Good evening. If we could take a seat, we will get started. Hello. There we go. OK. So it's my privilege to introduce our speaker this evening. Before I do that, just a few words on the apologetics forum. We bring speakers here four or five times a year. And we bring them to five or six different churches during the weekend that they're here. And so Mike is just getting started. He spoke at Calvary Chapel Lake Stevens last night and another church here in Lake Stevens, the second church. And then tomorrow night, we'll be at Atonement in Arlington. And that's where we started. Actually, this month, it'll be the start of the 12th year that we're doing this. And so we didn't start with 15 churches, but now we're growing the number of churches that we reach. And so it's been a blessing for us. Mike Riddle has been involved in apologetics for, he tells me, 45 years or so. He's not that old yet, but he's 45 years. But he has got his technical background. He's got a science degree. And he worked for Sprint and Microsoft, two of the companies he worked with. And he taught their training courses. And after he got into that and he was starting to get involved in apologetics, he decided to stop doing a job in the secular world. His boss in those days was well-known Bill Gates from Microsoft. And so he worked with that company when it was much smaller. But he learned a lot. And he learned to do training for the engineers there. So he's applying that to the apologetics world today. He worked for ICR as a speaker. And also answered in Genesys for a number of years. And then you found a training initiative What, 12 years ago or so? Yeah. And so he's now in Idaho. He used to be in Kentucky where Answers in Genesis is. So now he lives there with his wife in the back there, Leslie. So I've known Mike for almost 25 years since we've moved up here in this area, because he was involved in apologetics. And he's been out here pretty well once per year, and we bring him to different churches. So that's a little bit about his background, and Mike will tell you a little bit more. On the back table, If you're not in our mailing list, you can sign up on the mailing list and you'll be informed of all the meetings coming up. The next speaker next month will bring in, also will go to six or seven different churches. So there's a complete schedule there that you might want to look at and see which ones you might want to go to or recommend your friends, if they live near these churches, to go there. But the one event I want to bring to your attention that we're doing on Saturday is a very special course. You know, Mike does training courses. This is a brand new one. It's called Apologetics for the 21st Century. And what it does, he's got nine different topics he's going to cover. And they're all what I call cultural issues of the day. just to name a few, climate change, big pharma, which includes COVID, trans alphabet soup, transhumanism, understanding the enemy, and the final one is the topic is church's opportunity and responsibility. So Mike will be doing that class on Saturday morning, starting at 8.30, and it'll go at least till five o'clock. So far, we have 49 people signed up for that, but we have room for a few more. So if you would like to take advantage of that, take a look at the outline and the instructions on how to register for that are very straightforward. Just go to this website and click on that. Okay, so that's what we're gonna cover. And so Mike will speak on the topic this evening, why the age of the earth matters. And before he does that, I'm gonna just open up a word of prayer, and then we'll let him take over, and he'll speak for our plus or minus, and then we'll have time for Q&A. Father, we come to you again just to thank you for this time. We thank you for Mike's ministry, for his efforts. We just pray that you would just be with him, keep him strong, give him the words to use, Lord, that you want him to use in reaching people's hearts. And perhaps everybody here will learn something new that they could share with the family members, colleagues, schoolmates, or whoever you put into his path, Lord. We just thank you for the opportunity that we have to have him this weekend to share with us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Mike. Thank you, Heinz. Well, I'm going to make you feel relaxed because I'm going to sit down tonight too. Because if I stand up, I will not make this talk. Something went wrong with the body about eight days, nine days ago, and we're recovering. But God is good all the way through. You learn something every time these things happen, and you praise the Lord for it. I always tell them, I won't say, I'm going to pray for you, Mike. Okay, but I want you to read Psalm 145 first. That's your first homework assignment. We all need to be reading that one. It's one of the great praise psalms in the whole book there. Anyway, why the edge of the earth matters? Here's the problem. Many people in church have been convinced that it's not a real issue. We don't need to focus on it. And I'm going to show you otherwise, that it is very important and we need to teach our children all about this. So why the age of the earth matters? Let's look at some common beliefs within the church about the age of the earth. Well, kind of a lesser number of people have this view that the earth and the whole universe was created about 6,000 years ago, about in six little days. That is the minority. That is unfortunate. Some people believe in the day-age theory. Each one of the days were long periods of time. Some people believe in the gap theory. Between Genesis 1-1 and Genesis 1-2, there's a large gap of time, then God comes back and recreates everything. And in between that time was Satan's flood, came down and destroyed everything, and God had to recreate everything. All these have the same basic issues, so we really don't need to cover them in any detail. They all have the same issues, and we're gonna go through some of those. Progressive creationism, that God progressively creates over time. When it seems to get stuck, he comes in and creates some more. All these people are coming up with a different God than what's in the Bible. Genesis is poetry. What you need to understand is Hebrew poetry is not the same as English poetry. And we'll cover a little bit of that in there. So you'll be Hebrew scholars today. Scientists have proven the Earth is old. Anybody that makes that statement does not understand science. It's beyond the limits of science. That's the first thing I'll tell them. You don't understand science. Some considerations here. Does the Bible teach anything about the age of the Earth? And where does it do that? You're giving the whole story away now. Shouldn't we leave the age of the earth to the scientists? Why? Because it's a secular thing, isn't it? Are there multiple ways to interpret Genesis 1? That's what they get in our universities, and those professors know what they're talking about, don't they? Is there conflict between the Bible and science? Secondary universities tell us there is a big conflict. The Bible's wrong, the science is right. Here's some more. Does it really make any difference what I believe about the age of the earth? Shouldn't Christians agree to disagree and focus on more important biblical doctrines? One of those I get all the time is, it's just a secondary doctrine. My response to that is, rather than give any information, is what's the difference between a primary doctrine and a secondary doctrine? And they don't know the answer to that, so how do you know it's a secondary doctrine? There is an answer to it, but they generally don't know the answer. We should tolerate other views. You Christians are just intolerant. People in my congregation have different views, so I don't preach on it. I hear that from a lot of churches. The Bible doesn't teach how God created. My answer to that one is read the Bible. Three places it specifically says how he created. The issue of age tends to divide Christians. If you think this is an important issue, you're being divisive. Well, let's look what we're supposed to be doing here. 2 Timothy 2.15. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. That word diligent also means study to show ourselves approved. And we're supposed to rightfully handle God's word. Second Thessalonians 5, 21, 22. But examine everything carefully. Against what? God's word, that's your standard. Hold fast to what is good and abstain from every form of evil. The word examine means to test, to verify, or prove. Anytime we see something that disagrees with God's word, we need to compare it to God's word and see where it's wrong. More considerations. The key word in question is the word day, which is Hebrew yom. So you're on your way to be Hebrew scholars now. Yom. Yom can have multiple meanings. That's true. You go out to a Bible, the word yom, day, can have multiple different meanings. Does the meaning we use affect any other areas of the Bible? Is there other scripture support for a particular interpretation? To apply the correct meaning, we will use the rules of language interpretation called hermeneutics. And we are going to be woke tonight, we're going to do hermeneutics. Okay, that was a freebie. Okay, we're gonna go through five rules. I know you can make this into a great, big, heavy course, but you don't need to be doing that. You need to learn the basics. If you learn the five basic rules, you can cover most, probably 95% of what you're gonna come across in the Bible. So don't make this into a big session. You can do it in two Sunday school classes and cover everything you need to know and get some practice at it too. So rule number one is context. We must take the word in context where it is being used. I'm going to spell a word, and you pronounce it for me. B-O-W. Bow. Bow. So how do we know what it means when we read it? Context. Yes. It's the same thing we're going to do with the word day, folks. We're not going to make up any new rules here. We're going to look at it in the context where it is used. The explicit constrains the implicit. What does that mean? I only wrote it that way so I can fit it on one line in PowerPoint. Economy there. What it means is something is explicitly stated. It has a higher priority in what you might imply it means. That's what that means. So if there's a lot of words for day that can be used for a short period of time or a long period of time, and God specifically chose the word day, what does that tell you? He meant what he said, because he explicitly chose that word. What is the purpose of communication? To convey an understandable idea. That's the purpose of communication. God is not the author of confusion, we are. The interpretation must be based on the author's intention of meaning and not the reader's intent. That's historical grammatical approach. What did they know back then? They did not have modern science like we have today. Does that mean they could not understand God's word? No, they could understand God's word, they could interpret it without modern science. Be sensitive to the type of literature or genre. I'm going to pick on this side here. Everybody is going to be held accountable for this, except the woman in the back called wife. She feeds me. Don't answer this one so quickly, because you may cause your entire group to have to do 20 push-ups, as we had a group last night that had to do 20 push-ups. So be very careful before you answer it. Do you take the Bible literally? Where it's intended to be literally. App, great. I take the Bible literally where it's meant to be taken literally, because it's written in many different formats, such as poetry, figures of speech, apocalyptic, and narrative. It's written in many different formats. So I take it literally where it's meant to be taken. If you're to say yes, then I'm gonna tell you you're worshiping rocks, because what does the Bible tell us? Jesus is the rock. Be very careful before you answer questions. Think them through. So those are our five rules. That covers about 90, 95% of everything you'll need to know for interpreting God's word. M.J. Scott Duvall, Ph.D. Professor of New Testament, and the other gentleman, Hayes, Ph.D. Professor of Old Testament and Dean of Christian Studies. Here's what he has to say. In biblical interpretation, meaning is not determined by the reader. Meaning is what the author intended to communicate when he wrote the text. Therefore, the meaning of the text is the same for all Christians. It is not subjective and does not change from reader to reader. Boy, they need to teach that in our Christian universities. Either start teaching it or we need to fire a lot of professors. Let's look at some biblical considerations now. If I believe in a young earth, thousands of years, does it affect other parts of the Bible? Yes. Ooh, careful how you answer that one. If I believe in an old earth, billions of years, does it affect any other parts of the Bible? I had some people were saying yes to both. They're just trying to cover their bases. Is it a salvation issue? That's a big one pastors love to use. It's not a salvation issue. We're going to find out just how important it is. We're going to examine six biblical issues here. Number one, the gospel. Let's just go for it right here, the gospel. How does creation relate to the gospel of Jesus Christ? What I'm going to do is take a literal interpretation of Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. As creation took six days, he defined his days, and at the end of his six days, he said it was perfect, very good. Deuteronomy 32.4 says the works of God are perfect, and creation is the works of God, therefore they were perfect. Then comes the fall. This is the exact order the Bible reads, folks. I'm not gonna change anything. This is the exact order. So we have creation six days, then comes the fall, then comes death. Every major legitimate translation, that's what we see. Now if we add millions of years, what happens? We have creation, we have millions of years transpiring here. Eventually along come Adam and Eve. Then comes the fall. The question is, what was going on for those millions of years before Adam and Eve and the fall? Death. Folks, right there, if you're believing in millions of years, you are now telling people there was death before sin. You cannot get around that one. I know some people try, but you cannot do it. The only way you're gonna try it is misuse God's word somewhere else. That is teaching death before sin. If there was already death before sin, why did Jesus have to go to the cross? He wouldn't have needed to. He wouldn't have needed to, because there was no penalty for sin. You see the problem we have? It does make a difference what you believe about God's Word. Number two, Genesis 5 and the genealogies. This is a very unique set of genealogies. Here's four things we get from there. When the person was born, when the next person in the timeline was born, how long they lived, and when they died. That is enough information to determine whether there's any missing names there or not, and there are none. But I'm gonna show you it won't make any difference if there's missing names. When you lay these first names up, what we see is Adam was living at the same time as Noah's father. And Noah's living at the same time as Abraham's father. Their lifespans overlap. It wouldn't make any difference if there's missing names, folks. And there are none. So now, when we add all this up, we're going to do a little... Who's my math person here? Anybody math? Louie, you're math. See what happens when I know something about you? I can pick on you. You're going to thank me for this. Unless you want to give it to one of your daughters. Okay, we'll sign it to your oldest daughter there. You're gonna be proud of yourself when you're all done. You're gonna outshine everybody else. We know from today, back to the time of Jesus, it's about 2,000 years. We got records for that. We know the time from Jesus back to Abraham is also about 2,000 years. So the only time in question is from Abraham back to Adam. And you saw in the genealogies, that's also about 2,000 years. So now we have to go to our mathematician, add this up, and how old is the earth? 6,000, very good. That's where we get about 6,000 years in the Bible. Never says explicitly, but you take God's Word, put it together, and this is what we get. A little bit of research, which is fun. How many love research in the Bible? I love to do that. Just start researching word meanings, and it comes alive. But wait a minute, Mike. Couldn't there have been millions of years before Adam? They'll come up with whatever excuse they can to add their millions of years. Before Adam, we didn't cover that part, did we? There have been long geologic ages before Adam. Absolutely not, because Jesus Christ made a statement in Mark 10, verse six. And he said, but from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. What is Jesus telling us? Man and woman, notice that, man and woman were on this planet from the beginning of the creation, not after millions of years. Is Jesus wrong? old earthers would make him wrong. This is a serious issue when people start putting millions of years into the Bible. It undermines the foundation of the gospel. It undermines the very words of Jesus Christ. And now let's go to the authority of scripture and consistency. A main reason people want to add long ages is because what they believe to know about the scientific evidence for an old earth. It's only what they believe to understand or know. Science doesn't say anything, does it? We find evidence and we interpret that evidence. So, can we use scientific evidence to interpret God's word? Should we do that? Oh, we can use it to support, but not to interpret. Because if we have to have it to interpret, what about all those people from long ago? So scientific evidence. God did not write the Bible for an elite group of people who have science degrees, did he? So you don't need a science degree to understand God's word. Matter of fact, you don't even have to have a college degree to do it, do you? So if we use modern science to interpret scripture, I'm gonna go through four points. If we need that, it means for over 1,800 years, nobody gonna understand God's word until we got to this modern age of science. That's what's called arrogance. Only our generation knows what it really means. They didn't know because they didn't have modern science. Or, point two, we can come to an illogical conclusion. If we're using modern science, 30 years from now, we have new modern science, don't we? Do we have to reinterpret the Bible again? 30 years after that, we have new modern science. Do we have to keep reinterpreting the Bible? How are we going to know we ever have the true version? And the next two, we're gonna put a little more information behind new revealed knowledge and biblical consistency. New revealed knowledge. Mormonism, Joseph Smith. New revealed knowledge, new way to interpret the Bible. Seven Day Adventist, Ellen White. New revealed knowledge, new way to interpret the Bible. Church of Scientists, Mary Baker Eddy. New revealed knowledge, new way to interpret the Bible. Jehovah's Witness, Charles Taz Russell. New information, new revealed information, new way to interpret the Bible. Matter of fact, all these people have different ways for interpreting the Bible. Which one's right? Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard had his own way to interpret scripture. Islam, Muhammad, they have their own way to interpret scripture. And how about this one? Scientific age, new revealed information, new way to interpret scripture. Do you see a difference there at all? It's all it is, it's new revealed information, so we have a new way to interpret the Bible. The word day can't mean what it really means. That's what the new revealed knowledge of science has done, through God's word. And many of our Christian university professors are teaching error to the next generation. That means it's imperative we get them ready before they go to college. Let's go to biblical consistency, miracles. If we're gonna use our knowledge of science to interpret Genesis 1, we also have to use it for every other miracle in the Bible, don't we? Did Jesus really walk on water? Was there really a burning bush that was not consumed? We have to be able to explain all these scientifically or they can't be true. We have to reinterpret them all. How about the parting of the Red Sea and the Jordan River? Backing up the Jordan River for almost 10 miles. Was that, did that really happen? Was Jonah really in a big fish? Did Jesus really heal people instantly or did we have to take biopsies and wait for recovery? No, it says instantly people were healed. Okay, how about the next one now? How many of us believe that Jesus Christ really died on that cross? Okay. But do you believe it was really raised from the dead three days later? Why do you believe that? It's in the Bible, isn't it? We take it as God's Word. I'm going to make it a little harder on you now. According to all known science, you cannot be dead for three days and come back to life. Are you willing to go against all known science and believe in the resurrection? See, people will do that, but they will not believe that God could create in six days. Do you see the contradiction we have in our churches today? No wonder our youth don't know what to believe anymore. We've got sound teaching in our churches. We need to stop supporting the Christian universities who aren't teaching correctly. Send your money to the ones who are. If you don't know of one, support your local Christian schools that teach correctly. support the teachers there. They don't make the big bucks there, but if we get some good teachers and train them, get trained on, we can get apologetics teachers in the Christian schools and the homeschool co-ops. Wouldn't it be nice if we gave them a little stipend for what they're doing? We could really make a difference in our schools if we did. So, number five, the character of God. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. In the evening and the morning were the sixth day. How good is God's very good? Because if you believe in millions of years, he just called death, pain, killing, disease, struggle, and extinction very good. That is not the God I serve, but that's what millions of years means. Does millions of years affect parts of the Bible? Absolutely, it destroys many parts of the Bible. Now, I'm gonna give you a real challenge. Is God a deceiver? Let's check this out. He said there was an evening and a morning, one day, second day, third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day. That's in the Bible, it says that. But if you believe in millions of years, that's not what he meant, was it? Is he a deceiver? Let's go further with this. Three times, three times in the Bible, it explicitly states that God created in six days. Do you know how many times it says He created in millions of years? Zero! There's no reference to millions of years in the Bible. People will use little words here and there and say, well, that can mean long periods of time. What does it mean in the context? They'll take God's word out of context and make it say anything they want it to. Three times. First one is Genesis 1. What does it tell us? And God said, and God said, and God said. What does that mean? He spoke it into existence. Exodus 20 verse 11. Incidentally, Exodus 20 verse 11 was the first part of the Bible that was written. Ten Commandments. That was the very first part of the Bible that was written. Who wrote it? God. It's the only part that God wrote down himself. Everything else he used mankind to do through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But God wrote this down himself. First part of the scripture ever written. Then there's Exodus 31, 17. I'd like to go through these. Exodus 20, verse 11. For how many days? This is God writing this down now. Is he a deceiver? He says, for in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that was in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. He said six days there. So if you don't believe the days of creation were six little days, if you're believing they're millions of years, then commandment number four doesn't mean what it literally says. And now we've destroyed the 10 commandments. How can you be sure of any of the other commandments? Do you see what millions of years leads to? We gotta stop this stuff coming from in the churches. Anybody who's gonna teach in Sunday school, you need to stop them. They should not be teaching. They should be interviewed before they go in there and ask questions about this. Let's go to Exodus 31, 15, and 17. 31, 15, for six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a Sabbath of complete rest. Holy to the Lord, whoever does any work on the Sabbath, they shall surely be put to death. What kind of time is God telling us here? Certainly doesn't mean long periods of time, does it? Because he's talking about newness here. We have a what? Work six, rest one. We are told that. Six little days. But let's jump ahead two verses. Just two verses. What does it say? It is a sign between me and the sons of Israel forever, for in six days the Lord made heaven and the earth, but on the seventh day he ceased from labor and was refreshed. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the exact same type of language in verse 15 and 17. So why would verse 17 mean something else? See, people are willing to butcher the language, whatever they can, to make God's Word say what it is. Why? Because they're embarrassed about God's Word. We need people who have courage and boldness to stand up for God's word and tell people exactly what it says. He created six days. Oh, you're not being scientific. Well, then you tell me exactly how old it is using observational evidence. They can't do that. Because I think we said last night that all the radiometric dating methods, none of them give an age. They all give a ratio of elements, and then they interpret an age based on their bias. So who's the deceiver? Three times God's word explicitly states six days. So we got two choices here. If God didn't mean what he clearly states, then he is the deceiver, isn't he? If God's creation, as he communicated in his word, took six little days and the earth is young, then people who teach in old earth, they are the deceivers today. And God has warned us about deceivers coming into churches. And we need to stop it. No one in a position of leadership who believes in the Old Earth should be in that position of leadership in a church. Because you just saw what it does to the rest of the Bible. We should not allow them to be in leadership. Colossians 2.8, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. I've been brought into churches to teach because people in the church were destroying the Sunday school classes by teaching on Old Earth. And we had some pretty good confrontations. Example. Example is what people use to deceive you. 2 Peter 3.8. Genesis 2-4. Genesis is poetry. God could have used evolution. There was not enough time in one day for Adam to name all the animals. The sun was not created until day four, so how could the first three days be real days? Scientists have proven the Earth is four and a half billion years old. Due to time, we're only gonna cover a few of these. Let's start with 2 Peter 3.8. That's a very common one used. Here's what it says. Right there, doesn't it tell us one day can be a long period of time? That's what a lot of people are being told. There's two problems with this. Number one, we're gonna look at context, because context does matter, doesn't it? And two, we're gonna look at style of writing. Aren't those two of our rules? That's where these rules are gonna come in handy. Let's look at the context. Problem number one, context. That means we should read above 2 Peter 3, 8 and below 2 Peter 3, 8. Look at the full context. And the full context is not talking about the beginning, it's talking about the end times and the attributes of God, that God created time and he's not bound by time. It has nothing to do with the creation. People are misusing God's Word when they do that. Some are doing it innocently, because that's all they've ever heard, but they've never studied it. This is your chance to do some teaching, not beat people up. Then, style of writing, but, Beloved, be not eager to do this one thing that one day is with the Lord, and a thousand years, and a thousand years, one day. Anybody see the key word there? As or like, depends on the version you read. That turns this into a simile or a figure of speech. What is a figure of speech? It's a group of words used to describe something happened. We see these a lot in the book of Revelation. Typical example I like to use is, I watched you run the other day, and you run like a gazelle. Did I just call him an animal? No, I didn't. I said, like a gazelle. Means he runs fast and gracefully, and that's true, isn't it? Yes, okay. Used to, yes. That's the same word as I use. So that's what a figure of speech. If I said, it was raining cats and dogs yesterday. Are cats and dogs coming down from the clouds? No, it's a figure of speech implying a horrendous downpour. So the words used don't actually give the exact meaning. So figure of speech, and that's what 2 Peter 3, 8 is. It's a figure of speech. Genesis 2.4, now this is the one, how many have heard of Hugh Ross? This is one of the ones he uses, how many have heard of Frank Turek? He's a very popular apologist, I don't like to watch him. He's an old earther, and this is one of his big ones to use, Genesis 2.4, to show the days of creation were long periods of time. I'm gonna show you what both these people do. Here's the verse. This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. So the key here is in the day. The claim is the word day does not mean a literal day. You know what? I agree with that. We'd agree with that. That the word day in Genesis 2-4 does not mean a literal day. It's actually talking about the entire creation week. So we agree with that. but this is where they get it wrong. They don't understand the language. The word yom is not used there, it's be-om. It has a whole different meaning than yom. And this is where Frank Turk messes up all the time, and Dr. U Ross messes up all the time. See, the Hebrew letter Beth represents what we call a temporal aspect. It's a Hebrew idiom meaning when God created. Also, it's not bounded by a number or evening and morning. So it's very different. It's a different word than used in Genesis 1. It doesn't have the same context used in Genesis 1. So both Frank Turek and Hugh Ross are misusing God's word to deceive people. The claim, Genesis 1 is poetry. Oh now, how many poets do we have in here? Anybody like poetry? Okay, got one. courageous volunteer. Okay, so let's take a look at Hebrew poetry. In the Hebrew language, there's a thing called parallelism. It's a type of Hebrew poetry, parallelism. It's a common literary feature. Now, Hebrew poetry and English poetry are very different. What is a common characteristic of English poetry? Rhyming, yes, rhyming. That is not part of the Hebrew poetry. It's very different. There's what we call synonymous parallelism. We have one or more lines. One line will say one thing, the next line will say the same thing but use different words. That's parallelism, that's synonymous. They're saying the same thing using different words. We're gonna give some examples. There's antithetical parallelism. One verse gives the positive, the next verse gives the negative. That's probably about 90% of Hebrew poetry right there. So let's look at some examples. Synonymous parallelism, Psalm 19.1. The heavens tell of the glory of God, and their expanse declares the work of his hands. Both are saying somewhat the same thing, aren't they? That's synonymous parallelism. That structure is not found in Genesis 1. Let's look at antithetical. A wise son gladdens his father, but a foolish son grieves his mother. See, positive, negative. That is also not found in Genesis 1. When people say, Genesis 1 in poetry, before I give any information, I just say, can you describe Hebrew poetry to me? If you can't, then how do you know it's poetry? Before you give your information away, ask some questions. And it's a great time for teaching. Scott Newling, PhD, Old Testament specialist. As my old Ancient Near East History lecturer once put it, anyone reading the text would fail a first year Hebrew exam if they called Genesis 1 a type of Hebrew poetry. It is definitely not poetry, folks. It is narrative, historical narrative writing. How about this one? God could have used evolution. That just softens everything up. Folks, it's not a matter of what God could have done. It's a matter of what did he do. Don't let him frame the argument against you. What did he do? How many have heard of the law of non-contradiction? Two opposites cannot both be true in the same time and instance. In other words, you cannot be there physically and not there physically at the same time. We didn't talk about your mental part. That could be somewhere else. So I'm gonna compare evolution's order of events, what they claim, against what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that God created the earth first, and what day did he create the stars? Four, very good. Evolution teaches stars came first, then the earth, or the opposite. Can they both be true? No, they can't. Let's look at another one. God created the birds on day five, and the reptiles on day six. Evolutionists teach the reptiles came first, and they evolved into birds. Those are opposite order, aren't they? The Bible teaches this earth was formed out of a watery mass. Evolution teaches a hot fireball. The Bible teaches land plants, day three, the sun, day four. Incidentally, if these were millions of years long, each one of these days, that means we have plants with no photosynthesis. They're all dead. So that doesn't work scientifically either. But evolution has the opposite. Sun first, then land plants. The Bible clearly teaches man was here before death. Evolutionists teach there was millions of years of death, then came man. These two are opposite, folks. And there's only two possible choices. Only two. If they're opposite, we only have two choices. That means one of them's right, the other one has to be wrong. I'll leave the choice up to you. But I'm going with the Bible. A problem here. Many times a claim on all of this is made without examining the real evidence, the Bible and science. A lot of people will sit there, the science is proven, the science is proven. Then I'm gonna ask them, how does this work? How does carbon-14 work? Can you describe that to me? I like to go there. It's commercial time. The right answers book, I wrote the whole chapter on carbon-14 dating. Call up all the labs, read through all the radiocarbon journals. You can't sleep, read those radiocarbon journals. That'll help you. call up all the labs and then wrote the chapter on that. And I'll ask them, and very few have any clue how it works. Very few have any clue how the radiometric dating works, but yet they'll make the claim science has proven. Science and dating methods. Radiometric dating methods are used to date the age of rocks and fossils, that's what they do. The radiometric ones, the main ones, rubidium, strontium, potassium, argon, all those fancy names there used to date rocks. Carbon-14 is to date fossils, once living things, organic material. If it worked, it would have a maximum range of about 60,000 years, if it worked. The Dane methods we mentioned yesterday, none of them give an age. They all give a ratio of elements, then you interpret an age, based usually on your bias. All dating methods are based upon assumptions. I was in a secondary university, did my presentation. Then they start firing questions off at me. The professors are there, arrogant the whole time, firing questions off. One of them finally stands up and said, Mike, you didn't talk about radiometric dating. Why don't you talk about that to the whole group here? My answer was, I'll do that as soon as you turn to the audience and tell them about the assumptions used. And he sat back down, did not ask another question. So I never had to answer the question. Because he knew there were assumptions, and he didn't want to teach his students that. That's called dishonesty. When two different methods are used to data rock sample, guess what? We get two completely different ages. So which one's right? The one that fits their model. When rocks of known age are dated, yes, like Mount St. Helens, we never get the correct age. So if we don't know, if they don't give the right age for known rocks, how can we trust it for anything else? This is a powerful one. Mount St. Helens, when did that go off? 1980 and 1982. The rocks were dated up to 2.8 million years old. These things do not work. And we need to train our children not to be intimidated by them. Now, when you get to high school classes, we've got to be careful, because these teachers don't know much about this at all. Very few of them have ever been in the labs and done any of this. So you have to be careful. It's a time to educate. And sometimes you might want to take it offline with the teacher, rather than to put the teacher in a corner in the classroom. You've got to be careful about this. There are many scientific evidence that at a given age far too young for evolution to have all been censored out of the schools or openly ridiculed. And none of this information I've given you is in the school textbooks. They don't talk about the assumptions, they don't talk about the inaccuracies in dating. They will give something that says something like accurate ages. Did you know we can teach this in our Sunday school classes to junior highers? Even sixth and fifth graders, we can teach this, and they can understand. Wouldn't it be neat, by the time they get to junior high, they're ready? Then the time they get to high school, they're very ready to give the truth and be able to stand up for what they believe rather than being ridiculed by the class. Conclusion, does the age of the earth matter? Well, that's the answer. You already knew it before I even started. It's called biblical authority. What is your authority? Is it your wisdom or God's word? The gospel is at stake. The whole foundation of the gospel is at stake if you have an old earth. See, if you have an old earth, many things in the Bible have to change. If you go with what the Bible teaches, six literal days, you don't have to change anything. You can take the Bible literally. Isn't that amazing? The character of God changes, because he just called death, decay, and disease very good. An old earth is flat out unbiblical. It's not biblical at all. And scientists cannot prove the age of the earth. It's not possible. It goes beyond the limits of science. And teaching the old earth is deceiving our youth. We need to clean house in our churches and our Christian schools. Too many of our Christian schools have now adopted an old earth. Even some of our classical Christian schools are adopting an old earth now. And that's sad. The one this morning was right on board. They're still good. 2 Timothy 4 and 3 and 4 talks about today. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate from themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myth. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. They will stay just as he gave them to us. We need church leaders with courage today to stand up for God's word, not cowards. We need church leaders who are gonna go outside the pulpit. You know, the purpose of a church is what? The Great Commission, to train up people and send them out to do the work of the ministry. That is the purpose and your goal of your church, the Great Commission. Train them up, send them out. That does not happen by just giving information. It takes practice, a lot of practice, so they can do it over and over again. So when they run into questions like, why does God send people to hell? What about the person or people who have never heard about Jesus? Do they go into hell also? Well, maybe. Can they answer questions like that? How can God be good and allow so much suffering to go on? We can train our junior hires to answer those. I've actually trained fifth graders on Carbon 14. They can understand it. You don't have to teach everything, but you have to teach at their level, and they can do this. So they can challenge these dating methods in there, bring up questions. You see, if we can't get into the public schools, we can do covert operations. We can train our students, because almost 90% of our Christian students still attend public schools. Rather than losing them, let's train them to be the evangelists within the schools. And God's Word is permanent and unchangeable. So, newsletter sign-up. We have Institute for Creation Research, their Acts and Facts, a wonderful magazine, absolutely wonderful magazine, comes out every two months. It's just chock-full of good information, articles, very little to no advertising. And it's free. Then you also get our newsletter sign-up with this, so make sure you sign up for that. There's a lot of books back there, ladies and gentlemen. I know you don't have them all. There's some good ones. You may already have some of the books, but there's somebody you know might need one of these. And Christmas is just around the corner. Make a great present. So make sure you look at that. Here's a list of our training courses. The last two we're working on right now. The next course I teach after the one this Saturday is gonna be basic creation training right there in the Boise, Idaho area. And part of that course, I'm training a new person to be a teacher. That's what we do. In six months, he'll be teaching the whole course on his own. That's what we do. We have a Dynamics of Christian Education. I just did that one not too long ago in Republic, Washington, here, up by the border of Canada. A small little town of about 8,000. We had over 25 students there. 25 people showed up for that course. One of the poorest counties in the entire state. And they showed up for that. They were hungry to do something. We have a three-day communication teaching skills. We only take eight people for that one. Why? Because it's a heavy-duty workshop. Over 50% is you practice, and we coach you on speaking and teaching skills. So it's not, I'm gonna grade you on this. We do coaching, so you get better and better and better. Christian Educators Conference, that's every June down in Dallas, Texas. We usually get people from about 12 to 15 different states attending that. I mean, we only take 80 people. That's all we take. Then coming up is the Christian Apologetics Training Camp next July. We'll take 60 high schoolers. and we're gonna train them in four and a half days to be top apologist and evangelist. They will be able to go out and witness to their peers. That's what we're gonna do. If we had enough people, enough teachers on our staff, we could do that everywhere. That's what we're looking for. Then we have an evangelism training course coming out fairly soon. So that's how to get ahold of us. If you wanna get my direct cell phone number, I've got cards, you can pick that up and directly contact me. So that's what we do. Our business is, our ministries train others how to speak and teach. It's called Replicate Ourselves, 2 Timothy 2.2, and the Great Commission. So we don't draw big groups. Our classes generally have anywhere from 10 people in to maybe 60 people. So, Heinz, I'm gonna turn it over to you. And don't forget to tell them Christmas is just around the corner. Okay, well, we have lots of time for some questions and answers. So if you have a question, put up your hand. I'll bring the mic around so people can hear the question as well as the answer. So don't be shy. Any question is okay. It doesn't have to be just on his material that he covered this evening. I have a question. You've got a question. How can the first three days of creation be real days without the sun? No, because he created light. Sun wasn't there until day four. Directional light source. Well, what's the definition of a day? Rotation of the earth once on its axis. We don't need the sun for that, do we? That's the science answer. On day one, God used a word for light that meant a directional, just directional shining on the earth. Can God create light without a light source? Yes, he can do that. But on day four, he created the sun, which is a whole different Hebrew word, which means a luminary out there. There's a body of light out there giving all this off, which would be the sun. See, different Hebrew words are used on day one and day four. But the first thing is definition of day. We don't need the sun for that. Just rotation of the earth once on its axis. Very good. Okay, questions. Put up your hand and I'll bring the mic around. Yeah. So I'm a public schooler. I do online schooling, so I'm in a secular school. And you mentioned that you want to teach and you don't want to beat someone up. What are any tips that you would give to teach in humility and gentleness while still presenting the truth but not seeming arrogant or smug? Very great question. I would use it by asking questions. Ask a question, apply a question. You might even put some information in your question. One of the ones I've trained people on is the origin of life. My understanding is all amino acids and all biological proteins are left-handed. Could you help me understand how this happened? If they give an answer, they're lying to you. There's no scientist in this world can do that. You want to ask a polite question. I'm interested in natural selection. Can you tell me what is the source or intelligence that's actually making the decision? If they say the environment, I didn't know rocks and wind had brains to make decisions. But you want to do this politely. See, the teachers have not been taught this information either. So you've got to do it very carefully and politely. This morning when I did amino acids for 1st through 12th graders, they mostly all understood it, even the young ones. We made a little fun with amino acids. We brought in also mean old acids that some people have. But asking a very polite question, you may know the answer to it already, but you can check to see whether it's the honesty of the teacher. But don't call them on it. You might want to say, can we take this offline somewhere? Because I have a different understanding, and I've read some of the literature. And read some of the literature, you go to the ICR website or Answers in Genesis website, look up the origin of life, and you'll see many, many quotes. In the Blue Answers book, I think I wrote the whole chapter on the origin of life. So a lot of quotes in there, too. But asking questions is a very powerful way to do this. It's usually non-attacking. And you don't want to use it as, You don't wanna beat him up with a question, say I'm interested in this. Could you help me understand how this happened? If you want more answers to that question, actually tomorrow night, Mike is gonna speak on the topic, what do they teach in schools? And of course, what do they teach in secular schools? And then the other part of that is, what do they not teach? You know, and this use of, you know, amino acids is a perfect example because they tell you so much, just so much that yes, the experiment produced amino acids. The problem, they don't tell you they produced the wrong amino acids. And most teachers won't know how carbon-14 even works. They should, but they really don't, how the dating process works. And I go through the whole issue in the Red Answers book, but I don't give that when telling people about carbon-14. I give them what they need to know, that we have it in us, it decays, and when you're dead, are you still breathing or needing when you're dead? No, so you don't take carbon-14 in you anymore, but the carbon-14 that's in you continues to decay out. And after about 80,000 years, it should all be gone. So why are we finding carbon-14 in fossils all over the world, including dinosaurs? They've never heard of that information. What you're there for is to help cause a little doubt sometimes. But do it politely. Try and pin them against the wall in front of a classroom. Be very careful on that. You want to maintain that relationship there. Also, your grade could be at stake. Especially if you're in college, you'll fail right away. They'll throw you out of class. High school, they have to be a little more polite. So you want to build that rapport with your teacher the best you can. I know it's hard sometimes. Other questions? Just raise your hand up and I'll come around. All right, Mike. What's the answer? Do men, since Eve was taken from men's ribs, do men have one less rib than women? You sure? The answer is no. If you lose an arm, will your children have one less arm? No. And some of the ribs will grow back anyway. So, no. But those are the questions our children get. Or, did Adam have a belly button? Little questions like that? Go ahead. I'll let them ask a question now. Now that I've intimidated everybody. Raise your hand if you have a question. Any question is okay. It doesn't have to be just on what he talked about, but I have six very cute grandchildren. They all look like you. No, they don't, but they're all athletes. I can't find nothing. Question back here. Well, I actually was gonna ask, so did Adam have a belly button? Or what about tooth rings or stuff like that? Adam had a belly button. What is a belly button? Leftover scar tissue from being attached to the umbilical cord. Was Adam attached to a umbilical cord? No, did he have a belly button? Oh, wait a minute now. We see it from the outside. From the inside, there's a lot of things that attach there. So did he have a belly button? We don't know. Guess who we get to ask when we get to heaven? If you don't make it to heaven, you'll never know the answer to that question. It'll gnaw at you for all eternity. Other questions out there? Good, I like those kind of questions. Okay, if there are no more questions, we will bring it to an end. By the last chance, anybody? All right, well let's thank Mike for the presentation and the Q&A. Thank you. And there is a lot of books and resources back there on the tables. Take a look at that. It always helps to come home with something that you can read later and get answers to your questions. There's a lot of kinds of answers books back there. There are some devotional books back there from a ministry called Search for Truth by Bruce Malone. You may have heard of him. He's also a Croatian speaker. In fact, he will be here next year as one of our speakers in 2025. Mike mentioned Dr. Hugh Ross. An interesting story about that, there is also another Dr. Ross called Dr. Marcus Ross, who was trained at Liberty University. And he's a scientist, a geologist. He has a doctorate in geology. And he actually had a debate with the other Dr. Ross. I think you might know that. I found that very interesting because Dr. Marcus Ross is definitely a young Earth creationist. And the other Dr. Ross is an old earth creationist. Another interesting historical fact was personal to me, Dr. Hugh Ross got his doctorate from the University of Toronto in Canada. I happened to get my doctorate in physics from the McMaster University, also in Canada. So he just went to the wrong university. So anyway, take a look at those resources out there. Remind you, if you want more information on apologetics, there's a little pamphlet which describes what we do. Apologeticsforum.org, that's our website. If you want to get on our mailing list, there's also a sign-up sheet on that round table there. Add your name and email address and you'll be informed of upcoming speakers. In fact, next month we will have Dr. Marcus Ross here and we'll bring him to the different churches. So we look forward to that. And just to remind you also, if you're interested in some of his other talks, there is a schedule sheet on the back, and remember tomorrow night he will speak on what you are taught in public schools and what you are not taught. A lot of parents don't know this, and that's sad, what their children are going through. It's really not teaching anymore. It's straight out indoctrination. So the, and the other one I want to again remind you, the apologetics over the 21st century. If you're interested in some of these cultural issues that I mentioned, there's a list on the back table. And we, I know some of you are signed up to come to that class, but if you're not, we still do have some openings. So just pick up one of these and follow the instructions to register. So with that, let me close in a word of prayer and we'll be dismissed. Father, we thank you for Mike's ministry and Leslie as well. He's been in this ministry for many years, Lord, and you have held him up and you have used him mightily for different parts of the country, Lord, and we just pray that you just continue to use him. Give him strength back, Lord, his physical strength, and help him to just continue, Lord, to give these lectures and all the courses that he has put together. Pray that you use him mightily to do that and continue to do that. and just ask him to just bless his speaking for the rest of this weekend as well. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.