How to Present the Gospel in a Secularized Culture with Ken Ham

to hear a powerful Bible upholding message from Ken Ham ken is the co-founder president and CEO of Answers in Genesis the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter he's an Aussie transplant who spoken all around the world on creation apologetics biblical authority and the gospel Ken's a frequent guest on national radio and TV programs and is the author of many books and thousands of articles and blogs you can find resources by ken in our bookstore as Ken gets ready to speak please silence all cell phones and please note that emergency exits are located up front to your right and left and along the left side of the room now let's give our full attention and a warm welcome to Ken Ham [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well good morning well it's great to have you all here at the Creation Museum just for interest how many of you were in the presentation I gave yesterday oh there's a number of you you came back oh well great and how many of you have already been to the Ark and Hemi are going to the Ark know sort of 50/50 so and those that have already been to the Ark how many of you went to em Sarah's buffet it was pretty good it is it's it's excellent well I always start a little early just to find out a bit about you and where you're from so the first question this is the million dollar question is there any body here at all from the state of Kentucky five well there we are that's about five times more than normal I think what happens in the summertime is that people say we're going on vacation let's go to the creature museum in the Ark but if you're in Kentucky they say we're going on vacation let's go somewhere else and so they leave what about from Indiana that's that's even less in Kentucky how about Ohio okay outside of Ohio Indiana Kentucky okay so it tells you something about the license plates in the parking lot that's that's the other exhibit you want to see on the way out just walk around and have a little license plates there so what about other countries now put your hand down if it's VP from California and Texas otherwise if kept from another country just yell out the country from Canada Germany anyone else Australia we actually have had a couple of couples from Australia yesterday so any other countries America so all the Canadians from Ontario so those are number of a Canadians today so great to have you ok ho that Californians yeah oh we do have some that was number here and down there I always asked the Californians if you're gonna intend on going back to California it may be three states by the time you get back you never know what about Texas who's from Texas today oh we got a few Texans Wisconsin oh well that's a whole group of people from Wisconsin Pennsylvania usually have a lot from Pennsylvania Florida okay here's the next question isn't the ark and the Creation Museum better than Disney see there are actually it's every bit the quote actually I think it's better quality in many ways and you have the big difference is we tell the truth so are you want to come to a place like that Michigan with that people from Michigan how about Rhode Island are you from Rhode Island there we are but we sometimes have people from there sometimes so is anybody left there Oregon Washington hotel what we'll do I'll count to three and yell out the state and country you're from ready one two three okay it's interesting because yesterday we had 31 states today I heard 32 so it's at least one more today well for those of you who have been to the arc this is a picture taken from a helicopter recently you will recognize the areas here for those who are going tomorrow the next day here's the life-sized oak you know it's wonder half times the length of a football field it's the biggest timber frame structure in the world this is a 2,500 seat auditorium we're building it'll be ready later in the year and then this is the village market this is the monument walk we're actually putting a big children's playground in here and then this is my rose buffet it's one of the biggest restaurants in America and then the rainbow gardens and this is area we're expanding in the zoo and we'll have a kangaroo walkthrough area here and we'll have lemurs and all sorts of interesting creatures in there some of that will be open by the end of the year and the rest of it next year and here's the zoo back here and this is the shuttle road that takes you across you get dropped about right here so and for the for all of you that are here you are actually at the Creation Museum in this building right there and people don't realize how big the creation museum is because they're built in the side of a hill so when you go on the seven seas walk through you actually walk now you're walking down two stories this is the big new parking lot we built because of all the extra numbers coming once the ark opened and so you're trying to have all these people coming well each day we have presentations here and I've been doing a different presentation each week tomorrow I'm going to talk on the six days and the age of the earth and talk about compromise in the church on the six days and can you really believe in six literal days is that what the Bible actually says and what about all these Christian academics that say it's not six days and so we're going to deal with that issue tomorrow and then on Friday science confirms a Bible so I'm just going to go through a summary in biology geology astronomy and so on of just how science confirms the Bible's history today I'm doing a presentation based on this new book that we can't we brought out about a month ago called gospel reset and it's really about how to present the gospel in a secularized culture many people recognize that we we aren't reaching the culture like we used to we're not impacting the culture in our Western world and in fact when you think about it America has the largest number of Christian churches colleges resources Christian media in the entire world but from a world view perspective America's becoming less Christian everyday think about it there are more Christian resources available now in America than we've ever had before and yet is still becoming less Christian every day the United Kingdom has really gone down from a Christian perspective it's a very pagan country and many many church buildings turned into mosques and antique stores and shopping centers and so on Australia is becoming less Christian everyday Canada is currently less Christian every day we see moral relativism permeating the culture the issues of gay marriage the gender issue the bathroom issues bortion issue racism euthanasia now at more under discussion in various parts of our Western world and not only in the culture do we see all these changes but in the church as well two-thirds of young people are leaving the church in America by the time they reach college age and very fewer returning actually the same sort of thing is happening through the whole Western world it's already happened in the United Kingdom but certainly happening in a big way in America and so we did research with America's research group back in 2009 we published the research in a book or already gone that's had a great impact on a lot of churches in our Western world because many many pastors said that book really challenged them to change the way they were teaching people in their churches and to really emphasize more apologetics and starting with Genesis and building a Christian worldview founded in Genesis and that's really what the research showed is that when the 20s generation who learned longer go to church who used to go to church when they were asked why did you leave church a lot of it came down to the fact they weren't taught apologetics they weren't taught an answer to the state secular questions of our age they most of them went to public schools where they were taught material that undermined the Bible instead of giving answers in our churches and homes a lot of churches Sunday schools and so on just tell them well trust in Jesus well doesn't matter about Genesis well you can believe what you taught a school that evolution of millions years just as long as your trust in Jesus but these generations start to realize the message Jesus comes from this book and if the first part of the book that history that's foundational to the rest book is not true then how can you trust the rest of the book and that's really what's been going on we also did research on the twenties generation that attended church regularly and when we did the research on the 20s generation that are left in the church I mean two two thirds of them have already left the church what about those that are left in the church and we published this in a book called ready to return we did that research in 2014 here's what we found for the Millennials that are still in our churches that are left in our churches regularly attending church for those that didn't live do you consider yourself born-again 40 percent outright said no do you believe if you're a good person you'll go to heaven 65 percent said yes by the way of 65 percent think you if you're a good person you'll go to heaven and 40 percent say they're not born again that 40 percent figure is far too low means it's much higher should gay couples be allowed to marry and have all legal rights 40 percent outright yes 10 percent don't know think about it 50% of the millennials that'll still in our churches will not stand against gay marriage when we actually did research in 2015 as to how many people would come to the Ark Encounter when we opened the ark we also had our researchers ask questions about the spiritual state of the nation and one of the questions was this and this is general population study if you went to church regularly as kids do you still attend most Sundays or did you stop attending and notice something in the 60s generation 22% of those that went to church have stopped attending but look what's happening in the 20's generation it is 53 percent that tells you where we're heading in America and this has already happened to a large degree in most of the other Western nations also George Barna recently released some research on Generation Z now Generation Z generation Zed for the Australians but Generation Z is a post Millennials right they're the younger ones teens 13 to 18 years old they're like twice as likely as adults to say they're atheist there's a change that's occurring in fact I want to show you something that should scare us in regard to what's happening in this nation it should be alarming for us because I want you to realize the state of what's happening here this shows very clearly the church is losing its impact on the culture big time and let's have a look at this so researchers in America divided generations into specific groups according to when they were born and they give them name so the greatest generation that were the ones born before 1928 anyone here in the greatest generation by the way because actually sometimes we have one or two in the greatest generation and means are in their 90's okay so actually on Sunday night I was speaking in Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh and I had one person who was in the greatest generation in the audience so then there's the Silent Generation those born between 1928 1945 any of you in the Silent Generation okay we'll see a number hands how about the Boomers 1946 to 64 see that includes me - see look at all the boomers in here okay and then Generation X 65 - 1980 quite a number of those how about the Millennials 80s and 90s the Millennials I always like to ask Millennials if if they know they're here I just want to make sure that okay all right the post Millennials any post Millennials here younger generation there isn't quite a number of you actually one of the things that I've said a couple of times this week the when you look at the post millennial for many Millennials they're growing up in a culture that is suffering the consequences of the failure of the church and the failure of the older generations to really raise up generations to stand unashamedly uncompromisingly on God's Word beginning in Genesis and know how to defend the Christian faith and we're suffering the consequences that right now if when you look at the culture and you see where it's at you say what is wrong with the culture I think that's the wrong question the question to ask is what is wrong with the church and what has happened with the church I think that is the question to ask now let me show you these graphs this is from Pew Research and this was done in 2010 so it excludes the generations II but they really worse than any of these anyway so the tenants at religious services by generation percent saying they attend several times a week every week or nearly every week have a look at this this is in America in the greatest generation 56 percent went to church the Silent Generation forty percent of them go to church boomers 32 percent Generation X 27 percent the Millennials 18 percent and Generation Z are under that keep in mind that as these here become the dominant group in the culture what does that tell you about where the church is at in America people if you want to look in England today back before the last war about 50 percent or more attended church today is down to less than five or six percent in fact the number of churches in in England has declined dramatically church buildings everywhere that it turned into all sorts of things that's where America is heading we're on the same track we may be 20 years behind but hey generation Z Millennials you can help turn it around and that's what I want to talk to us about today it's interesting you know one of the things I've seen when you when you see what's happening in the church a lot of churches one of the things I've noticed in responding to this or saying well how how we gonna how we gonna make an impact and one of the trends I know to see I travel a lot of spoken in churches all across America I spoke in all 50 states I've spoken throughout the world I've spoken in a Western nations and all sorts of other nations as well but you know what I've noticed in this day in age see I see the trends I go to these churches I see the trends and it's well to try to get people to church and enthusiasm usik and and and watering down the teaching of the word and one of the things I've noticed I'm not against music by the way I love good music but one of the things I've noticed is that music has become the dominant feature in church and not the teaching of the world and I see that all across the Western world in fact it's interesting because life I did some research recently and they asked people the top reasons that would consider changing churches and there is a number of these that were given here but notice something changing its doctrine 54% said that's why they would change a church but music style 5% and it's interesting how we think that all music is is got to be the thing these days and you know it's a lot of church as I go to I mean even to set up my computer I got to get there 2:00 in the morning to beat the praise team because that will practice all the way up to when the service starts and oh you're just a speaker I have that problem all the time so let's go and have a look at another graph here from the Pew Research Center which is a second group and views of homosexuality by generation percent saying same sexual relations are always wrong in the greatest generation 78% said they're always wrong silence 70% boomers 56% Generation X 47% Millennials 43% in our know Generation Z is much less than that people what does that tell you about where the state of the church is going to be we just be seeing more and more churches like the Episcopal Church the United Methodist Church who-who are saying it's okay to to have gay pastors and and gay marriage and all the rest of it and it's also interesting another interesting statistic that came out from Crossway just recently looked at people when they read their Bible in the church which do you read most often and which do you find hardest to understand notice something what what do people in the church read most often well it's down here and you see what they're reading most often is Romans to Revelation Matthew acts what are they reading least often the Old Testament and certainly Genesis is least read it's interesting how people have this focus on the Gospels and the end not the beginning and people that's exactly what I want to tell you is what's happened as much of the church has ignored the beginning said Genesis doesn't matter don't know what to do it that it's too hard many pastors have said you can believe in evolution millions years most of our Christian academics say that anyway and so they hire both Genesis and say let's just tell them about Jesus but once you have lost that foundation for the rest of the Bible then you find the structure collapses and that's what I want to talk about in regard to evangelism because I want to show you the trends because we know the culture has changed but the gospel hasn't changed and the answer of course when I ask people what should we do and they say well the answer is to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel that's true that's true but when Billy Graham who really you know was a man that presented the gospel all around the world when he passed away recently he was the headline in Yahoo News there'll never be another Billy Graham because the world that made impossible is gone the secular world recognizes our world has changed and Tucker Carlson said this about Billy Graham on Fox News the great evangelist Billy Graham died today he was 99 years old there are a lot of remarkable things about Graham's life but maybe the most striking is this within living memory a fairly Orthodox Christian became a national celebrity in this country great a minister to presidents and actors and captains of industry all of whom are proud to talk to him in public Graham didn't become rich and famous by promoting self-actualization or selling real estate advice or staging walks over hot coals he never one time said you go girl he basically just preached the Bible in the America of the time that was enough people stopped him on the street to shake his hand we live in a different country now we live in a different country now and we do we live in a different country when Billy Graham came to Australia in 1959 I was a little boy my father said the Bible says man is coming to Australia he was knowing for saying the Bible says your sinner repent of your sin the Bible says here's the problem when you say the Bible says today there are generations that say that that's a book of mythology we know science has disproved it we learned at school you can't trust it and so when you said the Bible says generations ago then people had a respect for the Bible you say the Bible says today and the same way we don't listen to that stuff that's an outdated book it's a book of mythology 1 Corinthians 1:23 we read this we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block into the Greeks foolishness it's interesting in the Bible in acts 2 Peter takes the gospel to the Jews in acts 17 Paul takes the gospel to the Greeks two totally different responses and what I'm going to say to you and what I want to walk through here today is this generations ago our culture was like an axe to culture like the Jews but it's become an axe 17 culture like the Greeks and the problem is most of the church's approach our culture is if it's axe - it's not it's acts 17 increasingly and if we don't wake up to that fact we're going to not be effective in reaching people with the message of the gospel see I've got an idea for a revolution I get a radical idea this this idea is so radical it's going to blow you off your seeds I'm gonna tell you this idea and you're gonna sit there and say how do even think of that it is so radical you ready for it here's my radical idea okay how about we start sharing the gospel the way God does it in the Bible by starting at the beginning quite an awesome concept you would never have thought of that would you I mean start at the beginning you know what if you buy a a murder mystery book like Agatha Christie book what do you do you read the last chapter find out who doesn't throw the book away and you would say that'd be stupid because if you don't understand the plot you're not going to understand what it's all about but you know what that's how most people are reading their Bible they start towards the end they don't have the beginning and the problem is when you don't have the beginning you won't understand the message and as I've already said in one of the sessions this week Genesis 1 to 11 is foundational to all our doctrines it's foundational to the gospel if you go out there today you imagine you're told look by your church because actually there are churches that do this go out and then we want you to to go out and reach homes with the gospel now don't get into controversial issues don't mention the book of Genesis don't even deal with that and if anyone brings up things like evolution of science just ignore that just go and tell them about the gospel can you imagine that hey you're a sinner repent of your sin sinner what is sin well you're a sinner where'd it come from how do I know I'm a sinner don't worry about that just just believe it you're a sinner and Jesus died in the cross for you say why'd he die well death was the penalty for sin well where do you find out that from where'd that come from well don't worry about that just believe it how they can understand the gospel if they don't understand that we're all descendants of Adam that Adam rebelled against God that sin came into the world and death was a result of sin and that's why God's son stepped into history to die on a cross see when I asked people in the church to find the gospel a lot of people said well the gospel the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross and raised from the dead and I say yeah but you can't understand the good news without the bad news in Genesis see there are people they say look we just need to go out and get people saved I've got news for you they don't even know they lost and if somebody doesn't know they lost why will they want to be saved and so we have to in a sense get them lost first help them understand that look my father's a teacher and his father's a teacher and his father a teacher goes back millions of years in fact and as a teacher I like to communicate preview it at any of the other sessions I talked about the fact that when you when you're trying to talk to somebody or communicate to them the message of Christianity you need to do it like building a house you don't start with the roof and then the walls you start with the foundation and then the walls and then the roof and I believe in a lot of our churches and Christian homes we've tried to build the gospel in coming generations by trying to put the roof in the walls on them and they don't have the foundation they got a different foundation from the from the education system see so I think in terms of the foundation God is creative one God sin into the world death as a result of sin that's the foundational knowledge to then understand why God's Son stepped into history to be Jesus Christ the god man to dine across be raised from the dead that's the power of the gospel and one day there's going to be a new heavens and a new earth the hope of the gospel but you see when many people think about the gospel today and a lot of the emphasis we have on evangelism in our churches and so on we're concentrating on the power and the hope of the gospel we're assuming the foundation is there and I'm saying we now have generations where not only do we not have that foundation it's got the wrong foundation the foundation that man determines truth the foundation that were given in an education system that has thrown God the Bible prayer creation out and now the the foundation is it's man that determines truth it's the foundation of naturalism it's the foundation of atheism that's what it is and so to help us understand this I want to look at those two chapters acts 2 and acts 17 in acts 2 Paul goes to the Jews or those convinced are very familiar with the Jewish religion day of Pentecost you can imagine maybe him standing on the temple steps as they're bringing their sacrifices and he says you you crucified the Son of God and God raised him from the dead it was not possible for him to be whole by death and when they heard this they were cut to the heart say what shall we do and so on repent etc and then save yourselves from this crooked generation untoward generation and 3,000 souls were saved Wow 3,000 would you like to see a crusade like that in your area we might see a revival like that in in your town now you know we used to see revivals like that in our Western world you could go back in history and read about the great Welsh revival it was a famous revival even in Kentucky there's been revivals in England there was a revival in the very year Darwin published his book in 1859 you know and and there were people like Billy Graham though that went around the world and impacted thousands of people in and the change would actually impact the culture people were not seeing those sorts of things happening today let's be honest we're not seeing that like we did in the past generations in fact look at those statistics what we see is the secularization of our culture we're seeing the church losing its impact and so we have to ask ourselves what why was this such a response like that well who was Peter preaching to is preaching to mainly Jews or those convinced are very familiar with the Jewish religion now think about this at that stage in their history did they believe in God yes many gods are one God one God so when Peter said God they heard God one God you know why I'm emphasizing that to you think about it generations ago when you enter the public schools in our Western world and you said God most teachers and students would think of the God of the Bible but you go there today and say God and they say which God there are many gods see the word God no longer means to our younger generations today what it did to the older generations because they've grown up in a different culture they've been indoctrinated in in a different sort of education system in fact a number of words have changed meaning do you realize we've got to understand that the younger generations have a different language than the old generations give you another example the word story the word story used to mean history what is the word story in our modern vernacular mean fiction fable and yet what are we saying our church's kids let's have a Bible story let's read this story from the Bible and so here's the interesting thing I hear this all the time from any pastor saying now this story here in the Bible and this story here but the younger generations when they hear story they hear fairy tale increasingly and you see if we don't understand that when we're not going to communicate to them in fact there's been such an attack on the Bible as a book of history particularly in the book of Genesis we should be emphasizing I'm gonna read this historical account here I'm gonna read this account of history this record of history we've got to actually emphasize the Bible's a book of history because that's what's come under attack I mentioned yesterday when we talked about the race issue the word races change meaning the word race used to mean an ethnic group cultural group the the English race the Irish race whatever the word race now because of the influence of evolution people tend to think of lower races and higher races and primitive races and advanced races and and and because of that they also think there are separate races and as I said know we're all one race we'll go back to Adam and Eve many words like that have changed meaning and that trouble is many people in our churches are using the same terminology from that we used in past generations with the younger generations but they don't understand it'll hear it the same way you see Peter could assume that they understood the terms they had the same language but what who what was their stumbling block that Jesus Christ was the Messiah remember the preaching of the Cross was a stumbling block to the Jews now to the Greeks it was something different was foolishness but but to the Jews it was a stumbling block the Jews were a creation based culture who understood the terms but their stumbling block was the message the Messiah see we need to understand the Jews had the writings of Moses they knew about the promise of the Messiah they had that foundational history they rejected that Jesus was the Messiah now let me give you an analogy here when my wife and I moved to America in 1987 it seems like a long time ago know that so we moved over here as missionaries to a pagan culture and America is becoming a pagan culture but I thought it'd be real easy to fit in over here because I thought hot you know what at least we don't have to go to language school like you're doing some places and learn a different language you know what I found out I thought Americans speak English you know speak English Americans speak American English it's a form of English right I spoke Australian English two different languages I now speak Australian English American English English English and so I speak a number of different English languages all right so give me an example so we moved to California which is a different country anyway but when we first came over here and I had a problem and I said to somebody could you help me because my battery's flat and it said your batteries what my battery's flat did you run over it well no I left the lights on Oh your battery's dead dead wasn't a while either can't die and I started to realize wait a minute you people use the same words to mean different things you say dead battery we say flat battery all right and and there are other ones too like oh I need to put petrol in the car every place I went to had gas yeah how do I find petrol you you people want gas cars anyway some of you get that some of you don't but that's okay and so I had to learn that gas is petrol is just it's not gas ha I studied biology I studies science at school solid liquid gas yeah anyway and and then there's the embarrassing one like I was on the phone and be a little baby at the time and somebody said to me what are you doing I said I'm nursing her baby you hear this silence on the end of the phone and then this exclamation you're doing what I am nursing our baby why that's what I thought you said and so I realized something was wrong so I did some research and found out much to my embarrassment nursing a baby in America is different to nursing a baby in Australia when you're saying nursing a baby in Australia you're saying I'm holding a baby so I said to this person I'm holding a baby I found out that person heard me say I'm breastfeeding our baby I thought oh dear maybe this person thought the Australian males had some onward upward evolutionary mutation or change of some sort or the advanced species of man and yet you know you need to understand this because there are animal parks in Australia that will say to you would you like to nurse a koala which could conjure up some horrible images unless you understand that means would you like to hold a koala and so what I'm saying to us is hey people just coming from Australia to America and I recognize hey I had to learn the different words mean different things you know or same words mean different things in different contexts we have to understand it's even much greater between the older generations and the younger generations and we've got to come to grips with that see the Jews had the right beginning the right foundation the right history as I said one of the other presentations as we say here at the Creation Museum ultimately there's only two foundations ultimately only two religions it's all the way through scripture light and darkness build your house on the rock build your house on the sand good and evil for Christ against gather scatter starts in Genesis with trust God don't eat the fruit from the tree or did God really say you can become like God it was a battle between God's Word and man's word and ultimately that's the same battle going on before us today it's a battle between two religions the Jews had the right foundation the right starting point of God's Word their stumbling block was a mess to the cross it's interesting when Billy Graham came to Australia in 1959 again in the 60s it's been said that that was the closest Australia ever came to revival Australia has never had our true revival that's it's a pretty pagan country right now probably sort of Statistics like England about 5% or so would go to church but Australia inherited the British system and so in in what in days when I was a when I was a kid when I went to elementary school when Billy Graham first came to Australia for instance at that stage in our history do you know teachers had to read through the Bible in the public school to the students it was mandatory and in fact when I was a high school student I I remember being on parade most of the kids did not go to church but we recited the Lord's Prayer before we went into school now today teachers don't read through the Bible in school in Australia there's no Lord's Prayer on an assembly or anything in fact it's just like America they've thrown basically God Bible prayer creation out of the public school system but here's what I want us to understand is this when Billy Graham first came to Australia I would say Australia was much more an axe to type culture because if you said Jesus they understood is in the Bible God one God sin oh yeah the Bible talks about sin Adam and Eve they send we're descendants of Adam and Eve the babe in a manger they had the terminology so it was like an ax to culture so in a sense and evangelist could come in and say the foundation is already there I need to build the walls in the roof but that has dramatically changed because we don't see those sorts of impacts like we saw in the 50s and 60s today in Australia in fact Australia like Canada like the United Kingdom and increasing like America we see the culture has changed and the generations have changed and the church is not having the impact that once had you know the secularists understand this I think in the church people recognize something's happened but I think it's a secularists who understand what has happened back in 2010 second humanist magazine free inquiry we read this a historic transition is occurring barely notice slowly quietly imperceptibly religion when they say religion they usually mean Christianity is shriveling in America as it already has in Europe Canada Australia across the developed world increasingly supernatural faith belongs to the third world the first world is entering the long predicted secular age where science and knowledge dominate a change has occurred the secularists understand the change you know why I think most of our churches don't really understand the change because they helped it happen because when we told generations of kids you can believe in evolution of millions years and Genesis doesn't matter and we avoided Genesis we're helping the atheists drag our kids away from the church from Christianity now that's a pretty serious accusation but I believe it is true when we compromise God's Word we're helping the atheists and we handed generations of our kids over to the secular education system anyway and then we said you can believe whatever they teach you doesn't matter come to Sunday School and we'll have a Bible story and we teach all these Bible stories don't in the great fish feeding the 5,000 and so on and you know to this day most of what we hear from a lot of our pulpits in our churches are the spiritual things and the moral things and the relationships but here's what I'm telling us the Bible is a book of history has been undermined two generations of our kids and we're preaching to them these Bible stories went to them that's not it they're not even true anymore what's true is what we're taught at school about evolution millions years and the Bible's history is not true it's interesting this has been bubbling under the surface I mean ever since the 1700s and 1800s and the idea of millions years was popularized and evolution was popularized and the church in England adopted millions years and evolution and that spread around our Western world and around the world in much of the church it's been bubbling under the surface that the generations have been changing we're seeing the younger generations more secularized and so it's all being there and then something happened in America about well about ten years ago they started to really change that Western world and it was like somebody then opened the lid and it all burst forth and I believe that person was President Obama when he was Senator Obama back in 2006 he was at a conference called building a covenant for a new America conference I don't think most people who understood what he meant by a new America he knew very well what he meant by a new America here's what he said at that conference where we once where we are no longer a Christian nation at least not just we are also a Jewish nation a Muslim nation and a Buddhist nation and a Hindu nation and a nation of non-believers that was one of the managers of the president in fact he said it all over the world it's in his book The Audacity of Hope whatever we once were we are no longer just a Christian nation also Jewish nation was a nation Buddhist nation Hindu nation nation our non-believers what he was saying is this is a great thing we're no longer a nation that just believes in one God we're a nation that now has many gods we no longer a nation like many of the founding fathers who even if they weren't Christians still built their thinking on the Bible and many of them were Christian but they built their thinking on the Bible and so marriage was a man and a woman and abortion was wrong oh no no we're a different nation now now yes we have the foundation man determines truth and so anything goes except if you tell them you can't that gay marriage is wrong and that abortion is wrong and now we see moral relativism perfect permeating the culture in fact you could describe it as its described in judges 21:25 in those days there was no king in Israel everyone did what is right in his own eyes you want to know what's happened to the Western world it's very simple I'll paraphrase it for you when you raise up generations and say the Bible is not the absolute authority the Word of God and main determines truth then anything goes and that's exactly how in our culture sitting back in 2009 the front page of Newsweek said the decline and fall of Christian America and inside there was an article called the end of Christian America and there was one sentence that really stood out to me and we could say the end of Christianized West world the Western world if we want because it really applies to Australia Canada any of our Western world and here's the sentence I stood out to me the present in this sense is less about the death of God and more about the birth of many gods instead of one God now there are many gods and that's why we want to look at an act 17 culture because this is what I believe that West has become and increasingly this is what America has become really this describes most of our Millennials and Generation Z because this is where they're at see Paul comes to Mars Hill Athens to the Greek culture and here is really the center the intellectual center of the Greek culture of the world in a sense and there were altars and temples and many gods and their idols and there were atheists and they were pantheists I mean it was everything and it's described in acts 17 8 where Paul is speaking to the epicurean Z atheists atheism is a religion it did they have a blind faith belief they everything happened by natural processes that's their faith the Stoics pantheists basically the universe is God and then the others that were there and all the different beliefs they had and so what did Paul do he preached the same message Peter preached in acts 2 the message of the resurrection and what happened what's this babel is saying it was foolishness to them remember the preaching of the Cross was a stumbling block to the Jews but to the Greeks foolishness so we have to ask ourselves ok well why the difference here well who is Paul preaching to well Greeks that believe in evolution they believe the gods evolve they believe we evolved from the earth Greeks that had no concept of a Creator God the Jews understood so you say God to the Greeks it's well there are many gods sin I had no idea because they didn't have the writings of Moses they didn't they didn't believe in Adam and Eve and the fall of man they didn't understand the sacrificial system which actually was started in Genesis when God made coats of skins for Adam and Eve they didn't understand the promise of the Messiah in genesis 3:15 they had a totally different foundation and so when Paul preaches the message of the resurrection is foolishness to them see the Greeks had no understanding of the foundational knowledge the Jews did they didn't understand the terms they didn't understand at all so they didn't understand the message of the Resurrection there are an evolution-based culture that didn't understand the terms and so the preaching of the Cross was foolishness many years ago I went to Japan for the first time and before I spoke over there my Japanese translator sat down with me and he said you realize in Japan there's no Christian basis to speak of I mean evolution has taught us fact in the schools and universities just like America but Shinto is the major religion also Buddhism and Shinto they have many gods and so here's a problem if you use the Bible as your basis of authority and then you tell them that you want to want to talk about God I mean immediately they're gonna think oh another God with all their thousands of gods and he said to me what I'm gonna have to do is when you use the word God I need to define who God is that he's the one God the Creator God the God who made everything if you use the word sin I have to define what sin is in fact you're gonna have to start at the beginning define all your terms or they're not going to understand the message see it reminded me of new tribes mission new tribes mission found when they went to a pagan culture some isolated tribe in New Guinea or Papua Indonesia or somewhere and they preached the message of the Christ they thought they had all these responses till they found out as they delved into it that those people didn't understand the gospel at all they just did what they thought the missionaries wanted them to do and what new transmission realized was they don't understand the gospel truly so they they said we have to develop a different way of doing this and they developed a chronological approach to Bible teaching sort of like what God does in the Bible by starting at the beginning why do you think the book of Genesis is at the beginning why do you think God put it there at the beginning and it means beginning because it's the foundation of the rest and when they did that and started there and they went through and then got to the message of the Cross then they found there was an incredible response amount stood hey people you know what I don't think that response that they got first up in some isolated group of people is much different to what's happening in many of our churches where entertainment has become the dominant feature such shallow teaching and then we might have thousands that I don't know a concert or wherever it is we say trust in Jesus and we think we have all these responses are they real responses because I don't see it impacting most of them in their Christian worldview that it's impacting the culture is it just they're doing what they thought they have to do do they truly understand the gospel order or is it they have no foundation and they don't really understand I think increasingly we got that massive problem in our churches because if we were truly getting all these conversions at all these churches and place wouldn't we be impacting the culture but the opposite is happening we're losing the coming generations so something is wrong and it's not working you see so to the people in Japan they had no Christian basis the message of the Cross they didn't understand it now think about this compare the Jews and the Greeks if you're going to a culture like the Jews and x2 you say God they understand sin they understand death yep that's a penalty for sin they understand this stumbling block is the message of the Cross but when you go to the Greeks God which God there are many gods sin they have no concept death oh this is an important one death but death has always been here hasn't and already dealt with this in one of the other sessions but that is that hey the idea of millions years came out of deistic and atheistic naturalism of the 1700's and 1800's from people who wanted to explain everything including the fossil record without God and they said so all the fossil layers with all these dead things were laid down millions years before man much of the church took those millions years and said we can fit it in the Bible before a man before Adam in the days of creation in a gap or whatever it is a lot of the older generation actually were taught the gap theory to fit millions years in or the day age theory and we have told generations of our kids millions years has nothing to do with the gospel actually the talk I'm going to give you tomorrow shows you millions years has is an incredible attack on the gospel and I'm going to show you why and basically it's because it means you're blaming God for death and suffering the Bible blames our sin for death and suffering God stepped into history to pay the penalty for death to save us from what we did and you see here's the problem today that the the Millennials generation Z one of their big hams with Christianity is how do you believe in a loving God and all the death and suffering in the world in fact many of the leading atheists in America when you delve into it many of them grew up in church homes and they are in such rebellion against God and they're angry at God and when you actually talk to them I tell you what comes up over and over again issues like something happened in their life someone died someone suffered a horrible disease or someone was abused and they're angry at God but I believe it's a failure of the church because we didn't teach them that wait a minute our sin and Adam brought death into the world God stepped in history to save us from what we did you see we told him you can believe in millions of years and to them how can they be a loving God all the death and suffering and disease you see today is gone on for millions years but the Bible says death is a penalty for sin we forfeited our right to live when we rebelled against God we even deserved to exist but God in His grace and mercy think about this why is it as far as we know there's no salvation for the Angels why is it that God and His grace and mercy looked down upon man when we rebelled and said but either plan to save you you're gonna have to die your bodies will die because you forfeit your right to live but you have a soul that's made forever and I want to save you I'm gonna step into history and pay that penalty for that sin why do you do that for us I think in some ways it's because God knows the temptation was from outside it was from Satan it was from the devil one of the angels and so God in His grace and mercy said I'm gonna provide a way of salvation for you but you see if you believe in millions of years some of the problems we've got in the fossil record there are animals that have eaten each other and so on the Bible says originally man was vegetarian and so are the animals in the fossil record his examples of cancer and brain tumors and arthritis after God made Adam he said everything is very good there are fossil thorns in the fossil record said to be hundreds of millions years old the Bible says thorns came after the curse these two things can't be true at the same time which means the fossil record with all the dead things had to come after Adam sinned is there anything in the Bible they could explain how it could get billions of dead things after sin all over the earth in layers thousands of feet thick the flood of Noah's day it sits at such an important event to understand the fossil record is not the record of millions of years it's a record of the flood the graveyard of the flood warning us that God has judged the wickedness of man he judged sin with that do you realize when God judged sin with death in the garden he provided a way of salvation he promised to save you right there and then set up the sacrificial system to point to the Savior when God judged the wickedness of man at the time of Noah he provided an ARCA salvation and those who went through the one door were saved as a picture of Jesus who is the door in judgment God brought salvation and so the point I want us to understand is this think about it this way I'm saying that most of the kids in our Sunday schools and youth groups are Greeks and when you consider the difference between the Jews and the Greeks it's a difference between a creation based and an evolution based culture one that understands the term one that doesn't one that the message of the Cross is a stumbling block to the other it's foolishness see the Greeks are on a different Road do you realize we've sent our kids to an education system where they put them on the Greek road a whole different road and we're preaching to them in our churches and homes as if they're on the other road and they're not they have a whole different foundation a whole different road they're on and people that road doesn't lead up to the message of the Cross if you want that Greek to understand the message of the Cross you're gonna have to take them off the wrong road and give them the right beginning put them on the right Road so that they will understand and that's what Paul did looked around saw all these altars and idols all these different gods back when I was in the British Museum in London I want to get a picture of all the Greek gods and I did there they are they weren't very powerful couldn't even get out of the glass case and so Paul looks around he sees this altar to the unknown God so he takes something from their own culture and says look let me tell you who he is he's the one God the Creator God the God who made everything he's not like your gods he doesn't dwell in temples made with hands he give us all life and and breath he doesn't need things like your gods and he made from one man we're all one race we all go back to add a bra one family that's why the gospel is for everyone that's why it's important a stain we're all sinners that's why in the Secession I did yesterday I talked about the fact there's only one race even even the human genome project declared there's one race of course that's exactly what the Bible says we're all from Adam and Eve there's only one race different people groups because the Tower of Babel you know in a sense what Paul was doing and really what we do at the Creation Museum and what we do at the Ark and what our materials do in our Sunday school curriculum and so on with walking people through this history that has already happened creation corruption catastrophe confusion the history that the world says is not true the history that much of the church is ignored and even told generations of kids is not true and we're saying that history is true and we're giving them answers to help them understand that and then the gospel based in that history is true the doctrine of marriage based in that history is true and then they they understand the gospel we're missing that from so much so many of our churches what Paul did was take them off the wrong road give them the right beginning but then he got back to preach the message of the gospel of the good news of Jesus resurrection and when he did that see see I'm not saying the gospel has changed gospel hasn't changed and Paul preached the message of the resurrection but he recognized to reach the Greeks you got to have a different starting point I'm saying it's the same today when you go out to the Greeks the kids in our churches and young people and you say thus says the Lord the Bible says they've already been brainwashed against the Bible what we do here at Answers in Genesis is a chronological approach to Bible teaching like new tribes did with those isolated tribes but there's an added factor because most of our world has access to television the internet though they go to a public education system and so they've been so indoctrinated against the Bible and taught evolution and millions years as fact that not only do we need to start chronologically from the beginning but we've really got to start to point to help them understand what this book is it is the Word of God you don't believe it why what are your questions let me give you the answers let me help you understand this is what it claims to be so that we can start at the beginning as teaching apologetics and when Paul did that what happened some mocked same as last time some said we were he'll gain I believe their hearts were being opened by the Lord and some believed not many but some there are people that are that have told me that at their Theological College seminary they've been told by some of their professors don't use the method Paul did in acts 17 he only got a few converts Peter got three thousand and to this day we say see be like Peter get out there and boldly proclaim Christ I've gotten used to you from a human perspective Paul was incredibly successful because he was preaching to outright pagans who didn't have a clue he had in a sense turned Greeks into Jews as types here to take people the wrong foundation wrong will you give them a right foundation right worldview people that's difficult it's like that's like going to a whole group of these a theists we have today and talking to them to present the gospel that's what he was doing so you gotta understand Peter was successful in that culture in that way Paul was very successful in the pagan culture in a different way and actually churches were built as a result see what I'm saying is our Western world in the past was very much like the Jews and you could preach the message of the Christ repent of your sins and people would understand because that foundational understanding of the terms was there but you know what's been happening in a Western world you know what's happening in America right now the separation of that those were the more Christianized worldview and those were the secular worldview the chasm between those two groups is widening it's the separation of the Jews and the Greeks the older generation more Christianized the younger generations more secularized the older generations more like the jews the younger generations more like the Greeks a whole Western world has become very Greek because we've sent generations of kids to the Greek education system they put them on the Greek Road and then we're trying to preach to them as if they're Jews but we've got a bigger problem in our churches we have sent 90 to 95% of our kids to the Greek education system they've been turned into Greeks and they watch Greek television Greek internet read Greek books and magazines and we preach to them in our Sunday schools and youth groups and a concerts and wherever we are as if they're Jews and I get news for you increasingly they're not Jews they're Greeks and the trouble is many of our Christian leaders and many of our pastors and Sunday School teachers not all of course but many have a foot in both camps because they're really they're really people who okay we're going to preach the Bible but it doesn't matter about Genesis or we can leave an evolution of millions ears and you know we do it they concentrate on the spiritual things immoral things relationships and you know trust Jesus and so on what we're preaching to Greeks who who don't even had the foundation and and you know we we get these supposed conversions these days but do they have a Christian worldview do they know what it means to have a Christian worldview do they really understand that the Bible is the foundation of their world you know starts with Genesis 1 to 11 mine lives no it's one of the reasons why we produced a four year Sunday school curriculum pre-k through adults called answers Bible curriculum apologetics biblical Authority chronological starts at Genesis goes all the way through it's a four year curriculum 10,000 churches now are using this to one degree or another and they're telling us it's revolutionising their churches because not only we teach chronologically through teach biblical Authority connect old and new Testament but we ask ourselves how does the world attack this now let's give them the answers so that they won't doubt God's Word and we teach apologetics all the way through its revolutionising you see we've got to understand we're all Greek to we to one degree or another the whole world is Greek look I go to conservative churches and I'll speak and people come up to me and say I've been a Christian for forty years and so on but I've always struggled with Dinosaurs or how to know get the animals on the ark or what about the gap theory other days of creation ordinary days do you know why we ask those questions because we've been influenced by the Greeks and because a lot of our our theological colleges seminaries Bible colleges the majority of them they're really Greek colleges because they tell generations our pastor didn't believe they believe Genesis you can leave in millions years the majority of our Christian academics believe in millions ears because it's a big pride issue for them because they want to be academic academically respectable to the world and you see so what the Creation Museum the Ark Encounter house Sunday school curricula and so on is all about is to take Christian Greeks you know what I mean by them and secular Greeks and to take them and turn them into Jews as types there's a term for it it's called D Greek icing now you might say I've never seen the word degree cosy well what is that on the screen alright I made it up I like that word degree cosy because really what I'm doing this week with all the sessions that I'm doing I'm and what we do at the Creation Museum and the Ark we're degree guys in your thinking when you go to the Ark and prisoners on the on the second deck and you'll see the exhibits about kinds we're helping you understand a kind in the Bible is not like species that we have today it's look more like the family level classification helps us answer the question how to now get all those animals on the ark he didn't need near the number we think we help you understand speciation is the result of processes acting on the genetic diversity God has already put it in there and it can happen quickly so so we're giving you answers and we on the third deck with we're showing you how layers like the Grand Canyon had to be formed quickly and and in according to evolutionists there's millions of years missing between certain layers but they were never there that's a whole thing and then we'll answer other questions about fossilization and the Ice Age catastrophic ly formed as a result of the flood and we're giving you these answers at and people go through on the side never knew that before wow that answers that Wow isn't that fascinating and and we talked about one we all go back to Adam and Eve and we deal with those issues we're teaching apologetics to degree Kai's the church and the culture and you know what that does to when we do that and we're telling you here's the right Road the right foundation we see people and we hear of people who are saved right here in the Creation Museum and in the Ark Encounter and later on and through the books and through the website when you're down at the Ark Encounter I know some of you've already been there but when you're down there on the third deck we have a movie on the second deck which is Noah being interviewed by a tabloid newspaper in the pre-flood world before it as he's building the ark and then we have on the third deck the same actors in the movie but now they're coming to the ark in Kentucky and you know what what we're what we're doing there with those particular videos is helping people understand the gospel and in the one on the third deck we have Ray Comfort preaching the gospel there and people have already been degree caused as they go through the arc and as one man who saw one of our staff in the gift store said brought my family here my son-in-law wasn't the Christian but after he watched that movie on the third deck he prayed to receive Christ to Savior and he said I've just got an ordinary an ordinary testimony I've I grew up in the church and committed my life to Christ and so on but my son-in-law was saved in the Ark but you know what that's what it's all about and that's what we want to challenge you to do is to go out and d-r-e guys in fact I'm going to suggest to us we need to decorate cars anyone thinking we need to be degree causing our children's thinking we need to dig Greek eyes our Sunday school group we needed to degree guys the adults in our churches we need to decrease our youth group our neighbors degree causing them helping them understand the Bible is true and to help them understand the gospel and one of the things you'll notice about the Creation Museum and the Ark and people claim that if we did this we wouldn't get all these people coming and that is we are unashamed of the gospel there is no point in building an article Creation Museum of we're not going to present the gospel you know what God has blessed that and honored that 30% of those who come to the ark a non-christian and they hear the gospel there's no what's the point of having an intellectual argument about creation or geology if you're not leading people to Christ that's what our ministry is all about and and one of the things that we wanted to do is this look the church is not impacting the culture like it did and and people aren't being impacted with the message of gospel they don't understand it let's do something that can impact the culture and reach them where they're at and give them answers so they will be impacted and hear and understand the gospel well I could go on for millions of years and tomorrow I'm going to talk about millions ears okay and the days of creation but just before we dismiss if I can have you just stay quiet just for two minutes we have a ministry called Answers in Genesis that actually built the Creation Museum and also built the Ark and you can go to our website Answers in Genesis org and thousands of articles we have a kid's website we have all sorts of different websites I encourage you to use that as you came in you would have received a form like this if you fill it out and become on our list to find out about the Ark the Creation Museum all the newest things latest things latest resources and so on we'll give you a free DVD of my testimony we have these pocket guides and a normally six dollars each we give them to you for two dollars each the great little witnessing tools because I'll answer various questions people have and they're very short and beautifully produced this is also a great witnessing tool and it's one of my favorites my son-in-law and I Bodi put this together you know I've always wanted to have an evangelistic book like this so it has Genesis 1 to 11 which is the foundational history 20 the law the book of John the life of Christ the book of Romans which really is the gospel in detail last two chapters of Revelation new heavens and new earth so it has those passages that explain the gospel from beginning to end and then in between it's got a summary of the rest of the Bible so it's like a whole overview of the Bible then it's got a little bit of apologetics ten of the most asked questions with short answers to help you understand that we can answer those questions our Bible is true and then what it means to be saved and we let you have that for a very inexpensive price we also have a you choose program where you can put together different combinations of books and DVDs for discounted prices my book the lie that is the greedy Greek izing tool for the church it's really other than the Bible the textbook of our ministry to challenge the church to believe God's Word beginning in Genesis how important Genesis 1 to 11 is how foundational it is to the rest of the Bible this is the brand-new book that came out which really is the message I gave you today I put it in book form so people can understand it and they can get it out to people I let you into a little secret here we had someone recently call us who actually heard one of my messages at church a pastor played a DVD of mine and the person called us and said we have got to impact the church well I understand what what's happening the failure of the church and so they were able to go out there and get some families they actually funded this in 1st of September gospel reset plus a flyer advertising the museum in the Ark is going to be sent to every church in America 266 thousand churches every Church every every Church in Canada that's about 9,000 of them every Church in Australia not Canada is 15,000 that's right Australia is about nine and a half thousand here's a sad thing every church in the United Kingdom and it's only 4,200 or so the even Australia has twice as many on church mailing lists it tells you where the cultures at be praying about that for us and we're offering every pastor minister of every church we're offering them two free tickets to the Creation Museum in the Ark as well and so we want to impact the church so please be in prayer about that and this message presents the gospel we decided to include all denominations everything because there are a lot of them that need the gospel and this explains the gospel these five books here a hundred and 60 of the most asked questions people have today and they have detailed answers young people get equipped with these answers not only will help you but when you talk to others most secularists have no idea why they believe what they do you've got information you'd be equipped you will run rings around them and be able to witness to them and those are our seven core books and I encourage you to get we have other books like quick answers tough questions you already gone book the research we've done we have other research as well but this really is a challenge to the church and it's a challenge in regard to Sunday School literature because we found out from our research the Sunday School literature used in most churches is a is problematic because it's just fluff and stuff and then we have books dealing with one race one blood blood technical books dealing with speciation adaptation and so on and natural selection I encourage every college student high school student to read that I'm dealing this topic tomorrow six days and the age of the earth we have answers books for middle school and younger that deal we have to get these kids at a young age and why I've written a number of books for little kids how to lead them to Christ through the door and book the rhein books that deal with all sorts of topics for them we have history books that fold out the real history of the world and detail this set or world religions and culture I think it's the best set in the world volume three is about the secular religions it teaches you how to witness to atheists how to witnesses to those in the secular religions and the two debates I did with Bill Nye the one here on stage and the one down the arc for two hours as we walk through they're really great teaching tools and challenging people and then what I what I've done today and what I did yesterday Monday we have a series called the foundations curriculum kit and it's 12 30 minute videos with a study guide that goes with them it's an introductory apologetics program I mentioned our Sunday school curriculum our VBS for next year deals with the race issue teaches kids is only one race we're all the same skin color different shades it's going to be incredible powerful bbs without BBS's and is in the top three in the world as it is but this one is going to teach kids to deal with racism and Prejudice and to have the right view we so needed a VBS like that and then one last thing and that is our answers magazine it is an award-winning magazine family magazine as a kids magazine in the middle comes out every eight weeks and if you subscribe today we'll give you a free digital subscription it's high class searchable digital subscription that you can give to any of your kids put on any of their devices as many devices as you have and so then you're at the print edition for the old people that can't use you know what I mean okay so if you fill out this form you got you can subscribe to answers magazine I encourage you to do that you know what it's like these days to even take a photo using a smartphone you're better off using a two-year-old because I understand how to do it well I'm gonna hand over to Larry here and I'll be out here for meet and greet for half an hour [Applause]

Channel: Answers in Genesis

Views: 32,495

Rating: 4.6851168 out of 5

Keywords: ken ham, answers in genesis, ken ham answers in genesis, answers in genesis ken ham, preaching the gospel, present the gospel, preaching the gospel in a secular culture, biblical authority, biblical authority and submission, biblical authority of the gospel, gospel reset, gospel reset ken ham, preach the gospel, answer in genesis gospel, gospel of jesus, gospel of jesus christ, the gospel, the gospel of jesus, the gospel of jesus christ

Id: VV6SAK4ttVo

Length: 74min 35sec (4475 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 01 2018