, not different races. And so it goes on, because what we're saying is the Bible is true. Now, I wanted to leave you with this thought. We've got about 10 minutes or so here. Or 15, or 20, or 30. An hour. No, I promised I'd finish at 10 o'clock. I'm going to finish at 10 o'clock. A day's like a thousand years anyway. We can... Oops. Shouldn't say that. Okay. Righto. So, I've had people come to me. Tell me if you've had this happen. Mr. Hamm, I'm arguing with an atheist or a secular person or a non-Christian, and they say, don't give me the Bible, I don't believe the Bible, give me some evidence Christianity is true and there's a God, but you can't use the Bible, because I don't believe the Bible. Who's had that sort of, something like that happen? Put your hand up if you've had that happen. Yeah, a number of us. Huh. I want you to think about this for a moment. If we agreed to do that, okay, I'll argue with you, but I won't use the Bible. If we agreed to do that, then whose starting point are we left with? There are only two starting points, one who knows everything or autonomous human reason. So if we agree to give up our starting point, what does that mean? It means we agree to accept theirs. Oh, by the way, if we don't have our starting point, we have theirs, who wins? They do. Now, just hang on for a minute. I have people who say, but wait a minute, Romans 1.20, For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes clearly seen, begun still by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, thou without excuse." Isn't the Bible saying you can convince someone there's a God without even looking at the Bible? Well, just hang on a minute. Romans 1.20 is certainly talking about the fact that it's obvious that there's a God. And everyone's without excuse, that's true. But you can't just take one verse in isolation from the Scriptures either, as we'll look at real quickly in a moment. There are many examples that God created. You look at the human eye. Look how complex it is. Look at DNA. I mean, it's so obvious that there's a God. But I want you to also think about this. You know, that's called general revelation. But I want to ask you a question. If you didn't have the Bible at all, didn't know about the Bible, and you looked at this world, and you concluded there's a God, what sort of God would it be that creates a world with all this death and suffering? What sort of God would it be who creates a world where children die of starvation. Must be an ogre. But you see, when you look through the Bible, you understand, ah, it's a world marred by sin. This is not the world as God made it. And you know, another thing to think about is this. We are biased against God. We don't want the true God. So if you convince somebody you've got to believe in God and you're not using the Bible, and by the way, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Ah, word of God. But if you're not using the word of God, man knows there's a God because it's written in our hearts. Because of our sin nature, we don't want the true God. So, we would go for a New Age God, a Hindu God, a Buddhist concept of God, a Muslim God, because we don't want the true God. And here's how I want you to view this. I want you to understand this. You see, if you agree to argue on the basis of, OK, I won't use the Bible, then you're only left with autonomous human reasoning. You've both got the same starting point. But think about this scripture. If you're not for Christ, you're what? He who is not with me is? Against. He who does not gather with me? What? See, when you say, OK, I'll agree to argue without the Bible, do you know what you're really saying? I agree there's such a thing as neutrality, and you can be neutral. Tell me. Does the Bible say you can be neutral? No, you can't be neutral. The Bible also says this, friendship with the world is what? Toward God. Hostility toward God. The Bible says that men suppress the truth in unrighteousness and the Bible says the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God. There's no such thing as neutrality. If you're not for Christ, you're what? If the schools are not for Christ, they are If the textbooks are not for Christ, they are... Think of what we're saying. If your children are receiving a five hours a day education from a system that's not for Christ, it is... Think about that in regard to the influences there, the importance of you as parents, and the importance of you as parents giving them the right foundation and answers and equipping them. See, here's the thing. When somebody says, oh, you know, you're not allowed to use the Bible. We say, OK, we won't use the Bible. In actual fact, when we read scripture, we understand there is no neutral ground. You've then gone over to their side. Can you imagine two knights having a fight? Before we begin, throw down your sword. Oh, OK, that's a good idea. I'll throw down my sword. but you can have yours. Who's going to win? That'll be the same as saying, we can talk about the origin of the universe but let's leave the Bible out of it. Oh, okay, that's a great idea, let's do that. No, no, no, that's foolish. The Bible says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It says, my word that goes forth from my mouth, it shall not return unto me void. It shall accomplish what I please. It shall prosper in the thing which I sent it. Friends, I want to tell you something. Here's the way that I operate, and I believe is biblical, and I found extremely powerful and very relaxing. When somebody says to me, but you're starting with the Bible, you're biased. Come on, give me some arguments without the Bible and so on. You know what I say to them? You don't believe in the Bible? But guess what? I do. You know what I'm saying in my mind? Who do you think you are setting the terms of the debate like that? You can't do that. I'm not saying that to them, I'm thinking that. And here's what I say to them, I say, you know what, you don't believe in the Bible, guess what, I do. And you know what I'm going to show you? I'm going to show you when I start from the Bible and I build my thinking, I can explain the universe, not only that, I can use observational science to confirm my interpretation of what I see out there based upon the Bible. I can show you that observational science does not confirm your interpretation, you got the wrong starting point, this is the right starting point. And you know that's powerful because you're honouring the Word of God, The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword and you're helping them understand. It's God's Word that makes sense of the truth now. It makes sense to the world. Now when you do that, I want to run through just a few things to finish with here. This is where it gets complicated. So bear with me. Okay? Ephesians 2, we're dead in trespasses and sin. The same word is used of Lazarus who was dead. Could Lazarus raise himself from the dead? Nope. If somebody's dead in trespasses and sin, can our words convict them and open their heart to the truth? Nope. They're dead. They can't raise themselves and we can't raise them. Okay, let's go on. There is none righteous, no not one. There is none who does good, no not one. For by grace have you been saved through faith and not of yourselves. It's a gift of God. So what can we do? From that perspective it seems like, what can we do? So what's the role of evidence? What's the role of having these answers? I'm glad you asked me the question. What is the role of evidence? We read in 2nd Peter that it's not his will that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. And then it says in Romans 10, and how shall I hear without a preacher and how shall I preach unless they be sent? How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of good peace, who bring tidings of good things. And then it says, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. Okay, I'll come back to that in a moment. Without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. But the Bible says, by grace he is saved through faith and is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. In Romans 10, 9, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. How do we put all this together? Let me show you how I put it together. We're dead in trespasses and sin, there's nothing we can do to save ourselves, By grace he is saved through faith. It is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. For without faith it is impossible to please him. He who comes to God must believe that he is. If we confess with our mouth the word Jesus, believe in our heart God has raised him from the dead, we'll be saved. God uses the foolishness of preaching. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. It's God's word that's sharper than a two-edged sword. As I look at the scripture and understand those things, here's what is totally relaxing to me. Because I have people come to me and say, I have been witnessing to my relative That means everybody, by the way. But I've been listening to my close relative for years and I can't get anywhere. I'm trying to witness to my friend at school. I must be a failure. I'm not getting anywhere." I said, well, well, put these two things together. We are finite beings. We cannot understand the mind of God. Isn't God's ways far above our ways? God's thoughts far above our thoughts? Exactly. We are finite beings, sinful finite beings. And so when I put those two things together, it's God who actually brings them together. And here's how I understand it from scripture. When you read about Paul, he would powerfully dispute, argue, try to convince everyone of the truth, knowing we don't do the convincing. Who does the convincing? God. Why is it the foolishness of preaching? Well, in what way can I, in my words, convict somebody? Can't. But God chooses to use us and tells us to go out and preach the gospel for every creature. And if we faithfully do that, as diligently as we can, be prepared to give answers for what we believe, under the word of God, it's God that convicts and opens their heart to the truth. Think about that. You know why that's relaxing to me? I get on all sorts of radio programs and debates and secular TV shows and I tell you, I'm a little fearful. And one of the reasons I'm fearful is because, you know, you wonder what they're going to say and they're going to mock you and all the rest of it, and that doesn't matter so much. But I'm fearful because I'm saying, Lord, I want to do my best to give the answers that I can, to try to convince them, and then I relax and stand back and say, but isn't it great if I've done my best, done the study the best that I can, if I've been to Answers in Genesis, got all their books and DVDs, and if I have studied the scripture, and so I can give the answers the best way I can possibly give the answers and do my best and I honour the word of God in doing that, then you know why I relax? I stand back and say, Lord, it's up to you. It's not up to me. Isn't that relaxing? I find it relaxing because I find that then when I get some of these scoffers on TV and they're yelling and screaming at me and I want to say, you know what? I did the best I can to convince you and I have to stand back and let God open their hearts to the truth. Because how do you change your starting point? It has to be a work of the Lord in your hearts. But, scripture says, without faith it's impossible to please God. He who comes to him must believe that he is. In ways that I don't understand and I don't try to understand. You know why I don't try to understand it? Because I'm a finite being. But I want to be obedient to the word of God. And so I use That's why we give these answers to people. We're not trying to prove the Bible's truth. Do you understand? We're not trying to prove the Bible's truth. The Bible is God's word. It's true. And what I'm saying is if it is God's word, it'll make sense in the world. And it does. And operational science will confirm that. And it does. Because it's God that opens your heart. The truth. Well, I think that's exciting. By the way, there's one last thing. Your starting points not only determine how you interpret facts in relation to the past, your starting points determine your morality. They determine your worldview in every area. If there's a God and he created us, abortion is obviously wrong. It's killing a human being. You are human right from the point of conception. I mean, David understood that in the Psalms, didn't he? And it's obvious anyway. Because at conception you have all the information that builds you. There's no more information added. In fact, I don't know what David meant and spoke on when he was over here and if you came to his lectures, He shows that when a fertilised egg is implanted in his mother's womb, you know there's a mechanism to stop the body rejecting it because it's a foreign body. Just like you have rejection problems if you get a transplanted kidney, because it's an individual. If the Bible's true, marriage is one man for one woman. But see, if human reason determines truth, whereas all of natural processes, do whatever you want if you can get away with it in the culture. And see, what has happened is that whereas, Much of our Western world started from here, even if they weren't truly Christian in every way, but basically much of our Western world did start from this, and really a lot of that was the effect of the Reformation, wasn't it? But it's changed now to this, and that's the effect of Darwinian evolution and millions of years. That's why we have the changes up here in regard to that. Well, my watch says one minute to ten. Are we going to close anyway or we just say go? How about we close in a word of prayer. I'll just pray real briefly. Gracious Lord we just thank you that your word is truth. Forgive us for the many times Lord we're guilty of really doubting your word or allowing outside influences or just like the Israelites in adopting the pagan religion of the day. and mixing it in with their temple worship and sacrifices. Lord, we've really done the same thing in adopting the pagan religions of the day and adding it into our worship in the churches. Forgive us, Lord. Help us to stand on your word and to train up a generation that stands in your word to influence the world for the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray for this nation of Scotland and of the whole United Kingdom, Lord, that you would raise up men and women to stand upon your word, proclaim the truth of your word, to stand against the secular philosophies of the age, so that you will bring people to yourself. In Jesus' name we pray. Dismiss us with your blessing now. Amen.