DEVILUTION, PT. 5
“DATES, DELUGE, & DINOSAURS
Genesis 1:1-2:2
Next in our series, I want to address the three questions that are most often asked of creationists:
(1) The question of THE AGE OF THE EARTH.
(2) The question of A GLOBAL FLOOD
(3) The question of DINOSAURS
I want to introduce you to what the Bible says about all three of these important issues. For you see:
• The Bible does speak to the age of the earth...and I believe the Bible testifies to a very young earth. (I intend to show you scientific support which verifies a young earth)
• The Bible does speak of a global flood and I want you to see how this impacts our thinking on geological ages.
• The Bible does speak about dinosaurs, and I want you understand the truth about all these dinosaur bones that we are constantly digging up, and some dino’s possibly still living!
I think some of you are going to be surprised by what you discover in the Bible tonite. And you are going to be amazed at the weight of scientific evidence that is continually affirming what the Bible says.
Gen 1:1-2:2
Isn’t that a grand, majestic account of the creative activity of God? And even more than that, I believe it is a perfectly accurate account. And if you will evaluate the evidence we have today, I believe you will have to interpret the evidence as being an overwhelming verification of the scriptural account of creation.
Now let me try to give you a biblical answer for the 1st of the 3 BIG QUESTIONS most often asked of creationist.
I. DATES...
II. DELUGE...
III. DINOSAURS...
I. DATES...(THE AGE OF THE EARTH)
• Maybe the single most controversial issue standing between evolutionists and creationists has to do with the apparent age of the earth. Simply put:
A. Evolutionists believe in a very OLD Earth. (3 to 4 billion years old)
NOTE: Long ages of time is needed to support the processes of evolution.
NOTE: The fact is, the more scientists discover about biology and the complexity and diversity among living organisms, the more time they are needing to make evolution happen. The earth really needs to be much older than even they first propose to allow for the development for the complexity and diversity that exists today.
B. Most creationists believe in a very YOUNG Earth. (6,000 to 10,000 years old)
NOTE: Now to many of you, this young age of the earth sounds unbelievable. We have been so thoroughly indoctrinated in the idea that the earth is billions and billions of years old. After all, all of us probably have images of Carl Sagan saying the earth is “billions and billions of years old.” (By the way, Carl Sagan died in 1996. And there is one thing you can know for sure about Carl Sagan today.... Now he is definitely a creationist!!!
INFORMATION: CHARLES LYLE
The concept of a very old earth was first made popular by a lawyer named Charles Lyell in his book Principles of Geology, published in the early 19th century. He was not a geologist, but he was the first to introduce the doctrine of “UNIFORMTARIANISM.” Today Lyell is referred to as the father of historical geology. He believed it took ages and ages of time for the current geological formations of earth to develop. By the way, Charles Darwin had Lyell’s book Principles of Geology on the Beagle with him when he made his famous voyage to the Galapagos Islands. He admits that this book is what first placed the idea of evolution in his mind. Darwin simply applied the same unproved philosophical assumption of “UNIFORMTARIANISM” to biology that Lyell had applied to geology.
You need to know that your world view has been shaped by these men, and most of us did not even realize there may be empirical evidence to suggest that the whole idea of the earth’s age being billion and billions of years old is totally erroneous.
NOTE: Please understand there is, indeed, a huge gap of time between the 4 to 5 billion years the evolutionists believe the age of the earth to be and the 6 to 10,000 years creationists believe the age of the earth to be.
To illustrate the difference, try to allow each year equate to the thinness of a single page of paper. If you were to stack up several Bibles to a height about equal with your knee, you’d have about 6,000 pages before you.
Now how many Bibles would you have to stack up to make 4 and one half billion pages?
The stack would reach at least A HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN MILES high into the stratosphere. (The Evolution Of A Creationist, Jobe Martin, D.M.D., Th.M.p167)
NOTE: Please remember that it is a very dangerous thing to base your views on the latest consensus of scientific thought. The fact is, scientists do not yet have all the facts and information. There are new facts and information being discovered about our planet every day. And remember there was a day when the general consensus of scientific thought believed that the world was flat, and the earth was the center of the universe. And today I want to give you some very recent facts and information that will level a serious challenge to the general consensus of current scientific thought.
TWO THEORIES ATTEMPTING TO RECONCILE CREATION AND EVOLUTION DATES:
There has been an attempt by very sincere Bible believing people to reconcile the huge age gap that exists between Evolutionist and Creationist. Let me introduce you to two of the biblical theories that attempt to affirm the Bible and yet allow for long ages and an old earth.
1. The DAY-AGE Theory
• The DAY-AGE Theory says that the days referred to in Genesis 1 were not literal 24 hour periods of time, based on solar rotation as we understand days to be today. Instead, the days referred to in Genesis 1 were actually long ages of time, the length of which no one knows for sure.
• Two of the primary arguments made by those who believe in the DAY-AGE Theory, are:
(1) A passage of scripture in 1 Peter 3:8, “...With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day.”
NOTE: I believe this verse does not even hint at support for a DAY-AGE theory, but simply describes the transcendence of God beyond time.
(2)The fact that that God did not actually create the luminaries (sun, moon and stars) until the 4th day. Therefore, the first 3 days of creation could not be measured as 24 hour periods of time which are based on the earth’s rotation facing the sun.
NOTE: We need to remember that Moses recorded this account thousands of years after the actual events occurred. There was no one present to measure the 24 hour days in the first 5 days of creation activity. This report is not an eye-witness account, but rather it is being given by the Holy Spirit to Moses. Therefore, what we need to do is to try to understand what the Holy Spirit means by the word “DAY” (the Hebrew words “yom”, “olam” is also trans. “day” and means an indefinite period of time… “in his day,” etc. That’s not the word used in Gen. 1.
Six times in Gen. 1 the phrase is used: “the evening and the morning” were the first day, etc. How clear can it be?
I think it can be overwhelmingly demonstrated that when the Holy Spirit uses the word “DAY” He means exactly what He says.... A day as we understand a day to be. And the only variations of this usage are very clear. When the Holy Spirit uses the word “DAY” to actually mean an “Epoch or Age” of time, it is very clear in the context of the passage.
Clearly in Exodus 20:11 Moses refers back again to the creation of the world and says God did it in 6 days..... “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.”
It would have been very confusing for God to say “DAY” in Genesis 1, when what He really meant was “LONG AGES.” And those people who promote this “DAY-AGE” Theory, have to use a lot of poor linguistic gymnastics to support their theory.
NOTE: One of the primary spokesmen for the DAY-AGE theory today is Dr. Hugh Ross, a brilliant astro-physicist, who is a creationist. You may see some of his books, which are very good...The Finger Print of God, The Creator and the Cosmos. I agree with him on much if not most of what he says, but when it comes to the age of the universe, I believe he is mistaken.
• There are three BIG problems with the DAY-AGE Theory…
(1) If the days were really long ages then we have a serious problem with the ORDER OF CREATION EVENTS. Because plants and vegetation were created on day 3, while the sun was created on day 4. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants convert sunlight to energy to live by, and the by-product is oxygen. Plants could not live for a long age of possibly millions of years without sunlight.
(2) The COMMON, MOST READABLE use of the word “DAY.”..... I mean you have to really work at it to make the biblical word for day mean something other than its most obvious meaning.
(3) DEATH and DECAY would have existed in the earth BEFORE the fall of man. Yet Genesis 3, Romans 8 and 1 Corinthians 15, clearly indicates that death was the ultimate consequence of the fall, and was not introduced to earth until Adam had sinned.
2. The GAP Theory...
• The GAP Theory is about a clothing store in the mall…no!... it says there is a huge gap of time between Genesis verses 1 and 2 of Genesis, and this huge gap of time accounts for the long geological ages.
Gen 1:1-2
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
• They would suggest the verb “was” in Verse 2 can also be translated “became” so it would read... “and the earth BECAME w/out form and void...” and God began “re-creating” the world in verse two.
• Some would go so far to suggest that what happened between verses 1 and 2 was the fall of Satan. And when Satan was cast down to the earth (Rev.12:9) it was a catastrophic event, that brought havoc and destruction to the planet.
Theistic Evolution
Unfortunately, many Christians today are feeling the need to rectify the Bible w/ evolutionism. They think it’s possible to mix the two. “Theistic Evolution” is the name of that philosophy, and it’s dangerous!
Recognize one of Satan’s chief tactics in the lives of believers, compromise! Mix truth with error. He doesn’t mind you believing God started it all as long as you swallow the lie along with it. “Well, Satan says, I’m not gonna convince them there’s no God, so I’ll just get them to think that man is getting better and better, and eventually, they won’t need God!”
With simple faith in God’s Word, I believe that God created all that is in 6 literal days.
Genealogies
Chapters 5-11 of Gen. The genealogies go back approx. 6,000 years.
If Evolution is correct and man is even 1 million years old, then you are forced to allow for a 50,000 year life span between each name in these chapters. That’s not reasonable.
With simple faith in God’s Word, I believe that God created all that is in 6 literal days.
On Mt. Sinai. Ex. 20, God is giving Moses the 10 commandments. In commandment 4 God says, “remember the sabbath and keep it holy”. Obviously the sabbath is a 24 hour period of time which comes around once every week.
Ex. 20:11, “for in 6 days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested on the 7th day, wherefore, the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
With simple faith in God’s Word, I believe that God created all that is in 6 literal days.
What I want you to see tonite is that we don’t need a DAY-AGE theory or a GAP theory to reconcile the Bible to science. The Bible is already reconciled to science, and when there is a conflict between the Bible and science, I am going to go with the Bible and just wait for science to catch up!!
Next time we’ll continue on dates, and this is where it gets very good:
The study of the age of the earth is called “GEOCHRONOLOGY.” You need to know that there are approximately 80 different tests that are used to estimate the age of the earth...and FIVE TO ONE THEY DEMONSTRATE A VERY YOUNG EARTH!!! And those tests that indicate an older earth point to a world no more than 1 million years old at the very most. (Certainly not billions and billions of years.)
I will give you several physical evidences that indicate very strongly the age of the earth is very young...
Like: Human POPULATION, mass of the sun, dust on the moon, slowing rotation of the earth, cooling of Jupiter…things learned recently about Saturn’s rings, Sahara Desert and Grand Canyon, what oil drillers tell us about the age of the earth, Mississippi river, Niagara falls, oldest living tree on earth, comets, coal, stalagmites/tites…and then, what you need to know about faulty dating methods such as Carbon 14, and Radiometric dating.
We’ll talk about star light that has traveled light years to us, and that’s to say nothing of the “Deluge” study of the flood, and my favorite, Dinosaurs!
