August 9, 2023 Show with Col. Jeffrey N. Williams on “The Apparent Conflict Between Science and Scripture” (Part 2)

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson,

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It's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning

issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens

another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to

have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener,

with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on

the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this ninth day of

August, 2023, and I'm thrilled to have back on the program a returning

guest.

He is going to be discussing part two of a topic we began on July

5th of this year.

His name is Astronaut Colonel Jeffrey N. Williams, who orbited the

Earth more than 8 ,500 times, walked in space five times, totaling 534

days in space, and captured more photographs of the Earth than any other astronaut in

history, many of which are found in his book, The Work of His Hands, A View of God's

Creation from Space, published by Concordia Publishing House.

And today we are addressing part two of the apparent conflict between science and scripture,

gleaning from the mind, career, and experiences of a Christian astronaut who truly believes God

made the Earth by his power, established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding,

stretched out the heavens from Jeremiah 10, verse 12.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back for part two of our discussion, Colonel Jeffrey N.

Williams.

Thank you, Chris. Great to be with you again.

I'm going to give our listeners our email address right away in the event that they'd like to join us on the air with a

question for an astronaut.

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

at gmail .com.

As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter.

And once again, I am dedicating this interview to the memory of my dad,

Harry E. Arnson, who was on the team that designed the Lunar Module,

also known as the LEM, back in the 60s.

And I miss my dad very much, and I know that he would have been absolutely thrilled and delighted to

hear this interview today.

Well, before we go into our discussion, part two of our discussion on the apparent conflict between

science and Scripture, why don't you inform our listeners, if they are hearing you for the first time in this

program, or remind our listeners who did hear you the last time, about your book, The

Work of His Hands, A View of God's Creation from Space, published by Concordia Publishing House.

Yeah, the book was published in 2010.

It chronicles a flight that I performed in 2006.

It was my first of three six -month stays, expeditions on the International Space Station

when we were about halfway through the building of the space station.

And my goal in the book was just to attempt to vicariously take the reader

to the vantage point of low -Earth orbit and experience some of the main

events of the flight through a written description of the flight and some

photography from launch to landing to include spacewalks and visiting space shuttle

crews and other major events, but then also to consider from the vantage point the view

of the Earth and to consider the works of God in creation, how He sustains His creation,

provisions His creation for our good and for His glory.

Praise God.

And, by the way, this is an absolutely breathtaking book.

It's one of those books that you could accurately label as a coffee

table book because it's large, large hardcover book with breathtaking,

vividly clear, full -color photographs on excellent stock

paper.

And what a great way to spark conversations with

friends and loved ones, especially if they are not Christian, by having this book on your

coffee table as you're sitting around enjoying a visit from them and have them look at

this and say, hey, what's this about?

And I'm sure that many, if not all of them, will be utterly shocked that a

conservative evangelical Christian and young Earth creationist is an

astronaut and has taken these photos.

So it would be a great way to spark conversation, I'm sure.

We already have a listener that I want to read his question right off the bat.

He is somebody that you know, and he's a dear friend of mine as well.

I usually only give first names, cities, and states of listeners who send in questions,

but because of the fact that this brother, this very dear brother, is a pastor of

a very vital church right in the heart of Manhattan, which

is one of the only churches in Manhattan that has the

courage and the conviction and unwavering commitment to

truth and the necessity of exposing error, who is openly

and publicly opposed to all things woke and under that umbrella of

the woke and social justice movement.

Speaking of my dear friend, Pastor Andy Woodard, who is the pastor of

Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Manhattan, and if you want any more details on this church,

go to pbc, which stands for Providence Baptist Church, .nyc,

pbc .nyc for New York City.

But our friend, Pastor Andy Woodard, says, First of all, send

my greetings to Jeff as we were d -men classmates at the Master's Seminary.

Secondly, this is a serious question, but I don't mind if you laugh.

Jeff, how would or should Christians respond to the idea

that the earth is flat and the spherical earth view is a conspiracy theory created

to discredit the Bible?

He has another question I'll go to later, but if you could answer that question.

Well, good to hear from you, Andy.

I hope you're doing well.

Yeah, we had a great time going through the d -men program.

Yeah, that question pops up all the time, and I used to try to engage in it with a

logical argument, but logic can't engage oftentimes.

People are caught up in it, they're confused.

I mean, I ask people, just imagine how hard it would be to keep the secret if that was true.

It would be impossible, plus all the practical experience that we have in life.

So I try to boil my answer down to two words and try to be patient and gentle in those

words, but it's just utter foolishness.

Yes, he follows up by saying proponents of this view build it on a few

ideas.

Early NASA rocket scientists being former Nazi engineers and NASA

photos being photoshopped and the firmament concept.

Any response to any of that?

Yeah, again, it's just components of utter foolishness.

If you go and look at the argument, none of those arguments stand.

And he says, can you respond from both a biblical view and a scientific experiential

view?

Oh, you already did.

I'm sorry, that was the same question.

Further, is this even an important issue, as it seems to be increasing in churches,

given that many other conspiracies have proven true in the last couple of years?

So is this even something important to bring up because of its growing popularity?

I'm sure.

I mean, I'm not an expert on the the polls of this, but I'm sure it's

still a tiny segment of humanity and especially of Christianity that believes this.

But yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I would agree.

It's a small, very small percentage of folks caught up in this.

And conspiracy theories are very attractive to folks.

Folks get caught up in it and every one of them has elements of truth, I suppose.

You could argue.

Is it something that is important to address?

Yes, insofar as it's a growing state of confusion

among particularly believers that bring great discredit,

frankly, upon the faith and make us targets for ridicule.

And I think we're going to get in a little bit of history later or go back to some history.

And there were some elements of history that were either misguided or thrown out or

put out of proportion, blown out of proportion, or just elements that were frankly

lies to begin with in an attempt to discredit the church.

So when it comes from within, it is an issue that needs to be addressed.

And Pastor Andy's last question was, and of course he doesn't believe this, but he wants you to answer it for the sake

of those who do believe it.

Was the moon landing faked?

Obviously you wouldn't even admit to it if it was, but I'm sure that you have some

answer to that because it is.

Well, that's the irony.

If you ask me the question, and of course by those that believe that, I'm part of the conspiracy.

I'm part of the evil team conspiring in the lie.

But of course we landed on the moon.

I tell folks, I just ask them the question.

Just imagine how many people, tens of thousands of people were involved in it over

many years throughout the 60s, and then we finally landed in 1969.

We landed six times on the moon.

A seventh attempt, if you include Apollo 13, involved all those people, to

include our enemies in the Cold War, the Soviet Union, who we were in the race to

achieve that goal.

They gave up before we actually achieved it.

They gave up the race.

They knew they couldn't make it when their N1 rocket blew up.

But they were watching, and we were spying on each other and all of that, and we did it six times.

And then over half a century goes by.

Can you imagine how hard it would be to keep the secret with all those people over all that time, doing it so many times?

It's much easier just to have gone and done it.

Yep.

Well, thanks, Pastor Andy.

And guess what?

I've got some great news.

You have won a free copy of the book, The Work of His Hands.

Thanks to our friends at Concordia Publishing House, who have provided us with a

limited number of copies of this book to give away to listeners who submit questions.

And I hope to see you at some point in the near future, Pastor Andy.

And, in fact, I hope that you can make it to my next Free Pastors Luncheon,

Free Pastors Luncheon on Thursday, October the 5th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of

the Living Christ in Lloydsville, Pennsylvania.

My guest speaker for the conference this year is Jeff Noblitt, the founder of Anchored

in Truth Ministries and the pastor of Grace Life Church of the Shoals in Muscle Shoals, Alabama,

who is a powerful preacher and firm believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace.

So I hope to see you there.

I'll read one more question before we go into some of the areas that you

didn't have time to cover last time that you wanted to cover today.

But we have Ted in Moundville, Alabama.

And I did ask this question of you when we were running out of time, and you, I think, gave a

two -word answer to it.

You were totally dismissing the phenomenon.

But I'll give you a chance maybe to be a little longer in your answer this time.

Ted from Moundville, Alabama says,.

Does your guest have any comment on the recent congressional hearings on UFO phenomenon,

and particularly the whistleblowing accusations of David Grush or Grush?

I don't know how to pronounce that.

Yeah, well, I have to admit, I didn't really watch it in detail.

All I did was read the headlines and short reports of what went on there.

To me, it's sort of a bizarre distraction.

I'm not sure exactly why it's getting all the attention it is, but I don't give it much credibility.

I don't want to go too long and waste too much time on this, but I will tell you that the A

&E Channel Network years ago held a program, and it was one of their

so -called documentaries.

And they had me, they had footage of me looking out the window of the space station, which was true footage.

It was really me, but they framed the story as if I was watching a UFO outside the space station.

They told the story.

And I had a friend let me know about it, but they made it up, and they call it a documentary.

Well, I have a recommendation, Ted, if you are familiar with

Apology Studios and Jeff Durbin, who is a Reformed Baptist pastor in Mesa, Arizona.

He has been doing some programs on that, where he and some

guests have theories about this being a demonic masquerade of some kind.

If it's not a full -blown hoax by the whistleblower and others,

perhaps to distract the public from Joe Biden and his family's atrocities,

that perhaps it's some kind of a demonic thing going on.

And so I would urge you to look that up.

I'm sure he's going to have more of those interviews to come on Apology Studios.

That's Jeff Durbin.

You can look it up.

Apology at Church in Mesa, Arizona.

Okay, well, we covered a lot of things last time in our interview that are actually

pertinent to the theme of the apparent conflict between science and Scripture.

What would be one of those things that we failed to cover last time due to time restraints?

Well, we kind of rushed through it.

I think I'd like to review a little bit of what I introduced the audience to last time.

Sure, definitely.

Yeah, maybe go into a little bit more detail with the time we have now.

First off, I get the question all the time.

How can you be in this business as an astronaut or in the world of science and be a believer?

Isn't it incompatible?

How can you survive?

How do you reconcile the supposed incompatibilities?

And my answer is short and sweet.

There's absolutely no conflict between science and Scripture.

They're perfectly compatible.

That is true science.

And I'll even add practical experimental science, as opposed to some of the theoretical

science, which gets more into philosophy than science.

Some of this modern science that we're exposed to.

The conflict is not between science and Scripture.

The conflict is in your presuppositions going into your science.

So it's a philosophical conflict.

And it falls in one of two categories.

Either you believe in a God who has revealed himself in varying ways,

to include his creative work, and he is the cause of everything.

And I'll say that in a general category.

And, of course, I would specifically say he has ultimately revealed himself in his word and the

person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

That's the first category.

Or the second category basically is there is no God.

Everything has occurred naturally.

And I have to explain why the existence of everything is as it is.

Those are the two categories.

That's a philosophical conflict.

Now, last time I mentioned briefly that what we know is the age of

science, or the scientific revolution.

And some of the big names, I think I named Johannes Kepler, who is famous for his

work in astronomy and planetary motion.

And he was so precise in his studies that he missed

the timing, as I recall, the orbit of Mars by a few minutes.

And that was a problem that he tackled for a long time until he finally figured out the orbit wasn't circular.

It was elliptical.

And he was able to model then mathematically the orbit of Mars

because he knew there was a precision in the ordering.

And he presumed that.

So he's known, most famous for that in his work in astronomy.

Another person I mentioned was Robert Boyle.

And anybody that's been scuba qualified has learned Boyle's law, which is basically addressing the

compression of gases.

The density of gas increases under pressure.

He did broader work in chemistry.

Isaac Newton, everybody knows about Newton's laws of motion.

The most famous one being force equals mass times acceleration.

And everybody that gets, even in high school, certainly college engineering, gets

a lot of work in Newton's laws.

Michael Faraday did work in electromagnetics.

And he's got laws and equations named after him.

Louis Pasteur, we all have pasteurized milk.

He did work in biology.

In fact, he did some experiments on evolution and proved that

life could not just come spontaneously.

He did some experiments in that area.

James Clerk Maxwell is one of my favorites.

He did a work in electromagnetics and thermodynamics.

All of those guys and many more were theologians first.

They were convicted by the truth of scripture.

And their convictions included the account of God's creative work.

And they were convicted that his work, in his work, he not only

created all things, but he ordered all things.

And he gave it a precision in the ordering.

And that ordering could be translated into what we know as laws, laws of nature.

But the laws of nature were not written on the creative.

They weren't labeled on the creation.

They weren't obvious.

They needed to be discovered.

And to be discovered, one would make observations and come up with a theory or a

hypothesis.

And then do experiments and test the hypothesis, either to be true or false.

And if it was false, they would adjust the hypothesis and continue the experimentation,

continue the exploration, if you will, into this phenomena, until they came up

with a description of what they saw as the order.

And that translates into mathematical equations or laws of nature,

etc.

These guys were convicted by the scripture first.

And then they felt that they were called in their calling in life to study

the works of God and to discover these laws, discover this ordering.

And we know that the order then has utility.

It's, you know, all things that God created are for our good and for his glory.

Certainly the heavens declare the glory of God.

But we also know that the provisioning of God's creation are for our good.

We grow crops for food, etc.

There's so many ways that we gain provision from his creative work.

The air we breathe, the water cycle, water is essential to life.

But that ordering is also a key component of understanding God's

provisioning of his creative work.

And I like to use or start with the mathematical order.

I love math.

I've always loved math and science since I was really turned on to it way back in sixth grade

with the inspiration of a sixth grade science teacher.

And it has fascinated me more and more throughout my life.

But it is direct evidence of this order that I'm speaking of that

is discoverable, that it's intelligible.

Mathematics, which is incredible in and of itself because it describes so much that we

can observe and see and then we can predict.

It is not invented by man.

It's discovered by us.

It has been discovered.

That's what drove those guys.

And I would say in a large measure, Western civilization has grown the way it has grown.

And all the engineering and technology and advancements that we often take

for granted came out of that biblical worldview.

And we don't have time to go into it today, but the scientific endeavor that

came out of that, the post -reformation, largely out of England, Oxford, Cambridge, and

institutions like that, also Scotland, came out of the convictions of the biblical

worldview in contrast to some of the scientific work that was done even earlier

in the Arab community, in the Chinese community, in the Greek community, which made

some great discoveries.

Those communities made some great discoveries in history, but they didn't have the same worldview that kind of drove them

to build on the discoveries.

They were more of novelties that kind of came and went with each passing

generation.

So the worldview was critical.

They were theologians first.

They were driven by their theology.

They were driven in their calling into science.

That's very important for us to understand science.

In fact, could you pick up where you left off there about the theology and worldview of the greatest

scientists of history when we return from the break, because we have to go to our first commercial break?

Absolutely.

All righty, folks.

If you have a question for astronaut Colonel Jeffrey N. Williams on the

apparent conflict between science and Scripture, and we need to emphasize the word apparent,

our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

As always, give us a first name, at least your city and state and country of residence.

We'll be right back with Colonel Williams after these messages don't go away.

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We're now back with astronaut Colonel Jeffrey N. Williams and we were discussing before the break

or you were explaining how the greatest minds of science

from years past had their biblical worldview and their theology

first and foremost in their mind and they in no way believed that the amazing

discoveries they made and the conclusions that they came to were in any way contradicting the Word of God and perhaps you could pick up where you left

off there.

Yeah, you bet.

Maybe it's good to give a little bit more illustration of what I talk about when I'm referring to

order, the ordering of God's creative work.

I mentioned mathematical order.

One illustration that's very telling, I launched four times on a rocket,

once on the space shuttle, three times on a Russian Soyuz from different locations on the Earth

with the intention to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station.

We would launch from each of those times.

We would launch at a specific time of day that was driven by the mathematical prediction that we could

only launch at that time of that day in order to later rendezvous with the Space Station.

And we would fire the rocket for less than nine minutes and after nine minutes with the continuous acceleration

we would be going orbital velocity of about 17 ,500 miles an hour in the

inertial orbit of the Space Station but maybe on halfway around the world, you know, on the opposite

side or leading it or behind it.

It varied from launch to launch.

But then we would set up a rendezvous profile by making our orbit elliptical at just the right point so

that we could predictively rendezvous with the Space Station.

And in the first couple of instances, it was about 48 hours after launch where we rendezvoused and docked with the

Space Station precisely lining up with the docking port and making contact at

about 0 .1 feet per second plus or minus an inch of air from center line.

That's only possible because we can predict it mathematically with the laws of

physics.

That's pretty incredible.

Not to mention the chemistry of the rocket motors and the design of the motors to

feed the fuel, the propellant and the oxidizer to the engine at just the right proportions,

at just the right speed to produce just the right amount of thrust to thrust the

rocket in a very precise direction for a precise length of time and make all that work.

That is possible because of the mathematical ordering and it's a fruit of science which leads to

engineering, which leads to technology development and the capability that we often take for

granted.

Another example of the order I often bring up as an illustration that everybody has been exposed to

in school, in high school at least, is the periodic table that

we get in chemistry.

It is amazing to me that all of the elements that have been discovered, the basic elements, have the

precise composition that can be measured in effect with whole

numbers in the periodic table.

If you've studied the periodic table, you see many dimensions of order there.

Optics is another area.

We can precisely grind a lens to a very precise shape so that we get

something in very precise focus.

Many of us wear prescription lenses to either read or to see in distance.

Most of us have looked through a microscope to make things that are very small look big and

bring clarity to the image or a telescope to bring things far away close

and bring clarity to the image.

All of the optics are an illustration of

this ordering of God's creative work.

Electromagnetic spectrum is another area.

We've got different frequency bands for different communication or transmit information.

All of that is very precisely ordered in the harnessing of that order that's already there.

For the listeners that don't have an inclination or an interest in math and

science, perhaps music is attractive to them.

Music is another example of the ordering.

Music is mathematical.

You can take a string, say a guitar string, at a specific length and put it

at a tension and pluck it and it plays a particular note.

If you were to cut that string in half, exactly in half at the same tension, it would go up one octave.

And, of course, there's many, many ways that music can be mathematically described.

That's an example of order.

Speaking of music, there's another element, though, that we need to consider when we consider

these things, and that is our response to what we observe, our

curiosity to search things out.

I mean, why are we curious?

Why do we care?

Why are some things that we look at pleasing to the eye and other things are ugly?

Why is some music pleasing to the ear and other noise, just

dissonance or noise?

That's directly related to bearing the image

of God, which is also important for us to consider.

When you look at other world views, like evolution, humanism, we just are here by chance over time.

How do you explain the mind?

You can't explain the mind.

It's not just a function of chemical reactions in the brain.

There's something far greater than that, and the Bible tells us what that is.

We are created uniquely bearing the image of God.

We have a soul with a sense of eternity.

We have a mind with the ability to reason and remember the past and contemplate the future.

We have an intellect with a will and emotions and affections.

We have the ability to think rationally and to communicate in complex language,

to articulate in the abstract.

That also enters into this answering the call of scientists, which, by

the way, the call of a scientist is an example

of the dominion mandate right there in Genesis 1 to subdue the earth.

God created, he created the heavens and the earth, and he

gave the earth basically provisioned to

mankind, to male and female, to those created who

bear his image, and we are to have dominion over it.

And the scientific endeavor is just that.

It's an aspect of dominion and subduing God's

created order.

By the way, the word universe gives testimony to that.

A una is one.

There's a unity in the universe.

It assumes universal laws, unifying principles, underlying

unities underneath what we see and observe.

And bearing the image of God, we seek it out.

We search for it.

We explore.

We contemplate.

We experiment.

We find usefulness for something.

We develop.

We combine, and we find further usefulness.

That gives a worldview understanding, a biblical worldview understanding of, frankly, the

history of civilization.

And science is a way to understand that order.

So it's perfectly compatible with a biblical worldview.

Now, you mentioned music before.

I don't know if you have any awareness or expertise in this specific area that I'm about to ask,

but it's something that has always fascinated me, because of the fact that you mentioned that music

involves math or mathematics.

I have always wondered why it is.

This has to be a God thing, of course.

But you could have a church that doesn't have a single

soul in that church that is gifted in singing.

But if you have 100 or more people in that church, I'm not saying that this

necessarily works when you have a very tiny congregation of 10, 20, 30 people.

But if you have 100 or more, 200, 300, or 1 ,000 people, and they're singing a cappella,

it is absolutely beautiful to the ear, even though you may have very few

people, especially in a larger church.

You can have some people that are gifted singers.

But I don't know of more than a handful of gifted singers in the congregation where I'm a member,

and yet we have typically over 200 people there gathered on a Sunday, and it sounds

beautiful when people are singing together.

Is there any known math that would explain that?

Well, there is math in music.

I'm not educated in music.

I've just read some of it, but it is mathematically ordered.

It can be described mathematically.

Harmony is mathematically described.

Dissonance is not.

It's ugly to the ear.

There's certainly degrees of quality.

I'm not gifted in music and singing myself, but I love to sing.

I think there's a couple things there.

I think that perhaps you have a leadership in

worship that's magnified a little bit with the audio system, and that might help

drown out those of us that don't have that gift of singing.

But there's also a unique quality

in experiencing believers singing, praising God.

It's almost like the defects in our abilities are masked by the

praise of an assembled group of believers, an ecclesia,

a church called out, the local church.

So there's something beautiful in that.

I don't know.

That's what I think of off the top of my head as you ask the question.

Well, we have a listener, Bruce

in Oregon, Portland, Oregon, who has a question for

you.

He says, how do you combat those who are either

atheists and not Christians at all, or they are old Earth creationist scientists

who claim a very old age for the Earth and universe, who say

that the light that we are seeing from stars is one of the

proofs that the universe is a lot older than young Earth creationists

claim because of the distance of these stars and our ability to see them?

Well, I wouldn't describe it as combat.

And perhaps the questioner didn't intend it that way.

But, you know, we're to engage with those around us, and the

Bible says with gentleness and respect for one another.

So we're just to give testimony to what the Bible says, testimony to

the revelation of God.

And that applies to both nonbelievers as well as other believers that may have theological

differences with us.

And the questioner referenced old Earth and young Earth.

And then the question got narrower in regards to starlight.

And the argument says, well, if we can clearly measure the

distance to stars and they're billions of light years or millions, hundreds

of millions of light years away, then it would have taken that long for the light to travel here.

So how can the Earth or the universe be young then if it took that

long for the light to travel?

That's the question that your listener got down to.

And a lot of people struggle with that.

A lot of scientists that work in the area that are young Earthers or call themselves young Earthers

struggle with that question, and there's a couple of theories out there.

To me, and I'm not trained in that area, so I'm not a scientist in that area,

but where I've gotten to as I've addressed the question is really very simple.

The question presumes or assumes an illustration that we might

describe as a light bulb, where we have a light bulb and we turn the light switch on and then the light

begins to travel from that light bulb and travels out as far as it can be seen, and it takes time to travel

that.

So we kind of think of a creation of the star in the same way, using that illustration.

But I say, why limit ourselves to those kinds of illustrations, those illustrations that we see

in life around us?

Why can't we assume that when God created

the stars, and the scripture only says, and the stars, it's almost like an afterthought in Genesis 1,

why can't we assume the creation of a particular star included the array of light

as far as it goes out?

In other words, created it in its totality, and the totality,

it would include how it is perceived from Earth.

I don't see why that can't be the case.

Well, thank you, Bruce, and guess what?

You have also won a free copy of the book we are addressing today, or the book that we are giving away

today, I should say, The Work of His Hands, A View of God's Creation from Space,

which is a collection of stunning, breathtaking photographs of Earth from space

photographed by our guest, Colonel Jeffrey N. Williams.

And so please make sure we have your full mailing address, and we will have CVBBS, Cumberland

Valley Bible Book Service, ship that out to you at no cost to you or to us.

Let us know if you're a first -time questioner, so we can also include in that package a brand -new

New American Standard Bible, which all of our first -time questioners get for sending in questions.

Let's see, perhaps you could start answering a question.

I don't know if we have time to have you give the full answer before our midway break, which is

going to be in like three minutes.

But we have an anonymous listener who says, A couple of my closest friends

have professed to be convinced of geocentricism, that the planet

Earth, if I'm describing this correctly, is actually physically in the center of the universe,

and the universe revolves around our planet.

Is this a ridiculous lie, like the flat Earth theory, or is this something that may

have more scientific support to it?

Well, that question is always sort of confusing to folks anyway.

If you study just basic physics or mechanics or the

beginning courses of science, the center of something can be anywhere you define it.

It's your origin of your reference frame.

So mathematically, or when I study something, I can put the

reference frame, the origin, and the x's, x, y, and z, x, y, and z in this case, in any

orientation, any place I want to.

So in that respect, I can define Earth as the center of things and define that as the origin of my reference frame.

I can also define the Sun as the origin of my reference frame and describe everything there.

Because of the relative mass difference between the Sun and the Earth and the law of gravity that has

been discovered, one of the fundamental laws of nature that nobody really understands, but it can be

pretty precisely described mathematically, would argue for

the better answer in terms of where the questioner is going, is the Sun being the center of the solar

system and the planets revolving around the Sun.

But even that, mathematically, if you look at physics, there's a slight wobble in the Sun because of the gravitational

pull of the planets.

That's getting very precise, it's kind of getting into the noise.

So to me, the whole question is a little bit of a distraction.

Now, in the medieval times, when they considered the Earth as the center of the world, that was a philosophical

center and that was reputed later on as

the Sun being the center of the solar system.

So you've got to be really careful.

Those questions and those arguments can be very distracting from true meaning.

Now, in the narrow sense, the Sun is the center of the solar system, so I'll say that.

But, yeah, we've got those distractions out there.

We've also got lots of other influences that have taken away the truth that science is based on

biblical understanding.

We'll get to that more further after the break.

Yes, and we have to go to the break right now.

And if you have a question for NASA astronaut Colonel Jeffrey N. Williams, please

submit it to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please be patient with us, folks, as the middle break is always a bit longer than the other breaks.

We'll be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023, The Gospel at

War, September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, featuring Dr. James

White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

We are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference.

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian,

A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity.

The debate topic, Is Gay Christian a Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church?

So come join us for the 6th Future of Christendom Conference.

The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day Saturday,

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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I

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That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd.

On a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show

he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.

I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe

Moorcraft.

If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming,

Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr. Joe

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If you visit, have them Joe Reilligan, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener, and Mattai in County Kildare, Ireland,

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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is

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One such faithful advertiser who really believes in what Chris Hansen is doing is

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Before I return to NASA astronaut Colonel Jeffrey N. Williams

and our discussion of the apparent conflict between science and scripture, we just have a couple of very important announcements to make.

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That may be you, too, no matter where in the world you live.

If you are not a member of a biblically faithful church home and need help finding one, send me an email to

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Also, please do not forget that Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, my very dear

friend of decades, he is going to be speaking here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania,

Mannheim, Pennsylvania, to be more specific.

He is one of the speakers at the Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society's

Future of Christendom Conference.

This will take place September 15th through September 17th, that's a Friday through Sunday.

And there's also a debate that is a part of that three -day conference on Saturday, September

16th at 3 .30 p .m. Dr. White will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, who

identifies himself as a gay Christian, and the theme of the debate is Is Gay

Christian a Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church?

You don't want to miss that, and so please register as quickly as you can so you get the best price

for the registration fee.

The prices will be going up.

Go to futureofchristendom .org, futureofchristendom .org.

If you want to send in a question to Astronaut Colonel Jeffrey N. Williams, our email address is chrisarnson at

gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And Colonel Williams, before I go to any other listener questions, I want to make sure that

you finished saying what you were saying or you wanted to continue on a

thread that you had began before the break.

Well, no, we can begin however you would like to.

Okay, let's see here.

We have Lawrence in Cape Coral, Florida,

who asks, What is the most difficult thing that you face

as an astronaut and a young Earth creationist when you have scientists who are claiming to

disagree with you on important issues in that field?

Well, the question I think comes from the public

perception of the voices that are out there speaking against,

say, a biblical faith.

But those voices are transmitted through the media, they're in writing.

That's what we hear all the time.

We hear about the conflict.

The conflict is there.

We keep hearing.

Science is not compatible with scripture.

But in practice, I just don't get the challenge.

I don't have scientists challenging me.

Actually, there's more believers in the scientific community than the public would ever imagine.

Wow.

It's just the voices are not heard.

The voices are suppressed.

And the voice that is transmitted is there's conflict.

There's conflict.

You know, I think I mentioned it the last time we were together.

The whole COVID experience and the

mantra of early on that the science tells us to do this, the science says this, the consensus

of scientists is this.

If you don't comply, you're going against the science.

Those were all bumper stickers, kind of intimidating threats that turned out to be

largely empty.

There is no consensus in science.

Science is inherently questioning and challenging itself.

When science proposes a hypothesis, you experiment to

try to disprove the hypothesis.

And that's not what we experienced.

So what it did, what the public experience did in the last few years with the whole COVID thing, is actually

put a nick in the armor of the perceived authority of just the word

science or the position of being scientist.

And it's an empty shell, largely.

Again, there are many believers in the scientific community.

Well, thanks, Lawrence.

Give us your full mailing address in Cape Coral, Florida, because you have also won a free copy of the book

we have been giving away, compliments of Concordia Publishing House.

The work of his hands, a view of God's creation from space by my guest, Colonel Jeffrey.

Chris, along those lines, you said last time you welcome book recommendations.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, of course.

Yeah.

Well, let me give your listeners a couple of a couple of them.

Of course, I have many, many books.

I won't go through all of them.

But one that addresses these questions is called Redeeming Science, a

God -centered Approach, written by Vern Poitras.

And Vern is a theologian, but he also was trained, as I recall, in engineering, if not

science.

Yes, I've met him.

There's another book.

I'd love to get him on the program.

I met him face to face at an ordination service once.

Yes, yes.

I would encourage you to do that.

There's another one that I discovered a few years ago by James Nickel called

Mathematics Is God Silent.

And in these books, they not only go into the technical details, but they also go into some

aspects of the history that I will be touching on.

Another book I just discovered I think was published a year ago or so

is In the Beginning, Listening to Genesis 1 and 2 by Cornelius Van

Dam.

V -A -N, separate word, D -A -M, Van Dam.

As I recall, he's in Canada.

He's a theologian.

But I thought it was a very helpful book in addressing

Genesis 1 and 2 in the context of what we're talking about.

I'll mention one more now, and then we can transition.

But that is The Soul of Science, Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy by Nancy Piercy

and Charles Thaxton.

It's a little bit older, but it's very good.

Again, addressing some of these themes as well as the contextual

context of history.

For some reason, I can't get my mind past the name Cornelius Van Dam.

Sounds like a presuppositionalist is also a martial artist.

So you better not mess with Cornelius Van Dam's Young Earth

creationism.

By the way, folks, go to CVBBS .com and find out if

they carry those books, and they will likely order them for you.

Since CVBBS .com is a sponsor of our program, they're not a publisher.

They're a book distributor.

So they will likely be able to get whatever you need.

And if you want those names, those books repeated, we'll try to do that before the end of the show.

Or you can just send me an email.

Well, why don't you continue with some of these other apparent conflicts between science and scripture?

Yeah, the question is obvious.

It's come up.

The conflict is assumed.

That's what we learned all our lives.

Growing up in school, there was no conflict.

These scientists that I mentioned that were theologians first in the age of science, we read about them in textbooks.

But nowhere in any textbook does it acknowledge that they were believers.

We may not agree with all their theology, all the nuances of their theology.

But they were believers, and they were driven by their faith and their understanding of the Bible.

So the obvious question is, where did the conflict come from?

And I think most people assume Charles Darwin had a big part of it, and the growth of

the theory of evolution.

When I was a kid, it was called theory.

That word theory has been dropped.

Now it's just assumed fact supported by science, which is a bad assumption.

There's no science behind it.

But it's, of course, much broader than Charles Darwin.

In fact, Charles Darwin was actually a little bit publicly shy.

He was, I would say, he was even used, his work was used by

others to propagate, just as a convenient tool to propagate a propaganda campaign,

which I'll talk a little bit more about.

There are just a few names that I'll throw out.

And I threw them out last time, but I want to go in a little bit more detail this time, given the more time that we have.

There's a guy by the name of James Hutton, who was a deist.

And I'll leave it up to your listeners to go research that word, deist.

But basically, it's just a theory that, okay, God existed.

He created everything, but then he wound it up like a clock and let it go in its own way.

And he doesn't involve himself in his creation.

It was very popular in the 18th century, in particular.

And James Hutton considered himself a deist, largely, by the way, immoral.

He was a womanizer.

He never married.

He was also an alcoholic or close to an alcoholic, by some accounts.

He thought that religion was just a contrived invention of man.

And he first started promoting the idea that the earth was millions of years old.

And he suggested kind of a continuous evolution of life.

So that's the late 1700s, so long before

Darwin.

But he was a friend, coincidentally, with Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus

Darwin.

And Erasmus did a lot of the work in the same area in the research in

or formulating a theory of evolution, grandfather of Charles.

And he influenced Charles, of course, greatly later in the following century.

The year that Hutton died in 1797, another guy that was part of

this story was born, Charles Lyell.

And he's known as the one that popularized the theory of

uniformitarianism, which basically is predicted by the Apostle Peter in his

second letter, where he says that, okay, sure, I'll paraphrase, sure, yeah, Christ

is going to return.

You know, we observe things, and they've been going on as they've always gone on.

In other words, it's just we use time to explain everything.

As we observe erosion and everything else today, that's the way it's always been going on.

So the scripture, Peter, specifically in 2 Peter chapter 3, actually predicts

this in general, this theory of evolution, this uniformitarianism, this

old earth kind of thing.

It's predicted in scripture.

Lyell was a geologist.

He was also antagonistic with religion.

And he was greatly influenced by James Hutton from the previous century.

He used the concept of old earth specifically and

indirectly to undermine, to undermine indirectly the Bible, the authority of the Bible.

He didn't attack the Bible directly, at least publicly, because you could not

survive in those days.

The biblical Christian worldview was predominant, both in private life and public life.

But he sought to undermine the Bible indirectly, specifically the first 11

chapters of the Bible, with this promoting of

uniformitarianism and an old earth.

Charles Lyell was a friend of Charles Darwin, and he actually pushed him pretty hard to publish

the origins of the species.

Like I said, Darwin was a little bit publicly shy, so he needed pushing from friends and those

around him to actually get out there and make his work public.

There's another guy, he's called Darwin's Bulldog.

His name is Thomas Huxley.

He was a very aggressive atheist.

He was also known not only as Darwin's Bulldog, but he was known as Evolution's

High Priest.

And ironically, he didn't really believe in the science behind Darwin's theories, but

he saw them as a convenient tool to propagate the

undermining of the authority of the Bible.

And he started portraying theology and the clergy, the leadership

of the church specifically, because there were abuses among the clergy, but he

began to portray them as enemies of science.

So he started to set the conditions upon which

there was this perception, growing perception of conflict between science and the Bible.

But there was a book I mentioned last time.

I actually discovered this part of the history before I discovered the book, but the book confirmed a lot of the other research that I had

done.

The book, as I mentioned last time, entitled Of Popes and Unicorns.

The subtitle is Science, Christianity, and How the Conflict Pieces Fooled the World,

written by David Hutchings and James

Ungaronew.

They're both in England, as I recall.

It was just published last year, but it chronicles the historic context

and the history of two other gentlemen by the name of

John Draper and Andrew Dixon White.

They were both Americans.

One of them immigrated from England and became an American citizen, but the other one was born in America.

They lived in the 1800s and in white up until

1918.

So they were friends.

They worked together.

They were also friends of Thomas Huxley, who was in England.

And they were instrumental in what has become known as the conflict thesis.

And I think I mentioned last time your listeners can look up conflict thesis, and you'll find write -ups on the

Internet that summarize the work of Draper and White.

They were both scientists.

They were both educators as well, and they both wrote works of history or what were

purported to be works of history.

And Draper's book, which was published in 1874, was entitled A

History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science.

And it posited the thesis that the progressive power of science was

juxtaposed against the regressive and repressive power of religion.

And we still hear those words all the time.

Science is progressive.

Religion is regressive and repressive.

He invented some of that terminology in that supposed work of history.

White published a little bit later, as I recall, maybe a decade or more, two

decades later, a big volume, a big work, entitled A History

of the Warfare of Science with Theology and Christendom.

So a little bit narrower.

He upped it to the level of warfare, where Draper called it

conflict, White called it warfare, and specifically science with

Christianity, with the theology that's present in Christendom.

And his thesis was that Christianity has always been at war with science, and he's got lots of details,

lots of illustrations, lots of examples in this very large volume.

White, by the way, was also the founding president of Cornell University.

He and Mr. Cornell worked together to found the university, and

they declared that it would be an asylum for science.

In other words, we're going to separate science from this regressive power of

religion, and Christianity specifically, and so we're going to free science to do its thing.

And they purported that Cornell would be where truth

shall be sought for truth's sake, not stretched or cut exactly to fit revealed religion.

So that was their presupposition going in.

That was their thesis.

They attempted to separate it completely.

Those works of history, those two volumes, first by Draper and then by White,

were refuted within a short time, within a decade or two, by the academic world that

had a specialty in the history of science and Christianity as fabrications.

In other words, all those details, all those illustrations, all those supposed historical

accounts of the conflict or the warfare were fabrications.

They made them up.

They were not works of history, and therefore they were widely rejected by historians.

But the war image, the image, the public image has survived in popular

thinking even to this day, so much so that I would say that there is a real

conflict today, that even the scientific

community largely assumes this.

So even believing scientists often have a hard time

reconciling their scientific work with a biblical worldview because they have

been overcome by this popular image of continuous warfare, when in fact

it's a fabricated lie in what I call a very successful, perhaps the most successful, large

-scale propaganda campaign in modern history.

I'll pause there for your question or comment.

Well, we do have a listener, Darcy in Tulsa, Oklahoma,

who says, forgive me if you've already brought this up.

I'm just starting to tune in now.

But I have heard that there is a confusion over Christianity's

being at odds with science because of the fact that the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church at

one time in history was, including things such as a Roman Catholic defense

of geocentricism and the flat earth.

Am I on base here that people are confusing those things that had no biblical basis to

them that the Church of Rome defended, and it's being broad -brushed with biblical Christianity as

being an enemy of science?

Well, what that question alludes to is one of many illustrations in history where you can find, yes, certainly

problems with positions of, say, church leadership or whatnot, in this case the pope or the

official Vatican position.

And I'm not sure that the question alludes to this, but typically what is brought up is

the conflict that Galileo had, which largely is misrepresented and is

used as evidence for the conflict thesis.

But I think if we don't have time to go into it in detail, but if your listeners will

research that a little bit more, they'll find out that that story, that historic account, has been

distorted over and over and over again and does not do credit to the

facts of what Galileo was facing and what his opposition within the Church was

motivated by, or whether they were biblical or not.

Certainly there's lots of abuses in history within the Church and within church leadership.

But that doesn't distract in the final analysis of anything that I've been

advocating in our conversation today.

Thank you, Darcy.

You've also won a free copy of the book written by our guest today, The Work of His Hands, A View of

God's Creation from Space.

Make sure we have your full mailing address in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

We have Peabody, I don't know if that's a first or a last name, and Duval Washington,

who asks, What can you tell us about black holes?

What do scientists actually know about these things?

And how much of it is scientific fact and science fiction?

It's interesting.

I get that question often.

And first off, I will say that I'm not trained in that level of physics.

Actually, I've never been drawn to study that

level of modern physics to much degree.

Anyway, I mean, I'm familiar with it.

I read about it in the context of history.

But it's a theory that tries to explain what so far has been

not completely explainable.

So it's a theory.

It's a theory to try to explain what should

be required as what you could largely think of as the energy balance of the universe in the context of what

we can observe, in the context of time.

It's related to the more

modern discoveries of physics that suggest that the universe had a beginning.

But yet, it can't account for all of the energy observed.

So black holes become a theoretical method to try to

explain that.

I can't go beyond that.

I have tongue -in -cheek answered that question at one point by saying, it's just something made up by the

scientific community to try to explain something that's unexplainable.

Again, it's a theory.

It's in the news all the time.

It's in the media all the time.

So in the popular mind, it's just taken as fact.

Well, there are black holes out there, matter, antimatter.

You know, there's the birth of stars.

When we look deep into space and we see the imagery that come from the Hubble Space Telescope or the

Webb Space Telescope, it's often described as being very dynamic and exploding this,

dying that, or whatnot.

But from what we see, in the short period of time that we've been observing it, it's static.

So even those descriptive words are a little bit misleading

for the public consumption.

Thank you, Peabody.

Give us your full mailing address in Duval, Washington, because you've also won a free copy of The Work of His Hands.

And that's compliments of Concordia Publishing House and compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service,

cvbbs .com.

Giovanna in the Bronx, New York, says, This whole

concept of liberals and leftists claiming that religion is

at odds with true science, isn't it true that a valid claim could

be made that these leftists have really invented a religion of their own and

don't really follow scientific principles when they state as fact things that have

never been proven theories?

Oh, absolutely.

It is a religion.

In fact, people are inherently religious.

Nobody is without religion in that sense.

Everybody seeks to find meaning in their lives.

Again, it goes in two categories.

Either you accept God, who has revealed himself, and you search him out according to his revelation,

or you want to deny God.

And what's the root cause for somebody wanting to deny God?

Specifically, deny a holy God, who we know in our conscience we cannot stand before and be

justified.

So there's efforts to get rid of him.

And that's the history of humanity since the fall, to try to get rid of God.

Whatever label you want to put on them, humanist,

evolutionist, atheist, or whatnot, it's all different variations of human

religion.

Thanks a lot, Giovanna.

In fact, let me add this.

Let me add this.

It's all based on faith.

Even if you read the words of some of the more prominent atheists, Richard Dawkins and others,

if you actually read their words, their words are not objective scientific conclusions.

They are words of faith, just like we live by faith.

But I would argue that our faith has objective content, objective revelation, both

natural and specifically in the word.

And their faith, largely, if you look at it, if you examine it, is a blind faith.

It's a faith in faith.

Yeah.

In fact, the late Stephen Hawking, he,

as brilliant as he was, would make all kinds of comments about how he

believed that the planet Earth was populated by space aliens and things like that.

And he has no, absolute zero, basis on which to develop those

thoughts and theories.

That's just insanity, isn't it?

Exactly, exactly.

And that's an example of the blind faith.

I mean, even the word, I think you've quoted him correctly or paraphrased him correctly when he says, I believe

that's a work of faith without objective evidence.

Yeah, that's the way leftists in every sphere of life get away with

imposing their agenda on the general public because they will claim,

oh, we believe in separation of church and state.

This is not a religious idea that we are mandating.

This is basic common sense, and this is science and all that.

But it's really coming from an ideology and a worldview, and those things

are inherently religious, whether you're an atheist or an agnostic.

It's still religion.

Absolutely.

Well, we have to go to our final break, and anybody who wants to send in a question, I would strongly advise that you do it

immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We will be right back with Colonel Jeffrey N. Williams right after these messages from our

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Welcome back.

We have Reginald in Troy, New York, who asks, what is the farthest

planet that you believe human beings will ever physically be capable of

traveling to?

I think that given time and the technology development and more critically the political support,

which of course brings the funding to develop the technology, we will get to Mars.

Beyond Mars I don't think is possible.

But one day we will get to Mars.

It's been the target for decades, and there's a continual, even today, drive to

get there.

And theoretically we can get there.

Well, I really want you to have an opportunity to make sure that you have time to summarize the most

pertinent things, the most important things that you want permanently etched in the

hearts and minds of our listeners today about this issue before we leave the program.

Yeah, you bet.

Before I do that, I'm going to add a couple of books to my list that I gave already.

One is, I gave a talk in Portland, Oregon last year, I think it

was, and out of the crowd came the author of this book.

The book is called Exposing the Hidden Roots of the Evolutionary Agenda.

The subtitle is The Emperors Who Had No Clothes by Milt Marcy.

So I met Milt, had a short visit with him, and read the book.

It's well documented, and I actually reached out to him afterwards to give some

appreciation for that work.

I found it very helpful.

And the other one I can't get off the stage without mentioning is, of course, there are many

works published by the Institute of Creation Research, but one I found particularly helpful for this theme,

looking at a biblical worldview of science, is called just that, The Biblical Basis for Modern Science

by Henry Morris.

I never met Henry, the founder of ICR, the Institute of Creation Research.

I knew his son, who passed away last year.

I knew him pretty well.

Full disclosure, I serve on the board of directors for ICR.

They're doing some great work, a great group of scientists, who have sacrificed

their professional careers, because they publicly do science

in the biblical framework.

So I applaud them for that.

So that's another great book reference for science.

Yes, I've had a couple of the team members of ICR on the show.

Very good, very good.

Yeah, Randy Galluzzi is the current president, and he's doing some great work leading that organization.

I guess what I would say is this conflict is a lie.

I think I've established that.

How do we deal with it?

You know, we don't enter into battle or conflict in the worldly way.

I'm always reminded of Job 28.

Job 28 is a profound chapter, largely overlooked.

The first half of the chapter acknowledges man's amazing ability to extract the

provision in God's creation.

And, by the way, it also acknowledges the provision that's there.

And it does it using the illustration of minds and tearing apart mountains and finding

things, and things that are useful, things that are given to us by the Creator

for our good.

But then halfway through the chapter, it says, but where can wisdom be found, and where is the place of

understanding?

That's that profound word, but, which basically makes the point that

we have an amazing Creator who has provisioned His creation and turned it over to us and given us an

amazing ability to even contemplate these things and go search them out, discover them, develop them,

technology advancement, all of that, application.

But yet there's something that is not achievable by us, that is unattainable, that is

beyond our reach, and it's what Job 28 refers to as wisdom.

And if you follow the theme of wisdom, by the way, the end of the chapter says, the fear of the Lord

is the beginning of wisdom.

That's a familiar verse for most of us from Proverbs and elsewhere.

Psalm 111 ends that way as well.

If you follow the theme through Scripture, you find out that wisdom is ultimately revealed in the

person of Jesus Christ.

In places like 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and 2 and Colossians chapter 2.

And it's a reminder that we just need to sow the seed.

We need to be a faithful witness.

We need to live out and give

witness to Christ in our life as we deal with these things, with patience and

gentleness.

And ultimately, all we can do is sow the seed of truth.

And I would include truth to be natural truth that science can discover and we can build upon,

but more specifically, the truth of the gospel found in the Scriptures.

And then it's up to the Lord, by His grace and mercy, to change the hearts of those that

we're interacting with.

Amen.

By the way, I forgot to do this earlier.

I wanted to make sure our listeners knew the full original title of

The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin.

A lot of people don't realize how racist a man he was.

That term racist is thrown around a lot today in a slanderous way against people who are not

racist.

But Charles Darwin's book was originally titled On the Origin of the Species

by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races

in the Struggle for Life.

I just thought I'd throw that out there.

I forgot to do it earlier.

That's a great reminder, Chris.

I was going to do that too because it is the root of the most evil

examples of racism in modern times, like the Nazi movement,

like the founding of Planned Parenthood.

Yep, eugenics.

Well, I want to thank you so much, Colonel Williams, for again being such a fascinating and superb guest.

I look forward to many future return visits from you.

I want to remind our listeners that if you want more information about the book we were giving away today, the work of

his hands, go to cph .org.

That's the website for Concordia Publishing House, who were kind enough to give us these giveaway copies,

cph .org.

I also want to thank cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, for shipping out these books to our

winners.

I want to thank you so much, Colonel Williams, again, for being on the program.

I want to thank everybody who listened.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior

than you are a sinner.