May 1, 2019 Show with Dr. Theodore J. Cabal on “Controversy of the Ages: Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the Age of the Earth”

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

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this very first day of May 2019.

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I occasionally love to take the recommendations of faithful listeners of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when it comes to guests.

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And today's guest was strongly recommended by a student of his,

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Mary in Cork, Ireland, who sat at the teaching of our guest today at Munster Bible College in Cork, Ireland.

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And his name is Dr. Theodore J. Cable, who earned his PhD at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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He's a former ardent atheist, and now he's a professor of philosophy and apologetics at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the general editor of the Apologetics Study Bible.

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He's the author of numerous journal articles, book chapters, and professional papers.

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And today he's going to address his book, Controversy of the Ages, Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the

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Age of the Earth. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Theodore J. Cable. Oh, thank you, Chris. I'm honored to be invited. And I hope

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Mary's listening, because she's one of the true saints of God who's inspired my life greatly. So I'm honored that she would recommend me to you.

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Wow, well, I hope she's listening after hearing a glowing compliment like that. Well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address immediately if they want to ask questions about this controversy, about the age of the earth, and especially why we as Christians should not divide over it.

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Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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

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USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Before we go into the book and the topic of the book, obviously,

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I want you to tell our listeners something about the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where you are now on the faculty.

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Chris, I feel so privileged to be part of this faculty for over 20 years now.

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They're just some of the finest Christians I've ever known in my entire life.

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They're not just serious scholars who've done hard work, but they are really the real deal when it comes to their walk with the

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Lord and their commitment to the kingdom of God. So it's just a real joy to know the faculty colleagues

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I have. Then I'll say one more word here. The students have no idea what an amazing blessing to me they are.

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Getting to teach last year in Cork, Ireland, was such a great experience because not just culturally getting to be in Ireland, but to see students and people like Mary and so many others

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I enjoyed meeting. But I get to do this for a living, and I would pay to do it, to get to see the people that God's calling to teach

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His word, to take His word around the world, to share the gospel. It's such a privilege.

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So I realize people may... There are a lot of good schools and different places to go, so I'm not claiming we're the only or the best or anything like it, but I will tell you,

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I feel I've had a blessed life to get to spend over 20 years at Southern. Well, since you've been there over 20 years, you must know a very good friend of mine who retired from his post at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Tom Nettles. Oh yes, Tom has been a close friend ever since I've been here, and of course

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I knew about Tom before I came here. Yeah, the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, right?

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Well, that's right, and he actually taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, where I also was on the faculty and then a student before that, as you noted, and he has always been an inspiration to me for...

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I guess the first awareness I had of him was Baptist and the Bible that he did with Russ Bush.

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So yeah, Tom's office was right across the hall from me until he retired, and I just consider him a great saint.

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As do I. It's always refreshing to meet and to get to know somebody who is simultaneously brilliant and humble, because those two things don't go hand -in -hand all the time.

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That's very, very true, but that describes Tom well. Yeah, it sure does.

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Well, now we're going to do something that is our tradition here at Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Whenever we have a first -time guest, we like to have them give their personal testimony of salvation and provide such information such as the type of religious atmosphere you were raised in, what providential circumstances the

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Lord used to draw you to himself and save you, and so on.

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Well, thanks for asking, because I consider it a sacred trust to share this story.

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By the way, before I start it, I like to tell students and others that the very best testimony anybody has ever heard is the one you have, and you should never compare yours to another.

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But if I could, I wish I had a testimony where I had become a Christian at a very, very early age and been discipled early because you have far less damage to you that, yes,

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God not only forgives, but he restores, and I know

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I'll be with my Lord and be made like him in the age to come.

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But those are the best testimonies because you have memories and damage, and just as the

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Apostle Paul grieved over his persecution of Christians, I grieve over, before his conversion,

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I grieve over the things that I did both to God and other people in the very short time that I was an unbeliever.

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So my parents were wonderful to me. I was very blessed, but they were also, they didn't believe until some years after I became a

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Christian, and I think if they were asked, are you Christians?

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Like, now the data shows it's dropped down to a little less than 80 % of Americans these days, but that's still a staggeringly high number.

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They would have said yes, but like most Americans, if you would have asked them any kind of diagnostic questions theologically, it would have become readily apparent that they didn't have any idea exactly what that meant.

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And so we went to what is properly called a liberal theologically oriented

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Christian church. That is what that church would say about itself denominationally, and I never heard the gospel as a child.

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Bible stories seemed to me, when they were taught to me, something akin to Aesop's Fable or any sorts of non -true stories that would have a moral to them or something.

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And my parents didn't seem to take it seriously, and in fact, when I would ask my mother questions about God or the world, she not only didn't know the answers, but she didn't seem to think they were very important questions.

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And Chris, this is a strange thing to say, but I remember a strange experience

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I had, even in elementary school. I don't know the age, third or fourth grade, but I seemed to feel like I was awake.

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Maybe I was asleep. I don't know. But I woke up, and the Lord, I really believe the

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Lord spoke to me in whatever way a child could understand. He addressed me in the name I went by at the time.

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He said, Teddy, you're not going to church anymore, because my parents didn't make me. When I did go with them,

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I would sneak out and go across the street to get a soda at the drugstore. That shows how long ago this was.

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And God was saying to me, and something that I now realize

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He was saying, is you don't have any interest in seeking God or knowing your

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Creator. And of course, I had no answer for it, and in a way, as I fell back asleep that night,

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I think that I tumbled into a spiritual sleep. It was a complete sleep now.

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And there was no seeking God, and I got darker and darker. And by the time

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I was in high school, I was an avowed atheist. I would tell you about it.

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I was evangelistic about it, if I could corrupt the word. Not because I really knew a whole lot of good reasons for it, but other than the fact that it seemed my schooling taught me that I was something akin to an accidental feature of evolution.

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And I wanted to be a rock and roll star, so God has a sense of humor, Chris. If you had asked my classmates in high school, who's the least likely to become a

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Christian, it would have been I, much less a Baptist professor.

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I wanted to be a rock and roll guitar player. I was a professional lead guitarist in a band and traveled in bands.

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I went to Holland. I lived a profligate life, and it was by being in Colorado in one of the bands

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I was in that I started sensing a tug on my heart. Now, I made fun of Christianity.

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I wouldn't have considered it, but I did begin to wonder about atheism, and looking way up at the night sky from the top of a mountain scared me.

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It was as if I could see the heavens are declaring the glory of God, and I knew that I didn't know the intelligence and power behind the creation.

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I began to have an awakening morally. I told people I didn't believe that there were any objective moral values.

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I probably wouldn't have used that kind of language, but that's what I would have said, at least in the way

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I would have said it. And yet now, all of a sudden, I found myself at night on my bed really, really, really troubled by what

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I had done to other people and feeling a true sense of shame for my actions, even while professing to either be an atheist or now interested in Eastern, sort of atheistic type of religions.

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And to sort of get to the heart of the story, we had driven back to Texas from Colorado, you know, these four hippie musicians, to buy marijuana and music equipment.

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That's a bit ironic, isn't it, to go from Colorado to Texas to buy marijuana? But that's where I grew up, was the

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Dallas -Fort Worth area. So that's what we were doing. And this old school bus that we had renovated and made into something of our own version of a traveling vehicle, which was quite a sight going down the road, it broke down when we got to Texas.

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I was stuck there. And for a couple of weeks while we were waiting to get it repaired.

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And I had stolen, I guess I had checked out but not bothered to turn them back in, a number of books on religion from a library up in, public library in Colorado.

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Your listeners will be happy to know that I mailed them back to the library after my conversion.

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But I did, I was reading about every religion under the sun except for Christianity because I'd already written it off.

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I thought I'd seen it as a child. I had read parts of the Bible. Usually I'd start in the

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Old Testament and feel completely lost and disgusted with what I was reading.

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And so on a lark, I just happened to decide that if I'm going to have any credibility with people in saying that Christianity is silly or even worse,

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I needed to be at least conversant with Jesus. I had by then realized at age 20 that Jesus had something to do with Christianity.

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And so I asked a Buddhist friend, where do I read about Jesus?

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And he said, you read the New Testament. I asked my mother, Mom, do you have a New Testament? Yup. And she gave me a living

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Bible and I started reading it. And by the way, after my conversion, when

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I first went to, the only church I was taken to by a Christian friend was a little independent, fundamental established church.

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And they told me later that the living Bible was demonic.

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And I was bothered by that because God had used it to bring me to Jesus. But that's another story.

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So I was reading Matthew and it seemed like the very first time.

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And here's my goal as a 20 -year -old kid with no idea what I was getting into. And suddenly

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Jesus came alive to me. I couldn't understand what it meant.

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I didn't know terms like get saved or change your life. I had no idea what's going on.

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And I called the only Christian that I knew who had been a hippie like I was.

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And I just said to him, I'm reading the Bible, reading about Jesus, and he's fascinating to me.

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I didn't know the right language. And he was scared of me because he knew I was very aggressively anti -Christian.

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But he asked me if I wanted to go to some sort of a Bible study. And I said, sure.

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And I noticed as the day went on, it was literally the first time in years that I didn't feel any compulsion to want to smoke marijuana.

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Typically, just as an aside here, many people say there's no dangers to it.

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But even at that time, I was psychologically addicted to it. I was more high when

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I would be straight than when I was smoking pot. I couldn't cope without it. At any rate, so this was kind of interesting to me.

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And he's taking me to this Bible study. And he said he couldn't stand it any longer because I'm perfectly happy to go to this

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Bible study. And he said, I can't wait. I just need to ask you.

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And he sounded like an auctioneer. He said, do you believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins? Wilson McGrath on the third day.

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I mean, he went through the gospel in about a nanosecond. And I was sitting there thinking, well,

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I've read this much out of the New Testament that day. And I said, yeah, I do.

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And he goes, praise God, brother. You're saved. And all I knew to say, Chris, was I am.

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I didn't know what any of this meant. And that began my journey. I went to this

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Bible study. When I came home, probably somebody had told me. I don't know. But I remember kneeling at about 2 in the morning and just asking

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God to forgive me of all of these horrible sins that I couldn't wash away.

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And it was the beginning of the most amazing experience. And I'll just tell you a couple of more interesting things here to end this story.

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Chris, the next day I called the band I was in. And I said, guys,

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I can't stay in the band any longer unless we're going to do all religious music. Obviously, I was out of a job.

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But I didn't mean something like Christian hymns. I didn't know a Christian hymn. I don't even know what

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I meant. I just knew I couldn't. Maybe My Sweet Lord by the Beatles or something silly.

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I was clueless. But I knew that I couldn't stay in that lifestyle. I also now had several pounds of marijuana that is stashed in my parents' home that I wanted to get rid of.

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I didn't know that, according to Christian teachings at the time, you're supposed to either burn it, although that would have got the whole neighborhood hyped.

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I had no idea what I'm supposed to do with this. So I literally am calling all my hippie friends because I said,

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I don't want this stuff anymore, but I want to tell you about Jesus Christ. Of course, they were happy to come get free pot just to put up with me, and that was usually the end

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I would see of them. And on the middle day of that week, the assistant pastor of this church,

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God loved this church. Some of the most wonderful Christians I've ever known were in this little church. They did me so much good.

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They really did, and I'm grateful for them. But the associate pastor came over, and when he saw this hippie with hair down the middle of his chest, by the way,

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God has a sense of humor. I'm bald now, so lots of stuff here. The first thing he did was, to his credit, he ascertained was

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I really truly a believer, was I trusting Christ alone for my salvation, by grace alone, through faith alone.

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I mean, he was clear, and I could, by then I was far enough from the

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New Testament. I knew, yes, this is who I am. The second thing he asked me, he took me to 1

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Corinthians 11. Do you realize it's, you know, it's not natural for a man to have long hair, and I needed to get a haircut.

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And this was, in a way, kind of a miracle, because for a hippie to just let some guy tell him to get a haircut is pretty crazy.

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So by Sunday morning, my friend picked me up, and I hadn't smoked pot that entire week, nor ever since then, and I had done nothing but read the

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Bible. I got a haircut and a shave, and I'm wearing my dad's clip -on tie.

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My friend said, you've got to wear a tie to church. He told me, don't bring that living

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Bible. So I had about a 50 -pound black King James my mom dug up to carry. I went to church that day, and it was the most culturally shocking experience.

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All these people are sitting on these wooden benches, and I'm like, that's weird. And they're looking at me because I don't look like one of them, and I'm looking at them.

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And the music is weird. I can't relate to it.

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And the pastor is mad. He's preaching out of the Old Testament. He seems mad.

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At least he's pounding and yelling. But the weirdest thing, Chris, is on the wall behind any of them, they've got a hot tub built in the wall with the

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River Jordan painted behind it. And this whole thing is just the weirdest experience for me.

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And yet I realized this was home. I knew without really understanding these were my new family members and that something had happened to me.

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And that night I was baptized in that little baptistry, and friends and family came to see it.

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Some thought I was crazy, maybe too many drugs or whatever. And that began my journey.

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And much of what I had to learn was how to figure out the connection between what is the

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Bible saying and what is this crazy world of American Christianity because there were so many options.

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But that's another story. So that's how it all started for me, Chris. And to this day, to me,

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I have this deep reverence for my Savior for saving me from such a horrible, undeserving, sinful past, and for the

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Bible that made him real to me. And to me, I like to think of this in apologetics, that in a healthy conversion, we come to love our

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Savior and we know him like a person. But we also revere the

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Bible as God's word. The Bible is to us, even if we've never studied apologetics, we don't know anything about it.

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Just like that first week, I didn't know anything about the Bible. I just knew it was true without knowing why it was true.

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And I knew that I wanted to spend my life getting to know the Savior better and this

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Bible better, and I didn't want to run from challenges. I had this deep, abiding conviction that it was true and that I wanted to look into whatever there is out there, if it's another religion or if it's science or whatever, attacks on Christianity.

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I knew that it was true and that even if I didn't know the answer, I could keep looking for them.

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That was how deep that conviction was. And that has not left now for more than 40 years.

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That's still with me. I don't have all the answers. Nobody does except the Lord. But I have more than I did, and he's never disappointed me as a person, and the

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Bible has never disappointed me, nor has my confidence lessened. It's only grown. Praise God.

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Just one quick story that you might find humorous since you were talking about long hair before.

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When I first started visiting regularly a church outside of my

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Roman Catholic upbringing, the church where I was eventually saved, Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville, Long Island, which no longer exists.

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It merged with another church on Long Island and became Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island in Merrick, New York.

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But Calvary Baptist Church was the first church where I regularly attended as a lapsed

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Catholic searching for truth, and the Lord saved me there, and I got baptized there. But before I got baptized,

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I was in a 7 -Eleven wearing a leather jacket and a heavy metal

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T -shirt and long hair down to my shoulder blades, and I bumped into a woman who was a member of Calvary Baptist Church, and she had her niece with her, a little tiny girl who was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 years old, 5 years old.

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And she said to her niece, Oh, this is my friend

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Chris. He goes to the same church that I go to. And the little girl looked at me, and she looked at me up and down.

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She said, He doesn't go to church. And my friend Judy said,

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Oh, yes. He goes to our church every Sunday. I see him there. Oh, no, he doesn't.

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And she said, Stop saying that. He does too go to church. Why do you keep saying he doesn't go to church?

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And the little girl said, He doesn't look like he goes to church. And that little girl convicted me to get my hair cut.

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I know that there is a disagreement amongst Christians on what exactly is too long for a man and so on, but I didn't want anybody to guess or wonder if I was really a

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Christian, let alone a little child. So I was convicted, and I had my hair cut before I was baptized, and I never let it grow that long again.

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That's a great story. Also, let us know now how you eventually came to be a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Yeah, again, one of those incredibly unlikely things. I became a

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Christian in 1973 at the age of 20, and it was right in the height of the Jesus People movement, the early days of the charismatic movement.

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And, of course, Pentecostalism had been around a long time, but the charismatic movement was still trying to figure out if it was just a kind of renewal movement within traditional denominations.

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There was also the Billy Graham Crusades were almost sort of an event in themselves in the way they were spawning awakening and revival.

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And then there were lay witness mission movements in traditional churches. In other words, it was the closest thing,

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Chris, I've seen to awakening. I've been fascinated by awakenings, both large and small, historically.

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But this really was akin to one. Now, a lot of it had wildfire, but it's better than no fire.

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And so literally every night of the week, young people and sometimes older people who were also on fire for the

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Lord, we were getting together and studying the Bible or going out on the streets and sharing

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Christ with people. And that was very exciting, but it was also quite kind of half crazy at times.

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And so I got to learn at least a good bit about Christianity during that time in its

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American form. And one of the things that I settled on was that to be biblically faithful,

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I needed to sort of have this view of denominations as being somewhat not so on fire and so cool, which was a very kind of elitist snobbery that I developed early on towards some of my fellow

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Christians. And so it's, again, a bit of an irony that I ended up at a Baptist seminary. So I ended up, to make this story a little shorter,

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I evangelized on the street for years while I would work other jobs and study the

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Bible. I ended up eventually through that sort of evangelism a church started because we'd have

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Bible studies. And so all these young people we would try to disciple. Now, I wasn't getting paid or anything, but there would be a group of us, you know, here we were all just young kids, but we called ourselves elders and tried to shepherd this group the best we could.

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And it was kind of the Wild West in many ways. And eventually I kind of got a seminary education all on my own, just learning

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Greek and Hebrew and church history and theology, studied the Bible, and was kind of self -satisfied and cocky and arrogant with all of this, thinking

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I'd really arrived. And God humbled me in my early 30s and started having health problems and got my attention.

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And long story short, all of this led to my leaving a movement I was part of that I came to recognize had so many unbiblical qualities about it and started over, literally sold what we had and just kind of sought the

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Lord and craziest of things that I would have never predicted was that conservative

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Southern Baptists were where I ended up and felt most at home theologically.

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And I just was going back to school because I thought God wanted to develop the gift

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I had. And sure enough, it turned out I may have had a good bit of head knowledge, but I had no way of connecting the dots too well.

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I didn't really know what I thought I knew. And moreover, they loved me and treated me well, and I became part of what's been called the conservative resurgence among Southern Baptists that led to the renewal of the conservative theology in the seminary.

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So I eventually, even though we looked at going into missions, I ended up teaching at Dallas Baptist University for a while.

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And I taught, this was after years of being a pastor. I ended up teaching at Southwestern Seminary and then in 1998 came to Southern and was the dean of the undergrad school there at Boyce College.

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And I'll stop the story with this, but it's interesting. I had many things in my life

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God used a bit of a hammer to have to shape me because of, I guess, my hardheadedness and such.

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But I developed terminal cancer in 2001 or was diagnosed and was supposed to die just several years later.

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Wow. And went through many, many years of chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant,

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I used my own stem cells, and I was just totally beat up by these drugs.

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That was during the time that I was asked and honored to be the editor for the apologetic study

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Bible, but I could do no writing. I mean, I was really limited in what I could do, just kind of waiting to die.

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And then, by His mercy, about 11 years ago, the doctors took me off the meds to see what the cancer would do because the chemo was tearing me up, and the cancer has stayed asleep.

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It's called multiple myeloma. It's akin to leukemia or lymphoma type of cancer.

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And it's just remained asleep all these years. So technically I still have it, but I've had no medicines in over 11 years for this cancer.

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And it's very humbling, Chris, when you realize lots of good people have gone home before I have.

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Maybe it's because they're good people. The world wants them, and I need more sanctification, whatever the reason.

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But so here I am, and I'm so glad to get to share the story of what an amazing

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God we serve and share that story with you today, Chris. Amen. Well, I'm glad you did.

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And we're going to our first station break right now. And as I said earlier, if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Dr.

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Ted Cable on the controversy of the ages, why Christians should not divide over the age of the earth, please send me an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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

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USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. We're going to be right back after these messages with more of Ted Cable and the controversy of the ages, so please do not go away.

33:58

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Evidence for the Bible. Ravi Zacharias wrote the foreword. Dan also has a master's degree in theology.

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Dr. Theodore J. Cable and we are discussing his book, Controversy of the

45:45

Ages Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the Age of the Earth and he wrote this book with Peter J.

45:52

Razor II and by the way, if you could, tell us a little bit about your co -author Peter J.

45:58

Razor, and I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly. Indeed you are. Peter was one of my doctoral students and as I tell in the foreword to the book

46:10

I had done, and we can get into the details of all this later, but I had done a good bit of research and had some of the basic concepts of what

46:21

I felt like were needed in this book but with all the cancer treatments that I alluded to earlier

46:28

I could no longer write. It was just, my brain was scrambled. I could think,

46:34

I could talk, but I couldn't write. It was the strangest thing. It was as if, like, all of a sudden you can't remember how to ride a bicycle.

46:43

So Peter, for several years, would meet with me.

46:49

We wrote trial chapters. We talked about the book and solidified a number of the ideas.

46:59

But what's interesting is he eventually was hired to teach at Grand Canyon University, so he lives in Arizona now, and moved out there.

47:11

And right about the time my brain was recovering, as I mentioned earlier, after being off of medicine treatments for a number of years,

47:19

I was suddenly finding my abilities coming back. So I essentially wrote the book.

47:26

I used some of Peter's research. And he agrees with what's in the book.

47:32

And as I say in the foreword, the book couldn't have survived without Peter during those years when

47:38

I would have given up on it and just put it away. But in a sense, the book was my original vision, and I wrote the book.

47:48

So I'm deeply grateful to Peter, and I felt it was only appropriate that he be credited as co -author because of the way he was so instrumental in keeping the whole thing alive.

48:03

Now, one of the things I think we would be amiss if we did not have you describe a little bit is the

48:09

Munster Bible College, because the reason that you're here is that a student at Munster Bible College in Cork, Ireland, Mary, is the one that urged me to interview you, and I took her up on her suggestion.

48:21

And so obviously you spent some time teaching there. If you could tell us a little bit about Munster Bible College. Yeah, I was invited to teach there in January of last year, 2018.

48:35

It was such a privilege to get to meet all those sweet brothers and sisters, and I was, I'm sure, blessed far more than they by my being with them.

48:45

And the week was remarkable, getting to meet pastors and seeing the work there.

48:51

But the college is an outgrowth of a group of Baptist churches there that are really doing fantastic work in a difficult place to sow gospel seeds.

49:08

I'm sure your listeners are aware that Ireland is a

49:13

Catholic, traditional Catholic country, but it's facing the same kind of secular pressures the

49:23

Western world is elsewhere. And so they, for instance, legalized abortion, and all of the same sorts of issues are coming to the fore there.

49:32

And so these dear saints are being faithful in dealing with holding forth the word of life in a culture that's far less necessarily friendly than, let's say, a

49:47

Reformed Baptist church might be in the United States. And so Munster Bible College is their effort, and they're doing a fabulous job of training people in their churches and in theological education for the very purpose of being solid disciples.

50:09

And they're really making a difference, so I'm incredibly impressed. And by some chance you hear this and you live in that area near Cork, you definitely need to get to know these people.

50:22

Well, we just got a note via email from the student, the aforementioned student,

50:28

Mary in Cork, Ireland, and she said, Hi, Chris and Ted, I don't have a question, but I just wanted to say it's a wonderful joy to hear

50:38

Dr. Ted share his testimony. Great to hear he is doing well. Please don't forget, Ted, you are always welcome in Ireland, and God permitting, he might bring you back to us again.

50:48

So that was very nice. And I also got a word from a mutual friend of ours,

50:54

Ken Samples, who wanted me to say hello to you and extended his greetings. Two of my favorite people in all the world.

51:02

They're both such beautiful examples of Christ living in someone, and Ken Samples is just a hero to me.

51:15

He's been so faithful for so long, and I know I need not tell your listeners since you've had him on more than once what a treasure he is to the

51:23

Church. So you've made my day by those affirmations. Amen.

51:28

Well, I'm going to read a couple of endorsements for your book, Controversy of the

51:34

Ages, Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the Age of the Earth. The first I'm going to read is from J .P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology.

51:44

The time is long past when we have needed a very careful, thoroughly documented analysis and response to the claims of young Earth creationists, but with this book

51:55

I am delighted to say that that time has come. Its same thoughtful handling of evolutionary creationism makes

52:04

Controversy of the Ages a critical read for evangelicals wending their way through the confusion.

52:12

I am very enthusiastic about the scholarship, careful treatment, and ironic tone of this book and highly recommend it.

52:19

And here is a commendation from someone that may not be very familiar, this name, to my

52:27

Reformed listeners. Most of my listeners, I think, judging from the emails and responses

52:32

I get, are theologically Reformed. But someone I've known since the late 1980s,

52:40

Dr. Jack Cottrell, Professor of Theology at Cincinnati Christian University. He is not a

52:46

Calvinist and would be definitely opposed to those teachings that I hold dear.

52:54

But Dr. Cottrell, just on a side note, he wrote two of the best books that I have ever read, and I've had this confirmed with Reformed scholars, two of the best books that I have ever read on the dangers of feminism and its encroachment into Christianity.

53:13

One is called Feminism in the Bible, and the other one is called Gender Roles in the Bible, and unfortunately they're both out of print, but you could probably get them out of print on Amazon somewhere.

53:24

But anyway, Dr. Jack Cottrell says, I am more than happy to see the publication of this volume and to recommend that it be given serious consideration by the evangelical world.

53:36

There is no biblical doctrine more important than creation. Thus it is crucial that all

53:41

Bible believers speak with a unified voice on its main tenets.

53:47

Even if we cannot agree on creation's every detail, I believe this book can help us to come closer together on its more important elements.

53:57

Now, I'm going to start off by reminding our listeners, or informing our listeners that don't know this,

54:03

I happen to be very firmly committed to young Earth creationism and a literal six -day creation.

54:12

But, as I just mentioned moments ago, I have a dear friend named Ken Samples, who is an old

54:18

Earth creationist, and I have other friends that are in that camp, and I have interviewed folks from that camp, though typically not on that subject.

54:30

But, even though I do strongly hold to a young Earth and a literal six -day creation,

54:36

I am in agreement with my guest, Ted Cable, that sometimes the divisions and the rhetoric on both sides, by the way, and it's not exclusively one side that is overly harsh or overly filled with ad hominem in their attacks on the opposing view, but I have become grieved over the extreme and the excesses of the harshness, while at the same time realizing that there is definite cause for caution, at least in my opinion, from those who disagree with me on the age of the

55:14

Earth, especially when it comes to the existence of a literal

55:20

Adam and Eve and other issues. But, obviously, Ted, you wrote this book, subtitled,

55:28

Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the Age of the Earth. Obviously, there was something that you were experiencing and witnessing, similar to what

55:35

I just said, in my own life as a Christian, where you were becoming troubled by those dividing over this, and if you could give us some background of what led to the writing of this book.

55:47

Yeah. When I became a Christian in 1973, sort of, kind of an index of the controversy that was more on the minds of people in my circles in those days, had to do with the timing of the

56:09

Rapture. It was the high, runsy, late, great planet Earth. 1973 was when the

56:16

Yom Kippur War occurs in October of that year. We're just a few years out from the

56:21

Six -Day War. We all expected the end of the world soon. It was just an issue of whether or not

56:29

God's people would be taken home before, during, the middle, or after the

56:34

Rapture. And many people today may not be able to relate to this, but I came into the

56:41

Kingdom at a time when I was at the tail end of a decades -long, in -house evangelical fight over whether or not you had denied the

56:55

Second Coming, or at least a tenet, a fundamental of the faith, if you didn't hold to a particular view of the timing of the

57:04

Rapture. On the opposite side of this story, I didn't know a soul.

57:10

I'm not saying there were none. I'm just saying that as I was exploring American Christianity in 1973, what you would see among conservative evangelicals, and by that I would mean people who believed the

57:24

Bible to be the inerrant Word of God, the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, which

57:30

I hope we'll get a chance to talk about a little bit, wasn't written yet. But that was the sentiment of serious

57:38

Christians, was that the Bible was to be defended. And I didn't know anybody who thought the age of the earth was an issue to be concerned about or fighting about.

57:51

When it came to creation, what we were resolute about and united on is that we were anti -evolutionists.

58:00

So, like many Christians, inevitably, you don't realize, if you've fought through particular theological issues, as you're growing in the

58:12

Lord and your knowledge of the Bible, and so I was an old earth creationist, but an ardent anti -evolutionist.

58:21

I have never quit being an ardent anti -evolutionist.

58:28

One of the things that I did, though, as part of studying, I mentioned that before I went to seminary,

58:35

I bought a really large theological library and studied a whole lot, and so one of the things that I would do is, for instance, if I wanted to get at the heart of something that was a theological controversy,

58:48

I wanted to go back and read the roots of it. So I did that, for instance, on the issues about the rapture or eschatology.

58:57

So I went all the way back into the 19th century and was reading about dispensationalism and the

59:04

Plymouth Brethren and all of that. Well, the same I did on the issues of creation, but more just as an anti -evolutionist.

59:13

In fact, if you could pick up where you left off there after our next break, I'm sorry, we have to go to our midway break right now.

59:19

Perfect. So just please remember where you left off. And this is a longer -than -normal break, folks, because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

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FM, in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of our show because they air their own public service announcements and commercials to localize

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Iron Sherp and Zion Radio to Lake City, Florida, while we air our own commercials, which are heard globally.

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So please use this time to write down questions for Dr. Ted Cable and also use this time to write down information provided by our advertisers so you can more frequently and successfully patronize them.

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Because, once again, we depend upon our advertisers to exist due to the funding of our program through their advertising campaigns.

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So please try to patronize our advertisers as frequently as you can. But don't go away. We are going to be right back after this midway break with more of Dr.

01:00:12

Ted Cable and the controversy of the ages, why Christians should not divide over the age of the earth.

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of One Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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01:13:45

Before I return to my guest today, Ted Cable, I've just got to let you know about some upcoming events that I hope that most of you attend, most of you listening in the audience attend.

01:14:01

First of all, this one is for men in ministry only. That is my

01:14:06

Iron Trip and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, which is going to be held Thursday, May 23rd, 11 a .m.

01:14:12

to 2 p .m. at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

01:14:18

It's absolutely free of charge for all men in ministry leadership, whether they are pastors or elders, and once again,

01:14:23

I have to tell my listeners, I believe that's the same office, pastors and elders, deacons, parachurch leaders, whatever kind of leadership position that you have, if you're a man, you are welcome to this free luncheon featuring

01:14:37

Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, who is going to be speaking on the theme,

01:14:44

The Dead Sea Scrolls and How They Vindicate the Reliability of the Bible. If you would like to register for this free luncheon at the

01:14:52

Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Thursday, May 23rd, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m.,

01:14:58

send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and just put

01:15:03

Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. Then, after that, Dr.

01:15:09

Costa is heading to Long Island, New York. I am accompanying him to Long Island to attend speaking engagements that I arranged for him at a number of churches, including

01:15:21

New Hyde Park Baptist Church in western Nassau County, Long Island, Wading River Baptist Church in Wading River, Long Island, central

01:15:30

Suffolk County, and also Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York, also in central

01:15:38

Suffolk County, and then Missio Church in Ridge, New York, which is on the eastern end of Suffolk County, Long Island.

01:15:45

That's between Friday, the 24th of May, and Sunday, the 26th of May.

01:15:52

If you want information on his speaking itinerary, you can send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:15:58

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put Dr. Tony Costa in the subject line. Then, right from there,

01:16:04

I'm heading back to Pennsylvania, but I'm not heading home. I'm heading to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, and specifically to Elizabethtown College, where the

01:16:11

Banner of Truth is having their East Coast Ministers Conference on the theme, I Believe in the Holy Spirit. Speakers include

01:16:17

Jeff Kingswood, Terry Johnson, David Vaughn, Steve Nichols, Michael Morales, and Chad Vegas.

01:16:25

That's May 28th through the 30th in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, at Elizabethtown College.

01:16:31

If you are a man in ministry leadership, you are welcome to attend this East Coast Ministers Conference. If you want to register, go to banneroftruth .org,

01:16:40

banneroftruth .org, and click on Events, and then scroll down to East Coast Ministers Conference.

01:16:47

I hope to see you there. I will be there, God willing, and I hope to see as many Iron Sherpins Iron radio listeners as possible.

01:16:54

Then in December, December 19th and the 20th, which is

01:16:59

Thursday and Friday of that week, I'm heading to Manhattan, New York City, to the

01:17:06

Foundations Conference, a conference arranged and hosted by sermonaudio .com.

01:17:11

The Foundations Conference has become one of my favorite conferences, and I love returning to New York City to attend that.

01:17:18

It's going to be, no doubt, beautiful in Manhattan during the Christmas season, December 19th and 20th in Manhattan.

01:17:26

The roster there is extraordinary. Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, whose voice you've been hearing every day, promoting

01:17:33

New Covenant Church NYC, one of our sponsors. He is founder of One Passion Ministries. Paul Washer, another extraordinary, mind -blowing preacher.

01:17:43

What a gifted brother in Christ he is. Reverend Jeff Thomas, a dear saint of God that I've known for many years, who is also a phenomenal preacher.

01:17:54

Reverend Armand Tomassian, a man who's going to be a household name, I believe, over the next decade.

01:17:59

He is a young pastor, but with gifts, extraordinary gifts and abilities to preach the gospel that are far beyond his age.

01:18:09

And as I said, he will be a household name, I'm certain, because of his extraordinary abilities behind the pulpit.

01:18:17

Richard Colwell Jr. and Andrew Quigley are also on the lineup. I have not yet heard them preach, but since Sermon Audio selected them,

01:18:25

I am sure they are magnificent. So that's the Foundations Conference in New York City, December 19th and 20th.

01:18:32

Go to thefoundationsconference .com, thefoundationsconference .com. And even though that's a number of months away,

01:18:39

I would register as quickly as possible if you want to attend, because they can only hold a little less than 200 people at this venue in Manhattan.

01:18:48

So they will no doubt fill up quickly, long before December. Then I'm heading to Atlanta, Georgia, or more specifically,

01:18:57

College Park, Georgia, this January. And this is a conference where every year

01:19:06

I have had an Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitors booth for the last several years, and that is the

01:19:11

G3 Conference, which is held at the Georgia International Convention Center. Typically over 5 ,000 people every year attend this, so I would also not only urge you to attend, but I urge you, if you have a church, parachurch, ministry, or business that you want to promote at this conference, this would be an ideal place, because of the fact that there will be over 5 ,000 people milling around your exhibitors booth.

01:19:38

The website is g3conference .com, g3conference .com, that is going to be held

01:19:45

Thursday, January 16th, through Saturday, January 18th. The theme is Worship Matters, and the speakers include

01:19:53

Kosti Hinn, who is the nephew of the notorious charlatan

01:19:58

Benny Hinn, and Kosti Hinn has repented of the Word of Faith heresy years ago, and he is dedicated to exposing the heresies of these charlatans in the

01:20:10

Word of Faith movement. He is a Reformed Baptist and a cessationist, pastoring in California.

01:20:16

What a humble and gifted brother he is. I'm looking forward to hearing him speak. David Miller is on the roster, a really old -school, fire -and -brimstone preacher.

01:20:29

What a fine man of God he is. Derek Thomas, most of our listeners, if not all of them who are theologically

01:20:37

Reformed are going to definitely recognize that name. My dear friend since the early 1990s,

01:20:43

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. My other friend, Joel Beakey, president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.

01:20:51

Josh Bice, the founder of the G3 Conference. And once again, Paul Washer will be at this conference, and so will

01:20:57

Dr. Stephen J. Lawson. And I have a feeling my guest knows who this next speaker is.

01:21:04

Dr. Tom Askell, who is the director of Founders Ministries, a ministry within the

01:21:10

Southern Baptist Convention dedicated to the doctrines of sovereign grace. And Vodou Balcom, another really extraordinary man of God.

01:21:17

So if you want to attend the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com, and register as soon as you can, because the rates will eventually go up.

01:21:28

They are offering cheaper rates than normal right now, so take advantage of them while you are able.

01:21:35

Now lastly, if you love my show, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, you don't want it to disappear, please go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:21:42

click support, then click, click to donate now. You could donate instantly with a debit or credit card by doing that.

01:21:49

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01:21:57

We enter into these scary financial situations three or four times a year, and this is one of them.

01:22:04

So please help us if you love the show. ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.

01:22:10

You could also mail in a check via snail mail to the mailing address that appears on the screen when you click support at ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:22:19

If you want to advertise with us, we truly do need, urgently, your advertising dollars.

01:22:25

So send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. And as long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what

01:22:32

I believe, you don't have to believe identically with me, but you need to be promoting something that's at least compatible with what I believe, we will help you launch an ad campaign as quickly as possible because we need those advertising dollars to exist.

01:22:43

And if you are not a member of a local Bible -believing church, and you're not prayerfully looking for one, you're living in rebellion against God.

01:22:50

So please, if you need help finding one, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put

01:22:56

I need a church home or something like that in the subject line. I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world, and I've already helped quite a number of people in our audience find good church homes, and also people who are vacationing who want to find a good church to visit while they are away from home.

01:23:12

I have helped them as well. So please send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put I need a church home or something similar in the subject line.

01:23:20

That's also the email address to send in a question for Dr. Theodore J. Cable. On our theme today,

01:23:26

Controversy of the Ages Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the Age of the Earth. chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:23:32

chrisarnsen at gmail .com We are now back with Dr.

01:23:38

Cable, and Dr. Cable, before the break, you were discussing how there was a time when you were witnessing

01:23:48

Christians arguing over when the rapture would occur amongst the pre -tribulational dispensationalists, and this somehow is the seedbed of eventually how you were also drawn into the controversy over the age of the earth that unfortunately involves sometimes ugliness and non -Christian behavior towards brethren in Christ.

01:24:15

But if you could continue where you left off. Yeah, thanks Chris. So I started studying the whole evolution thing.

01:24:26

It seemed important to me. I didn't really know that I was going to be called to teach apologetics or anything, but I was bent that way.

01:24:37

I wanted to know the whole background of evolution and the science thing, and one of the things that this entailed was that, and I document this in the book, but many people,

01:24:51

I'm afraid, do not know this. This doesn't, and let me, if I could, just pause here for a second and make a very important footnote.

01:25:00

The book has no intention to try to convert people to becoming older creationists or to ridicule or put down younger creationism.

01:25:12

It has a very simple point, which is in the subtitle, this is the wrong place to draw the line.

01:25:19

The real danger to evangelicals today and many of the people that I love that are a part of the, they call themselves evolutionary creationists.

01:25:30

They are what we used to call theistic evolutionists. They're Reformed. They're into the doctrines of grace.

01:25:37

They're very, in many cases, absolutely lovely

01:25:43

Christians, and I hope to say more about this, and I talk about this in the book, but I'm incredibly concerned that while Christians are fighting this older battle about the age of the earth, they are allowing a much more serious issue to take root in the church, which is not just evolutionary doctrines, but it is the lessoning of the

01:26:10

Bible. By the way, Dr. Cable, did you do something different because you became very muddled and muffled?

01:26:18

I don't know if you... You're sounding a little better now. Can you keep speaking? Yeah, is this better here?

01:26:24

Oh, much better, much better. You almost completely disappeared from being audible.

01:26:31

My apologies. Yeah, I have a little microphone on the earpiece, so it must have gotten out of order.

01:26:38

So let me back up where I was. So when I went back to study these things,

01:26:44

I discovered, and I have this documented in the book, that the majority, overwhelming majority, of the biblical

01:26:58

Christians fighting against and resisting evolution post -Darwin.

01:27:04

Darwin publishes The Origin of Species in 1859, and as that rolled like a steamroller through academia, the people resisting it among Christians were overwhelmingly older creationists.

01:27:20

And so part of the narrative that I think concerned me back in the 70s is that I knew this.

01:27:27

I knew that the people that I first studied and read trying to sort through Christian doctrine were people like Arthur Pink, or they would be

01:27:37

Charles Spurgeon, or it would be Charles Hodge at the old Princeton. These were all the older creationists.

01:27:44

If I read The Fundamentalists of a hundred years ago, they were almost all older creationists and at the same time anti -evolutionists.

01:27:57

And so as I was beginning at the outset of the modern revival, and I would put it this way because there's a document in my book, this was virtually not a controversy among Christians until largely the 70s after the formation of the

01:28:20

Institute for Creation Research. ICR, led by Henry Morris, one of my heroes, convinced me to become a

01:28:29

Young Earth creationist. But before long, I noticed that the message was not just anti -evolution, it was also anti -Old

01:28:40

Earth creationism, which I would not have had a problem with except that I noticed it was historically inaccurate because it referred to the people who had, like the ones

01:28:54

I just mentioned, had actually fought against evolution. It referred to them as evolutionists, and it referred to them as compromisers on doctrine.

01:29:05

It referred to them as soft and desiring to please the world. I mean, if anything, if you know anything about the names and the types of people

01:29:15

I alluded to, this was simply false, and it deeply alarmed me and made me want to study more.

01:29:22

So here's what's in my book, and then I'll let you go wherever you want with the questions. Largely in the book,

01:29:28

I have a simple thesis, and that is, if we look at the history of science -theology conflicts, there have only been two major ones.

01:29:37

If we analyze them on the basis of how long they lasted and the extent of the

01:29:44

Church that they affected. The first was the Galileo affair.

01:29:50

That one's largely settled. Yes, there are a few people that are still holding to the

01:29:55

Earth as the center of the universe, but not many. Then there was the Darwinian controversy.

01:30:01

It's still with us. It's not been settled. But I would argue, as you'll see in the book, that if it weren't for the

01:30:08

Darwinian controversy, the age -of -the -Earth controversy wouldn't have the sort of fear factor that it has or the energy that it has.

01:30:18

So I go into the details of how all of this came down, the history of geology and the discovery of fossils and the way

01:30:27

Christians debated and didn't know what to do with it, and then I get into the origins of the modern

01:30:34

Young Earth Creationist movement. And again, I was a part of it for a great length of time.

01:30:39

Again, I'm not a dogmatic Old Earth Creationist. This isn't my point. But I am concerned that if we divide the

01:30:48

Church in the wrong place, God is unhappy with us. God doesn't like division in the

01:30:55

Church. On the other hand, if we don't take a stand where we're supposed to take a stand, we're cowards in the face of duty.

01:31:04

So it behooves us to know when to sound the trumpet and arm the troops and get them out there with their energies to resist.

01:31:13

And I'm arguing that it is to resist evolution and its inroads into the

01:31:20

Church, which I document this among... This isn't any longer just liberals.

01:31:25

This is among evangelicals, with a corollary lessening of a view of the inspiration of the

01:31:32

Bible. So that's the main point of the book, and it was a massive research effort to try to get clear the background of these issues.

01:31:45

So there you have it, Chris. Well, we have a listener in Asheboro, North Carolina, named

01:31:51

Grady, who is a very faithful listener to this program and a very generous contributor to Iron Trump and Zion.

01:31:58

Grady says, I believe the Holy Scriptures make it plain that we are to love one another and are not to be divided, but when someone believes in an old

01:32:08

Earth theory, they are basically calling God a liar, because Genesis makes it plain that the

01:32:14

Earth was created in six days. Are we not falling into man's fallacy when we believe in a man -made theistic evolution, which is what most people use to explain an old

01:32:27

Earth? Well, there are several assumptions there. Number one,

01:32:34

I'm sorry to say this, and if you can just trust me, I've worked hard on this, and you may need to read the book, but to refer to old

01:32:42

Earth creationism as theistic evolution is clearly false. I'll put it to you this way.

01:32:49

The people who hold to older creationism all those years, and I'm alluding to all of these

01:32:56

Reformed people like Charles Spurgeon, were not theistic evolutionists, so it's completely false.

01:33:04

Now, on the issue of the age of the Earth, look, I'm not interested in trying to convince you to come over, but I will just say that Christians have long debated about how to understand

01:33:19

Genesis 1. I don't think there's any doubt that it refers to days, evening, and morning.

01:33:28

I have no problem with that, but if you say that it tells you exactly that you're a heretic, you don't believe the

01:33:37

Bible because it's very clear about the age of the Earth in Genesis 1, then I've got to push back.

01:33:43

And so let me just point out one of the kinds of things that young Earth creationists themselves have struggled with is the length of a day, because is a day 24 hours based upon its rotation around the sun, or is it something else?

01:34:05

The sun is not created until day 4 of Genesis 1. We have evening and morning, and we see that God separates the days by saying this formula, then

01:34:21

God said, whatever he says occurs, and then it's finished when he says there was evening and morning, day whichever.

01:34:28

So the light is separated from the darkness on day 1, and it says that the light

01:34:37

God called day, so that's daytime, and the darkness he called night, and there was evening and morning day 1.

01:34:49

So for a very, very long time, serious Bible Christians have debated and tried to understand what that's about, but the sun itself is not created until day 4, in which the

01:35:04

Word of God says they were created, the great light sun and moon were created as a way to mark time, days and seasons and years.

01:35:16

And I could say much more, but again my point isn't that you need to turn away from your view of creationism, but when you use the word theistic evolution to refer to me, sir,

01:35:30

I just have to tell you, that just shows you really are not aware of what you speak. And I'll just say this, if you read my book you may be shocked to find out that some of the leading creationist, young earth creationist ministries today believe in far more speciation than older creationists.

01:35:52

Traditionally, older creationists have held to the view that the species was the level or was the unit

01:36:00

God created, whereas the young earth creationist ministries today that are most influential hold to a wider version of speciation, and they usually study this under a term called baromenology, baroth, the

01:36:19

Hebrew word for create, men, Hebrew word for kind. And so it's,

01:36:25

I'll just, look, I'll just leave it at that, but it'll shock you when you find out that some of the major ministries, and I'm not going to name names here, but I do in the book and I quote them, they literally don't believe like the animals that you see today.

01:36:43

They've descended from different kinds of animals that came off the ark. They don't believe,

01:36:49

I'm not saying they believe that Adam and Eve descended from lower life forms.

01:36:54

Any more than older creationists reject that as well. So I am trying to clarify in the book why it is a mistake if you refer to an older creationist like Charles Spurgeon, and you allude that Charles Hawes, you're the founders of Southern Seminary, as if they are theistic evolutionists.

01:37:17

It simply shows you don't really understand the issues. I think where the problem comes into, and correct me if I'm wrong, but all theistic evolutionists, or at least the majority, are old earth believers.

01:37:35

But that does not mean that all old earth believers and old earth creationists are theistic evolutionists.

01:37:43

Am I right in that? Well, that's right. And of course you're not,

01:37:49

Chris, but if somebody thinks thereby, well, that means that old earth creationists are closer to being evolutionists than young earth creationists.

01:37:58

I've just exploded that idea when, I'll give you an example, I'll not name the name, but if you want to read the book you can find out the leading young earth creationist who is a paleontologist.

01:38:10

And he is as conservative as the day is long on the issues of the

01:38:16

Bible. He is the world's most famous young earth paleontologist.

01:38:22

He wrote that he believes that the origin of modern whales, called cetaceans today, probably descended from a land mammal, a four -legged land mammal that came off the ark.

01:38:41

And there are reasons that I explain this in the book. And they have to be able to get all of the extinct animals not on the ark, so you only take part of the animals, not literally every animal, to get them on the ark.

01:38:57

And then you have to have all the animals that are on the ark become speciated to fill the earth.

01:39:04

That's virtually the leading young earth creationist view today. Now this guy is on the far outside, but he is not condemned in young earth circles.

01:39:17

And there is a debate within young earth circles that's pretty largely held from the general public.

01:39:24

But for years and years and years, this is what actually drove me to write the book, was that people were referring to the people that fought evolution, for heaven's sakes, for the majority of the time, as if they were evolutionists, while evolution was closer to the view in some young earth circles.

01:39:46

And now one more point, the idea that some people say, well, if you're old earth, you can't be an evolution unless you're old earth, or whatever.

01:39:54

That's like saying, well, Jehovah's Witnesses are inerrantists. And by the way, they claim they are.

01:40:00

But that doesn't mean that Jehovah's Witnesses either are good or that anybody that's an inerrantist is bad.

01:40:07

It's the guilt by association policy. I think that was your point. And by the way,

01:40:14

Grady, you have won a free copy of Controversy of the

01:40:20

Ages, Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the Age of the Earth, by our guest today, Theodore J.

01:40:26

Cable. Compliments of Lexham Press. So make sure we have your full mailing address there in Asheboro, North Carolina, and CVBBS .com

01:40:34

will ship that out to you as soon as possible. Hey, could I quickly say, Chris, to Grady, look, we got a little bit testy there.

01:40:43

I would rather be called a fundamentalist any day than a liberal. I'm from Texas, I'm an old redneck.

01:40:52

And look, so if you are implying that I'm a theistic evolutionist,

01:40:57

I got a little testy with you there, but I assume that we're brothers, and I would invite you after you, if you bother to read the book,

01:41:07

I would welcome your emails. It's easy to find them at the Southern Seminary website, and I'd love to have the conversation with you in a very friendly way, and hopefully we can establish a friendship that way.

01:41:23

So thanks, Chris. Great, and we have to go to our final break right now.

01:41:29

It's much more brief than the last break. So if you have a question, send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time, and I will get to as many of you waiting as possible, as time will permit.

01:41:41

So please be patient with us as you wait for your question to be asked and answered. Our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:41:48

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after this final break with more of Ted Cable and a controversy of the ages, why

01:41:58

Christians should not divide over the age of the earth. Don't go away.

01:42:04

We'll be right back. Lynnbrook Baptist Church on 225

01:42:11

Earl Avenue in Lynnbrook, Long Island, is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century. Our church is far more than a

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Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

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It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people and healing.

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We're a diverse family of all ages. Enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ. In fellowship, play, and together.

01:42:37

Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynnbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

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Call Lynnbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402.

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Or visit lynnbrookbaptist .org. That's lynnbrookbaptist .org. Hello, my name is

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James Renahan, and I'm the president of IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas. The Word of God says, if a man desires the office of an overseer, he desires a good thing.

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Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the

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London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect

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Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

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If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

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You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750.

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Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled,

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of Lent Passion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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They believe in a sovereign God who commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel.

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New Covenant Church, NYC. Again, their information can be found at www .ncc

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.nyc. Have a great day. Listening to Christian radio can be a big gamble spiritually.

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FirstLoveRadio .org also live -streams my Iron Trepans Iron Radio program daily. Please stick around on FirstLoveRadio .org

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Spread the word about FirstLoveRadio .org. Welcome back.

01:50:20

This is Chris Arnzen and this is the last segment of our interview today with Dr. Ted Cable and we are discussing his book

01:50:28

Controversy of the Ages Why Christians Should Not Divide Over the Age of the Earth.

01:50:34

We have a question from Johnny in Queens, New York. It is surprising but true that many biblical

01:50:40

Reformed teachers, pastors, and scholars have yielded to an Old Earth paradigm due to evolutionary quote, quote, science.

01:50:50

As answers in Genesis and other Young Universe advocates have pointed out, isn't the theological implications of Old Earth, i .e.,

01:50:58

death before Adam, accommodation for evolutionary worldview, etc., is actually compromising the gospel?

01:51:07

And this is, as I said, Johnny in Queens, New York, if you could respond. Yeah, Johnny, I hope you'll read my book because I addressed that.

01:51:16

The fact of the matter is the view that the Earth is old and making it a view that was held by Reformed Christians predated evolution by over 50 years.

01:51:32

Even my good friend Terry Mortensen at Answers in Genesis has written a book describing it in which about 200 years ago a group called

01:51:43

Scriptural Geologists, he argues, were the first Young Earth creationists because everybody else were

01:51:54

Old Earth creationists around him. And again, they were resisting the evolutionary models of their day.

01:52:00

Darwinism finally won out over 50 years later. So it's just simply not true historically, which

01:52:07

I do document in the book, that the reason that people wanted to become

01:52:15

Old Earth creationists was so that they could somehow accommodate evolution.

01:52:21

And in fact, that is just one of the things that is inaccurate that I describe in the book.

01:52:27

And one of the things you might find interesting, since you mentioned Answers in Genesis, their lead researcher named

01:52:33

Andrew Snelling has written a two -volume work called Earth's Catastrophic Past, and in which this book, he basically argues that the science that shows that the

01:52:48

Earth and the Universe is old is accurate science, it's just it should be interpreted in light of a

01:52:54

Young Earth. So he argues that radiometric dating is essentially accurate, but that the timescales were sped up at one time.

01:53:04

You may or may not be aware, they believe that the Universe, that the Earth was one time just a gigantic continent.

01:53:12

So plate tectonics explains a separation, expansion of the Universe, that whole thing that's related to the dating of the beginning of the

01:53:22

Universe. It's all there, and I got it in the book, so it's,

01:53:28

I could care less if a person will resist evolution, and they want to believe older Young Earth, and if they will continue to hold to a high view of the

01:53:38

Bible. But I insist, and I hope you'll read the book, that if you want to divide the

01:53:44

Church, and you want to make the age of the Earth a divisive issue, then you're making a mistake that's not that different than trying to divide the

01:53:55

Church over the timing of the Rapture. And Johnny, give us your full mailing address in Queens, New York, so that CVBBS .com

01:54:03

can ship you out a free copy of Controversy of the Ages, and once again we thank

01:54:09

Lexham Press for providing us with these free copies. We've got a word of greeting to you, brother, from someone who used to be a professor, within a, less than a five minute walk from where I'm sitting at Dickinson College, Dr.

01:54:24

Ken Wolgamuth, who is a visiting scholar at Reasons to Believe.

01:54:30

He says, please give my warm greetings to Ted, I want to recommend unconditionally this book that demonstrates how science very nicely confirms

01:54:40

Genesis, the Creator revealed, a physicist examines the Big Bang and the

01:54:46

Bible. So that was your friend, Ken Wolgamuth, who actually has been on this program when he was involved in a give and take with Young Earth Creationists.

01:54:58

Thanks for contributing that word of greeting, Ken. Let's see, we have

01:55:06

Charlie, oh, Charlie Liebert. Charlie Liebert is the founder of 6thdaycreation .com.

01:55:13

He wants to know, so what are the parameters over which we should divide when it comes to our differences over the age of the

01:55:23

Earth? There obviously should be some harmony, but there are issues that extend into such serious matters that they could be rightly called heresy and dangerous.

01:55:33

So can you please tell us what you think they are? Yeah, I think that's a good question.

01:55:38

And your voice is once again garbled, brother. Okay. Now you're perfect.

01:55:44

Yes, you're perfect again. I deal with this in the book, and I hope that people can appreciate

01:55:50

I'm only able to give soundbite answers to complex questions that took me years to write and document.

01:55:56

So, yeah, I think that, as I said earlier, that evolution, where you change the doctrines of a literal

01:56:06

Adam and Eve, and that they are not the father and mother of the entire human race, that you don't believe in a literal fall by which the entire human race is now bound in sin and unable to save itself.

01:56:24

Those are the sorts of creation issues that I think are critical. I don't think that, for instance, to say that it's a gospel issue to believe in the age of the

01:56:37

Earth, if you were to say that an old Earth is a gospel issue, then you have to make it clear.

01:56:43

Indeed, I would argue, and I talk about this in the book, to call something a gospel issue if you're not careful and, by the way,

01:56:51

I didn't hear you do this, Charlie, so thank you, but some people will say, and they do it on anything, oh, that's a gospel issue as a way of not dealing with the actual details but sort of scaring people into believing it, and I'm going to argue that if you call something a gospel issue when it's not, that in itself becomes a heresy if you think about it.

01:57:13

You're implying that somehow a person is adding to or detracting from the gospel by a view.

01:57:21

So, I will say right up front, I think old Earth creationists have their own set of problems that are very difficult to deal with.

01:57:30

I think the same is true of young Earth creationists, just setting aside the issue of science altogether.

01:57:39

But I don't think that they should be fighting over this issue. I think it is a terrible, terrible mistake to make that the issue of orthodoxy.

01:57:50

Well, I am sorry, Joey and Clifton, New Jersey, we don't have time for your question today, but I am inviting our guest,

01:57:59

Dr. Theodore J. Cable, back to the program if he desires to return because I would like to have your question asked and others, because there are others waiting as well.

01:58:09

But if you could make sure that our listeners have all the contact information they need, and first of all, let me say that you can purchase

01:58:18

Controversy of the Ages, the book by Theodore J. Cable at CVBBS .com

01:58:23

CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com. Any other contact information that you care to provide,

01:58:30

Dr. Cable? Well, look, I realize that some people are hearing things they've never heard before and may be upset with me.

01:58:40

I get it because they've been told by people they trust that they should be upset, and if I get a deluge of emails asking me to do an exegesis of Genesis or whatever,

01:58:54

I probably can't make everybody happy because that's not my goal, but I will welcome if people want to email me with a question that I can answer in any reasonable amount of time,

01:59:08

I'll do my best, and so they can contact me at tcabal at sbts .edu

01:59:18

S -B -T -S is Southern Baptist Theological Seminary dot E -D -U, so tcabal as in Ted C -A -B -A -L at sbts .edu

01:59:32

Okay, we're out of time now, brother, and if you could hang on, I'd like to speak to you off the air when we go off the air.

01:59:39

And, Joey, by the way, you have won a free copy of the book, so make sure we have your full mailing address since you were next in line to have your question asked.

01:59:49

I want to thank everybody who listened today, and I want to remind you, for the rest of your lives,