Does the age of the Earth matter?

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Okay, let's go ahead and pray first. Dear Lord, we just thank you so much for this opportunity.

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Thank you for Mike, for both of the riddles. Thank you for them and for their ministry and for all of the people that you've been able to impact through them.

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And we thank you that they have hearts that are willing to serve you and that they use that energy that you've given them.

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And we thank you for Leslie's recovery. We pray for continued recovery for her.

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Thank you that Mike is able to join us in this setting tonight. We thank you for the opportunities you give us through this that we can minister to people and also be edified by learning more about how we can defend your word.

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And we just ask for a good impact for his presentation tonight.

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In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so I get to introduce our speaker again tonight.

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Maybe you've never heard of him or maybe you have but need a reminder that Mike Riddle, who has a bachelor's in mathematics and a master's degree in education is the founder and president of the

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Creation Training Initiative. He is an international speaker and teacher on the topics of biblical creation, apologetics and Christian education.

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And with that, we are pleased to have him talk to us tonight on the topic of does the age of the earth matter?

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Mike, go ahead. Well, thank you, Terri. That was very kind of you to say those things, even though none of them were true, no.

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Does the age of the earth matter? That's a pretty big topic today. We have a lot of pastors who dismiss it.

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We have a lot of people who say it doesn't matter. Well, once you say the age of the earth doesn't matter, you're getting into what we call relativism.

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In other words, it can be young, it can be old, it really doesn't matter. That's real relativism. But I wanna talk about that topic and we'll flash up our website now and then if you're interested, you can go to our website, creationtraining .org.

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If you'd like to contact us, that's my email, direct email. That's our website. Or if you'd like to drop us a line, whether you liked something or didn't like something, you can still drop us a line.

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There's our direct mail if you wanna send us a old, what we call snail mail through the post office.

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Not to mean they're slow, but it's a little faster to email. So that's our contact information.

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So let's get to, does the age of the earth matter? Now, one thing we need to understand about this argument, it is a biblical argument and not a science argument.

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It's not a science issue at all because it deals with the Bible. It deals with how we're going to interpret the

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Bible and our understanding of scripture. For example, a lot of people say, oh my, the battles between science and the

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Bible. No, it is not. That's degrading to God when you make that statement. Who created all the science?

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God did. He's not in a battle with himself, folks. Science, true science always agrees with God's word.

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However, here's where we get into some of these issues. It's evolutionism that does not agree with the

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Bible. And it's also evolutionism that does not agree with empirical science.

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So that's kind of how this little triangle goes. The Bible and the science agree. It's evolutionism that stands out from both of those.

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So again, our issue is going to be with the Bible. How do we interpret the Bible? What does the age do to the

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Bible? Well, here's a gentleman, Roy Zuck. He's got his doctorate. He's a senior professor of Bible exposition, makes this statement.

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Scripture must be the basis for the search of all the data on this question, meaning the age of the earth.

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So he's agreeing right there. If we're going to talk about the age of the earth, it is a biblical issue, not a science issue for Christians.

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In other words, what are we going to make of the Bible? Well, I'm going to do a little thing here.

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We're going to be like Bereans. Bereans, who are those people? Where do they live today? Well, they're in the Bible, Acts 17, verse 11.

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Here's what it says about the Bereans. Now, these were more noble -minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

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Now notice, first of all, they were noble -minded, meaning these were pretty high -level people. They examined the scriptures when they heard something new.

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They didn't go to the theologians, they didn't go to the scholars of the day, they didn't go to the scientists of the day.

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They went to the scriptures to see if it was true or not. That was their authority.

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That was their measuring rod, the scriptures. Not all these great people would go out there and argue about nothingness.

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Incidentally, people are arguing, what is nothing today? Did you know that? People are saying, nothing really doesn't mean nothing.

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That's what I call idle talk. So we're gonna be like the Brains. We're gonna examine the scriptures for the age of the earth.

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Also, 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17 says, all scripture, notice right there, don't say some, says all, that includes

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Genesis 1, is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

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So all scripture is God -breathed. It's all good for teaching. That means if we don't wanna teach something because we don't like it, you're disobeying

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God. It's all good for training. Why? So we can be equipped. All scripture is good.

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You know, that even means the book of Numbers too, and that's a tough one. Then we go to John 17, 17, kind of laying the background here.

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Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. What is that saying there? Sanctify, set apart.

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We're to be set apart by the truth. And what is the truth? God's word. Incidentally, God's word doesn't change.

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Our understanding of science though is constantly changing, but God's word never changes, and we're to be set apart by his word.

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Then another scripture, 2 Timothy 2, 15. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

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Now that word diligent can also mean study. We're to study and rightfully handle

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God's word, not mess it up, not make opinions about it, but handle

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God's word correctly. Now, this whole thing about the age of the earth kind of centers around one big word there called day.

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The Hebrew word for day is yom. So this whole thing seems to center around that one word day.

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What does it mean? Well, when we go to Genesis, we see the word day in Genesis one. We read, and there was evening and there was morning one day.

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And there was evening and there was morning a second day. There was evening and there was morning a third day.

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So each of the days of creation, we see the word day. That's the gist of all of this. What in the world does that word day mean?

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Now I'm gonna give one more piece of scripture here before we get into a lot of this. James 3 .1.

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We got a lot of teachers out there, a lot of study school teachers, a lot of people teaching on creation. But the

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Bible gives us a very stern warning about teachers. Here's what

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God has told us. Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such, we will incur a stricter judgment.

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There's a warning that if we're going to teach God's word, we better be very careful with his word and not put our opinions into it.

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Before we get into the day, one more thing. And this will be the last one more thing before we get into the word day.

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Something or somebody called hermeneutics. Now, what do we mean by hermeneutics?

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Well, hermeneutics, well, the word comes from Greek, means to interpret. These are the rules for interpreting language, which includes the

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Bible. And I'm gonna go through rather quickly five key rules for interpreting scripture.

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And I'll let you know what one of them is not. It's not our opinions. So the first one, which is probably the most important is context.

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We're to keep God's word in the context he gave it to us. As we wanna understand what a word means, we need to look at the context where it is used, not somewhere else in the

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Bible, where it is used. And there's some words can have multiple meanings. How do we know what it means?

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We look at the context where it is used to get the correct meaning. A second rule, the explicit constrains the implicit.

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Now, what in the world does that mean, Mike? Well, I only wrote it short this way because I can put it on one line in PowerPoint.

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What that statement means is, if something is explicitly stated, it has a higher priority than what you might imply it means.

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So the explicit has a higher priority than something that might be implied for the meaning. The third rule, what is the purpose of communication?

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To convey an understandable idea. And you know something? God knows how to communicate better than anybody else.

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A fourth rule, the interpretation must be based on the author's intention of meaning and not the reader's intent.

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This is where we get into the historical grammatical sense here. What did the people know who wrote this?

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What was their culture like? Well, I'll tell you one thing, they didn't know modern science. Does that mean they could not understand

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Genesis? No, God wrote the Bible for all people, all times. So they could understand what

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Genesis meant. They could understand other parts of the Bible. They did not need modern science to understand

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God's word. And the last one, be sensitive to the type of literature.

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Now, let me give you a little question on this here now. Common question, I've gotten this one, got this question several times when

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I do my talks. Somebody will ask me, do you take the Bible literally? Well, if you say yes, you're in trouble.

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If you say no, you're in trouble. Wait a minute, Mike. What is the answer then? Well, here's how we answer that question.

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The Bible is written in different formats. Mean by, that's what we mean by genre. It's written historical narrative.

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It's written with figures of speech. It's written in other ways, other formats, parables.

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I take the Bible literally where it's meant to be taken literally.

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So we have to be sensitive type of literature. If it's poetry, it has maybe a different meaning. If it's historical narratives, it can have a very good meaning there, meaning this really happened.

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So we need to be sensitive to the literature or type of genre. Those are five very important rules for helping us interpret

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God's word. So let's get to the first one. We're gonna go through seven evidences, just seven.

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There's a whole lot more, seven evidences for why the age of the earth matters. And again, it all seems to center around what does that word day mean in Genesis chapter one?

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And the first evidence is called the authority of scripture. If we were to just read

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Genesis one, leave everything else we know, don't talk about science, don't talk about anything else, just the plain reading of the first chapter of Genesis, what do you get out of that?

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That God created everything in six days. It is so plain and easy to understand that God created everything in six days.

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That's the plain reading. Now, again, don't bring anything else into this, just what God gave us.

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Now, here's another point. If we can't trust the first chapter of the Bible, when can we start trusting it?

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And who's gonna make those rules? And also, if we can't believe the

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Bible's history, which starts in Genesis, why should we believe it's theology? See, our foundation for the whole scripture starts in the first chapters of Genesis.

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If we give those up, then when do we start believing it? And we have a problem.

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Who's gonna set the rules? Now, if the Bible says something, remember, all the scripture is

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God breathed. So if it says something, it's pretty important. But if it says it more than once, it can be very important.

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Did you know that three times in the Bible, it explicitly, remember, use that word, it explicitly states that God created everything in six days in Genesis one, in Exodus 20, verse 11, in Exodus 31, verse 17, there explicitly states that God created everything in six days.

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Nowhere does it say he created over millions and billions of years or eons of time.

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It does not say that anywhere. But three times, he told us six days.

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Now, along with the meaning of day, God explicitly chose the word day.

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We're still into the authority of scripture, evidence number one. God explicitly chose the word day.

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Remember, the explicit overrides what you might imply it means. God could have chosen other Hebrew words if he wanted to indicate a long period of time, but he chose none of those.

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He chose the word day. And then in Genesis chapter one, verse five,

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God actually defines the word day. Whoa, I don't knew that. Yep, right there in Genesis one, five, we read,

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God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning one day.

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In that one verse, God gives two definitions for the word day. It can mean the light portion of a day, or it can mean the light and dark portion for the word day.

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This should settle it right here, folks. God used the word day. He defined it for us. So what does that word day in there mean?

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How about a day? Wow, what an interesting thought. God really meant what he said. Now, so we got

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God explicitly chose the word day and we have it defined. Then in Genesis one, God uses a number with the word day.

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Is that significant? Well, it might be. Because everywhere in the Old Testament, we have a number with the word day.

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Guess what it means? A day. It never means a long period of time.

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God is being consistent here. And he even gives us more. The word day is bounded by evening and morning.

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Everywhere in the Old Testament, we see evening and morning. It always and only means a day.

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God's given us overwhelming information, but people will not accept that. Why? They've been influenced by the world, been influenced by the world's thinking.

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I'm gonna make sure you understand that they have not been influenced by any facts of science. They've been influenced by people's interpretation of the evidence.

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We're in God's word, we have truth. Now, challenge.

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Here's a challenge. We need to have some challenges as we go through here. Give both sides here. The word yom, which the

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Hebrew word for day, does not always mean a literal day. And I'm told that. You know what I say? I agree. The word yom or day does not always mean a literal day.

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Let's take a look at some examples. It can mean a little day, a period of daylight, a season, a year, a disappointing time, or time in general, a general sense.

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So it can have different meanings. Okay, Mike, then how are we gonna know what it means? How about our rules?

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Context. We'll look at the context where that word day is used to get the intended meaning. That makes it pretty easy.

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So let's look at Genesis 4 .3. It states, and in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the

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Lord. Well, that word time in there is actually the word yom, but it's not translated day.

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It's translated time. Why? Context, folks. We're talking about a growing season here, not a day.

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And also, it's not accompanied with a number or bounded by evening and morning, which we do have in Genesis 1.

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So you see, the word day can have a lot of different meanings, but context determines how it is translated.

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Here's another one, Isaiah chapter 30, verse eight. Now go, write it before them on a tablet and note it on a scroll, that it may be for time to come forever and ever.

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That word time there is again the word yom, but it's not translated day.

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Why not? Because in this context, it's talking about future generations forever and ever.

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The word day would be an incorrect translation. The correct translation is time. And also, it's not accompanied with a number or bounded by evening and morning, as it is in Genesis 1.

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Are you starting to get the picture? Context matters. Let's look at another one, 1 Kings 1 .1.

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Now King David was old, advanced in years, and they put covers on him, but he could not get warm.

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Where the word years there is yamin, which is the plural of yom. But it's not translated days, it's translated years.

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Why? Context, to be old, the context means years, not days.

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If somebody said you were advanced in days, that doesn't necessarily imply you're really old. But if you put the word years there, it makes it a little more emphatic that you really are old.

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So the correct translation, more correct translation, correct translation is years, not yamin.

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And also, it's not accompanied with the number or bounded by evening and morning, as it is in Genesis 1.

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Look at one more here. Genesis chapter 18, verse 11. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age.

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Sarah was past childbearing. That word age there is, again, the plural of yom, yamin.

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So it's not translated day, it's translated age. Why? Because in the context, it warrants age, not day, to be past childbearing.

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She's past the age of childbearing. So more correct translation here is age, not day.

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Also, it's not accompanied with the number or bounded by evening and morning, as it is in Genesis 1. Are you seeing a pattern here now?

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The word yom can have different meanings, but it is context that gives us the correct translation.

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And in Genesis 1, God defined it. He specifically used the word day.

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He put a number with it, and he bound it by evening and morning. It makes it very easy to understand

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God's days were days. Now, that's evidence one.

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Let's go to evidence number two, the 10 Commandments. Let me start by asking some questions about these 10

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Commandments. How many of you out there really believe the 10 Commandments? And I ask that when

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I do my sermons at church. I like to ask that question. Everybody put their hand up saying, yeah, yeah, I believe the 10 Commandments.

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They're still pretty good, even though they're old, they're several thousands of years old. They're still pretty good for today. So people say, yes, we do believe the 10

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Commandments. Then the next question I ask them, who wrote the 10 Commandments? Was it Charlton Heston, who played

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Moses in Hollywood? Or was it God? Well, it was God. God wrote down the 10

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Commandments. God himself put these on stone tablets. Next one

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I'm gonna ask is, if you were to turn to the book of Exodus and read the 10 Commandments, do you think you could understand them?

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And a lot of people might sit back and say, well, let me give you a couple of examples. How about the commandment that says, thou shall not steal?

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Does that really mean that? Or is that open to our interpretation? Well, it really means it. God wrote that down that we shouldn't steal.

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How about the commandment that says, thou shall not murder? Does that really mean that? Or is that open to our interpretation? Well, I'll give you a hint.

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It's not open to our interpretation. God wrote down on the stone tablets, thou shall not murder. So we know who wrote these,

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God wrote them down, and we can understand them. Now, let's go to Exodus 20, verse 11.

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Commandment number four, which states this, for in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth to see in all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.

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Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. What did God write down on the clay tablets?

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Six days, he made heavens and the earth in six days. What's so important about that now,

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Mike? Well, it is important because God told us, it's the authority of scripture, it's in the 10 Commandments.

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Here's where it comes together here, folks. If you do not believe the days of creation in Genesis one were literal days, then this commandment does not mean what it literally states and it's open to our interpretation.

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And if commandment number four doesn't mean what it literally states, what about the other nine? Can we add our opinions in there also?

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You see, here's the problem. If we give up Genesis chapter one, our foundation, we've now just given up the 10

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Commandments. We don't have to believe them anymore either. You see, it makes a difference what we believe about the age of the earth and what

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God gave us. Because giving up Genesis, we give up the 10 Commandments because they're open to everybody's interpretation.

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Incidentally, let me go back to that. See, the real issue here is not millions and billions of years.

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The real issue we should be asking as Christians, this is what we should be asking. Why did

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God take so long as six days to create everything? Wait a minute, I've never heard that.

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Why did he take six days? He could have done it in six seconds or one second. Why did he take so long as six days?

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Well, he gives us an answer. Work six, rest one. He gave us a model for our work week.

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We have a practical God. He gave us how to live our lives. Work six, rest one.

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He did the same thing. He worked six and rested one. He didn't work 6 million years. He worked six days creating, then rested.

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Not that he needed to rest, but he gave us a model for how to live and work our lives.

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Isn't that great? Isn't that a great God we have? Now let's go to evidence three.

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The words of Jesus Christ in Mark 10, verse six. In Mark 10, verse six, Jesus makes this statement.

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But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Now what is Jesus saying here?

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Jesus is telling us this, that man and woman were on this planet from the beginning of the creation, not after millions of years.

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Was Jesus wrong when he said this? See, if you're believing in millions of years, then what you're really saying here is, well,

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Jesus, you didn't quite get it right there. It took a couple million years before Adam and Eve came on board.

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Folks, if Jesus is not right here, and he's made an error, then maybe he's not God. We're still dead in our sins.

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You see the importance of understanding our foundation in Genesis one. Now let's go to evidence number four.

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The very character of God. What we believe about the age of the earth affects the character of God. In Genesis 131, we read, and God saw everything that he had made.

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Behold, it was very good, and the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Now notice, this is after God's finished his six days of creation.

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He pronounced it all very good. Now the question is, does that mean it was perfect? Yes, it does.

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In Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse four, that's Deuteronomy 32, verse four, it states the works of God are perfect.

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Creation is the works of God. Therefore, his creation was perfect. Or we could throw out that verse 32, verse four.

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It's no longer valid. And we start throwing other parts of the Bible. So God called everything very good.

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Now here's the question. What does God's very good mean? Does it mean death, pain, killing, disease, struggle, suffering, and extinction?

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Or does it mean perfect, no death? If you're believing millions of years, then what was going on for those millions of years before Adam and Eve?

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Well, because the fossil record, that's a record of dead things. And God would have called all those dead things, all that killing, all that struggle, all those diseases, very good.

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Folks, that's a different God than what I see in the Bible. So it affects the very character of what we believe about God.

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Evidence five, the gospel. This is gonna really hit home, the gospel.

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Let's start with a literal interpretation. I always like to ask if that's okay, if I take a literal interpretation of what

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God has done here. And we'll start here. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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So that's how the Bible starts. That's the first statement. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Then the

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Bible goes on and talks about the six days of creation, what he created on each of the days. Then after he's finished, this day six, he calls it perfect or very good.

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And then comes the fall. Adam and Eve disobeyed God, sin. And then comes death.

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That is the exact order the Bible reads. I did not change anything. I did not add anything in.

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No matter what version you're reading, valid versions there, what version you're reading, that is the order it always goes.

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Now, let me show you why this affects the gospel. Let's add millions of years into here.

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and all this goes on for millions and millions of years.

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Finally, along come Adam and Eve. And then comes the fall.

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Here's the question. What was going on for those millions of years before Adam and Eve and sin?

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Well, the answer is this, folks. Death, decay, and disease. Once you add millions of years into God's word, you're now subscribing and teaching death before sin.

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That is a serious problem with the gospel now, folks. Why is the age of the earth important?

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Because it affects the very foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Was there death before sin?

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You see, the New Testament bears this out also. We read in Romans 5 .12. Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sin.

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Right there, Romans 5 .12, it agrees. Sin is the cause of death. Oh, Mike, Mike, Mike, this is what

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I hear from people. Mike, it's only talking about human death. It's not talking about animals and other things.

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Well, there's another part in the Bible we need to read. It's called Romans 8 .20 through 22, and it reads this way.

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For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption, into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

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What is that saying? Due to Adam's sin, all of creation was subjected to futility, the curse.

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All of creation, not just humans, but all of creation came under the curse, which would include animal death, human death, and any other forms of diseases and corruption that come along with that, folks.

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Sin, here's the problem. If sin was not the cause of death, then why did

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Jesus have to go to the cross? Why did he have to go to the cross, suffer and die, and be raised from the dead if sin was not the cause of death?

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Why did he have to conquer death if sin was not the cause of death?

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Oh, Mike, Genesis is just poetry. It's just poetry, not meant to be taken literally, folks. If the first three chapters of Genesis are not literal, they're just poetry, we have a serious issue there.

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That means Jesus Christ suffered and died on that cross, a horrible death for something that never really happened?

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Is that what you're saying? See, God made it very plain. He used the word day.

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He defined the word day. He put a number with it, and he bound it by evening and morning. He's consistent with what he's communicating to us.

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Evidence number six, the consistency of scripture. Some questions about the cross and the resurrection here.

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I like to ask these questions. I like to ask pretty tough questions here. Do you believe that Jesus really died on that cross?

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And I do that in my sermons. People raise their hands, say, yes, yes, yes. We believe he died on the cross. But do you believe he really rose again on the third day?

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And people raise their hands, say, yeah, we believe that. My next question is, why do you believe that?

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You weren't there to observe that, so why do you believe that he died on that cross and was raised from the dead?

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You didn't observe it. Nobody living today observed it. Well, it's in the Bible, by faith, we believe it's in the

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Bible. Well, let me make this a little tougher for you, just a little bit tougher. Did you know, according to all known science, you cannot be dead for three days and come back to life?

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So are you willing to believe the resurrection even though it goes against known science?

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And Christians will say, yes, yes, yes. And there's where we have the contradiction coming from the churches. They'll believe the resurrection even though it goes against known science, but they will not believe the plain reading of Genesis chapter one, where God said he'd pray everything in six days because our scientists can't do it and they can't figure out how he did it.

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And the world is looking at this contradiction we have in the church and they say, why should I believe it when you don't?

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That was the church is becoming a stumbling block for people believing God's word.

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Do we believe his word or do we not believe his word? And when do we start believing it? Who's setting the rules?

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That's what it comes down to. Let's talk some more about science and miracles here.

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. I like to ask this for Christians because there's many

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Christians out there that believe in an old earth, millions and billions of years. There's many of our top theologians who believe in an old earth.

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So I like to ask the question, do you believe all scripture comes from God? Well, I hope so, because that's what the Bible teaches.

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Do you believe God is all powerful, omnipotent? Well, I believe so. He created everything out of nothing. That's pretty powerful.

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Do you believe God is all knowing, omniscient? Yes, he's omniscient, he's all omnipotent and he wrote all this.

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He breathed it all. Now, let's take a look here. The other day,

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I was out for a run. I like to do that occasionally, go out for a run. I was passing by this pasture and this cow was standing there.

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As I was passing this cow, you know what happened? He spoke to me. He said, hi, Mike, let's chat.

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Now, some of you probably don't believe that. Well, why not? Well, that's easy.

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My cows don't talk, they move. And they do other things too, but they move. So you really don't believe that cow talked to me?

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Well, I don't either. That's probably just my imagination. But let me ask you some questions then.

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Is it scientifically possible for donkey to talk? Okay, when you get your words mixed up, that's why we use

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PowerPoint. Is it scientifically impossible for a donkey to talk? Well, sure it is, but wait a minute.

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In the Bible, a donkey did talk. So it is possible. All things are possible with God, aren't they?

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How about this one? In the Bible, Jesus healed the crippled, the blind, the mute, sicknesses and diseases, a detached ear, and they were immediately healed.

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He didn't have to wait some long while. So he didn't have to wait for all this healing and ointments put on it. When God healed people, when

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Jesus healed people, it was instant. A detached ear, he put it on and it was instantly healed.

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Can our scientists do that? No, they gotta take some time and go through sometimes operations and medicines and sometimes weeks and maybe months and years to heal.

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But God did it instantly, didn't he? He can do that, he's God. Scientifically, can someone be dead for four days and come back to life?

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Well, not according to all known science, but in the Bible, it happened. How about this one?

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Do you believe God created everything out of nothing? Well, you better, because that's the only possibility about how we got this universe, because we know something can't come from nothing and we know the universe had to have a beginning.

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So the only option is we need somebody who's bigger in this universe, more powerful in this universe, and God created everything out of nothing.

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Can, without the aid of any tools, can you walk on water? No, you can't, you're going down. But Jesus did it.

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Can we, without any machines or tools, defy gravity? No, we really can't. When we jump up, we come down.

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That's why we don't have people out there high jumping 10 feet, gravity. But Jesus did when he left his apostles and went back up to heaven.

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He defied gravity, he can do that. It's not that he's nullifying our laws of science.

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He's more powerful than our laws of science. Is God bound by the laws of science?

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No, he's not, he created them. Do you believe God is able to create everything in six literal days, that the states in Genesis 1,

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Exodus 20, verse 11, and Exodus 31, 15? Yes, he's fully capable of doing that. If you say no, then he's not all powerful.

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So he is capable of doing that. And guess what he said in Genesis 1? He created in six days.

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So here's the question, biblical consistency. Should we use our understanding of the scientific evidence to interpret any of these miracles?

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Well, if we do, then we don't have miracles, do we? If not, then why should we look to the scientific evidence to interpret the creation account in Genesis?

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You see the consistency or lack of consistency we have in the church. People just cannot have that six days, they can't do it.

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Why? They've been influenced by the world. Well, like most scientists believe, it doesn't matter what most scientists believe.

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They're not as smart as God. God wrote down six days, folks. Three times he wrote down six days.

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When will we believe God? Biblical consistency.

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If you were to read Genesis 1 without any outside ideas, what does it state? We had that, we started with that one.

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It says six days. Don't tell me millions of years. It doesn't say millions of years, it says days in there.

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Using only the Bible, can you give a valid reason for inserting billions of years into scripture? Well, Mike Sainz, no, no, that's not what

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I said. As Christians, the Bible has to be our authority. I need a valid biblical reason for adding millions of years.

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And I have not gotten one in over 40 years of doing this. I've had all kinds of ideas.

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People bet the gap theory, the day -age theory, poetry. None of those stand up against scripture.

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None of them do. So let's take a look at evidence seven then.

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Scripture, scientific evidence in scripture. Should we use scientific evidence to interpret scripture?

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Well, let's look at this, scientific evidence. God did not write the Bible to be understood by only a small percentage of lead experts, all scientists.

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Or if we need modern science to understand scripture, we have a problem. If you use modern science to interpret scripture,

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I'm gonna go through four points here. That means for 1 ,800 years, nobody could understand the Bible. It wasn't until our generation, just recently, our generations, that we were enlightened by all this new science.

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We can finally figure out what the Bible says. It says millions of years. No, folks, we don't need science and scientists to understand

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God's word. We need the Holy Spirit. Point two, if you're using modern science to interpret scripture, we have an illogical conclusion.

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Because 30 years from now, we'll have new modern science. That means we have to reinterpret the Bible. 30 years after that, we'll have new modern science.

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We have to reinterpret the Bible. In other words, we're never gonna know for sure what it really says if we're using modern science to interpret scripture.

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And point three, called new revealed knowledge. Now, what do you mean by that,

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Mike? Well, let's look at that. New revealed knowledge, new revealed knowledge. Mormonism, Joseph Smith, got new revealed knowledge, new way to interpret the

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Bible. Seventh -day Adventist, Ellen White, new revealed knowledge, new way to interpret scripture.

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Church of Christ scientists, Mary Baker Eddy, new revealed knowledge, new way to interpret scripture.

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Jehovah Witnesses, new revealed knowledge, new way to interpret scripture. Scientology, L.

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Juan Hubbard, new revealed information, new way to interpret scripture. Islam, new revealed information, new way to interpret or understand scripture.

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Scientific age, new revealed information, new way to interpret scripture.

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You see the connection there, folks. We can understand God's word without the scientific evidence.

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He wrote it for all people, all time. You do not have to have a science degree. And again, if we use our understanding of the scientific evidence to interpret

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Genesis 1, we should also use it for interpreting the resurrection to be consistent. That means we can throw the resurrection away if we're using modern science, folks, because it goes against all known science.

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You see the importance of this age issue now. It is extremely, I'm gonna have three conclusions.

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Then that doesn't mean we're done yet. We're not quite done yet. But three conclusions to this point. The creation days in Genesis 1 are literal days.

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Therefore, the Bible teaches a younger thousands not billions. Two, a literal historical interpretation of Genesis 1 through 3 is essential for understanding the gospel.

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See, the gospel doesn't start in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The foundation for the gospel is in the first three chapters of Genesis.

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Throw those away. We don't have a foundation for the gospel, why Jesus had to go to the cross, why he had to shed his blood, why he had to conquer physical death.

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And fourth, the first three chapters are essential for understanding who God is and his character. Matter of fact, the first three chapters are the reason the entire rest of the

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Bible had to take place. That makes those first three chapters very important. We get them wrong, folks.

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We don't have much of a Bible to stand on anymore. Michael G.

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House, PhD, nuclear engineer from one of those schools called MIT.

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A straightforward reading of the Bible indicates that the age of the universe is measured in thousands of years, not billions of years.

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Even though some professed believers continue attempts to force billions of years into the Bible record, for example, you,

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Ross, in 1895, such attempts do far more harm than good. If the

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Bible can be interpreted to allow a Christian that is billions of years old, it can be interpreted to say anything a person wants it to say.

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Remember we went through the 10 Commandments? If you don't believe the days of creation were literal days in Genesis one, then you open up the 10

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Commandments to be whatever you want them to be. Now, our ministry, creation training in this year.

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Then we're gonna answer a couple more questions. What we're about. We teach on the creation evolution issue.

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We teach biblical apologetics, and we do a lot of Christian education. What is

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Christian education? How should we be doing it? How is it different from the world? We actually have training courses where we come to your locations to do training courses, classroom style training courses.

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These are not online. We have a basic training class for teens and above and advanced training for high school and above.

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We have a communication and teaching skills workshop. That's a three -day course where we train you how to speak and teach there.

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We have a creation apologetics training colleagues. That's a five -day course. And we have a one -day course called biblical principles of education.

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Great course for anyone doing Sunday school teaching. The best way, what is the best way to do teaching to get people to understand what's going on and retain the information?

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Those are some of our training courses. We're in the middle of, we're trying to get started now on what's called the textbook project.

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It's a manual slash textbook that we would like to put together because there's nothing out there like this right now that we know of for Christian high schools and homeschools.

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It's gonna be on biblical creation apologetics. We wanna turn it into a full semester course.

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And we've already started to put together a team. We're gonna be looking at this. We think we can have it done before the end of next year, but we do need finances for that.

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We've estimated about $60 ,000 to put that manual and textbook together. And then we can give it to the schools and they can have it.

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And we'll train their teachers how to teach this also. That's part of one of our major projects right now.

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So if you wanna contact us, there's my email mbrittle at creationtraining .org.

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Our website is creationtraining .org. Or you can just go through a regular mail and just send us a letter to CTI Post Office Box 2415,

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Eagle, Idaho 83616. So that's all on there. So now that was our commercial there.

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Notice it didn't go two minutes either like we do on TVs. Here's an interesting challenge. And I thought

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I'd put this one in there because I'm hearing too many people up there. And these are supposed to be some of our theological scholars.

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And they just mess this thing up. They don't know how to answer this question. How could the first three days of creation be literal days if the sun was not created until day four?

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Well, that's a legitimate challenge. How could that be? We don't have the sun till day four. So the first three days certainly couldn't be literal days.

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Well, let's look at this. What's the definition of a year? Let's just start by asking some questions.

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What's the definition of a year? It's the time it takes the earth to go around the sun once. Okay, what's the definition of a month?

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That's the time it takes the moon to go around the earth. Those are both astronomical events. Well, here's the important one.

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What's the definition of a day? The time it takes for the earth to do one rotation on its axis.

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Do we need the sun for that? No, we don't. That's a pretty easy answer. But let's take a little deeper look at this.

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What was the light? Because it tells us that God created light in Genesis chapter one.

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And we read this in Genesis chapter one, verses three through five. Then God said, let there be light, and there was light.

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And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

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So the evening and morning were the first day. So right there, God created light. So we can have a light and dark cycle before we even had the sun.

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Now, here's something very interesting. When you go through and you look at the Hebrew here. In Genesis chapter one, verse three,

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God called the light, or O -W -R, what that word means is illumination.

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Has nothing to do with the body out there, or like the sun, or the moon, or anything else. Hey, object giving off light.

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It just says illumination. Can God create light without having a body generate that light?

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Yes, he can. If he couldn't do that, he's not all powerful. He can do that. Then in Genesis one, 14, where God makes the sun, moon, and stars, he said, it says,

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God said, let there be lights in the firmament. He's creating the sun, moon, and stars. But the

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Hebrew word is a different Hebrew word. It's matwar, which means luminous body, or luminary.

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Now he's creating a body called the sun to give us the light. But before then, the first three days, he created light without a sun, without a body to give the light off.

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He can do that. He's God. He can work miracles. Now, if there was already a day -night cycle before the sun, why did

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God have to make the sun and the stars? That's another good question. These are all valid questions. Well, he answers that question in Genesis 1, 14, when he says, then

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God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years.

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He did it so we would have a way to tell time. Don't we have a wonderful and great God there?

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So, conclusion. Verse three days of creation were little 24 -hour days. We don't need the sun for the definition of a day.

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And there are many forms of light besides the sun. God created light and God is light.

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So, we can answer that question. We don't have to fumble all over ourselves and say, well, I don't know.

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It's in the Bible, folks. The Bible gives us these answers. Mike, you didn't talk about radiometric dating methods.

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You just talked about the Bible. Know the reason I talked about the Bible? Because it's a biblical issue.

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It's not a science issue. Well, I'm gonna throw this in there anyway. And I'm gonna make this so easy that when

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I get done teaching about radiometric dating methods, you're gonna wanna go out and buy a physics book. Okay, let's try this.

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First of all, they are not scientific facts because they utilize historical evidence that no one ever observed. Let's keep that in mind.

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They're not facts of science. I know what it says in textbooks. They give exact dates. No, they do not. They don't give exact ages.

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None of these methods give an age. None of them do. What they do is measure a ratio of elements in there.

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And then an age is interpreted based on your worldview. They're based on unprovable assumptions.

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There's many assumptions. Now, I don't see that word assumptions in the textbooks. That's been conveniently left out.

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They often give ages that contradicts each other. In other words, you can take three different methods, date the same rock, and come up with three completely different ages, but that's never taught in the schools either.

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They often give incorrect ages. And ages change when new information is revealed.

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So they're not a fact at all, folks. They're far from being a fact. Radiometric dating methods, there are many scientists who do not trust the radiometric dating methods.

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And a lot of these went to secular universities. Unfortunately, there are many

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Christians who've bought in and been persuaded to trust the radiometric dating rather than the Bible. And that's sad right there.

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They have not examined the real evidence behind the radiometric dating methods. And in many cases, they have not examined what the

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Bible teaches about creation. Peter Vada, PhD in geophysics, makes this statement.

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The empirical knowledge, what is actually measured, is the ratio of isotopes or elements. The age is a questionable interpretation based on untestable assumptions.

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Here's a man who works with it all the time. Here's another gentleman, Andrew Snelling, PhD in geology.

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Radiometric dating is often used to prove rocks are millions of years old. Once you understand the basic science, however, you can see how wrong assumptions lead to incorrect dates.

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Vernon Cupps, PhD in nuclear physics. Of the eight assumptions, none can be considered to rigorously hold in all situations.

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Therefore, dating by this method is at best a hypothesis concerning the age of a rock sweep or material, mineral.

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It is certainly not a scientific fact. Then John Reed, PhD in geology, states, but there are many problems with all these methods.

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Radiometric dating is not reliable and relies on several assumptions that cannot be scientifically demonstrated.

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And finally, Jim Mason, he has his PhD in experimental nuclear physics, says this. The fact that radiometric ages for rocks of known ages turn out to be so seriously inaccurate is a strong suggestion that one or more of these assumptions is incorrect.

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So right there, you see, not all scientists believe in the radiometric dating, and there's many, many more that have abandoned the radiometric dating methods because they're all based on assumptions and the interpretation of what we get is based on your worldview.

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Are you starting with God's word or are you starting with man's word? When we look at age and observable science, note we're finding in coal and diamonds, carbon -14.

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Why is that so important? Because after about 80 to 100 ,000 years, all carbon -14 should have decayed out of coal and diamonds.

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So why is the carbon -14 still in all these coal samples and diamonds? The only reason is they're not that old.

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We're finding carbon -14 in dinosaur bones all over the world and other fossils. They're supposed to have been dead for 65 million years, but all the carbon -14 should have been gone well under 100 ,000 years.

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We're finding soft dinosaur tissue that shouldn't be soft. We're finding it all over. We're finding proteins and red blood cells in fossils that are supposed to be millions of years old.

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Mount St. Helens created canyons, large canyon in a matter of days and many layers of sedimentation in a matter of hours.

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The fossil record came in an explosion, fossil graveyards are demonstrations. Fossil record does not support evolution. See, there are many observable things we have out there that support a young earth and they're not based on assumptions.

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So we have questions here. We're coming up to questions and I have actually one more thing

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I wanna do, just one more. I think we have a few minutes here. Here's another popular one.

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Challenge, 2 Peter 3. But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is what the

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Lord is, a thousand years and a thousand years one day. Doesn't the Bible right there teach a day can be a long period of time?

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I know a lot of Christians out there using this one to support the days of creation for long periods of time. Well, two questions about that verse.

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What does the word day mean in this verse? And can this be applied to Genesis?

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Genesis chapter one. Let's do our homework here. Answering the challenge.

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We're gonna look at the context, the style of writing, and then we'll come to a conclusion. So we're told that one day can be like a thousand years.

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That means the days of creation be a long period of time. Well, hold on to that one. Step one, context. When you read above 2

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Peter 3 .8 and below 2 Peter 3 .8, what you find out is the full context refers to the end times in the character of God.

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It says nothing about Genesis. So right there, we're taking God's word out of context, referring to the end times that God created time.

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He's not bound by time. So it has nothing to do with the book of Genesis. Second is the style writing.

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Notice it says again, but beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the

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Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years one day. Okay, in here, we have one day is with, or like.

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You see a lot of versions call that like. One day is like a thousand years.

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Then we see the word Lord as a thousand. Sometimes you'll see like there, as a thousand, like a thousand.

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That word as or the word like turn this verse into a figure of speech, which means it's not meant to be taken literally.

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Genesis chapter one is not a, does not have a figure of speech in it. It's written in the historical narrative format.

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So here what we have is a sample of people taking things out of context, as is a figure of speech, as a thousand, as one day, turns this into a figure of speech, not meant to be taken literally.

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It's, for instance, I like to use the example. He runs like a gazelle. Am I calling somebody now?

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No, I'm saying he runs like a gazelle means he runs fast, he runs gracefully. Or how about this one?

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It's another one I like to use. It was raining like cats and dogs yesterday. Am I saying cats and dogs are coming down from the clouds?

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No, I'm using a figure of speech to paint a picture. That's what a figure of speech does.

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It paints a picture. What I'm saying is it was raining like cats and dogs. It was a torrential downpour.

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That's what a figure of speech is. And that's what 2 Peter 3, 8 is. It is a figure of speech, not meant to be taken literally.

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We need to keep God's word in the context he gave it to us. So we have our context, we have our style of writing.

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Our conclusion is 2 Peter 3, 8 cannot be used to change the word day in Genesis one to mean long ages, or we're taking

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God's word out of context. So we've answered that challenge. And now I'm ready to go to the question answer session.

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Again, there's our email, mriddle at creationtraining .org. That's mriddle at creationtraining .org.

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Our website is creationtraining .org. Or you can just write us a letter or send us a postcard.

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CTI post office box 2415, Eagle, Idaho, 83616. So I'm ready to, and if I don't get any questions, can