October 20, 2015 Show with Ken Ham & Britt Beemer on “Ready to Return: Bringing Back the Church’s Lost Generation” AND Paul Taylor on “Where Birds Eat Horses: The Language of Evolution”

Iron Sharpens Iron

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:02

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

00:09

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

00:17

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

00:24

Proverbs 27, verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

00:32

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, We are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with, and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

00:47

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

00:57

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

01:07

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

01:12

Earth, who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 20th day of October 2015, and I'm very excited to have a guest back on the program.

01:29

He hasn't been on the program for many years, and this is his first time on the all -new Iron Sharpens Iron, and his name is no stranger,

01:37

I'm sure, to the vast majority of those listening today. His name is Ken Ham, and he is a world -renowned young Earth creationist, and he is going to be discussing his new book,

01:49

Ready to Return, Bringing Back the Church's Lost Generation. And Ken is also the president,

01:57

CEO, and founder of Answers in Genesis, and the highly acclaimed Creation Museum founder.

02:05

And it is my honor and privilege to welcome you back to the Iron Sharpens Iron program, Ken Ham.

02:12

Hi, Chris. Hi, it's great to be back with you again. And before we even go into the contents of your new book, tell us something about this exciting project involving

02:21

Noah's Ark that you're involved in. Well, eight years ago, we opened the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky, and it's a world -class center, and we've had two and a half million people come through that, people from all around the world, all across America, average about 300 ,000 a year.

02:37

But we also wanted to impact the culture even more in getting out the truth of God's Word and the

02:44

Gospel. And so we decided that after some research that we conducted, and a lot of prayer and talking about it, of course, to build a life -size

02:55

Noah's Ark, and to build it out of wood as a ship but as a building, and something that people could go through all floors and have exhibits in there answering questions to help them understand that this event really happened and to point them to the truth of God's Word and the

03:11

Gospel. And so we're doing that. It's a very complicated project. This is going to be the biggest timber -framed structure in the world.

03:20

It's 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, 51 feet high. It's being built 15 feet off the ground, anchored to three towers.

03:28

The towers are all complete. They're eight stories high each, and a lot of the body of the Ark is actually done.

03:35

We have an Amish crew of craftsmen that are building the timber -framed structure, and it'll be open mid -to -late summer next year.

03:43

In fact, on November 12, in 2015, we will be having a press conference and announcing the actual date of the opening of the life -size

03:54

Noah's Ark and the research that we've had done. In fact, Britt Beamer from America's Research Group, who did the research for the new book

04:01

Ready to Return, he's done research for other books that we've written too on the state of Christendom in America.

04:08

He did research for us on how many people are going to come to the Ark, and predictions are around two million people a year, and they predict it's going to double the attendance of the

04:18

Croatian Museum. So this is going to be one of the greatest Christian outreaches of our era history.

04:24

Wow. Now, has there ever been a replica of the Ark done in the actual dimensions from the

04:31

Bible before? Well, you know, there's really only two others that are meant to be built to give those dimensions.

04:41

One is in Hong Kong, but it's not built out of wood, and it's under a freeway, and it's owned by the Communist government, and it's not done as an evangelistic tool.

04:48

It doesn't really look like an Ark. So that's that one. There is one in the Netherlands that a builder built.

04:54

It's not quite as big as what we're doing. We're using the Egyptian cubit, which we believe is the oldest cubit, 20 .4

05:00

inches. The one in the Netherlands doesn't have all the walk -through exhibits. It's actually built on 12 barges, and it's not built as a real timber frame structure even though it's built out of timber.

05:10

So it's very different. This is really levels different than what this is.

05:16

There's nothing ever been done of this world -class nature to be able to walk through the

05:22

Ark and have all these exhibits in there and build it as a real timber frame building, actually designed as a wooden ship, but built as a building for tourists.

05:31

So it's very unique in the world in that regard, and it will be. Timber framing is a specialized way of building a wooden structure.

05:38

This is going to be the biggest timber frame structure in the world, and so it's going to be a world -class attraction, even from an architectural and engineering standpoint, and there's going to be a big evangelistic emphasis to it, and that is, as Noah and his family had to go through a door to be saved, we need to go through a door.

05:54

Jesus said, I'm the door, by me if any man enter in, he'll be saved. Even this new book which talks about the millennial generation in our churches and how secularized they are, we've already lost two -thirds of the millennial generation from our churches anyway.

06:09

This is meant to really impact the culture. People are fascinated by Noah's Ark. They've heard about it all around the world, and the research indicates even a lot of non -Christians and nominal churchgoers are going to come to this, and they're going to hear a message of the truth of God's Word and the

06:25

Gospel. Now, why on earth did the communist government of China get involved in creating a replica of Noah's Ark?

06:33

Yeah, I don't know. It's really a building. I think some businessman there somehow had something to do with wanting to build something to the dimensions of the

06:41

Ark, and as I said, it's built as a building, it's not really built as an Ark anyway, but it doesn't even compare in any way to what we're doing here.

06:51

Great. Well, I'm going to announce our email address if any of our listeners would like to email your own question to Ken Ham about his book,

07:00

Ready to Return, Bringing Back the Church's Lost Generation. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

07:08

chrisarnsen at gmail .com, that's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

07:15

Please include at least your first name, the city and state where you reside, and the country where you reside if you live outside of the

07:24

United States. Well, first of all, Ken, as I've already announced, we are discussing your new book,

07:31

Ready to Return, Bringing Back the Church's Lost Generation. Obviously, many

07:37

Christians, as soon as they see the word return in the title of a book, they immediately jump to eschatology about the return of Christ, but this is not the subject of your book necessarily.

07:47

It is, the subtitle gives it away, Bringing Back the Church's Lost Generation. Tell us something about why you felt the need to write this book.

07:56

Well, it's really a sequel to another book that was published in 2009. In 2009, we published a book called

08:03

Already Gone, and it was based on research we had. Britt Beamer from America's Research Group go out and find the 20s generation that had left the church, no longer went to church.

08:15

They used to go to church regularly, but they left the church because statistics in America show that around two -thirds of young people walk away from the church by the time they reach college age, with very few returning.

08:26

We did the research why you left the church, when you start to doubt the Bible, and so on. We found they were doubting the

08:32

Bible at a young age, but we found it really had to do with not being taught apologetics, not being taught how to defend the faith, and the fact that the secular teachings through the public school and through the universities and TV on evolution, millions of years, and so on, had really caused many of them to doubt that you can trust the

08:52

Bible as a book of history. They had many questions, such as, how do you know the Bible is really true, and is there really a

08:59

God, and how can you believe in a loving God with all his death and suffering, and so on. Because most churches, most

09:04

Christian homes haven't taught apologetics, they just basically gave up on it and walked away from the church.

09:10

Now, that was the first book already gone. Now, this book, we had Britt Beemer go to the millennial generation in our churches, and that is, these are the 20s, in fact he did the 40s and the 20s, but we concentrated on the 20s.

09:24

The 20s generation that are in our churches right now, and they attend church at least three times a month, and find out what they believe, because the rest of the 20s generation have left the church.

09:35

Okay, the ones that are in the church, what do they believe, and the reason we called it Ready to Return, bringing back the lost generation, because they need to return to their biblical foundation, because they've lost their biblical foundation.

09:50

Just to give you a summary of some of the statistics, for instance, the 20s generation that are in our churches right now, across the board in America, do you consider yourselves born again?

10:00

40 % said no. So 40 % of them outright say they're not Christians. And do you believe if you're a good person, you'll go to heaven?

10:08

65 % of them think that if you're a good person, you'll go to heaven. They obviously don't understand the

10:13

Bible, they don't understand doctrine, they don't understand the message of salvation. Do you believe all other holy books, including the

10:20

Koran, are inspired by God? 30 % of them think that there could be other holy books inspired by God.

10:27

And should gay couples be allowed to marry, 50 % would not speak against gay marriage.

10:35

And that's just some of the statistics. And we also found with this group as well, that they had the same sorts of issues as those that left the church.

10:44

They struggle with questions like how can you believe in a loving God if there's all this death and suffering and so on.

10:49

And 85 to 90 % of them go to public schools. And what this is showing is that there's an incredible mission field in the church, that the 20th generation that are going to be the leaders in the future, the 20th generation in the church and the 20th generation that are outside the church in the culture, they're going to fundamentally change the church and change the culture.

11:09

They're very secularized. They don't really have a Christian worldview. Those that are in the church are very shallow in their understanding of things.

11:18

And they don't know what they really believe. They can't defend the Christian faith. This tells us the church is in big trouble in regard to the future in America.

11:28

And we have to make sure that we reach the millennial generation. We have got to reach them so that they understand what

11:36

Christianity is all about and reach them with a message to get them back to return to the foundation of the authority of the

11:44

Word of God. Now, you are declaring a call to a new

11:49

Reformation. Unfortunately, the liberals and the apostates and those that are really coming from a view that is the antithesis of ours are saying the same thing.

12:05

Of course, they mean something entirely different by it. Their Reformation involves reinterpreting

12:12

Scripture and obviously eradicating everything they don't like out of Scripture.

12:19

What is your understanding or what is your intention by declaring a call for a new

12:26

Reformation? Well, first of all, let's go to the Scriptures. In 2 Corinthians 11, verse 3,

12:32

God has a warning for us. The warning is that the devil is going to use the same method on us as he did on Eve to get us to a position of unbelief.

12:42

So, in God's Word, we are warned about the fact that the devil is going to be attacking people to get them not to believe

12:50

God's Word. What is his method going to be? We are told there in 2

12:56

Corinthians 11, verse 3, just as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, in the same way that the devil beguiled

13:03

Eve or tempted Eve. So, we go back to Genesis 3 and let's see what that method was. The method was, did

13:10

God really say? The point I like to make to people is the first attack was on the authority of the

13:15

Word of God. I call that the Genesis 3 attack. That's been the battle ever since.

13:22

The battle is going to be over authority. If you think about it, right there in Genesis 3, the battle was over trusting in God's Word or trusting in man's

13:32

Word. Trust God or you become as God. So, it's really a battle over authority. Who's the authority?

13:38

Man or God? When I talk about a reformation, what I'm talking about is that we need to get the church to go back to the

13:47

Word of God, making God's Word the authority. Many of our churches today, many of our

13:53

Christian leaders, Christian academics, for instance, they've compromised with evolution of millions of years and they've gone to Genesis and reinterpreted the days, reinterpreted the account of origins in Genesis and they're really making man the authority, not

14:07

God. When you do that, you unlock a door for the coming generations to say you don't have to take

14:12

God's Word as written. You can start outside of God's Word and reinterpret Scripture. So, why shouldn't you do the same with marriage?

14:19

Why shouldn't you start outside of God's Word with man's ideas and reinterpret marriage? What the liberals really want, they really want, what they call is, oh, we're living in a different era.

14:31

We're living in a scientific age. The Bible's this outdated book of mythology, so now we need to get up with things and marriage is not just a man and a woman anymore.

14:41

It can be a man and a man or a woman and a woman. We need to change. We need to change our views.

14:46

In other words, they want to make man the authority, whatever man says, and use man's ideas to reinterpret

14:52

God's Word. What we're saying and what I'm saying in that book is, no, we need a reformation to get back to God's Word, only

14:59

God knows everything. His Word is His revelation to us about who we are, where we came from.

15:06

This is the inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God and we've got to use God's Word to judge man's

15:12

Word. Particularly starting in Genesis, we have an emphasis on that because there's been a big attack in this era of history on the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

15:21

If you don't believe in the first 11 chapters, if you don't take them as literal history, you've got no foundation for any doctrine.

15:28

For instance, take the issue of marriage, which is a big issue in our culture. I would say to people, if they ask me, what do you believe about marriage,

15:36

I would say, well, who invented marriage? God invented marriage in Genesis when Jesus, who's the

15:41

God -man, in Matthew 19 was asked about marriage. He quoted from Genesis, the creation account, saying, haven't you read?

15:49

He made the male and female and this is the reason, the man leaves his father and mother, cleaves unto his wife, there'll be one flesh. The doctrine of marriage is based upon the fact that God made the first marriage with a man and a woman,

16:00

Adam and Eve, Adam from dust, woman from his side, you become one because you're one flesh. And so, if you get away from that and say, no,

16:07

Genesis is not literal history, which is what the liberals today are saying, that Genesis is an outdated scientific book, it's not meant to be taken literally, then marriage can be defined any way you want.

16:18

That's why we've got to return to the authority of the Word of God, the beginning right there in the book of Genesis.

16:25

And of course, we have an even more difficult challenge than merely facing those that deny the inerrancy of the scripture.

16:35

We have those who are masquerading as evangelicals, evangelical homosexual movements and things like that, that say they love the

16:43

Word of God and believe in it, but reinterpret things such as all the condemnations against homosexuality is typically claimed to be only referring to those involved in prostitution or some kind of non -monogamous behavior.

17:01

But they would say that Paul, in his day, was unaware of loving, monogamous relationships between those of the same sex and that kind of a thing.

17:11

So that's where we really have a more difficult challenge, is when we're fighting people that—when

17:18

I say fighting people, I mean opposing them in theological discussion, trying to refute them so that they may see the truth.

17:27

Well, I think, too, in regard to that, the real issue comes down to our attitude to scripture, our approach to scripture.

17:34

So, you know, if some of those people start arguing with me about it, I have to ask them, first of all, how do you approach scripture?

17:42

Because, see, that's what the fundamental difference is. Because I don't look on scripture as, well, because Paul, in his day, he was speaking about this and so on.

17:51

I look on scripture as like 2 Timothy 3, all scripture is inspired by God.

17:58

In other words, yes, God used people like Paul and Peter and Moses and others to write down his words, but all scripture is

18:06

God -breathed and, therefore, all scripture was written— I mean, forever,

18:11

O Lord, is your word settled in heaven. God's word is going to stand forever. This is not the word of men, as Paul says in Thessalonians.

18:19

It is, in truth, the word of God. And so what we've got to do is stand back and understand, yes, it was written by people against the culture of their time, but regardless, you know, we're talking here about the perspicuity of scripture.

18:33

It's for all people for all time, and it is the word of God.

18:40

And, therefore, it's not—you know, some people think, for instance, that, oh, the words of Jesus in the

18:46

Bible, that's when you have a red -letter edition of the Bible, and when Jesus was on earth as the

18:53

God -man, what he said, that's the words of Jesus. But that's not true. It's not true in this sense.

18:59

Jesus is the word, and so the words of Jesus are Genesis to Revelation. So when people say, oh, well, you know, it's

19:08

Paul in Romans 1 talking about homosexuality, I say, actually, it's Jesus. It's God.

19:14

That's his word. And so he's the one that's telling us about homosexual behavior.

19:19

And Jesus makes it very, very clear anyway that marriage is to be a man and a woman.

19:26

Matthew 19, as I quoted earlier, when Jesus is asked about marriage, he quotes from Genesis to give the foundation for marriage.

19:36

And so what we've got to really deal with here is our whole fundamental approach to scripture.

19:42

Do we look on it as just writings of fallible man, or is it the word of God, the infallible word of God?

19:50

And that's really what the conflict is all about, and it really comes down to that same battle between God's word and man's word, and that is that people who want to impose their opinions on scripture as to what they believe it's saying, rather than letting it speak to them in the context according to the literature, the language, and so on.

20:10

We do have a listener from Sharpsburg, Georgia, Lou, who asks, are you still getting feedback from the

20:19

Nye debate? NYE is obviously talking about Bill Nye, the science guy who you debated.

20:27

Are you still getting feedback about that? Oh, the answer to that is yes, absolutely.

20:32

Lots of feedback. In fact, more than 15 million people now have viewed that debate, which is over a year ago when

20:41

I debated Bill Nye right here at the Creation Museum. I was just in California this past weekend, and I actually videoed a young man when he started giving me his testimony.

20:51

I said, hey, can I get that on my iPhone and video you? And he was saying to me, he said,

20:57

I'm an atheist. I was an atheist, I should say. I was an atheist, and he said,

21:02

I watched the Bill Nye debate, and what you said made me really think about what I believed.

21:07

And so I went to scripture and started to read scripture. And you know, that's important,

21:13

Chris, because the Bible says faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It's God's word that's sharpened a two -edged sword.

21:19

And what I did at the Bill Nye debate, I made sure that I gave people a gospel.

21:24

I honored God's word. I pointed them to God's word, taught them how to think correctly about science, what it is and what it isn't, to help them understand the whole creation -evolution battle is really a battle of two worldviews, because we have two different starting points,

21:38

God's word and man's word. And so I made that very, very clear. And this young man said, because of that, it drove him to God's word.

21:47

And he said, through other circumstances and getting back to getting to read God's word, he became a

21:52

Christian, and now he's at church and on fire Christian for the Lord. I've heard many, many testimonies like that, and I continue to hear testimonies from people who have found that the

22:02

Nye debate opened up a lot of conversation and caused many, many people to start thinking about God's word in a way they haven't done before.

22:12

And so I continue to get that feedback. And Bill Nye, it's interesting, Bill Nye continues his rampage across the nation against Christian things, and he's been very pro -abortion and pro -anti -Christian things in recent times.

22:28

But he's always bringing up the debate and mentioning the debate, because I personally think, my personal opinion, is that Bill Nye was convicted by what was said at that debate.

22:41

And he believes everything happened by natural processes, but underneath it all,

22:46

I don't believe he's as sure as what he makes out to be. And I believe we need to be praying for Bill Nye.

22:52

Amen. In fact, I saw Bill Nye subsequent to that debate on a major talk show, and he was calling for people to unite and make sure that no creationists are elected to their local school boards.

23:11

And his reason was, his main reason, is because if you have creationists on school boards, that's going to prevent children from learning true science, which will result in the prevention of finding a resolution to world hunger.

23:31

He's actually blaming us for world hunger. Yep, and you know, even at the debate, and many times since, and even before the debate, he was saying if people are taught creation is going to destroy technology, undermine technology, that evolution is the basis of all science, and so on.

23:46

And you know, I challenged Bill Nye at the debate. I've challenged him publicly many times since through our website and blogs and other articles that we've written, and in the book we wrote about the debate as well.

23:58

I said, give me one example, just one, only one. I'm looking for one, one example where you need to believe in evolution to build some piece of technology, that if you don't believe in chance random evolution, you can't build technology.

24:15

There's not one example he ever gave. There's none that he can give, because belief in evolution molecules demand has nothing to do with technology.

24:24

That's why I explained the difference between observational science, where using your five senses, you investigate the world, the properties of matter, and understand the laws of nature that don't change, and that's what builds our technology.

24:38

But when it comes to talking about your origins, that's very different. That's your beliefs about the past. It's totally different.

24:44

And your origins belief has nothing to do with building an airplane, because he talked about the fact he used to work on parts as an engineer for Boeing 747s.

24:55

But your belief in evolution has nothing to do with that. That's observational science that builds technology.

25:02

So that's why I explained that at the debate. So for him to make those sorts of statements is just ludicrous, and people should be able to see through that.

25:12

In fact, isn't all science supposed to be observational? Well, science means knowledge, and, you know, we've got to remember, we weren't there to observe

25:22

Adam and Eve. We weren't there to observe the f**k, if we were, we'd want to be on the ark, right?

25:29

We weren't there to see those things. So that's historical science concerning the past.

25:35

Observational science, hey, I can go out and we can get some metals, and we can look at their properties, and then we can use those metals in designing some technology and so on.

25:49

And that's why people need to understand that difference. We do have John in Phoenix, Arizona, who writes,

25:55

How can we as individual members of the church take part in helping those entangled in post -modernistic thinking?

26:05

Yeah, that's a good question. And, you know, in the book Ready to Return, we actually have a couple of chapters towards the end that really talk about what some things that people can do and what they need to do.

26:17

In fact, one of the chapters is even called a game plan. And, you know, obviously, you know, we're saying, look, this starts at home, number one.

26:25

It starts with the fact that parents need to start taking responsibility for the education of their children, because it starts at home, right from when they're born.

26:34

We need to be teaching them how to defend their faith. And we talk again about the importance of introducing apologetics.

26:43

I was just speaking at a pastor's conference, actually, at our Creation Museum. And I had pastors come to me and say, we've been using

26:50

Answers in Genesis Sunday school curriculum. We have a three -year Sunday school curriculum, for instance, from kindergarten, preschool through adult.

26:58

And so apologetics -based biblical authorities, chronological apologetics curriculum and apologetics books.

27:05

And they said, as we've introduced this into the church, we're finding our church has grown. We're finding young people are getting ...

27:12

because they want meat, they want answers. And that's a big part of it.

27:18

A big part of what needs to be done is get back to teaching God's Word and teaching it in a way that people understand that it's meaty.

27:27

And we're equipping them with answers to the skeptical questions that cause people today to doubt

27:32

God's Word. A lot of the material we use in our churches these days is fluff and stuff. And a lot of what happens in churches is entertainment.

27:39

A lot of churches are more centered around music being a performance from the front and the watering down of teaching of the

27:46

Word. And much of the teaching from the Bible anyway is very shallow. And that's why we're losing these young people.

27:53

That's why they don't have a Christian worldview. We need to be teaching them meat. And we need to be teaching them how to defend their faith, equipping them and teaching them doctrines and what a difference it makes when you do that.

28:05

And so there's a lot more detail in the book in regard to that. But I encourage people, you can start in your own church actually.

28:12

We have like a curriculum, a video curriculum I've done called Foundations Curriculum which is 12 30 -minute programs with a curriculum.

28:20

You can introduce that into your church. Use it as a Sunday school lesson or whatever. Or try to get the church to adopt our three -year

28:28

Bible curriculum which thousands of churches are now using. And they're saying it's revolutionizing their people and their young people because now they're starting to learn

28:37

God's Word like they never have before. Well, I want to thank you so much, Ken, for being on the program today.

28:42

And I hope that you can come back when you can spend at least a full hour with us. And I know that your website is answersingenesis .org.

28:51

Well, thank you. Appreciate being on. Thank you very much, Ken. And I want to just tell our listeners that emailed us questions,

28:58

I've got a surprise for you. You're going to be receiving a free copy of Ken's book. So I know that I have your city and state where you're located.

29:07

But please email me back with your full mailing address so we can ship you out a copy absolutely free.

29:14

And don't go away because we're going to be right back with Ken's co -author Britt Beamer right after these messages.

29:21

So don't go away. We'll be right back with Iron Sharpens Iron. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, give yourself unto reading.

29:35

The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

29:41

He will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own.

29:46

You need to read solid ground Christian books as a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the

29:53

Prince of Preachers to heart. The mission of solid ground Christians is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

30:05

Since its beginning in 2001, solid ground has been committed to publish God -centered

30:10

Christ -exalting books for all ages. We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com.

30:18

That's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from solid ground.

30:27

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

30:35

Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen and we have our second guest for the day. He is the co -author of the book that we were discussing with Ken Ham during our first half hour,

30:46

Ready to Return. Our second guest is Britt Beamer and he founded America's Research Group, a full -service consumer behavior research and strategic marketing firm.

30:58

Recognized nationally as a premier marketing strategist, he has gained wide acclaim for his work on how, when, and why consumers select their products and services.

31:11

His client list represents America's top retailers, leading brands, and smaller entrepreneurial companies.

31:18

His knowledge of consumer preferences increases monthly as ARG conducts thousands of new interviews.

31:27

We are honored and privileged to have you for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron, Britt Beamer.

31:34

Chris, how are you doing today? We're doing great and we just have to adjust your volume here because you're coming through a little different than Ken did in the first half hour.

31:42

But first of all, tell us something briefly about how you came to know

31:48

Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Well, as a child, it was interesting.

31:55

I grew up in a small town in Bedford, Iowa, a couple thousand people. My father, who was a

32:01

World War II veteran and a prisoner of war in World War II, was always active in the church, was the lay leader.

32:08

And I'll never forget, there was a revival of the church one week.

32:14

Paul Levy was the evangelist that came and I feel like he spoke to me and I felt like the

32:24

Lord said, you know, this is what I want you to do. And he's been guiding me ever since. Although I think a few times

32:30

I may have taken some left turns when he wanted me to turn right. But I think probably most of the time I've been working what he wants me to do.

32:37

As you know, we do a lot of research for Christian groups, and I'm proud of the fact that in the 27 years that I've been researching for Christian groups, we've always done them at our actual cost because I don't want to make money serving

32:50

Christ. So we don't charge for profits. We just charge people for the price of the studies. Great.

32:56

And as our listeners already know, if you've been listening from the beginning, we are discussing a book that Britt co -authored with Ken Ham, Ready to Return, Bringing Back the

33:06

Church's Lost Generation. And I just want to let you know that our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

33:15

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. We do have a few people already waiting to have their questions read on air, and I do want you to know that if you are, by God's providence, one of those who has their questions read on air, you will receive a free copy of the book,

33:35

Ready to Return, Bringing Back the Church's Lost Generation. So please send us your full mailing address.

33:42

And I do apologize to our listeners in Canada and overseas, the free book offer is only eligible for those who live in the

33:52

United States because of the shipping costs involved. We do have a sponsor of this broadcast that ships out all of our books, and it seems that this free book giveaway has been almost a daily occurrence on Iron Sharpens Iron.

34:05

But we still want to hear from you if you're overseas in Canada, with your questions anyway, we always love to hear from you with your questions.

34:12

chrisarnson at gmail dot com. chrisarnson at gmail dot com. In what ways do you think today's generation of young people, teenagers for instance, how are they different from those, let's say, in the 1980s or approximately that long ago?

34:33

Well, when you look at the, for example, in my research for this book, the 20 -year -olds versus the 40 -year -olds, it's interesting, for example, when we had to identify those consumers, in our survey, we tried to look at consumers who regularly went to church just to meet that criteria.

34:51

When we found someone who was 40 years old and we asked 100 of them to be in the survey, about 45 % or so are more qualified.

35:02

When we did this survey for 20 -year -olds, only 19 out of 100 qualified. So you can see just the difference of 20 years, the numbers of people who are going to church at the same basis as half of those in their 40s.

35:16

I think there's two really big differences. I think the biggest difference is the fact that because we've never trained our, we've never trained

35:28

Christians to be able to defend their faith when they are challenged at any time in their lives.

35:36

They, we know from our research, about 55 % of them wilt and kind of accept the enemy and don't even try to defend their faith much.

35:45

Which is one problem, but the other problem is that when you look at this book and our first book,

35:51

Already Gone, that Ken and I did, the numbers are almost identical. I mean, you know, we lost these young people, not in their teenage years, we lost them in their grade school and middle school years.

36:05

You know, and I think we always think we lose them either in high school or college. Well, by the time they got to college, we already lost 88 % of them who were no longer really believing in Christ and believing in the

36:19

Scriptures. And I think that's the saddest thing, is that we're losing them even though they're still sitting in the pulpit in the pews every

36:28

Sunday with their parents. And we do have another listener.

36:36

This listener is from Nassau, New York, going by the alias,

36:42

I'm assuming, Lam -Lam. I wonder if Lam -Lam is on the lam using an alias like that.

36:50

But Lam -Lam asks, What would you suggest for churches in bringing the awareness of evolution is absolutely against the

37:02

Bible? How to help the congregation, kids as well as parents, to understand creation rather than evolution, since this is taught widely in the public school system, even in some private schools?

37:16

Yes, I was a Roman Catholic growing up and before my born -again experience by the mercy of Christ.

37:25

And I went to Catholic school for eight years. This would have been in the late 60s and 70s. And I was taught evolution as a fact in the parochial school where I went.

37:38

That's amazing. Yeah, this is after Vatican II, obviously. But if you could answer our listener

37:45

Lam -Lam's question. I'll tell you that there's two ways to answer the question. Number one, which is what

37:52

I think is the single biggest challenge today with churches, is that the ministers of the church and pastors in the churches refuse to preach on Genesis.

38:06

You know, when you look at... I'm working on an idea for another book. And the premise of the book is that we somewhat have become a creature of what we've been preached to over the last 20 years.

38:20

And if you look at some of the studies we've done, just from my own edification, you know, there are people who are 20, 30, 40 years old, who've gone to church almost every

38:31

Sunday of their lives, have never yet heard a real defense of creationism or defense of Genesis by their minister ever on a single

38:43

Sunday. So if the church leaders and the ministers don't advocate that position in a very aggressive way, why would you expect a congregation to have a strong opinion?

38:58

Because they themselves won't defend it. Because when I talk to ministers individually, they say, but we don't want to...

39:07

We believe in creation, but we never talk about it because we're afraid it's going to make us look like we're a bunch of morons, we're anti -science, we're not intellectuals.

39:18

They're afraid that they'll offend their big titers if they preach our creationism. And I think that's the saddest thing, when the church is more concerned about who gives them money than preaching the

39:31

Word of God and also defending the Word of God. I mean, the problem is, which is my other point, churches don't make any defense of the scriptures in the way they preach the

39:43

Word of God to congregations today. And if those are few in number, I guess the reason why evolution has creeped in is because there's no one on the

39:55

Christian church side that's taking a vocal leadership role to defend the faith of Genesis.

40:01

So I think that's what's been so remarkable about Ken's ministry and answers of Genesis, and now particularly with the

40:09

Ark encounter, where people are going to be able to see the scale, the scope of the actual Ark.

40:15

I mean, that's going to be a remarkable achievement. People are almost going to say, wow, how could someone in their family build this?

40:23

Well, they built it because God gave them the wisdom and the talents and the time.

40:30

You have a chapter in your book that has an intriguing title, The Blind and the Bland, if you could comment on that.

40:39

Well, you know, one thing about the book that I, you know, each chapter, of course, has a different element to it.

40:46

I think, you know, the whole principle of the book in its entirety is to basically make the point that the people who in their 20s and 30s, you know, basically have been beat down not to really believe that the

41:05

Scriptures are all equally inspired by God.

41:11

And therefore, you have people out there who take parts of Scriptures, or parts of Bible, I should say, and basically just chuck them out the window and say, you know, we don't like this part, or we don't like that part.

41:25

Well, that's where my whole point is, is they've taken the meat of the Scriptures away from the Christian community, and therefore, you have people who are attending church who sort of never hear anything, not only about Genesis, but hardly anything taught in the

41:40

Old Testament. I've been doing an idea of my next book, and I've talked to a number of ministers,

41:50

I've interviewed over 75 pastors now, and I would tell you, the ones that I've talked to,

41:56

I would venture to say that the people, they're great pastors, they're great men of God, but I would say they probably, less than 20 % of their sermons come from the

42:05

Old Testament, because it's just easier to preach about, you know, Christ, and the greatness of Christ, and the goodness of Christ, than it is to talk about what happened in the

42:15

Old Testament, which is why nobody out there who's a Christian today to a great extent has any knowledge of the

42:21

Old Testament. And without the knowledge of the Old Testament, it's hard to understand why

42:27

Christ said what he did and did what he did when he walked on this earth. Right. They don't understand the context of what

42:34

Christ and his disciples were speaking about. Right. And they also don't understand that Christ was really the second

42:43

Adam, because Adam, the first Adam, blew it, as we know, he sinned, and obviously caused all kinds of problems to happen on earth because of that sin with his wife, and I think what happened is that he and Eve caused something that changed the whole, you know, history of mankind forever.

43:02

Well, because he sinned, Christ had to come and redeem and sacrifice himself, because to redeem us, to be able to talk with God, and to be able to be, ultimately, to be accepted by God, because God can only accept us through the love of Christ as his only son, and that's what

43:23

I think, I mean, that people understand that concept, but they have no idea about why

43:29

Christ is the second Adam. And by the way, let me remind a couple of our listeners who already emailed us questions for our guests today, who have won books, who have won the free book written by Ken Ham and Britt Beamer.

43:47

I still need mailing addresses from a couple of you, so please email me your mailing address as soon as you can, and our email address, again, is chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

44:04

There are Christians today that basically believe that all we need to do is love people and tell them about Jesus, and the rest of the things that separate the denominations and associations and brotherhoods, however you'd like to describe the different gatherings of Christians all across the world.

44:35

The other things just don't even matter. Let's just lift up Jesus and love

44:40

Jesus. Is that an even biblical approach to how we're supposed to be proclaiming Christ in the gospel?

44:46

No, because what happens is, Chris, that's what we have now. We have all these illiterate Christians who don't know why

44:53

Christ did what he did, they don't know why he said what he said, and they don't understand the historical context of why

45:01

Christ did certain things, because they were prophesied in the Old Testament, and he had to fulfill those, because they were prophesied before he was even born.

45:13

I think you want to always remind people, and I think this is still helping you, every day

45:19

I think of myself as I read one of these scriptures. The reason why Christ knew the scriptures so well was because he was with those authors when they wrote the books.

45:32

So he didn't have any trouble quoting them, because he was right there with them. He was just as much the inspiration of the scriptures as his father in heaven, because he was there with them.

45:44

Always remind people, you know, when was Christ's first miracle of his own? You're turning water into wine.

45:51

I said no, his first miracle was creation. He was there with his father in the beginning. So I mean, once you think about the fact that Christ was there in the

46:00

Old Testament and was living with his father in the Old Testament, and therefore understood the

46:06

Old Testament, and which is why he could quote the Old Testament so well, tells you why if you don't understand the

46:11

Old Testament, you'll never truly understand the values and the teachings of the New Testament. You have a chapter in the book,

46:19

Owning Up, Embracing a Faith of Your Own. Does that have something to do with the fact that there are many, there are millions of nominal

46:28

Christians around the world, people who think that they are Christian, and that they have no reason to fear the afterlife, because they were born and raised in a

46:41

God -fearing home of some sort, or perhaps it was just a nominal Christian family that celebrated

46:46

Christmas and Easter, and had some semblance of Christian teaching in the home, and therefore they think they are

46:53

Christians. Is that something about that? Well, partially, but I want to tell you, look,

46:59

I mean, here's, I mean, this tells you just how illiterate and how, I won't say the

47:05

Egyptians were ignorant, but ignorant, so many people ought to go to church. We had a question, and the questioner said, do you believe if you were a good person, you would go to heaven?

47:15

So, read the number, Greg. 49 % of Baptists said yes, Catholics 71%, denominational 64%,

47:22

Methodist 63%, Church of Christ 66%, Presbyterian USA 77%.

47:28

Well, you know, if you don't even have to believe in Christ to go to heaven, I mean, you don't even understand, you don't even understand what's going on around you.

47:37

Then when you look at the fact that, the other part is we asked the question, do you consider yourself born again?

47:46

I mean, it was just phenomenal to think about the fact that you know, only the

47:51

Baptists, the non -denominationals, were over 50 % of people who were going to church at least three times or more a month, or even, would it say they were even born again?

48:03

So what's happened is, is the church has become a social and a gathering place for social activities more than it has been the teaching the

48:12

Word of God, and that's where I think, what I hope this book really shakes people to the core, is people have got to get back and understand that we have to, number one, accept

48:22

Christ, we have to be born again, and therefore, Christ has to create that transfer mark, remaining point in our lives, so we can then understand, you know, why he died for our sin, why it's important for us not only to walk on the earth as Christians, but to teach our children and grandchildren to be

48:42

Christians as well. Right, obviously, if people think that if you are a good person, you will go to heaven, they don't even understand the gospel, and they don't even understand the nature of man, because the

48:55

Bible's clear that men are never going to be good enough to be worthy of heaven, that it necessitates the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, and his shed blood covering them.

49:08

Right, but if that's your philosophy, that you think that you can go to heaven without accepting

49:16

Christ if you're a good person, I mean, it's just amazing. Here are the actual numbers.

49:22

You consider yourself born again, Baptist 69, Catholic 35, Dominational 69,

49:30

Methodist 47, Church of Christ 49, Presbyterian USA 37.

49:37

I mean, those are just scary numbers. I mean, you've got, you know, in most of these churches, less than half the congregation, who's a kid in there on a regular basis, you're going to have accepted

49:49

Christ as their personal Savior. Yeah, I mean, it is really frightening on top of that, because these people obviously don't know the

50:00

Scriptures well enough to even know what it even means to be a good person. Right.

50:06

I mean, people have a different idea of what that means. You could think you're a good person by giving loving approval to homosexual marriage, for instance.

50:16

Many people think that's being a good person, because you're not being nasty and bigoted and hateful if you embrace with open arms homosexuals without telling them their need of repentance.

50:31

Exactly. It's like, you know, when I was doing the survey, there was a lady that we interviewed, I never will forget it, but she said, well, you know,

50:36

I'm a good person. She said, every time I see a homeless person, I give them a dollar. So her definition of being a good person is giving every homeless person she sees a dollar.

50:48

Well, she obviously doesn't walk the streets of Manhattan too often, because she'd be pretty broke by the end of the day.

50:55

But what are the most surprising things that you have learned through your research, things that you weren't expecting?

51:04

Well, I mean, I think the one aspect of it, people out there believe that good people go to heaven has always been a shock to me.

51:13

When you break down the denominations, I think it just tells you how poorly, you know, the church has done in training and teaching people.

51:25

And what's also scary is that the denominations where the people had the worst performance, in many cases, were the denominations that had the

51:34

Sunday school programs, that obviously must have failed these people as well, because a lot of what the

51:39

Sunday school, when they were little, as you know, in our first book, we found out, if you went to Sunday school, you were more likely to abandon the church if you hadn't gone to Sunday school, because the problem was, if you asked a

51:52

Sunday school teacher a question about the Bible, particularly if you got into issues like science, they might say, well, go ask your science teacher, you know.

52:01

I mean, they were actually forfeiting the whole section of science to public schools.

52:09

I mean, that was one part. But I think, you know, the biggest thing, I think, in this study book reinforces it,

52:15

I should say this, is that I would hope that every Christian hears my voice should remember one thing in this book, and that is, if you ever use the word

52:23

Bible stories, you're committing, in my mind, a great sin. Because when you say the word story, in 99 % of people's eyes, those are fairy tales.

52:36

So I just pray that people understand that they never again use the word story. I mean, use the word of use the phrase biblical accounts.

52:44

Don't say Bible stories, because Bible stories, in their mind, are not true, and they're not anything more than just hearsay or a fairy tale.

52:55

Now, the subtitle of the book is Bringing Back the Church's Lost Generation. I don't know if you're a post -millennialist, but do you think that this is going to be possible?

53:07

Well, I don't know. I think Ken is more optimistic than I am, so I will say that.

53:20

But Chris, I do believe anything is possible with Christ and God.

53:26

I mean, there's nothing beyond their ability. And so, if it is possible, you know, they can do it.

53:34

But I think the sad thing is that if the Church does not stand on its own two feet and begin to defend the

53:42

Bible from Genesis through Revelation, and preach on every book in the

53:48

Bible, not just the five or six or seven books in the New Testament, but every book, and explain to Christians why all these issues are important for them to know,

53:58

I think there's always a chance. But until the Church is willing to stand and defend itself by preaching in about every book of the

54:07

Bible instead of just the few that they want to talk about in the New Testament, it's going to be a very sad state of affairs.

54:13

Now, granted, you know, the Ark Encounter is going to have a lot of impact, I think. You know, the Green Family is building the

54:20

Museum of the Bible in Washington, D .C. There's a number of major Christian projects being built today that will be opening in the next 24 months or less.

54:30

So, I mean, there's going to be opportunities for people to be able to be confronted and come face -to -face with the

54:35

Word of God, or the face of Christ, or the face of God. So, let's just hope and pray that if they do, you know, they understand

54:43

His glory and our reason for being, which is to glorify our Father in Heaven.

54:50

Amen. And obviously, without the mercy of Christ and the working of the

54:56

Holy Spirit, no matter what we as humans build, or do, or say, the dead are going to remain dead in their trespasses and sins.

55:05

And we must pray that the Lord uses these things as instruments for His glory, that He brings the lost unto

55:12

Himself and also helps further equip those who are Christians to better defend and declare their faith.

55:19

You know, I want to add one point. I heard Dr. O'Shea say something today that was really remarkable when he said this.

55:25

He said, I am much more concerned about, not about my seed, which is my children someday.

55:34

I'm worried about the values that I've established in my lifetime. And I think that's an interesting way to look at it, is do our values, do our values in our lifetime say that we're walking a

55:47

Christlike life, and we are a Christlike life? We have another listener, a

55:52

Christian in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know if my guest sees anything dangerous about those who are old earth creationists who deny the literal six -day

56:08

Genesis account of creation. Do you have a problem with those who disagree with our first guest,

56:17

Ken Ham, on the literal six days? I mean, I don't. I mean,

56:24

I'm a young earth creationist. I believe that God created the earth in the X number of days.

56:30

I believe that the earth is only so many years old based upon the Old Testament scriptures. You know, that's my personal philosophy.

56:37

Do I think that the old earth people are bad?

56:44

I would say no, and I pray that they will continue to study their Bible, because the more they study their

56:51

Bible, I think they themselves will understand, you know, what

56:56

God is all about. I told a friend of mine, we've had this battle, I said, I don't care what you're actually reading in the

57:03

Bible, just always read it every day, because eventually you may have a problem, or we may disagree, but someday we'll come and it will be in unison.

57:12

And that's my prayer, is that ultimately people, if they're really truthful, and they're really studying

57:19

God's Word every day, I mean, I think that's the greatest thing that can happen to people, you know, in their

57:26

Christian walk. So I don't agree with them, but I pray that keep studying the

57:32

Bible, but eventually maybe we'll all agree. But I want to say, you know, I feel very strongly on what I believe, and I think

57:37

God concurs with that. And I'd like you to now just unburden your heart and leave our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds before they leave the broadcast today.

57:50

Well, you know, one thing I want people to understand is that Jesus Christ came on this earth because of the sins of Adam, and the sins of the previous generations.

58:05

And I think what I want people to understand is that I don't know whether I could have allowed, if I would have been

58:12

God, I'm not sure whether I could have allowed my own son to be born, and to have experienced a horrible death for people unless I just absolutely loved them incredibly.

58:25

And I think the one thing I think I'm most amazed about is that only when you have total and complete abiding love do you also have total and complete trust in Him.

58:41

And my challenge to myself and everyone listening to your audience is the more they learn how to love

58:49

God and love Jesus, the more they'll be able to trust Him and truly understand the glory of Christ's power and His magnificence that He gave us by extending to us a chance someday to be in His Father's house, which you and I can't even describe,

59:08

I think, in earthly words. Amen. Well, I know that Ken Ham's website for Answers in Genesis is answersingenesis .org,

59:19

answersingenesis .org. Do you have any contact information that you would care to share with our listeners? Well, my website is argconsumer .com,

59:27

that's argconsumer .com, and you're welcome to go there. And we do have occasionally,

59:35

I mean, we have a press release that we release out to people, so if you'd like to follow along.

59:41

And of course, we are the leading research firm on Christmas, and I'll be doing my 25th annual this year, 25th annual

59:49

Christmas forecast around the 1st of November. And I've actually predicted the last 22, the last 24

59:57

Christmases within a half of 1%, so I feel pretty good about my track record.

01:00:04

So that's one of the great things I do every year is get a chance to spend more time not only understanding

01:00:09

Scripture, but also get a chance to study about Christmas, which I think is the greatest and the most magnificent season of the year.

01:00:16

Well, I want to thank you for being on the program, and we look forward to having you back in the future, Britt. Well, Chris, thank you so much, and God bless you.

01:00:23

God bless you, too. And in our next hour, we are going to have Paul Taylor, and he's going to be discussing a book that has one of the most unusual titles

01:00:31

I've ever heard of, Where Birds Eat Horses, the Language of Evolution.

01:00:37

That's Paul Taylor coming up on Iron Sharpens Iron right after these messages, so don't go away.

01:01:33

I'm tired of box store Christianity, of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert.

01:01:39

Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship? And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

01:01:49

Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word, and this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you.

01:02:03

Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times. 631 -929 -3512, or check out their website at wrbc .us.

01:02:16

That's wrbc .us. Attention coin collectors and investors.

01:02:31

Long Island Galleries of Wedding River, New York, has brilliant uncirculated 19th century

01:02:37

Morgan silver dollars for only $54 per coin, with free shipping and handling for a limited time.

01:02:44

There's a 40 coin limit, so order now while supplies last. Call 888 -260 -8111, 888 -260 -8111.

01:02:55

Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express welcome. Price is subject to change, so call now at 888 -260 -8111, 888 -260 -8111.

01:03:08

If you prefer ordering your brilliant uncirculated 19th century Morgan silver dollars by check, mail it today to Long Island Galleries, 9

01:03:18

Susan Drive, Wedding River, New York, 11792. That's Long Island Galleries, 9

01:03:24

Susan Drive, Wedding River, New York, 11792. Remember, they're only $54 per coin with free shipping and handling and a 40 coin limit.

01:03:35

New York State residents must add sales tax. Long Island Galleries is honored to sponsor

01:03:40

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. See the Long Island Galleries display ad at ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:03:52

Thriving Financial is not your typical financial services provider. As a membership organization, we help

01:03:58

Christians be wise with money and live generously every day. And for the fourth year in a row, we were named one of the world's most ethical companies by the

01:04:07

Ethisphere Institute, a leading international think tank dedicated to the creation, advancement, and sharing of best practices in business ethics.

01:04:16

Contact me, Mike Gallagher, financial consultant, at 717 -254 -6433.

01:04:23

Again, 717 -254 -6433 to learn more about the

01:04:28

Thriving Difference. Lending faith, finances, and generosity.

01:04:40

That's the Thriving Story. Welcome back.

01:04:53

This is Chris Arnzen. If you've just been tuning in, our guests for the first hour have been

01:05:00

Ken Ham and Britt Beamer. And they were discussing a book that they co -authored together,

01:05:07

Ready to Return. And we just had our second guest on the line, and we got disconnected. So I'm going to run another commercial.

01:05:14

And hopefully, we will get this resolved right after these messages. So don't go away.

01:05:19

We'll be right back. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

01:05:42

Solid Ground Christian Books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the Prince of Preachers to heart.

01:05:49

The mission of Solid Ground Christian Books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to Christians in the present and future, and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world.

01:06:00

Since its beginning in 2001, Solid Ground has been committed to publish God -centered, Christ -exalting books for all ages.

01:06:08

We invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com.

01:06:13

That's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from solid ground.

01:06:22

Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

01:06:29

This is Chris Arnzin. Our third guest for the day is Paul Taylor.

01:06:35

And he is the author of a book that, as I said earlier, has one of the most unusual titles

01:06:40

I've ever heard in my life, Where Birds Eat Horses, The Language of Evolution.

01:06:47

And Paul F. Taylor is an international speaker and writer on creation and apologetics.

01:06:53

He is the author of several books, including Don't Miss the Boat, The Six Days of Genesis, and Itching Ears.

01:07:02

He and his wife, Geraldine, are the directors of the Mount St. Helens Creation Center in Washington State.

01:07:08

They have five children between them, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron, Paul Taylor.

01:07:16

Well, hi. Thank you very much for having me on the show, Chris. It's a great honor for me to be on the show with you, and particularly to be following my good friend

01:07:25

Ken Ham. Excellent. Well, tell us something about where you're from. You're obviously not a native of Washington State, so tell us about your origins and how you came to faith in Jesus Christ.

01:07:38

Yes. Well, I'm obviously English and was born and brought up in Manchester in the north of England, and I came to faith as a teenager.

01:07:50

I was brought up to go to church, part of the Church of England, and it was really a very straightforward salvation, really.

01:07:59

My parents decided to change church because they had an argument with the minister. If you know anything about the

01:08:05

Church of England, there are sort of many different types of churches in the church, some being liberal, some being very

01:08:12

Catholic, and some being Bible -believing evangelical. So we moved from what was a sort of traditional liberal church to a

01:08:21

Bible -believing church. My parents didn't know anything about that. You know, that was beyond them at that stage. But that's where I heard the gospel preached and very quickly was saved.

01:08:32

Then I came across these weird people who believed the Bible to be literally true, you know, including

01:08:39

Genesis, when I was at high school doing exams in science, and this really surprised me.

01:08:47

But again, it quickly made sense to me because I wanted to believe the Bible was true, and really from that moment onwards

01:08:53

I've been speaking and writing on the subject of Genesis and creation and apologetics, though I spent 20 years as a school teacher in public schools in England and in Wales.

01:09:05

But I've worked with a number of creation ministries, including Answers in Genesis at their

01:09:12

UK office, and then Creation Today in Florida, and now head up the

01:09:19

Mount St. Helens Creation Center in Washington State. Before we go on to have you describe the

01:09:25

Mount St. Helens Creation Center, tell us something about the contrast from your knowledge between the public school systems in the

01:09:36

UK and that which exists here in the United States. And obviously I know that, I believe, in the

01:09:42

UK they use the word or the term public school for a different reason than we would, but if you could explain what you've noticed.

01:09:51

I was describing what you would refer to as public schools. Now clearly in England, what we call a public school over in England is different, it's actually a very expensive, fee -paying school.

01:10:02

But I was teaching in the sort of schools that you would call public schools. Government schools. In England we would call them comprehensive schools, so they're the government -funded, taxpayer -financed, free -to -use public schools.

01:10:18

That's the sort of schools that I taught in. So yes, they are different from the same sort of schools here in the

01:10:26

United States, but the differences are both good and bad. For example, there's clearly a lot less

01:10:34

Christians in Britain than there are in the United States, so that has a difference.

01:10:40

You know, the chances of coming across Christian teachers would be less frequent in Britain than it is here in the

01:10:49

United States. On the other hand, Britain does not have this concept of separation of church and state. And so, for example, religious education is actually a compulsory subject in comprehensive schools in Britain, and that education is supposed to be of a broadly

01:11:07

Christian nature. Now, clearly that may not be quite what we would want to define as biblical Christianity, but it does mean that there is no restriction, say, on children getting together and meeting with teachers at lunchtimes for prayer and for Bible -based

01:11:23

Christian union activities and that sort of thing. So there's positives and negatives on the education system on both sides.

01:11:31

And now I'd love to hear more about the organization that you and your wife

01:11:38

Geraldine operate, the Mount St. Helens Creation Center in Washington State. It is my understanding that when

01:11:45

Mount St. Helens erupted, there were a lot of things discovered as a result of that eruption that clearly proved things that creationists have been arguing all along.

01:11:58

But if you could go into more detail about that. Well, we have a small ministry here in Washington State, and we're situated on the main tourist road to the mountain, so we can easily be found if you turn off Interstate 5 at Junction 49 and then drive towards Mount St.

01:12:15

Helens. We're on that road, and there's a large number of visitors on that road, but we're the only one offering a biblical and scientific perspective.

01:12:23

And you're quite correct, there's a number of things that happened as a result of the volcano erupting in 1980 that we would not be surprised by.

01:12:32

We should not be surprised out there. The sort of things that we expect to happen, that things would happen catastrophically.

01:12:38

But the other visitor centers are taken by surprise by this, and frequently in their displays use words like astonishing, surprising, because they're surprised that the landscape changed so rapidly when they expect landscapes to change over millions of years.

01:12:53

They're surprised that sedimentary layers, 25 feet of sedimentary layers could be laid down in just three hours, not millions of years.

01:13:05

They're surprised that a canyon system, which is a 140th scale model, it's like a 140th scale model of the

01:13:11

Grand Canyon, could be carved out in just nine hours, when they again expect that to take millions of years.

01:13:19

And by the way, if the Grand Canyon had been carved out at the same rate as that, the Grand Canyon could have been carved out in 15 days.

01:13:26

And they're surprised that in Spirit Lake, which is a lake just to the northeast of the volcano and badly affected by the volcano, and a lot of trees that were deposited on the lake, eventually sort of turned 90 degrees and sank vertically into layers of sediments at the bottom of the lake, in a similar manner to what we see in polystrate fossil systems all around the world.

01:13:53

And they're surprised that that happened in just a few years when they expect that sort of process to take millions of years again.

01:13:59

So that's the sort of thing, you know, and there's lots more. The fact that life came back to the valley around the volcano very quickly, when scientists at the time said it would take 1 ,000 years before anything lived near the volcano.

01:14:13

Well, it didn't take 1 ,000 years. And I can show you areas just below the volcano today, where you've got thick woodland, just 35 years since the volcano erupted.

01:14:23

Okay, well, let's get into the title and theme of your book, Where Birds Eat Horses, the

01:14:31

Language of Evolution. Even the illustration of the horse on the cover of this book is laughing.

01:14:37

If you could explain the title of the book. Yes, well,

01:14:43

I remember a documentary series, which was made like a wildlife documentary series.

01:14:50

It was jointly financed by the Discovery Channel and the BBC. So it was a joint British American production.

01:14:56

And this was called Walking with Prehistoric Beasts. There was another well known series called

01:15:02

Walking with Dinosaurs. And this was meant to, Walking with Prehistoric Beasts was covering the supposed evolutionary era from the death of the dinosaurs, that they reckon was 65 million years ago, up to the present.

01:15:15

And there's one scene in this, the first episode of this series, which lasts 20 minutes.

01:15:21

And it's all done with animation, computer animation, but it's then narrated as if it was a wildlife documentary.

01:15:26

So you see this large extinct bird called a Gastornis. And you see six little animals called

01:15:32

Propaleotheria, which are supposedly ancestors of the horse.

01:15:38

So supposedly in the chain of horse evolution, now as creationists, we don't think they were, but be that as it may, this is what the evolutionists think.

01:15:46

And these little horses were sort of pottering around in the woods and eating grapes that had landed on the ground.

01:15:54

And they, because the grapes had been in the sunlight, so they had, they'd fermented a little bit, so they were a little bit alcoholic.

01:16:00

The horses were getting a little bit tipsy. Their reaction time was not very good.

01:16:06

And then eventually this large bird came along and caught one of the horses and killed it and ate it.

01:16:13

And you see this in fairly graphic detail, despite the fact it's an animation. And I'm doing it quickly because this sequence took about 20 minutes to unfold.

01:16:21

And you think to yourself, well, why on earth did they make this sequence of 20 minutes? And you see the sequence ends with the narrator saying, this is a world where birds eat horses.

01:16:32

And that's where I got the type of the book from. And the sequence is based on a real scientific find, which is that at the metal pit in Germany, they found one fossil

01:16:43

Gastornis, six fossil Propaleotheria, and one fossil bunch of grapes.

01:16:48

But out of that one find, they have then woven this entire story.

01:16:54

And it's very clear when you look in high school textbooks, when you look in science articles on the web and in magazines, and when you watch documentary programs on the television, what you're getting is a fictionalized account of things, which may be based on a little bit of real science, but there is this enormous work of imagination woven around it.

01:17:20

And the point of my book then is to show people that the supposed scientific support for the theory of evolution does not actually consist in real scientific evidence, but in their clever and deceptive use of language.

01:17:35

And that's why I thought that this one tagline from the end of that scene, where birds eat horses, this is a world where birds eat horses, would be a great title.

01:17:43

I know it therefore needs explaining, but I've got that mentioned on the back of the book and in the first chapter.

01:17:51

Yeah, basically that same kind of tactic is used, is it not, when you go to the

01:17:58

Museum of Natural History or some of these other secular museums, where you will see, for instance, the heads of apes and ape -like humans, and then humans, all in a succession where they have been modeled out of clay from what apparently is skulls, are skulls underneath the clay.

01:18:26

But a lot of these, or most if not all of these, are constructed out of just bone fragments, and then the imagination of an artist has accomplished what we see before us, and we're being misled to think that these are actually the way that skulls were formed.

01:18:46

Am I off base on that, or am I correct? Absolutely correct, and this appearance, the way these things are put together, is very important.

01:18:54

And of course there will be some science there, because there will probably be a genuine skull that they've found. Another example has come out since I've published this book, actually just in the last couple of weeks, there's been a lot of news items about this supposed ancestor of human beings having been found, rather a lot of them, in South Africa, and that they've found actual skulls.

01:19:17

But then if you look in the various articles that report this, you'll see an ape -man looking at you from the picture, and a lot of people don't realize what's special about these pictures of ape -men, and it takes someone to point it out.

01:19:34

You see a picture of an ape -man, and of course it's the face of an ape, but look at the eyes, the eyes have got whites in them, and this is very significant, because only humans have whites in their eyes, apes do not.

01:19:49

If you look at a genuine ape, you look at a picture of a gorilla, a chimpanzee, or so on, they do not have whites in their eyes, whereas human beings do.

01:19:57

And one person who put together such a picture of a supposed ape -man was actually honest enough to say that what he was doing by giving the creature human eyes was actually showing the direction that it was headed in.

01:20:13

Now, but this is very disingenuous, because for two reasons. One, evolution is not supposed to head anywhere anyway, it's supposed to be blind random chance, so the idea that there was an evolutionary goal or destination for these supposed ape -men is nonsense.

01:20:28

And secondly, when you look at the skull, of course, you realize that there are no eyes in the skull, there are just sockets, so everything is completely made up when they paint these eyes in to the picture of the ape -man looking at you from the page of the article.

01:20:43

This is a form of dishonesty, and without realizing it, people are taken in by that and saying, well, this is the discovery they've made, but it's not the discovery they've made at all, it's their interpretation, and they're weaving a story around this which is not based on actual scientific facts.

01:20:59

Now, this book, Where Birds Eat Horses, The Language of Evolution, what age groups have you intended this book for, primarily?

01:21:08

Well, in common with all my books, I write for, well, I write generally speaking for adults, but I write things supposedly that are going to be easy to read, so it will always have a reading age of about 12 or 13, so anyone from about that age upwards should be able to read this.

01:21:27

And I do expect, as well, I mean, I've talked about this with homeschool groups and Christian school groups, and there's been a lot of interest from such groups about the book, with the idea that it would work for teenagers, high school age people, but it will work as well for adults.

01:21:45

And it really has a lot of the sort of language in it that's based on an idea that a friend of mine, fellow creation speaker

01:21:52

Mike Riddle, had some years ago where he talked about what he called fuzzy words and magic words, and I've used these in the book with his permission.

01:22:04

They're fuzzy words, so when the evolutionists deliberately try and fudge the issue, you know, so they'll say this probably happened, or this may have happened, and they won't commit themselves, but they deliberately use vague language in order to insinuate ideas to us, and magic words, they're when you think they describe things that we know are totally impossible, but they suppose, they try and persuade us that they would be possible if you allow a few million years for them to happen, because millions of years of the magic words, something that's impossible, suddenly becomes possible in their mind if you have millions of years for it to happen.

01:22:42

Well, of course, that's not true. Something that's impossible won't happen ever, however many millions of years you have, but as we know, the

01:22:50

Bible doesn't give us millions of years anyway. It only gives us just over 6 ,000 years. You know, the thing that,

01:22:56

I've said this before on my program, but one of the things that really aggravates me and frustrates me is that when conservatives and those who claim to be creationists and even claim to be

01:23:13

Christian, when they have a public forum like on television during a debate, and the question of evolution comes up by the liberal political candidate or liberal scientist or whoever the person may be, maybe just the liberal talk show host, with the intention of making the creationist look foolish, they will ask that person, do you believe in evolution?

01:23:40

And the thing that amazes me is that I rarely ever, in fact, I don't know if I've ever heard a conservative respond, do you know what the full title of Darwin's book,

01:23:55

The Origin of the Species was? And of course, the full title is

01:24:01

On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the

01:24:07

Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Survival.

01:24:13

And Darwin was a racist who taught that those belonging to the non -white races, such as the blacks and the aborigines and so on, this is being taught by Darwin and other evolutionists, especially of that era, that they were closer on the evolutionary chart to the apes, that they were not fully evolved humans.

01:24:42

And it's amazing how, I mean, I understand why a liberal wouldn't want to bring that up, if they even know that, but why on earth aren't the conservatives shouting that from the rooftops?

01:24:54

Well, it's because so many conservative theologians have compromised on this issue.

01:25:01

And most conservative, supposedly conservatively theological

01:25:06

Bible colleges are not teaching the truth of Genesis. Ken Hamm and Britt Beamer have written about this, and there's a third book that they didn't mention in their interview with you, which is called

01:25:19

Already Compromised, where they talk about universities that have compromised, Christian universities that have compromised.

01:25:26

But I sometimes actually look back with a little bit of longing for the days of the old, honest, liberal theologian.

01:25:35

In many ways, I preferred those. There was a theologian at Oxford University called

01:25:41

James Barr, who used to say that it was quite obvious in his mind that whoever had written the book of Genesis believed that the world had been made in six literal days, believed that there was a worldwide flood, and believed that you couldn't work out the chronology of the earth by adding up the dates in the

01:25:57

Bible. But then he went on to say, but I don't believe that because, you know, we've got modern science. Now, in many ways,

01:26:02

I preferred him to the modern -day supposedly conservative evangelicals in so many supposedly conservative evangelical colleges who say,

01:26:12

I believe the book of Genesis to be literally true, but by the way, it doesn't mean what you think it does.

01:26:18

There was a literal person called Adam, and you can, you know, it was really to do with an ancient Near East philosophy,

01:26:24

Babylonian which is a polemic against paganism. They're doing theological contortionism.

01:26:31

That's what they're doing, and in many ways, I prefer the old liberals to some of these supposedly conservative evangelical theologians today.

01:26:40

We're going to be going to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for our guest,

01:26:46

Paul Taylor, about his book, Where Birds Eat Horses, the Language of Evolution, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:26:54

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and I've got a surprise for you. We also have some copies of this book to give away for those of you who email us questions that are good enough to be read on air.

01:27:07

Obviously, they have to be involving the subject that we're discussing on the program today in some fashion.

01:27:13

So, send in your email address to chrisarnson at gmail .com, that's c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com,

01:27:24

and provide us with a question, and if you're among those whom we get to before the show runs out of time, whose questions were good enough to be read on air, you'll be receiving a free copy of the book.

01:27:37

So, I hope that you don't go away. We'll be right back. Attention coin collectors and investors,

01:27:45

Long Island Galleries of Wading River, New York, has brilliant uncirculated 19th century

01:27:50

Morgan silver dollars for only $54 per coin, with free shipping and handling for a limited time.

01:27:57

There's a 40 coin limit, so order now while supplies last. Call 888 -260 -8111, 888 -260 -8111.

01:28:08

Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express welcome. Price is subject to change, so call now at 888 -260 -8111, 888 -260 -8111.

01:28:21

If you prefer ordering your brilliant uncirculated 19th century Morgan silver dollars by check, mail it today to Long Island Galleries, 9

01:28:31

Susan Drive, Wading River, New York, 11792. That's Long Island Galleries, 9

01:28:38

Susan Drive, Wading River, New York, 11792. Remember, they're only $54 per coin, with free shipping and handling and a 40 coin limit.

01:28:48

New York State residents must add sales tax. Long Island Galleries is honored to sponsor

01:28:53

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. See the Long Island Galleries display ad at ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:29:05

I'm James White of Alpha Omega Ministries. The New American Standard Bible is perfect for daily reading or in -depth study.

01:29:11

Used by pastors, scholars, and everyday readers, the NASB is widely embraced and trusted as a literal and readable

01:29:16

Bible translation. The NASB offers clarity and readability while maintaining high accuracy to the original languages which the

01:29:23

NASB is known for. The NASB is available in many editions like a topical reference Bible. Researched and prepared by biblical scholars devoted to accuracy, the new topical reference

01:29:33

Bible includes contemporary topics relevant to today's issues. From compact to giant print

01:29:38

Bibles, find an NASB that fits your needs very affordably at nasbible .com.

01:29:44

Trust, discover, and enjoy the NASB for yourself today. Go to nasbible .com.

01:29:49

That's nasbible .com. Tired of bop store Christianity?

01:29:54

Of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert? Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship?

01:30:02

And how about the preaching? Perhaps you've begun to think that in -depth biblical exposition has vanished from Long Island.

01:30:08

Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

01:30:18

And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.

01:30:27

631 -929 -3512. Or check out their website at wrbc .us.

01:30:35

That's wrbc .us. So you can protect what matters most.

01:31:06

We help members live generously and strengthen the communities where they live, work, and worship.

01:31:12

Learn more about the thriving story by contacting me, Mike Gallagher, financial consultant at 717 -254 -6433.

01:31:22

Again, 717 -254 -6433. Blending faith, finances, and generosity.

01:31:37

That's the Thriving Story. Welcome back.

01:31:50

This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest for the last half hour has been Paul Taylor. And we're discussing his book,

01:31:57

Where Birds Eat Horses, the Language of Evolution. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question regarding Paul's book, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

01:32:09

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

01:32:16

We do have a listener in Merrick, Long Island, New York, Stephen, who wants to know, has

01:32:23

Paul ever heard of a movie that was aired on a very well -known television channel, most known for its serious documentaries about nature, that was actually about humanoids found in the jungles of South America and complete with photographic evidence of the existence of these beings.

01:32:53

And the program went on for at least an hour that made you think that this was actual footage from explorers in the jungle, where you saw these humanoids, these half -men, half -ape, running around in the jungle, threatening the lives of the explorers.

01:33:13

And then the only way that you could detect that this was completely fictitious is if you paused the film at the very end and looked at the credits to see that these were manufactured through the wonders of special effects, that these were not truly humanoid.

01:33:31

Have you ever heard of that? I have heard of it, I'm not familiar with it, I haven't seen it, but I have heard of it.

01:33:37

And it's interesting, you know, one of the sections in my book, I mention a criticism of the

01:33:42

Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Prehistoric Beasts program by an actual evolutionary scientist who holds the biblical views that I hold, but he nevertheless criticized it correctly for talking about behaviors of the dinosaurs, of these creatures, which is nonsensical and not making a clear distinction between what's imagination and what's true.

01:34:11

There's one point in the Walking with Prehistoric Beasts book, in the

01:34:17

Walking with Prehistoric Beasts television series, where you see an Andrusarchus, which is supposedly an extinct carnivorous animal trying to attack a dead baby of a large plant -eating animal, and the mother of the animal is there trying to defend it.

01:34:36

And the narration says it's difficult to know whether the mother realizes that her calf is dead or not.

01:34:42

Well, it isn't difficult to know it at all, because neither the mother, nor the calf, nor the Andrusarchus are real, they're all

01:34:48

CGI. So, you know, this is very disingenuous for this sort of narration to come across.

01:34:56

Of course, at the beginning and the end of the show, we're told that this is computer animation, but you know, you begin to forget that as you go in, and you begin to assume that they're animating something that's really happened, but it isn't.

01:35:09

And this is just really a sort of moving picture image of the sort of thing that goes on in science articles, in museum displays, and in TV documentaries all the time.

01:35:21

We do have Georgia in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, is it ever okay for Christian parents to take their children to museums and other types of places, like even amusement parks that have electronic dinosaurs, knowing that those who deny creation in the

01:35:46

Bible are running them, as long as the Christian parent instructs the child properly during and afterward?

01:35:54

Yeah, not only is it okay to do that, I would say it's pretty much compulsory for parents to do that.

01:36:00

You really do need to let your children know that the theory of evolution exists. If you're going to give your children a scientific education, they need to know that the majority of world's scientists today believe in the theory of evolution.

01:36:12

Now, you've got to teach it correctly. You've got to teach it and show them that it is not correct, and you've got to show them that the

01:36:18

Bible is correct. And this is why, you know, the work that Ken does is so important. It's why so many of us in the creation movement honor what he does.

01:36:25

And this is what we're trying to do here at the Mountain Hellens Creation Center. We're trying to provide parents with the tools to be able to train their young people.

01:36:35

It's no good pretending these things don't exist. They do exist, and I would say yes, definitely go to these museums.

01:36:42

Yes, definitely go to these zoos, but make sure that you're doing that in the context of having talked to your children, having briefed them beforehand and debriefed them afterwards, and give them some exploration.

01:36:55

There's some marvelous things to see. For example, you go into the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in D .C.,

01:37:01

and you'll see a marvelous exhibition about the supposed evolution of the horse.

01:37:07

Now, you know, you can talk to them about the evolution of the horse and the fact that it can't, that it's just simply not possible.

01:37:14

So there's a number of things there that you can do on that score. But then it's very interesting to notice that they have a skeleton of the

01:37:22

Eohippus, which is the supposed ancestor of the horse. And quite by chance it would appear to me, or by some mistake of the museum designers, they've put it next to a skeleton of a modern -day tapir, and the two things look identical.

01:37:39

So it would appear that this Eohippus is actually just a small tapir, not a horse at all.

01:37:45

We have another listener from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, CJ, who wants to know, why is it that it is so hard for evolutionists to that humans and dinosaurs roamed the

01:38:01

Earth simultaneously? We have lizards and reptiles today that even those that are atheists and scientists admit can be traced back to the days of the dinosaurs.

01:38:16

So why, if they exist today, such as alligators and turtles, why is it so hard to believe that dinosaurs existed with men?

01:38:25

Yes, and that's a good point. You know, the Natural History Museum in London has a display about crocodiles, and of course

01:38:32

I do not accept the dating of millions of years, but the display on crocodiles tells people, the museum visitors, that crocodiles first evolved 200 million years ago, which they say is before the age of the dinosaur.

01:38:46

Now I don't accept those dates, but the point that I'm making is that they shouldn't really have any difficulty with dinosaurs and people living together at the same time.

01:38:56

But you see, the point is, there's a different worldview, and it's not to do with science, it's not to do with evidence, because evidence always has to be interpreted by a person's worldview.

01:39:07

And if you don't have a biblical worldview, then you have a non -biblical worldview. If you don't have a godly worldview, you have an ungodly worldview, and you're going to interpret things according to that.

01:39:16

And of course the difficulty is, even for those Christians who believe in the theory of evolution, I would have to say that their worldview is unbiblical, it's ungodly, because it's not starting with what

01:39:27

God actually said. And so they're interpreting the world without God, and therefore the way that they interpret evidence is going to fit into that.

01:39:35

It follows them that every time they find any new scientific evidence, they're going to interpret that evidence in the light of the way that they already believe.

01:39:45

Whereas we will interpret the same evidence in the light of the truth of the

01:39:51

Bible. And that's the point, none of us start from a neutral starting point, none of us start from a neutral presupposition.

01:39:59

We have a presupposition that God exists and that the Bible is true, or we have a presupposition that those things are not correct.

01:40:06

Yeah, but it doesn't even make sense, the ferociousness with which some in academia and in the scientific realm will fight tooth and nail against any notion that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time.

01:40:21

It doesn't even make sense that they would hold to that opinion with such certainty and with such bigotry, for lack of a better term.

01:40:30

Doesn't even make any sense to me. But yeah, they get very, very angry about it, don't they?

01:40:37

I noticed recently, just over a year ago, my old sparring partner

01:40:42

Richard Dawkins got very, very angry about an episode of Doctor Who. Now, Doctor Who is probably a

01:40:49

British program that many people in the United States will have heard of these days. Just over a year ago, there was an episode of this show called

01:40:57

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, and Richard Dawkins got very cross at the appearance of the

01:41:03

Tyrannosaurus on this spaceship. And the reason is because he wrote a long letter of complaint to the

01:41:10

BBC saying you shouldn't show Tyrannosaurus looking like that. Every time you show a

01:41:15

Tyrannosaurus, you should make sure that it's completely covered in feathers, because don't forget that birds evolve from Tyrannosaurus.

01:41:23

Now, can you believe that? He was really angry about that. They'd shown the traditional view of the

01:41:29

Tyrannosaurus that we're used to, but nowadays you may have noticed that modern high school textbooks have started showing

01:41:35

Tyrannosaurus covered in feathers. There's no reason for saying that. No feathers have been discovered on any of the fossils, but it's purely because they believe that birds evolved from pteropod dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus.

01:41:46

It's part of their worldview, and they get very angry if you don't do it their way. Wow, I had no knowledge of the feathered

01:41:53

Tyrannosaurus rex. That's interesting. And the thing that makes it more perplexing is that scientists admit when new species, or should

01:42:04

I say, species that were believed to be extinct are discovered alive.

01:42:10

So why couldn't dinosaurs have lived with us? It doesn't make any sense at all.

01:42:17

We have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania that writes, do you know of any creationists who are scientists that are surviving and thriving in the secular realm of academia and science?

01:42:38

I know quite a few. I can't necessarily give you the names of all of them, because in some cases they have to be very careful what they say in their public declarations.

01:42:48

But perhaps two, one recently retired and one currently working that I can mention, because it's known, are two

01:42:55

British people in top ranking British universities. Professor Andy McIntosh, until his retirement a little while ago, was the professor of thermodynamics at Leeds University, which is one of the

01:43:07

Russell Group universities, one of Britain's top universities. Had a Queen's Award for industry for the research that his team were doing on building an engine based on the activities of the bombardier beetle.

01:43:21

And then, of course, there's Professor Stuart Burgess, professor of design and engineering at the

01:43:26

University of Bristol, again one of the Russell Group universities, who was quoted by Ken Ham in his debate with Bill Knight.

01:43:37

So I know that it's okay to mention his name, and he was responsible for, his team were responsible for designing the solar panels on the

01:43:45

International Space Station, which had to be right first time. And Stuart gives a marvellous spellbinding lecture about those and likening it to the even greater design that God has put into so many plants and animals around us.

01:44:03

So tell me something about one of the chapters in your book that definitely has an interesting captivating title,

01:44:11

Hamlet and Humpty Dumpty. Well, I'm trying to show the use of words, because as I've said, the support for evolution is to do with the deceptive use of words.

01:44:23

And of course, I started that chapter by quoting the conversation between Hamlet and Polonius, for those people who are familiar with Shakespeare.

01:44:33

There's the one bit where Hamlet is feigning madness, and Polonius is trying to understand him.

01:44:42

And there's quite a lengthy section I quote, but if I can just mention one little bit that I do in my talk sometimes. There's one bit where Polonius says, what do you read, my lord?

01:44:50

And Hamlet says, words, words, words. Polonius says, what is the matter, my lord?

01:44:56

Now, it's a little bit difficult to understand what he's saying there, because what he's actually saying in the sort of Elizabethan language is, what's the subject matter?

01:45:05

But of course, Hamlet deliberately misinterprets what he says and says between who, using a more modern meaning of the phrase, what is the matter?

01:45:14

So it's an example of equivocation, where one phrase is meant to mean one thing, and actually means another.

01:45:19

And I show how evolutionists do that with a very simple juxtaposition of two photographs, two pictures rather, two diagrams of supposed evolution.

01:45:29

One shows finches, like Darwin's finches, where one finch changes into another finch, you know, by its beak growing longer in successive generations, or its beak growing shorter.

01:45:40

And that's in a sense, in the broadest use of the word, an example of evolution, if the word evolution simply means change, because the finches are changing.

01:45:49

But they start off as finches, and they change into finches. It's not evolution in the biological sense.

01:45:56

And I've put with that a picture of the traditional view of apes evolving into human beings.

01:46:03

And that's a different use of the word evolution. But evolutionists deliberately put those two uses of the word evolution together and pretend they're the same, when they are not the same.

01:46:13

One is simply a change within a kind, and shouldn't really be called evolution at all, it should be called speciation.

01:46:20

Whereas the other, and of course speciation actually happens, we see it happen, we observe it happen all the time.

01:46:27

Dogs turn into other breeds of dogs, you know, wolves can eventually be bred until they turn into Yorkshire Terriers.

01:46:33

But, you know, at no point can you breed a wolf so that it turns into a tiger, you know, it doesn't happen, it's a different kind.

01:46:40

So there's a deliberate equivocation over the term evolution, and this is something that evolutionists use all the time.

01:46:48

And that's why it seemed sensible to end with Humpty Dumpty's words in Alice Through the Looking Glass, when

01:46:53

Humpty Dumpty says, there's glory for you, when he's given his arguments about why unbirthdays are better than birthdays, he says, there's glory for you.

01:47:03

I don't know what you mean by glory, Alice said, and Humpty Dumpty smiled and said, of course you don't, so I tell you,

01:47:08

I meant there's a nice knockdown argument for you. Alice objected, but glory doesn't mean a nice knockdown argument.

01:47:15

When I use the word Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.

01:47:22

Well, of course, that's not true. And of course, that's what Lewis Carroll is pointing out in that book, you can't use a word to mean just what you want it to mean.

01:47:30

Words have a meaning. And unfortunately, these days, you get people deliberately changing the meaning of words in order to further an agenda.

01:47:39

And that's what the evolutionists are doing constantly. To support that theory, they're using equivocation and changing the meanings of words in order to blur the argument.

01:47:49

We have Rob in New York, New York, who asks, if you believe that all of the human race came from Adam and Eve, obviously you believe in some form of evolution, since we have different races that involve not only different skin pigmentation, but skull structures, etc.

01:48:13

And do you believe that the original parents,

01:48:19

Adam and Eve, were far different in appearance than what the average human today looks like?

01:48:27

No, I don't believe that Adam and Eve would have been different in appearance to what, particular to what humans are today.

01:48:35

School structures are really in a sense irrelevant, because school structures change even from father to son.

01:48:42

And that's not really terribly relevant. As for different pigmentation, there aren't any. There's only one pigmentation in the world, which is melanin.

01:48:50

And some human beings have a lot of melanin, and some have not very much melanin at all. So I think we can assume that Adam and Eve have the genetic capability of the whole range of possible shades, which would mean that they would probably be a middle brown colour.

01:49:05

They certainly wouldn't have been white. So there's a whole range of possibilities there, but that isn't evolution.

01:49:12

You see, that's just a very, very minor alteration on very, very almost insignificant areas of genetics.

01:49:24

It's not very significant. Evolution is when you actually have to make new genetic information.

01:49:30

All the genetic information for the human race was there in Adam and Eve. But if you'd taken apes and turned them into human beings, new genetic information would have needed to have been made.

01:49:42

You know, you've probably heard some people say that human beings and chimps share 96 % of their

01:49:49

DNA in common, which isn't strictly true. But even if it were, that extra 4 % would be new genetic information that would have to be spontaneously made by random chance in order to turn a chimp -like animal into a human being.

01:50:05

That doesn't happen, and it's scientifically impossible for it to happen. But human beings just changing slightly in appearance and in the shades of melanin that they would have, that is not evolution.

01:50:16

That's just very, very minor changes from genetic information that's already there.

01:50:22

What phrase would you use then for not only the development of different human races, but for instance, obviously, there are many different kinds of cats.

01:50:34

There are house cats, and there are lions and tigers that had a common ancestor.

01:50:42

The same thing with wolves and foxes and hyenas and your common house dog, etc.

01:50:48

What would you call that change? I would make a distinction between the changes being described there in humans and in those sorts of kinds of animals you're referring to, because the changes within those kinds of animals is greater, though it still involves genetic information that would already have been there beforehand.

01:51:06

In the case of humans, it's simply human beings changing, father -to -son relationships changing.

01:51:12

That's all it is. It's nothing major. The changes due to so -called racial characteristics are less than 0 .005

01:51:19

% of the total amount of genetic makeup of human beings. It's completely insignificant, and there aren't actually, therefore, different races.

01:51:28

There's only one race in the world, which is the human race. But in the case of animals, like you get members of the cat family, you're quite right.

01:51:37

There have been different species developed there. Again, it's from existing genetic information, but the changes are a bit more radical there.

01:51:45

But that's not evolution. The better term for it would be speciation. But you would never use the word, then, evolution, even for the changes that took place within species?

01:52:01

No. It's what many creationists used to refer to as micro -evolution. They used to say, well, there's micro -evolution, where you get genetic changes within kinds, and macro -evolution, where you're supposedly getting changes from one kind to another.

01:52:15

Micro -evolution exists, macro -evolution doesn't. But you see, I think it's probably best not to use that term.

01:52:22

It's not that I'm going to stamp on creationists' use of micro -evolution, but many of us would say not to use it, simply because it's implying that it's just a miniature version of the macro -evolution, and it isn't.

01:52:34

It's a completely different kind of process. Speciation, what some people might refer to as micro -evolution, is something that is actually observed science, whereas macro -evolution is not only not observed, but can be shown to be impossible because it disobeys the laws of information science.

01:52:56

You can't create the new information required. So they're completely different entities, and that's why it's probably best not to use the term evolution at all in that context, and simply refer to speciation.

01:53:08

It is interesting that those who are evolutionists have taken upon their cause, they defend it with a religious fervor.

01:53:23

They claim to be not importing religion into their so -called scientific views, but it seems to me that they are really imitating very much what the

01:53:38

Roman Catholic Church of centuries ago did, when a scientist discovered something that was in contradiction to a

01:53:47

Roman Catholic tradition, not even necessarily in the Scripture. The Roman Catholic Church silenced that person through various means of punishment or silencing them.

01:54:02

Isn't it ironic that these so -called scientists who claim that we are the ones that are importing our own personal religious views into the scientific arena where it has no place, aren't they acting very much like religious zealots, the liberals and the evolutionists?

01:54:23

Absolutely right, and you know that certainly for those people in academia there's often quite a considerable risk and a considerable price to pay for them to admit that they believe in God and that they believe that the

01:54:38

Bible to be true, and to show that the evidence, the scientific evidence that they have, is best interpreted within that presupposition.

01:54:48

Dr. Jerry Bergman, who actually gave a commendation for my book and helped edit it, he has written a book called

01:54:57

Slaughter of the Dissidents, which compiles a number of accounts of people in academic circles whose careers have suffered because of their biblical beliefs.

01:55:11

Wow. Well, I'd like you in the next four minutes or so to really unburden your heart with what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before they leave the program today.

01:55:25

Well, what we're trying to do here at the Mount St. Helens Creation Center is just to show people that they can trust the

01:55:33

Bible from the very first verse. We're not the only ministry doing that. Obviously there are many larger ministries that we ally ourselves with, like Ancestors in Genesis and the

01:55:43

Institute for Creation Research and others, but we're proud to work alongside that do that.

01:55:49

But our burden is to show people, to show Christians, that they can trust the

01:55:55

Bible from the very first verse and give them the tools and the weapons to be able to defend the

01:56:00

Bible, and to show non -Christians that the Bible has a claim to make on their lives and to challenge them with the

01:56:08

Gospel of Jesus Christ, which appears throughout the words of the Bible, because the

01:56:13

Gospel itself, I believe, is there right from the very beginning of Genesis. So that's really our passion.

01:56:20

And so people can find out more about what we do here at the Center by coming to visit us.

01:56:26

If you're in Washington State, as I said, we're very close to Interstate 5, and we're on the main tourist road to Mount St.

01:56:33

Helens. Or you can visit our website, which is mshcreationcenter .org.

01:56:40

The MSH bit stands for Mount St. Helens, so it's mshcreationcenter .org.

01:56:46

People can find out about the things we do and the programs that we put on for homeschoolers, for Christian schools, and for churches.

01:56:54

And so that's really what we do, and I like to travel around and speak to churches and organizations about the truth of God's Word.

01:57:02

Do you think that it is wise for Christian schools who have in their science classes an explanation of the evolutionary theory or theories to be taught side by side with creation, but with a distinction being made that one is from the

01:57:25

Word of God and the other is from the mind of men, just so that the students are more fully equipped to dialogue with those who are opposing their creationist views?

01:57:38

It's not so much side by side. You know, the true position is the one in the Bible, and so it's good to see children being taught a biblical approach to science and to understand that modern science would not have been possible without the work of people who believe that the

01:57:55

Bible was true. You know, all the discoveries of the modern scientific era were made by people who believed that the

01:58:01

Bible was true, that Genesis was true. But nevertheless, they do need to be familiar with the theory of evolution, and they need to be familiar with the reasons why the theory of evolution is wrong.

01:58:11

But you know, it's not really correct for a Christian school or homeschool curriculum to ignore the theory of evolution.

01:58:18

They need to show that it's there, but they need to put it in the correct context and give our young people the weapons to show that this theory is out there, believed by a lot of people, but clearly not correct.

01:58:31

And finally, do you think it's ironic and very disturbing, obviously, that there are

01:58:38

Christians who are coming out as theistic evolutionists in a day and age when even secular scientists are beginning to doubt the theory?

01:58:48

That's very ironic indeed, and I could mention one Christian university that I know of, and I'd better not mention his name, but I mean, this is not unknown, where the science department are teaching the truth of the

01:59:01

Bible, and the theology department are teaching that Genesis isn't true. And it's very ironic, but you'll find that there are many so -called conservative evangelical establishments that are now teaching people that they don't have to believe the literal truth of Genesis, that they can believe instead that it's some sort of Babylonian creation myth.

01:59:22

It comes under ancient Near East mythology, and that we have to interpret Genesis that way,

01:59:28

I've heard. We're out of time, I'm sorry, and I just thank you so much for being on the program today, and I want everybody to always remember that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:36

Savior than you are a sinner. Please tune in tomorrow to Iron Sharpens Iron and email your questions.