Ark and the Darkness - Movie Post Show (20-minute version)

Welcome to the Answer Center at the ARC Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky. I'm Pat Roy and you made an excellent decision.

You stayed through the credits and now you're about to receive your reward because we're going to spend some time with the men that actually helped to make the movie and let me introduce them very quickly.

To my right here is Dr. Andrew Snelling, Geology with Answers in Genesis. We've got

Dr. Randall Price, Archeology, Liberty University. We've got Dr. Terry Mortenson, History and Theology, Answers in Genesis.

We've got Dr. Tim Chafee, who is Theology with Answers in Genesis. And then also Dr. Dan Biddle, who is

President of Genesis Apologetics and also Executive Producer for ARC in the Darkness.

And gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. So you know I have always said that the creation message and the evidence for the flood is so powerful that it can turn wimpy

Christians into powerful Christians. And Dr. Biddle, that's actually your story, right? It is,

Pat. I think it was about 12 years ago I attended a talk by Dave Bisbee, our Vice President. The talk was titled something like,

Dinosaurs Walk with Man. And I just couldn't believe that someone in Christianity would actually think that.

I'm a behavioral scientist by training and I've testified in federal court cases for about 20 years on research and statistics and evidence.

And it was about halfway through Dave's talk I thought there is a lot of evidence that he's going over here. So I had to take about a 90 -day hiatus.

I plunged in the topic of dinosaurs, geology, and Noah's Flood. I became not just convinced that dinosaurs walk with man, but overwhelmingly convinced.

And it began a huge life change for me and eventually led to the formation of our ministry. And I think

I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that every one of us sitting here today have had a complete life change as a result of this.

Yeah, well I think for each of us could testify that it gives us great confidence in Scripture. That it's true from the very beginning to the very end.

So it's helpful in that way as we grow in our faith and our trust in God's Word. Well I came to Christ as a first -year university student and one of the first questions

I had was, what about evolution? What about the millions of years? And I was introduced to some books that helped me to see that this is a massive lie.

And then went to seminary and none of my professors believed Genesis about the age of the earth.

And I learned early on that the Flood was really critical to the question of the age of the earth.

And so then the Lord led me to do a PhD in England. As I studied where this idea came from and I realized it was the rejection of the

Flood and the rejection of the biblical chronology that was the foundation for then

Darwin's Revolution. This has deepened my convictions about the truth of God's Word and given me a passion to share with other

Christians because most of them haven't thought about this issue, particularly of the Flood.

When I went to seminary years ago Pat, in the same breath the professor said, well if you want to believe in the

Hebrew earth has to be young than the six days or real days the Genesis genealogies lead back to a young earth that was created recently.

Because you've got Adam as a first man taking stewardship over the earth with Eve. But then he said, but if you believe in science earth has to be millions of years old so you guys go figure it out.

That sent me through a long journey of what's called cognitive dissonance. How can this exist and that exist at the same time?

So when I discovered that Genesis is a true history book, for me it was like being born again, again.

My head was like chiropractically aligned with my heart because I understood that the world had its narrative and the

Bible's got its narrative and the Bible was actually more true and valid than what the world had been telling me.

So it was like a huge shift and now my my head was given permission to believe what my heart knew was true.

So it is true that the creation message and the evidence for the Flood is so powerful that it does change life.

You guys are testimonies to that and I'm sure there's lots of testimonies out there as well and it's just the power of God to be able to change people's lives.

I would like to read for you 2nd Peter chapter 3 verse 3 through 7. Knowing this first that scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own lusts and saying where is the promise of his coming?

For since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. For this they willingly forget that by the word of God the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of water and in the water by which the world that then existed perished being flooded with water.

But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

Gentlemen you're you're out there talking about this all the time. Is it true are there scoffers? Absolutely and we're told that these scoffers will be willingly ignorant.

In other words they will deliberately reject the evidence that creation occurred, the flood occurred and they'll argue therefore that you

Christians talking about Jesus coming again and they'll laugh at it. The key phrase there is they will assume that all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation and so today's processes are slow and gradual with the occasional earthquake and volcanic eruption and so they say that's the way it's always been.

You remember in John chapter 2 when Jesus turned water into wine he sent the servants with the wine to the master of the feast and the master of the feast looked at that wine and on the assumption that grapes always produce wine over a long period of time he was using his human reasoning alone to say that that took a long time and this was the best wine and so what these scoffers are doing are using their own human reasoning they're ignoring

God's Word the eyewitness testimony that we have said the evidence is there and they use that to deliberately reject because without the millions of years of geological evolution there's no time for millions of years of biological evolution and so that changed the world people say but can the majority of scientists been wrong absolutely what did

Jesus say in his Sermon on the Mount narrow is the way and the gate that leads to life broad is the way that leads to destruction a few there be that find it the majority will choose to reject

God's Word are we going to trust what God's Word says the one who knows everything who's never makes mistakes never told lies and saw what happened and told us what happened what are we gonna believe the fallible finite scientists who weren't there right so tonight you sat in the theater and you've heard all of the evidence presented on the movie and I would say they're kind of faced with the challenge right now right are you going to be a scoffer are you gonna be somebody that just trusts

God's Word and when you do all of the evidence fits into it you were about to say something you would agree with that right is that you know one thing what happens is that these scoffers have totally dismissed the

Word of God as a source of authority and so they're leaning on themselves also they have to because their moral inclination is such that if they came to the

Word of God it would condemn them so if the flood didn't happen like the two hours of evidence that we just watched or was an allegory or myth now we have the credibility of Moses at stake

David at stake in his writings Peter and his writings Paul and now Jesus so five major biblical authors now all their credibility is at stake if the flood was a little local flood or was an allegory or a myth they all referred back to the flood as a worldwide cataclysm so we're deciding whether we're gonna believe the scientific majority or God but also it's increasingly difficult for the

Christian because you have to decide whether you're gonna believe God's Word or the theological majority and I'm not talking about the theological liberals

I'm talking about professing evangelicals who say they believe the Bible is

God's Word who say they believe Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead for their salvation and yet when they get to Genesis 1 to 11 it's like all of their understanding of how to interpret the

Bible goes out the window most Christians will say well man was made in the image of God we all descended from Adam and Eve and there are only two genders male and female and God made marriage a man and a woman there's only one race but the

Bible also clearly teaches that God created in six literal days he destroyed the world with a global catastrophic flood and the whole universe is only a little more than 6 ,000 years old it is inconsistent to believe the first five things

I talked about the moral issues but to reject the history because those moral issues are grounded in the history of Genesis so when

Christians and Christian theologians start messing with those early chapters of Genesis say well it doesn't actually literally mean this it opens the door to rejecting the

Bible's teaching about marriage, morality, sexuality, gender, the sanctity of life and so what is disturbing to me is to see so many

Christian leaders who will be saying we need to fight the moral issues but they'll say oh well the age of the earth creation that doesn't matter it's foundational and the foundations of the scriptures have been under massive assault for 200 years starting with the rejection of the flood and the biblical chronology and it's just been intensifying over the last few decades.

Right, exactly. Matter of fact as you say that when we talk about things like the flood and the judgment that's actually setting the foundation for the gospel message right?

Just as Noah and his family were saved from the physical consequence of the flood drowning this world is gonna be judged again and this time by fire the

Bible talks about Peter talks about that and God has provided the means of eternal salvation through his son

Jesus Christ who came to earth as one of us lived a sinless life and then he went to the cross and died in our place paying the penalty for our sins and then three days later

God raised him from the dead showing his power over sin and death power over that curse and offers eternal life to all who believe in him and so in a sense

Jesus is our ark of salvation that we received through faith God so loved you and I that the creator of the universe came to die for each one of us that's how valuable we are in God's sight and as a creator had power over life so he could rise from the dead

God is justified because we fell short but in his grace and his love and his mercy he has provided a way there was plenty of room on the ark for thousands more people but they rejected the message so there was only one door that they could enter the ark they were warned and they didn't and there's only one door

Jesus said I am the door there's only one way to enter into the narrow way that leads to life that Jesus guarantees because he rose from the dead that to me is just so over and humbling overwhelming and humbling that God values me because he made me he values what he made it's nothing that I did it's all all he's doing that's what the gospel is all about God's work in redeeming a fallen mankind buying them back providing a way of escape just really provided the way of escape for Noah and the animals on the ark the whole

Bible is giving us this message of creation fall redemption and restoration and the problem with Christians and theologians who accept the millions of years whether they realize it or not what they're really believing is that we had millions of years of death and disease and suffering and extinction of animals and God made the world that way and if that's really true if those millions of years are really true if the flood never really happened then when

Jesus comes again he's not coming to fix a world that was ruined by his righteous judgment of sinful people he's coming to fix a world that he did a lousy job of creating and so the gospel is related to that history in Genesis 1 to 11 you know what we need to land this plane but before we do

I want to address two types of people that are sitting in the audience right now and you guys all in your personal ministries

I know you've met the same person they're the ones that have got all of the books and all the videos on their shelves they know all of the creation evidences but for some reason they've never just had the opportunity to use that information to allow the

Lord to change somebody's life they've come to the theater tonight they're fully behind us they probably could even teach a lot of the same things we did but how do they allow the

Lord to use them to use this information to see the Lord change lives well

I think the key thing Pat is that we with all our arguments will never convince anyone it's only a work of God's Holy Spirit we don't have to think well

I'm gonna convince this person no just tell them what we know let the Holy Spirit take over Jesus when he was approached by skeptics he often asked a question of them so if a skeptic comes and says ah the

Bible's wrong there never was a flood you say them wait a minute if the flood really occurred whatever this was you expect to find and that while they're umming and ahhing because they've never thought about that you get out the

Genesis chapters 6 through 7 8 and you read it to them and you say see all the high hills under the whole of heaven wouldn't you expect to find billions of dead things buried in rock lies lie down all over the earth that's exactly what we find they've got an answer to you and they show that they don't know the answers well then you're there ready to provide the answers well you know

I love this because I think a lot of times people feel like they have to reach a certain level of having all of the information right

I love what you're saying dr. Snelling is sometimes it's just as simple as asking questions you can find out where they're at are we really serious about this message that there are people who will perish if they do not know and so as we look at this final judgment what sort of people we to be we ought to be those who come with a great passion a great conviction and speak to those who have not heard so we need to be bold I would start by pointing them to the issue of the problem of millions of years of death and disease and suffering because most people when they say well you know

God created over millions of years destroys the Bible's teaching about the original very good creation destroys the

Bible's teaching about the impact of the fall on the whole creation and undermines why

Jesus is coming again to restore the creation so most Christians most theologians haven't thought that issue through and it's critical and so when

Christians begin to grasp that then they say wow this is really connected to the whole Bible and why

I'm trusting Jesus the goal is not just to persuade them that that creation is true the goal is not just to show how many arguments you've learned and how right you are and how wrong they are the goal is to lead them to the gospel of Jesus Christ and also the

Romans 1 I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for the power of God unto salvation to those who believe to the

Jew first and then to the Greek or Gentile and I think we need to keep the gospel at the forefront of what we do but those arguments that skeptic use those can be stumbling blocks that prevent people from seeing the cross so we want to deal with those but never lose sight of the goal gentlemen that was all very powerful and it's super important that we do that it's we don't want to just collect information but we want to use it to see lives be changed so I really encourage you to pray about that you know

I think there's also a second type of person that's in the audience right now and maybe you're someone that came tonight and as you were watching the movie all of a sudden you were overwhelmed with the fact that there is evidence for what the

Bible says and you realize that it's true and dr. Biddle you had that experience in your life can you kind of share with the audience of what that journey is like what do they need to do to to be go from being a wimpy

Christian to being a powerful Christian I don't know if I would have taken that journey if I didn't first approach scripture with the humility of a child because I had missed it for the first 30 years of my

Christian walk I didn't see the truth of Genesis in creation I used to sit in in circles around church and just hear people talking about a young earth or man walking with dinosaurs and really arrogantly think of these people like well they're just part of the

Christians that are the cute homeschoolers or they're the fundamentalist or whatever I can't believe they believe in this stuff but the tables got turned on me because when

I really approached this topic with humility and inquisitiveness and humbled myself under God's Word like a child then the

Lord took me on a faith discovery journey where I discovered it's all true and came to places like this and went to the

Ark Encounter or walk through the halls in the Creation Museum I realized the evidence is really on our side.

How did that actually change your life? For me it was about a three -month conversion process I had been a

Christian since I was 11 years old but didn't really know what I believed about Genesis until I took the discovery looking into dinosaurs and geology and then after I came to that realization it was like being born again again it was a huge shift that I went through it changed the way

I raised my family how confident I was and with respect to evangelizing or reaching out to people because now

I knew for certain God's Word is true both theologically and historically and scientifically.

And Dr. Biddle you're the executive producer of the Ark and the Darkness it's amazing that God took you from not believing in the literal accounts of historical flood to now you're the executive producer of this movie it's really amazing the journey that God takes us on.

It's my sincere hope that everyone who sees this goes through that similar faith journey and understanding as it's truly a metamorphosis that you can go through.

Listen if you're sitting here tonight and you're saying I've got to learn more about all of this these men have produced all kinds of materials and books and videos and just all kinds of resources

Dr. Chafee can you tell us about maybe some places that they can go to learn more? Yeah sure so Dr.

Snelling and Dr. Mortensen and I we all work for an organization called Answers in Genesis which is a large apologetic organization been around for about 30 years and we've got thousands and thousands of articles on our website answersingenesis .org

where they can find out details about all of these things and so much more. If you've never been to the Ark Encounter you got to come to Williamstown Kentucky and check it out and while you're here you also have to go to the

Creation Museum so for more details about either one of those places or both those places go to ArkEncounter .com or creationmuseum .org

and the Answers in Genesis website is answersingenesis .org. Okay and Dr. Price tell us about your organization and how do they get in touch with you?

Our organization is called World of the Bible Ministries worldofthebible .com there is information basically on the

Bible and apologetics but also a unique focus on archaeology. Okay and also Ark in the

Darkness you've got a website where do they go and what will they find there? The movie website is just knowasflood .com

without the apostrophe s just knowasflood .com and they can find a whole bunch of FAQs there, short videos, they can download a free book there as well that kind of summarizes the basics of the flood just knowasflood .com.

Gentlemen thank you so much for your ministries and just how you have shared with us so much important information and for you

I really encourage you to get out there and share the information that you've heard tonight. Thank you so much for being here.