Is the Earth Young or Old? Examining the Evidence

[Music] [Applause] [Music] well good afternoon welcome to our amazing adventures I'm your host buddy Davison we have an exciting program for you today we're on our way to the Florida Everglades a million and a half acres of wilderness water swamp that is well good afternoon sorry for the little glitch there sometimes that's what happens with technology my name is Tim Chaffee and I'm here to talk today about the age of the Earth from a biblical perspective what does the biblical evidence show us if you haven't heard me before you're not familiar with me I'm the Content Manager here at the attractions division of Answers in Genesis that's the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum which by the way great news we are going to be reopening in just a few days June 8th is our reopening date so please check out the websites I at Ark Encounter calm or Creation Museum org check those out and make sure if you're planning on coming in the first few days that your that you look at all of the different procedures different things that are taking place and that you need to be aware of because of the coronavirus and the ongoing situation with that there may be last-minute changes that we're not even aware of at this point so stay up-to-date on that by checking out our website and we cannot wait to have people returning to the attractions it's been nearly three months and we were super excited our teams have been working very hard to make sure everything is in place and ready to go so we can't wait to see you I mentioned my name is Tim Chaffee and I'm the content manager at these attractions if you've been to the Ark Encounter II before you might recognize me as this guy the bean guy and there's a video that is there to talk about the reliability of the New Testament manuscripts and if you look really closely you might recognize me as the mean guy in this diagram on the left side there's me at some point during my gladiator days I was able to find time to work on some master's degrees and and all of those things to go to a lot of schooling and one of the topics I studied during this time was this issue of the age of the earth and what scripture has to say about it and so let's start where we need to start as Christians we go right back to God's Word and this is in the book of Genesis we can find out the age of the earth because the Bible gives us these helpful genealogies in Genesis chapter 5 in Genesis chapter 11 and so you can get a very close estimate to the age of the earth I'm not gonna say that we can get right down to the exact day or month or a year but we can get a pretty good ballpark figure and when you look at what Genesis says it tells us there were five days before Adam was made he was made on day six and then it tells us that Adam was a hundred and thirty years older and he begat Seth and we'll look at that verse in just a moment but between Adam and Abraham there's roughly two thousand years when you add up all those numbers that are given between Abraham to Jesus there's about two thousand years and from Jesus until today there's about two thousand years so we can say that God made everything in six days about 6,000 years ago here's the verse in Genesis five three Adam lived 130 years and begot a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth then it tells us Seth was 105 years and it goes on and gives us these ages of these people and this isn't a new idea this is something that people have been doing in the church for years in fact going all the way back to Julius africanus in the middle of the 3rd century did this and you can see the dates that they calculated the the dates BC for the age of the earth and the first several on the list are in the five thousands and the reason for that is because they're using what's called the Septuagint and so there's debate about which one of these these ancient texts is the more accurate one but really that's not my point here notice the that all of these people are saying about the same thing between four and five thousand years BC and this has been going on for a long time and you can find a lot of people who have done this trying to calculate the age of the earth based on what scripture says but in the late 1700s the early 1800s this idea that the earth is millions of years old and then billions of years old really started to take hold and people were saying this is this this is proven through science and so you had Christians who started to say well maybe this whole age of the Earth thing that's kind of a side issue is there a way that we can reinterpret the text or we can understand the text in a way that allows for these millions of years and and so they came up with all these different ideas like the gap theory in 1804 Thomas Chalmers there was a gap of indeterminate length between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 in the beginning God created the heavens of the earth stopped and then before the next verse you dump the millions and billions of years and there or you could stretch out each of the days of creation and be long periods of time hundreds of millions of years each to try to make it work or some people what they've done it's kind of just throughout Genesis 1 3:11 all together stick the evolutionary story in there and then kind of start their Bible Genesis chapter 12 with Abraham and there are a lot of problems when you do this which we're going to be looking at but before we get into that there was a study that was done nearly 10 years ago now where we sent we hired a company called America's research group where they sent surveys to Christian colleges throughout North America and they sent four of these surveys to each one of these one for the president one for the vice president one for the head of the Bible Department one for the head of the science department and they asked them a series of questions for example do you believe the Bible is literally true and if you look at the there's the the statistics they're vice-president 92% of the time says yes then look at the follow-up question do you believe in God creating in the earth and six literal 24-hour days that same statistic the vice-president that drops down to 40% so they say the Bible is literally literally true but apparently to them that doesn't include God created everything in six days like it says in Genesis chapter 1 and in Exodus chapter 20 and Exodus chapter 31 but then we follow up with this question do you think the religion department and the science professors have the same views on the age of the earth religion department eight over eighty percent of time says yes the science department only sixty percent of time says yes how about this would you consider yourself a young earth or an Old Earth Christian and this is where it gets really interesting for a lot of people the religion department oldearth 78 percent of the time they believe in the millions or billions of years and look at the science department only thirty five percent of the time do they say old earth you see what's happened for so long Christians have been told you've got to believe in the billions of years because the science scientists have proven it and look what we see in the science departments at these schools the scientists are saying no the billions years aren't true and yet too many theologians are already buying into that saying here's what we've got to try to find a way to reinterpret that and so what what I did several years ago was to look for every single one of these arguments I could find from these Christian leaders saying that you can interpret this to be millions or billions of years where it doesn't mean what you think it means when it says Day and all these different arguments that we're gonna be going through in just a little bit how about this one do you believe in the flood of Noah's day religion department a hundred percent yes and science department 89% of time yes do you believe the flood was worldwide local or non literal look what happens again the religion department that went from a hundred percent down to just fifty seven percent and a science department a very similar number so they say they believe in the flood of Noah's day but they don't really believe what the Bible teaches about it and we'll be looking at there's two major issues here that are involved and that is the age of the earth from biblical perspective and the extent of the flood from a biblical perspective and we're going to be looking at both of those here in a little bit and some people say well what about Charles Darwin isn't don't we have to worry about this a whole evolutionary idea shouldn't we be confronting that look there are all sorts of problems with the evolutionary theory but wit from within the church this issue goes back to before Darwin Darwin published his book on the origin species back in 1859 the the people who were trying to buy into the billions of years and harmonize the Bible with that teaching 1804 is in the gap there he came with fifty five years before Darwin published his book and you had other views that were coming around about that time as well so the church was already trying to make room for the millions and billions of years before Darwin and before his theory of evolution was popularized so if we can show that the millions of years isn't true we automatically showed that the evolutionary part is not compatible with Scripture either before we jump into that let me remind myself and everybody else this passage Galatians 6:1 boy if there's an ax verse that's appropriate for our time I don't know what is this is something that we I think as believers really need to take to heart because there are so many things going on in our culture that that we need we need this reminder brethren if any if a man is overtaken in any trespass you who are spiritual or such a one in a spirit of gentleness considering yourself lest you also be tempted so as I go through this presentation I'm going to be quoting from various Christian leaders some of them I have learned quite a bit from and I've read several of their books it doesn't mean that I'm trying to denigrate them any any way I'm not attacking their intelligence I'm not attacking their I'm not attacking them personally I'm not attacking their commitment to the Lord I'm not questioning any of those things what I'm talking about are the words that they've used the things that they said the things that they've written to show that their arguments do not stand up to any sort of logical examination any sort of biblical examination that there are so many problems with the arguments that these people are using and so what I used to hear all the time and I had this pastor tell me you know Tim there's good arguments on both sides I was teaching a creation class at a Christian school at the time and he said I don't understand why this is such a big deal to you there's good arguments on both sides and I thought I've never heard a good argument from the people who believed in the billions of years from Scripture I've never heard them give a good argument so let me try to find one and I went through every systematic theology book that I had access to and all these different journal articles and I kept digging and digging and I ended up writing over 40 pages of an article that I gave to him and he went through it and he said you know Tim this is very impressive there's a lot of really good arguments especially you know he named a couple of them but he said you know what I called my professor at seminary and if I said the name of the professor many of you would recognize that he's a very well-known evangelical leader and my professor said it's not a big deal so guess what it's not a big deal this was a pastor in our area who was very well respected whose authority apparently was his professor not what the Word of God says and that's unfortunate because every time we hear anybody say anything as believers we should be taking that back to scripture and comparing it with Scripture so even what I'm saying today please compare those things with Scripture don't believe it just because Tim said it make sure that what I say lines up with the word of God so let's take a look at some of the reasons why we believe that what is called young earth creation is that the earth is just you know just thousands of years old rather than billions of years old why that view is is what the Scriptures teach first of all we teach the natural reading of the text God called the light day and the darkness he called night so the evening in the morning were the first day we're told what is how a day is defined right there in Genesis 1:5 when it uses evening in morning it's telling this is a normal length day yes the word day can mean other things we'll talk about that in a little bit but in this context look what's being described there the God called the firmament heaven so the evening in the morning were the second day for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day and this is during the giving of the Ten Commandments so God tells Israel the Israelites you're going to work he says to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy there's a giving of the fourth command he says here you're gonna work for six days and rest for one why because that's what I did and you know what's really interesting about this this particular passage that a lot of times we miss as believers because we've had access to the Bible all our lives and so we read it from Genesis right through and so we start with Genesis 1 and we see God creates in six days and we read about each of those days in Genesis chapter 1 but the Israelites for the most part this would have been the first time they heard this they would have heard God made everything in six days and rested for one and that's why we work for six day in the rest for one and then later they would have been given access to what we read as Genesis chapter 1 where God describes what he does so how would they have understood that passage in Genesis 1 in light of what's given in Exodus chapter 20 there would've been no question that God made everything in 6 normal length days and rested for one there are many theological difficulties that are introduced into the Bible once you start to add these millions and billions of years to try to make the Bible harmonize with that for example at the end of Genesis chapter 1 says that God saw everything had he had made and indeed it was very good each of the days it says good good good and then this one it was very good so think about this if there really were millions of years worth of death and suffering and disease going on long before Adam II before God finishes on day 6 and then he calls everything very good what is that saying about God's character I think maybe we put it this way Oh Adam this is such a perfect world yes Eve it's very good just like God I said except for sitting on top of millions of years worth of death suffering disease is God calling all those things very good see what that does to his character and we find evidence of brain tumors of cancerous tumors in dinosaur bones that are allegedly millions of years old so if cancer was around in these things and these things are really millions of years old that would mean that God called cancer very good as a cancer survivor I can tell you that cancer is not very good but I don't need to tell you that because you know that we also have these phrases that appear several times in the Bible that speaks of something happening from the beginning for example Jesus quotes from Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2 he says but from the beginning of creation God made them male and female for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh now what's interesting to me is that a couple things but one Jesus quotes from both Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2 and he puts them together seamlessly why is that important because so many people now Christian leaders are saying well there's two different creation accounts and they're contradictory I don't think Jesus viewed them as contradictory in fact they no he didn't he put them together seamlessly they were both true what's happening is Genesis 1 through Genesis chapter 1 where he had the six days of creation is giving you like a big-picture view of what's happening and how God is creating these things and Genesis chapter 2 we zoom in to the events on what happened on day 6 and God makes man and then when he makes woman but look at the first phrase there from the beginning of creation so let's take a look at these two timelines here one of them represents the the Big Bang and evolution billions of years the other one represents the biblical view and according to this first timeline from the beginning when male and female are made would be way over here which would actually be pretty close to the end of the timeline but from the biblical perspective you've got Christ right there about two-thirds of the way through and you've got the beginning when male and female were made right back there the only way to understand Christ's words correctly is with the lower the bottom timeline the top one would contradict what he said and you see the same sort of thing in revenue in Chapter one for since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse who is without excuse it's saying since the creation of the world someone has known that there's a creator by looking at the things that are made who was that if there's billions of years going on before someone ever comes on the scene to see it that certainly wasn't since the creation of the world this is this passage is talking about mankind that man can know that there's a creator and they can know certain things about him just by looking at the world around them and that they've been doing this since the beginning and then we also have the worldwide flood issue because if you believe in the billions of years and you think those rock layers represent billions of years then you cannot have a worldwide flood you have to reinterpret that entire passage to say something other than a worldwide flood and we're gonna look at that in the second half of our presentation why that does not match Scripture and the reason why you you can't have a worldwide flood if you believe in billions of years because if those rock layers represent billions of years a worldwide flood would Rock would wipe out all those rock layers and lay down new ones and so you no longer have the evidence for the billions of years there are some Christians who are very inconsistent on this they believe in the billions years and they believe in a worldwide flood and there's there's really no way to make that happen but they they believe those things but we'll see why scripture is very clear on the extent of the flood if by the time we wrap things up here so let's look at some of these arguments that are used by old earth creationist by these Christians who believe that Christ died on the cross for their sins they believe that he rose from the dead but for whatever reason they believed in the billions of years or at least they're there they're kind of going back and forth on that and they're not sure and they're trying to make allowance for that so when I was in seminary one of the textbooks were used for for hermeneutics how to interpret Scripture was this book called interpreting the Bible which is really a pretty fantastic book throughout most of it's very thick very detailed it's got I think you and you'd never even think about until you go through and read this but then toward the end he had a chapter where we need to have special rules when it comes to talking about creation and he says this the age of the universe the nature of light and the time and procedures by which God prepared the earth for the habitation of man are not touched upon law in the Bible really it doesn't tell us that all the time and procedure by which God prepared the earth for for man temptation how about on day one he did this day two he did this day three he did this day four he did this day five and then on day six God it makes man and tells us that he spoke these things into existence that he spoke and these things were done so the Bible does tell us the procedures by which God prepared the earth and it tells us the time and how he did it the new compact Bible Dictionary says the Bible gives no information as to how long the original creation of matter occurred or the first day of creation began or the sixth day ended anybody want to take a wild guess as to when the first day of creation began how about the first three words in the Bible in the beginning ok the Bible is very clear on this and yet these people are trying to make allowance or or two to make subtle changes to it so that you can interpret it as something different so that the Bible didn't speak to this issue at all the biblical writer was not writing a scientific journal he was moved by God's Spirit to give a revelation of spiritual reality his primary emphasis was not on the process by which the world was created but on the creator and his purpose okay the first sentence that's true the Bible was not is not a scientific journal and I'm thankful for that okay scientific journals change all the time and and most the time I find them to be rather boring not always but often the Bible is very different than that the Bible does not change God tells us the truth from the beginning to the end but when the Bible touches on scientific topics it's accurate when it touches on astronomy day 4 God made the Sun Moon and stars when it touches on geology the worldwide flood in Genesis 7 and 8 when it touches on on scientific disciplines it's accurate and even if we go for this last part where he says the primary emphasis isn't on the process by which the world was created but on the creator and purpose that doesn't eliminate the accuracy of the process or the timing okay so even if something is the major focus it doesn't eliminate the rest of it then there are some Christians who say you know we just really can't know for sure about this the Bible didn't give us enough information Wayne Grudem and his systematic theology says this which by the way this is probably the most popular systematic theology out there in evangelical seminaries and churches therefore with respect to the length of days in Genesis 1 the possibility must be left open that God has chosen not to give us enough information to come to a clear decision on this question and the real test of faithfulness to him may be the degree to which we can act charitably toward those who in good conscience and full belief in God's Word hold to a different position on this matter now I I like the sentiment that we need to be civil and act charitably toward those and I hope that I'm doing that today when I go through these quotations that's my goal but really God hasn't given us enough information as to how long each of the days were the Bible tells us very clearly in many cases as we've already looked at many places it tells us how long those days there were normal length days JP Moreland said I'm an old earth creationist five days out of the week I'm a young earth creationist 2 days out of the week why does he say something like that and I heard norm Geisler say something very similar except in fact he told me personally that very similar I handed him a copy of my book old Earth Creationism on trial which is presentation it's based on and I told him I said you know I really respect a lot of what you've done and your works and I've read a lot of your books but when it comes to this issue I think you that you've dropped the ball quite a bit now I'm paraphrasing I don't remember my exact words but he said what I think you find I agree with you three days out of the week why are they saying things like that because I think they know what the Bible really teaches on this and yet for whatever reason they want to allow for the millions and the billions of years and we'll come back to some of that in a little bit some of their arguments for that some people say well well Genesis chapter 1 is just poetic or it's semi poetic a Rob Bell called at the creation poem Meredith Klein calls it just talked about this serious and semi poetic form of Genesis chapter one he popularized was known as the framework hypothesis which we'll look at in a little bit Hugh Ross who's one of the best-known old earth creationists he believes in what's called progressive creation kind of a spinoff of the day age view where each of the days of creation are long periods of time he will often take poetic passages interpret those literally and then use those to reinterpret the narrative passages Genesis chapter one is narrative so let's take a look at that real quick it is written in the same style as the rest of Genesis except for chapter 49 which is largely poetic when Jacob is blessing his sons and a few other you know spoken places in in Genesis where those things are in a in in poetry but it's written as historical narrative prose and it uses the it has a repeated use of what's known as devolve consecutive imperfect so it's this happened and this happened and this happened and it's sort of like reading a history book today when you read through a history book you're reading this happened and then this and then this and then this and then this and it's usually in order sometimes you got it back up and explain something else that you kind of glossed over but for the most part it's in order that's very different than poetry even in Hebrew when you go through this that occurs more than one and a half times per verse in narrative passages and in for example Genesis 49 which is largely poetic just one out of every three verses so it's very easy to tell just from the use of what's known as devolve consecutive imperfect is this going to be a narrative or poetic passage so here's what I want to show you and it's very easy to pick up in English and it would be for anybody who is an expert in Hebrew it'd be easy for them to pick up on this the difference between poetry and narrative because in Exodus chapter 14 you have the narrative account of the Israelites going through the Red Sea crossing on dry ground and then in Exodus 15 the very next chapter you have the song that the Israelites sing it's the poet poetic version of that same event and you can do the same thing in judges chapter four and five with deborah and barak and the battle against Sisera judges five and six i think it is where the first chapter there is narrative the next one is this song and it's poetic and you can see how things are worded very differently so let's take a look at this Exodus chapter 14 then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night and made the sea into dry land and the waters were divided so that children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground and the waters were Waltz them on their right hand and on another on their left and the Egyptians pursued and went after them into the midst of the sea all Pharaoh's horses his chariots and his horsemen pretty easy to see this is historical narrative this is just telling you here's what happened and this and then this and then this it's just a straight description of what happened now let's take a look at the poetic version of this the Lord is a man of war the Lord is his name Pharaoh's chariots and his army he has cast into the sea his chosen captains are also captain they're also drowned in the Red Sea the depths have covered them they sink like the sink to the bottom like a stone your right hand O Lord has become glorious and power your right hand O Lord has dashed the enemy in pieces see the difference if we are to take the poetic passage literally as Hugh Ross often does when he looked at the Psalms and he looks at other places that mentioned creation he'll take those ones literally and then try to force that and to reinterpret Genesis chapter 1 here's what we learn in exit of 15 if we take that literally the Lord is a man with nostrils Pharaoh's army was cast into the sea and drowned they were dashed to pieces they were consumed like stubble they were swallowed by the earth which one was it well those are all poetic ways of expressing the fact that they were completely destroyed okay there's a huge difference between historical narrative and poetry and it is often very easy to tell the difference Genesis one is written as historical narrative we can't reinterpret it just as poetry because we want to try to do it do away with what it says to harmonize with the Bible with an outside idea of millions of years so how about this one does the word day actually mean day I told you we would come back to this here's what norm Geisler wrote in his systematic theology book on the second volume he said it is true that most often the Hebrew word Yom meaning day means 24 hours however this is not definitive forth meaning in Genesis 1 for several reasons so he's gonna give us three reasons why we don't have to take it as a normal length day in Genesis chapter one which by the way not every use in Genesis 1 the very first use God called the light day that means the daylight portion of the day but then it goes and says they were the evening and morning the first day he says the first the meaning of a term is not determined by majority vote that's true but by the context in which it is used remember that okay the meaning of the term is determined by the context in which it is used that's the first point it is not important how many times it's used elsewhere but how it is used here and again we agree the word day is used if YUM is used over 2300 times in the Old Testament why is it that really the only time we question its meaning is in Genesis chapter 1 I mean nobody questions how long the Israelites marched around Jericho was it for you know seven thousand years before the walls came down or was it for the seven days nobody nobody questions the meaning of there how long was Jonah in the belly of the great fish was it for three days or were they three thousand years or million years nobody questions the meaning of the word day there why is it just in Genesis chapter one people will try to reinterpret it he goes on second even in the creation story in Genesis 1 and 2 day is used of more than a 24-hour period speaking of the whole six days of creation Genesis 2:4 refers to it is the day when all things were created that would be very similar to when we talked about back in the day that it can mean a period of some length it can it can be a week it can be months it can be back in when you were growing up you know when you say back in the day but again it's determined by contact remember he already said that but then he also said it's not important how it's used elsewhere remember how many times its use elsewhere well look at his third argument finally Yama's elsewhere used of long periods of time as in Psalm 90 verse 4 which is cited in second Peter 3 today is like a thousand years I thought we were just told it's not important how it's used elsewhere but how it's you tear and then his third argument is to say it's used elsewhere as a long period of time do you see the problem first of all is 2nd Peter 3:8 talking about creation know the context remember the context is important is about Christ's return yes it seems like God it has been waiting a long time even the Peter who was writing at that point it had been a couple decades like how come Christ hasn't returned yet hey it might seem like a long time to you but it's not a long time to God that's the context of not saying each of those days of creation was really a thousand years and by the way even if we took that even if we said fine you can have a thousand years for each creation day how old is the earth then twelve thousand years did that really get you close to the of years at all no it doesn't even come close to it so that argument doesn't even hold up and by the way if you if you continue reading it's you know Court in Psalm 90 verse four its day is like a thousand years and a thousand years as one day so if you continue reading it if you if you think there's a mathematical formula one day equals a thousand years which equals one day you're right back where you started it's really just talking about how God is beyond time he's not bound by time like we are some people say well day six is too short for everything I had to happen on that day Gleeson Archer and his book survey of Old Testament introduction which by the way then outstanding book for the most part other than the chapter where this appears says this nevertheless on the basis of internal evidence okay remember that turn that phrase internal evidence he didn't tell us things from the text at least is what he says he's going to tell us things from the text that tell you that we should interpret this as normal length days he says it is this writers conviction that yeoman Genesis one could not have been intended by the Hebrew author to mean literal twenty four-hour-a-day Genesis 1:27 states that after creating all the land animals on the sixth day God created man both male and female then in a more detailed treatment of Genesis 2 we are told that God created Adam first gave him the responsibility of tending the garden for some time until he observed him to be lonely then he granted him the fellowship of all the beasts and animals of the earth with opportunity to bestow names upon them all some undetermined period after that God under the Adam was still lonely and finally fashioned a human wife worm by means of a river removed to him from him during a deep sleep then at last he brought Eve to before Adam and presented her to him as his new life partner who can imagine that all of these transactions could possibly have taken place in 120 minutes of the sixth day or even within 24 hours for that matter and yet Genesis 1:27 states that both Adam and Eve were created at the very end of the final day of creation all right long quote lots of problems you may have noticed something that all of those highlighted sections had in common but then he goes on he says obviously the days of chapter 1 are intended to represent stages of unspecified length not literal 24-hour days all right what are the problems with that well notice all of those things I highlighted what do they have in common besides the fact that they're not found in the text anywhere with the exception of at last all of them have to do with adding time to the to the account and yet they're not in the text Adam didn't have to name every single one of all the beasts and all the the animals he had to name certain ones that God had brought to him it doesn't say he had the fellowship of all these beasts just again including time and you know still only undetermined period after all these things to try to add time and then say well there's no way all that could happen in day six yeah of course if you add a whole bunch of time there's no way you can fit everything in there but if you don't add all those time elements if you're not inserting ideas into the Bible if you just take it for what it says yes all those things can happen on day six just like the Bible says and I don't know where this hundred and twenty minutes thing comes from at all he doesn't document it he doesn't footnote it at all he says who could possibly imagine that could happen 120 minutes who says it has to he's got 24 hours to make it happen and then he says that the Bible says that Adam Eve were made at the very end of the final day of creation Genesis 1:27 actually here's what Genesis 1:27 says so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created male and female he created them so he doesn't even describe the text accurately it throughout this passage and then some people go the other way well day six was too short well day seven is too long normal says this in systematic theology everyone agrees that it has been at least thousands of years since the time of creation yet the Bible declares that God rested on the seventh day after his six days of creation according to the book of Hebrews God is still in his Sabbath rest from creation hence the seventh day has been at least six thousand years long even on the shortest of all the chronology of humankind she could see the the logical flaw out there as we were going through it it says that God entered his rest okay does it mean that that day is talking so he entered his rest on the seventh day is that mean day seven is still continuing for example if I went on vacation starting last Friday and I happen to still be on vacation and I said hey I left for vacation on Friday and I'm still on vacation I mean it's still Friday no it means I'm still on vacation but that's exactly what Norman Geisler did with this passage and look at what it says in Hebrews chapter 4 and yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world for some where he has spoken about the seventh day in these words and on the seventh day God rested from his work and again in the past as Roby says they shall never enter my rest where does it say day seven is still going on it just says that he ceased from working from doing the work of creation I like what John Whitcomb says we must assume that the seventh day was a literal day because Adam and Eve lived through it before God drove them out of the garden surely he would not have cursed the earth during the seventh day which he blessed and sanctified yeah remember in Hebrews chapter 11 it tells us that God blessed and sanctified the seventh day that he made it holy and yet when Adam and Eve sinned God cursed the ground he cursed the serpent and he announced these punishments that happen to man and woman that did that really happen on the same day that God blessed and sanctified everything of course not I mentioned Meredith Kline earlier and the framework hypothesis is kind of a technical view so we're gonna look at one of their they're probably the easiest argument to understand will show why there's problems what the framework hypothesis has done is try to redefine the the literary genre of Genesis chapter one that's why he called it semi poetic they're trying to say Genesis one doesn't really even speak about the age of the earth at all and so one of the arguments they use for that is what's known as parallelism so they they say days one in four don't think of days one through six as a sequence of events but look at there's like this framework that the narrator that the writer is using just to describe theological truths don't think of it chronologically so they say days 1 & 4 don't describe separate activities of God separated by three days but contemporaneous activities described from from different perspectives he's another mark for tato days wanting for our different perspectives of the same creative work van gogh marin says the days also show parallelism each day having a counterpart the the six days of creation may be placed in synthetic parallelism each day finding its complement in another the 1st and the 4th day are thus a pair as are the 2nd and the fifth and the 3rd and the sick so here's what they're saying if you follow along don't think of these in terms of chronology think of him as just a literary device so these first three days are days of formation and the last three days our days of filling van camerin has this chart in his book where he puts these things together look at you have darkness and light on day one you've got heavenly light bears on day four you got the heavens and the water on day two you got the birds of the air and the water animals on day five see look at the parallelism you got seas and land that in vegetation and then you got land animals and the purr and man and said look at that parallel except for the things that he has in the chart aren't even accurate let's look at what the Bible teaches on these on day one God made the heavens the earth and it says the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters and let there be light so you've got those four things day 1 day 2 you have the expanse of the firmament day 3 you've got the dry land grass seed yielding plants fruit bearing trees day 4 yup Sun Moon and stars day 5 sea creatures and birds of the air and day 6 you got land animals Adam and Eve so let's go back to his chart and let's make some Corrections waters were made on day one not on day two the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters the expanse on day two the firmament is what the Stars were put in on day four so maybe days two and four are parallel here and the waters were on day one the fish were on day five so maybe those two days are parallel oh but except for the waters were actually named on day three the Seas so maybe that's what's parallel with day five you could draw lines anywhere you want here but you can't change what God actually made on each of these to make your parallel fit and by the way the whole parallelism idea is nonsense because you have to have the event of what happened before in order for something else to happen in other words you have to have the water than day one or forgot to separate the waters on day two a little over a decade ago I was in Connecticut to do a debate on with somebody who held this view in fact we had four debates on this topic who held to the framework hypothesis movie we had a very friendly discussion in each of the places that we went and I asked him at one point I said so would you say that there is some sort of sweet sequence at day one for what we called it for for the sake of argument is before day to 5:00 and it'd be that's before day three six and he thought about for a minute said yeah I would say that and I said so how does God put the Sun Moon and stars into something that doesn't exist yet because if day 1/4 has to come before day 2 5 and he didn't know how to answer there because there is no answer that you have to have the order of events lined out in Scripture or else you can't have what's happening on it they actually occur because you have to have those things in place the birds being on dry land on day 5 that's where they multiplies on dry ground the dry ground has to be there but the framework hypothesis doesn't give you the dry ground yet Hugh Ross says well getting around this idea that you can't have death before sin which we'll talk about a little bit more that that's one of the biggest problems with the the old earth creationist view is you're putting death suffering and disease before Adam sinned he says this well the death of at least plants or plant parts must have occurred before Adam sinned now if you pay close attention as you read screw through Scripture you know what it talks about with plants talked about how they wither and they fade they don't die ok because they're not alive in the same sense that humans and animals are they don't have what in Hebrew is known as the nephesh that's the soul or life principle ok plants aren't described that way in fact God made plants so that we could eat them he did not he told Adam from the beginning he told him go ahead and eat from every tree of the garden except for this one so plants are not alive in the same sense that animals are it's just it's really a red herring argument where you trying to distract somebody from what scripture says to say see you guys believe in death before sin to know it by the way when you take a fruit from a tree that doesn't kill the tree so there's several problems with this argument but it's really just a distraction it's not really dealing with the text itself and then sometimes they'll just straight-out engage in revisionist history Hugh Ross says that's about church fathers he says he lists Philo and Josephus but they weren't church fathers they were Jewish people then he says the literal 24-hour day he talked about Ambrose liked anteus methodius and then he listed several who said they were unclear on it and then he there were others who were allegorical actually I'm sorry he listed every single one of these as being old earth as being billions years here's what actually they were so I have misspoke there that that these other guys three of them that were clear were young earth there were some that were very allegorical and what they said even agustin though he allegorized many things and he tried to try to write commentaries in Genesis four different times I've got a 30 page paper on our website actually and the answers research journal page all about how he interpreted Genesis chapter 1 throughout those commentaries even he said that Adam that the creation man wasn't more than 6,000 years ago mark Knoll who is one of the most well respected church historians today says this and this statement is absolutely false and I don't know how people get away with things like this but it completely falls he says creationism has spread like wildfire in our century talking about the 20th century from its humble beginnings of the in the writings of Ellen White the founder of seventh-day Adventism who started creation as I'm according to Mark Knoll in this book the scandal of the evangelical mine said the Seven Ellen White started it completely false to its current status as gospel truth embraced by tens of millions of Bible believing evangelicals and fundamentalists around the world for his doctoral dissertation dr. Terry Mortensen one of my colleagues here wrote this it's called the great turning point where he studied what he called the scriptural geologists those people in in the UK in the early 1800s when this whole idea of millions and billions of years was becoming popular right when geology was first getting started as a scientific discipline and he wrote about these guys who were responding to the the growth of the idea of millions of years and these creationists who used the exact same argument that we do George young wrote scriptural geology in 1838 an appendix to scriptural geology in 1840 using the same arguments we do Ellen White was born in 1827 who lived on a different continent do we really think that when she was 11 years old she sent Hall Oliver writings over to George Young and said hey start creationism it's completely false and yet here it is in a very influential book by one of our most respected church historians he he goes on he talked about a guy named numbers who wrote a book called the creationist numbers described how I fatally flawed interpretive scheme he's talking about young Earth Creationism of the sort that no responsible Christian teacher in the history of the church ever endorsed before this century came to dominate the minds of American evangelicals and scientific questions really no responsible Christian teacher in the history of the church taught this well I would say Apostle Paul's very responsible and he did I would say Jesus is very responsible and he treated as literal history but let's look at church history after the days of the Apostles how about Martin Luther I'm not saying you have to agree with everything that Martin Luther taught but look what he says on this issue when Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and the and whatever is in them in six days then let this period continue to have been six days and do not venture to devise any comet according to which six days were one day but if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days then grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are amen look we may not be able to understand how God is everything and when but we don't have to when he tells us what he did we can trust him and he told us he did it in six days so we trust him how about John Calvin again you don't have to agree with everything that Calvin taught but what does he say for it is not without significance that he divided the making of the universe into six days even though it would have been no more difficult for him to have completed the in one moment the whole work together in all its details and to arrive at its completion gradually by a progression of this sort saying God made everything in six days he could have done all simultaneously if he wanted to but he stretches out over six days and I think that these two men would probably qualify at least from in light of church history as a responsible Christian teachers in the history of the church and then we just get straw man arguments Norman Geisler said in systematic theology light was not created on the fourth day of defenders of the solar day argue rather it was made on the very first day when God said let there be light he does not footnote this he did not provide any documentation of any creationist who's ever said that light was created on the fourth day we have all sorts of resources here I can't think of a single one that ever teaches that we teach that light with creedal on day one when God said let there be light the Sun was Korean land a for that's what the Bible teaches so he just draw a man's our position make it look silly well we can go on and on with the age of the earth questions but we need to move on to the extent of the flood and wrap things up so let's look at a few of the arguments that they use but first of all that the Bible tells us that this is a worldwide flood 13 times and the flood account we read about all flesh being destroyed over and over and over again we read that all flesh was was destroyed all living things on the land why does it use that over and over again because that's exactly what it means the ark why build it in the first place if it's just gonna be a local flood or a regional flood couldn't know I have moved and gone somewhere else and then once everybody is drowns and God could bring him back if he wants to I mean why spend years and years and years building this huge Ark that's completely unnecessary and the size of the Ark tells us this is not just a local flood because the Bible tells us he had to bring two of every kind of animal in seven or seven pairs of a whole bunch of other ones and they all had to fit on the ark well if it's just the animals in that region the ark doesn't have to be very big but the Bible tells us the ark was really big its length shall be 300 cubits as width 50 cubits as height 30 cubits something like this its massive and yet if you believe in the local flood idea why did he make it so big I mean you need something just a tiny fraction of that size because most of the animals could get out of the region and you wouldn't ever have to bring Birds you want to bring the flying creatures because they can get out of there if it's just a local flood the flood waters tell us this is not just a local event so the Fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened the waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters and the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered the waters prevailed 15 cubits upward in the mountains were covered all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered so was the flood something like this just a local flood that stopped at the top of the mountains no because once water goes to the top of the mountain the highest mountain there's nothing to hold it back anymore the Bible clearly describes a worldwide flood the duration of the flood that length the time they were in the ark shows this is not a local flood they were in there for about a year and then God puts the rainbow in the sky afterwards and he tells them three times and I will never again never again never again destroy the world where they flood like this well if it was just a local flood and we have local floods continuing today then God doesn't keep his promises and every time we see a rainbow mean God lied and yet the Bible is very clear that God cannot lie it's impossible for God to lie is what we're told the New Testament tells us this was a unique event Jesus compares the time of his second coming with what was going on in Noah's day and he described the judgment in ways that talked about the judgment that happened in Noah's time but as the coming of the days of but as the days of Noah were so also will the coming of the Son of Man be for as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the Ark and did not know until the flood came and took them all away so also will the coming of the Son of Man be so maybe if the flood was just a local judgment when Jesus returns maybe that's just a local judgment - what do you think that's not the way the Bible describes it Hebrews 11:7 says that by faith Noah being divinely warned of things not yet seen mood was godly fear and prepared nark for the saving of his household Bible tells us that the that the flood wiped out everybody except for Noah and his family in fact we're told in first Peter 3 when once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few that is eight souls were saved through water in 2nd Peter tells us that the world that existed that time perished the New Testament is extremely clear on this issue it was a worldwide flood that only eight people survived and there were big changes that took place at the time of the flood as well man went from originally in a vegetarian diet God said in Genesis 1:29 and 30 what man and what the animals were to eat and then we believe that there and but then after the flood Genesis 9:3 paraphrasing now you can eat meat there was a big change that took place at that time and there was we believe one continent on the earth prior to the flood because in Genesis 1 it talked about how all the waters were gathered together in one place which seems to imply all the land was in one place and now we have our seven continents why because of what happened during the flood now there's some people who recognize that the Bible uses this language that talks about the whole world being covered and so they've come up with this idea of what what they call a tranquil flood that it covered the whole world but it didn't leave any evidence so it just kind of rose up and then just went back down calmly but anybody who's ever experienced any sort of flooding at all knows that this is complete nonsense ok water is extremely powerful and water leaves evidence that it was there let's take a look at what one wave did in Indonesia back in 2005 this is before the tsunami that struck and killed about 250,000 people in that region in the world one wave here's the view from above here's what it looked like after one wave you want to tell me it was a tranquil flood - left no evidence which would have many many many many more than just one wave how about in Japan prior to the tsunami that struck there here's what looked like in 2010 here's what it looked like about a year later the same place one wave you think a tranquil flood there's such a thing as a flood that would leave no evidence and complete nonsense a flood leave evidence all over the place and that's what we see in the rock layers around the globe we have billions of dead things buried and rock layers laid down by water all over the earth as buddy Davis's song says that that's what we find all over the globe it's powerful evidence for a worldwide flood Hugh Ross will say well it's a universal flood and he uses language like that to make it sound like he believes in a worldwide but he doesn't really he says any flood that exterminate all human beings all the soleus animals with whom they have contact all their material possessions except those on board Noah's Ark would be universal and would achieve God's purpose in pouring out judgement since no people lived in Antarctica God would have no reason destroy the place or it's penguins nor would Noah be required to take a pair of emperor penguins aboard the ark determining the extent of the great flood and that eradicated all humanity except Noah and his family will depend on discovering the extent to which the population thus the wickedness had spread by Noah's time my first approach that this determination is simple through science we can deduce the pre-flood humans never settled Antarctica well we would agree with the very last part there pre-flood humans never settled Antarctica because we don't think in Antarctica existed until after the flood but notice what he gets it is like a limited extent of sin somehow sin doesn't affect a region so a man gets there so the ground is cursed but only the ground that Adam standing on so like two miles away the grounds not cursed yet until Adam gets there then suddenly the ground is cursed is that really how the Bible described it no cursing is a ground for your sake thorns and thistles going to produce for you that the serpent was cursed the Bible didn't speak of any sort of limited scent of sin but you have to wait till man gets there for things to be corrupt that's not what it describes and oftentimes they'll just put science right over what the Word of God says here's what Davis Young said but archeological investigations have established the presence of human beings in the Americas Australia and southeastern Asia so long before the advent of the sort of Near Eastern civilization described in the Bible and thus long before the biblical deluge could have taken place they saying there are people around the globe that like the Australian Aborigines I've been there for tens of thousands of years and yet the Bible describes this flood you know five but four or five thousand years ago so it couldn't have been worldwide he was really saying in light of the wealth of mutually supportive evidence from a variety of disciplines and sources it is simply no longer tenable to insist that a deluge drowned every human on the face of the globe except for Noah's family what a Peter say only eight people survived what does Hebrews 11 say that Noah built the house for the ark for the saving of his household what did Jesus say that the flood came and took them all away except for the one except for Noah and those on the ark he says these New Testament writers clearly assume the historical existence of the and the dealers and they viewed the dealers as a unique event and yet they were wrong yes that's what Davis Young is saying the New Testament is wrong because he's bought into this idea of millions of years and he thinks that the ages assigned to different people like the Aborigines in Australia must be right so then the Bible must be wrong so we have to reinterpret the Bible to mean something different and Heroes has a similar problem with that when it comes to Australian Aborigines for a long time he says I Adam you know came on the scene around 25,000 years ago but that's really not a version he's according to the same people he trusts for the dating and everything are fifty to seventy-five thousand years they've been in Australia so apparently they're not descendants of Adam and according to Bible that would mean they can't be saved see this isn't just a side issue that actually gets right to the heart of the gospel and they'll redefine words and phrases that say you have to interpret things according to characters frame of reference which I understand in certain places that that's appropriate but the Bible isn't describing the flood from within the ark from Noah's point of view actually it's describing it from outside we really don't get a glimpse of what's going on inside at all the translate here's what he says about Genesis 7 we'll wrap up with this one the translators wording of this passage explains why so many english-speaking Christians firmly conclude that the flood must have been global I would agree it's because of what we see in the Bible we conclude this must have been global then he says this somebody who doesn't know the Hebrew language does all of the English translators were influenced unawares by preconceptions about the story all the English translations are wrong because they have a preconception that it was a worldwide flood well here's the passage he's talking about and the waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered the waters prevailed 15 cubits upward and the mountains were covered and all flesh died that moved on the earth birds and cattle and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth and every man all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life all that was on that dry land died pretty much sounded like a worldwide flood because that's exactly what it's describing well again all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered but in the theological word book of the Old Testament we get biblical scholars saying something like this in Genesis 7 19 and 20 the hills were covered the Hebrew did not specify with what the NIV specification of water goes beyond the Hebrew talk about straining a net to swallow a camel what does it say in both those verses the waters prevailed exceedingly on the whole earth and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered with what air well that's not profound it always cover there what else blood what would cover the earth how about the things that we're prevailing and rising the whole time the waters and then in verse 20 the waters prevailed 15 cubits upward and the mountains were covered again with what what do you think they're covered with obviously the water so to try to nitpick that passageway well the Bible doesn't actually tell us what it's covered with of course it does because the Bible is written in plain language that people can understand because God is communicating truth to us he doesn't give it to us in code where nobody can get it finally he Ross says some global flood proponents who acknowledged the problem of a grossly inadequate water supply proposed that Earth's surface was smooth they're flattened by the flood bust reducing the water requirement more specifically they claim that during the 40 days and nights when the floodwaters rose Earth's mountains radically eroded from their lofty heights of 10:15 and even 20,000 feet is just one or two thousand feet perhaps less no we don't in fact you won't find a resource that says that he doesn't document that he doesn't footnote it and I don't know of a single creationist who's out there saying oh yeah the mountains were 20,000 feet high and they all eroded by the from the rain and then the flood cover though no we don't teach that we have the high mountain range as we do today because of the flood but when God created the world he created to be inhabited we don't think there were these huge impassable mountain ranges there were these vast deserts that that were were unsuitable for life so they don't even accurately describe our position but you know ultimately what this comes down to is all of these views everybody trying to push the millions of years of the local flood idea all of these ideas taking these views these philosophies from science from scientists I should say from certain scientists and from philosophers and try to squeeze that into the Bible what they're doing ultimately is undermining the Word of God it doesn't matter which one of these views you take whether it's local flood or theistic evolution day age all of these views undermine the authority of the word of God because you're saying something else is our authority and we're gonna use that to reinterpret the Bible we're gonna say no the Bible didn't even speak to this or the Bible we're gonna change what the meaning is rather than taking God at His Word and when you take God's Word the rest of Scripture is a very consistent message especially about this we've already talked about how with these two different worldviews with the billions of years you've got death that's been around since the beginning okay death is actually a good thing because that's how we got here death brought man into existence but what does the Bible teach us that in the beginning God created a perfect world there was no death there was no suffering there was no disease there was no bloodshed none of these things and yet man's sin brought all of these things and think about this on this issue if Adam's sin did not bring physical death into this world which is what every Old Earth view teaches if Adam sinned and I bring physical death in this world then why is the solution to sin the physical death of the son of God on the cross the bodily physical resurrection from the grave of Jesus Christ if sin and death have no connection which is what the billions of years teaches then the message of the Cross doesn't make sense yes there are people who believe that and praise God they do but it doesn't have a foundation and it doesn't actually make sense for the rest of Scripture we can go on and on talking about these things but I need to wrap things up let me tell you about a few resources here before you go we've got our free newsletter that you can sign up for answers insider.com go to that website and you can sign up for our monthly newsletter that will send to you free of charge will tell you about some of the latest news like the latest news we're opening the Ark and the museum on June 8 okay that is great news that we're celebrating we can't wait for you guys to be back and you'll you'll get to learn about some of our latest resources some specials that we're running and it would be an encouragement to you as well if you are capable and you're willing we would greatly appreciate anyone who is able to help us at this time as most you know we have been shut down for nearly three months and so we don't have a large part of our revenue coming in from the Ark and the museum many of our employees have had to be furloughed during this time and thankfully many many people have stepped up and have been very generous and we're so grateful for that that some of us have still been able to work during this time and bring messages like this and other thing other programs that we're doing so if you're able to help out in some way and the Lord lays on your heart please visit Answers in Genesis org slash donate and you can do that there we've got live programs that are going on each day that you can check out on our Facebook pages like Ken hams Facebook page or the Answers in Genesis page and also on a youtube channel we've got all these live programs you can take advantage of and speak into those programs and many others you can now access those on what's known as Answers TV we have our own digital streaming platform so an alternative to Netflix and some of these other things that are out there now you can go to answers TV and you can get a free trial of for seven days check out a lot of the programs that are on there and you can get in you can watch them wherever you can download things on any of these devices and you can sign up for an entire year for for under $40 so you can take advantage of that and pretty soon it's going to be available on a lot of different devices as well like real Q and some of these other things for phones and tablets we're running a special right now just until the arc open so you got a few more days to take advantage of this we have free shipping on orders of $50 or more so one of the items you may want to get is what is called old Earth Creationism on trial that's kind of what you've been hearing today in this presentation it's a respectful critique of Christians who for whatever reason have bought into the billions of years and the local flood and try to reinterpret those passage so goes into a lot more detail than what I was able to give you today on a similar topic ken ham's book six days the age of the earth and the decline of the church looks at why it's so important to look to take these as six normal length days and the impact that that has had on the church when people have gone away from this so if you get those two books together you're gonna get a very good education on this issue we've got our book called the lie this is also by Ken Ham that's the 25th anniversary edition it's really besides scriptures kind of one of our founding documents for this ministry because he really sets it out extremely well how this is not a battle between science and faith or fact versus religion that can it's a world view about the past present and future versus a world view about the past present future one of these worldviews the biblical worldview know is the person who was there and he that's God he we have an eyewitness testimony God's testimony he cannot lie he told us what he did so we go with his word and then both sides are looking at the same evidence and we interpret them differently because of our starting points so the light is a great job of pointing those things out we've got our answered books on sale right now as well you can get all of those as a set each of those goes through 25 to 35 of the most commonly asked questions let me just skip ahead here just a little bit we've got our creation apologetics our classes that we've been offering for a long time but there are six different classes you can get a really good education on many different scientific disciplines from a creationist perspective normally there are $49 a piece so almost a $300 value you can get for just $19 right now for probably just for the next few days I haven't been given the exact word on one that's going to end but you may want to take advantage of that while you still can so let me let me close on prayer and we'll we'll end it there our Heavenly Father we thank you for this day you've given us thank you for your word that gives us the truth from the very beginning to the very end and we know we can depend on what you've said because as scripture tells us it's impossible for you to lie and you've told us what you did back in Genesis 1 and we can depend on it we can trust you and when we do understand Scripture in a straightforward way there Lord we can make perfect sense of the world around us we can see how the how the flood devastated this world and left those rock layers around as Lord we can make sense of the world when we start with your word rather than trying to reject your word or add ideas from outside of your word and insert them into the Bible which far too many Christians have been have been tempted to do a lord help us to stand on your word from the very beginning to the very end help us to address these issues in a spirit of gentleness in Galatians 6:1 says and Lord today I know many hearts are heavy because of what's going on around our country with the rioting and and some in Justices that we see and so much so much hurt so much pain Lord we pray for peace in these situation we pray that you would raise up godly leaders to show your love to a world that so desperately needs it lord help us to live out the love of Christ to a world that needs to see it Oh Lord may we honor and glorify you through our lives and everything we do say and think about it's in Jesus name we pray amen thank you for your time today god bless you

Channel: Answers in Genesis

Views: 26,244

Rating: 4.7056279 out of 5

Keywords: Biblical authority, Creation Museum, Answers in Genesis, truth, Tim Chaffey

Id: kuRFueoiu78

Length: 65min 35sec (3935 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2020