A lot of things have happened tonight. I didn't even have a chance to download my notes for myself. So I'm just going off of memory. We'll see how well that goes for us here. But we are continuing our study through the Old Testament. And last week, if you remember, we just did an intro of intros. We saw what Bible study was about. We saw what the Bible is about. We saw what the Torah the first five books are about and we're going to dig a little deeper for the next few weeks into the latter of those points. We're going to spend a few weeks looking at Genesis the beginning of the Bible And then we're going to expand out from that. We're going to consider the rest of the Torah, and then we're going to move into the rest of the books here as we move along. But for tonight, we are studying the beginning here in the beginning. And to do so, let's go ahead and turn to Genesis chapter one. As we consider these things, Genesis chapter one, verse one and. Read a very familiar passage of scripture, and we'll just start with the first three verses there. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, Let there be light. And there was light. What are we going to be considering this evening? Well, this evening, we want to talk about the nature of our world, the world that God has created, as we have just read. We want to consider what Genesis has to say about creation. And we're going to consider the biblical record concerning that. And finally, the implications of that. and the implications of the fact that God has created this world, that God has ordained how this world is to operate. But let's first consider just by way of introduction what we believe about the world around us. Do we believe that it is here by chance? Or do we believe that it is created by God, by an intelligent force, far more intelligent than any human being could be? You know, people in the ancient world and in many religious cultures believe that deities created the earth. And you might say Christianity doesn't really stand out from the others in consideration of this. But we do see that perhaps in more contrast today because there are many people who believe that God didn't create the world or that God perhaps set the world into motion like a watchmaker and he just wound the clock as it were and he stepped back and saw What would happen? He didn't have this intimate relationship with the world, but that's not what we see in Genesis We see in the Bible providing us an explanation of God creating the world and by the way This is a different explanation than you will see in other religions In other religions, you always have preexistent matter, for instance. In the Christian religion, in the Bible, what the Bible presents to us, what God has presented to us, we see God creating matter, that it's actually God who's preexistent, not matter. And so there is something very different in the way that the Bible presents creation. But as I said, people today don't think that God created it, that any God created it, that it just happened, and it happened by chance. Boy, are we lucky that it happened in the way that it happened because it just so happens that we're here and we can think about these things. That's a lot to consider. They use science to support this notion. But I do believe that they're using science incorrectly. Science can't necessarily answer this question as completely as they would have us to believe, as they would have us to take confidence in. If there's anything that we've learned over the last few years, it's that when someone tells us that the science is settled on an issue, it's hardly ever settled. I hope you see that. When the experts tell us that something is a certain way, I hope you understand that that is not necessarily as settled as it could be. And let me just give you an example of that as we are going through this. You might recall some headlines. Overtime here. But the headlines begin to change, don't they? And it seems to begin to wane a bit over time. You might need another shot. We've got to make sure we clarify that with people. It has nothing to do whether or not it's effective. We know it's highly effective. The people who want to say the science is settled are the same people who are perhaps making the most money off of the science. We have to consider that. We like to think that science is pure, that science is without bias, and of course it should be, but in the real world it rarely shakes out that way. And as we've seen over the past few years, when people say the science is settled, it's never settled and so no the science is never truly settled and so when people say the science is settled there is a big bang you know so many trillions of years ago the earth was formed so many billions of years ago it cooled off that we got here we've already determined this the science is settled do you think that perhaps there may be another viewpoint out there that's being ignored And the answer is yes. The answer is yes. What is science? Well, the etymology of the word comes from Middle English, and it comes from a term that means knowledge. Of course, that is the way it was used back in the Middle Ages. But over time, the first definition that emerges, and this is according to Merriam-Webster, The first definition is two-part, and it's this. First, it is the knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws, especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method. It is something that we come to know. The science is our knowledge of the world as it operates, as we test it and as we get to know what it is. Such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena. Natural science. Of course we say natural science. What do we mean? We are talking about the world that exists, what we can observe, what we can test, what we can see, what we can hear, what we can taste. We want to be able to see what we can touch around us. And as we observe and as we engage in the scientific method, hopefully we are engaging in such a way that we are producing pure results. But that's not necessarily the case, is it? Because the scientists are people. Men are men at best. And that's what we are left with. We are left with people who can be swayed by peer pressure, by grants, by funding, by different things of that. of that nature. And even given that there may be scientists out there, and of course we would believe that there are some that might try to achieve knowledge without bias, even though that's not really possible for any of us, we're still limited. We can't observe everything that is happening in the universe. We can only observe a small fraction of it. And so our knowledge is going to be limited. And where we think we know something at one point, it may change over time as we get new information and new data. And so it's naive to say the science settled on any issue. We assume today that we can be rationalistic observers without any feelings or motivations. Do people, do human beings operate in that way? Not necessarily. That's the way we should strive to operate when it comes to figuring out issues, but it's not necessarily the way that we're going to operate. We also assume that there is a divide between faith and science. And that is a huge assumption. Some folks would say the realm of faith and the realm of science are two different realms or two different worlds. And if we are talking about the conflict between faith and science, it's a bit like describing a nonsense conflict between a shark and a lion. You know, these are two different worlds and we can't really see how the two would interact. Well, that's an assumption, because if God created the world, as the Bible says, God created the world, then the realm of faith and the realm of science exists side by side. They are the same realm. They are the same world. So we should expect that God, if the God of the Bible is the one who created the world, and I do believe He is, to give you my bias on it. We should expect that God is the ultimate explanation of all that exists. We should expect that. Some people mock that. They say, anytime you can't explain something, you say, well, God did it that way. Well, that's not the only motivation. Maybe there's a motivation for that with some folks. I'm not saying that it can't exist, but we do believe that God made it that way. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In many of the fields of science, there have been men who have been motivated by that very nature. The reason we have a mapped cardiovascular system is due in part to the convictions of a man who said God must have designed it in such a way. He said there are valves in the heart because God designed the heart. So they must operate in a certain way. He believed that. We mapped the ocean currents because someone said the Bible talks about the paths of the sea and we can go on and on and on. There are people who have engaged in science who are believers and there's a whole book out there of these men, if you're ever interested. It's from the Institute of Creation Research, and it's called Men of Science, Men of Faith, if I'm not mistaken. But I do have it back there on my bookshelf. It's not that thick. It's about that thick as it gives very short biographies of these men, but it goes from the Middle Ages on up through the 20th century when the book was written. And there have been many people who have believed in the creation of the world by God and who have or who have then taken that knowledge and advanced the scientific field of knowledge. We should expect if God has created the world, that God is the ultimate explanation of all. And we should also expect that the Bible is to represent all of the observable universe. The Bible should represent all of the observable universe. If something in the universe does not match with what the Bible says, then we should then begin to wonder if the Bible is reliable. But if, on the other hand, the Bible is consistently predicting things in the world as they exist, well, God's the creator, God's the one who gave us the Bible, that would align with the Bible's proposition. We should also expect ourselves to resist this notion. Well, what do I mean by that? Well, the Bible says that all people are born sinners. They're born fallen in sin. And if God is the creator, we are going to naturally want to distance ourselves from God because there is between us and our God, a wall of division that our sins create. And so we don't want the implications of the God of the Bible to be true because we want freedom. And that's what the naturalistic worldview provides people. It provides them freedom from God. If we can explain how the world exists without there being a divine creator, then we can explain why we can engage in all manner of sin. and not have to worry about a coming judgment. There is freedom that comes from a naturalistic worldview. But is that a true freedom? That's another question. We should instead consider what the Bible has to say. Well, is there sufficient cause to believe what the Bible says? I do believe so. When it says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. I think there is a sufficient reason to believe that. Why? Well, first of all, the Earth seems to be designed to support life. And that is something that even secular scientists have noted. This is something that many individuals have have posited who are not Christians. But Christians have also obviously noted this. The world seems to be designed to support life. What do I mean? Well, for instance, it's a perfect distance from the sun. I don't know if you've ever thought about that. But we are in somewhat of a Goldilocks zone right now where we are. It's not too hot and not too cold. Now I understand during the summertime you're wanting to crank the AC up. During the winter you're wanting to crank the heater up. Yes, I understand that it sometimes feels a little too warm or a little too cold. But the temperatures are not outside of human toleration. We're not boiling every day when the sun comes up. And we're not freezing every day until the sun comes up and then even then still probably freezing as we see with other planets. We have a perfect distance from the sun right now. And it does seem to be designed that way. Some would say, well, we wouldn't have existed otherwise, so that just proves evolution. I don't think that necessarily proves anything on its own, but note also that the conditions are favorable for the existence of life. oxygen-nitrogen rich atmosphere, you know, as the crew of Star Trek, the Enterprise would be flying around, they're looking for those M-class planets, right? It has to be that certain mixture of ingredients for people to be able to survive on that planet. And we wouldn't be able to live here if we didn't have these conditions The position of the Earth in the galaxy supports the observation of the universe. Now, I don't know if you've ever thought about this, and this certainly does not in any way indicate evolution or anything like that. We could have, if there was a naturalistic process, evolved on a planet perhaps near the center of the Milky Way galaxy. What would we see if we were near the center of the Milky Way galaxy? Light all the time. There would be multiple light sources, as we would be near many, many stars. I don't even know if that would be possible to have life somewhere there, but I don't know. I'm not a scientist, but there would be questions to that. Where we are, though, within the galaxy, we are able to look out. And we're able to see things in our galaxy. We're on one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy. We're able to see other parts of our galaxy. And beyond that, we're able to see other galaxies well into space. We can see for quite a ways as we look out. Our position in the galaxy helped us to observe the universe that's around us. Now, And does that prove that God created us? No, not necessarily. But if God did create us and he wanted us to observe the stars of heaven, he did put us in a pretty good place to do so. Right. Isaiah 45, 18. He is the God who formed the earth and made it. He established it and did not create it a waste place, but he formed it to be inhabited that does seem to be supported by the evidence that we see. Let's consider something else. Does does the Bible present the universe that exists? I think it does, because the Bible describes, for instance, the circle of the earth. Many people think that the Bible teaches that the Earth is flat. That is not true. The Bible does not teach that the Earth is flat. It is true that many ancient cultures thought that the Earth was flat. Some might say, yeah, it was the Greeks, actually, who came up with the idea that the Earth was round. They used math. They used science to figure that out. And I would say they obviously demonstrated some intelligence in doing that. I'm not in any way downplaying that. But what the Bible says actually predates that. When Isaiah wrote what he wrote, that predates what the Greeks discovered. When Job wrote what he wrote, that really predates what the Greeks discovered. That the Earth is on a circle. And so, no, the Bible presents a round earth. It also presents ocean currents. I mentioned this a few minutes ago, the paths of the sea, Psalm eight, eight, as they're mapping out the the ocean currents. They said there it has to be there because the Bible talks about the paths of the sea. And if I'm not mistaken, because it's been a few years since I've read this, I think there were ink bottles or something of that nature that were being released into the ocean from ships so that they could see how the ink then would flow from the ship and they would then discover paths in the sea that the ships could take. And if you take that, it's actually a little bit faster than if you take some other route. And people began to map this out and figure this out. The Bible also describes the hydrological cycle. I've been collecting these for a few years. This is one I remember from the Institute of Creation Research. It is incredible. It blew me away when I first read it as a young man. I think I was about your age when I first read this. As we consider Job, for instance, Job talks about the drops of water that begin to rise up and then the pouring down of moisture from the clouds. Job doesn't just say this in this one place, Job 36, 27, 28. It doesn't just say it there. The book says it in other places, and the Bible describes it. This is something that, of course, Job being part of the Bible, This is something that we see throughout the Bible. The Bible is describing the Earth that exists. It describes also the Earth being suspended in space. The Earth is suspended in space. I don't know if this is a surprise to anyone, but the Earth is not being carried along on a tortoise's back. It's not. And so, I mean, that that may be something that you had believed, but it is not being carried along. Some could ask, well, what's below the turtle? More turtles. Well, what's below them? It's just turtles all the way down. It's just all the way down as turtles going along. And that's what's carrying the earth along. No, the Bible actually says that he hangs the world on nothing. On nothing. This is what scripture says, and it describes the expansion of the universe in multiple places. We read about God stretching the heavens. Isaiah 40, verse 22, for instance, we see that. And so, I mean, how are they figuring this out without modern technology? It is incredible to see what people did without modern technology, but there are certain things I just can't imagine that they could have seen without modern technology, like the redshifting of galaxies and of stars, things of that nature, as we see that they are actually moving away from us and getting further away from us. These things are being observed today, but the Bible talked about them thousands of years ago. You say, how did the people in the Bible know? Because God gave it to him by revelation. This is God's word, the God who created the universe. He is revealing this to us to prove to us that he is the God of creation. He is the God who created everything. And he's the God who, because he has said life should operate a certain way, allowed the fall of man to take place because man refused to follow God's ways. And because the fall took place, certain principles were enacted in this world like entropy. We have to contend with the second law of thermodynamics. We have to consider the fact that that we are losing energy, that things are wearing out. Of course, the Bible talks about that. You say, yeah, it doesn't take a scientist to figure out things wear out over time, but the Bible says that even the universe itself wears out like a garment. This is something that the ancients might not have even considered, that the stars themselves wear out. Really? Yes, yes, entropy will claim everything. Why? Because God created the world. He stopped creation at a certain point and then sinner entered the world, death or sin. And so there is going to be a degradation process that happens because God's not creating new things now. He's allowing the universe to begin to wear out. I think it was Dr. Jason Lyle, who's an astrophysicist, if I'm not mistaken, with the answers in Genesis. He was pointing this out that. that God created everything means that there can be no new energy created. Of course, we already know this, the law of the conservation of energy in a matter, there can't be new matter, there can't be new things created, there can't be new energy created, and there's going to be a lessening of energy over time as these things enter in. This is what the world that the Bible presents, and it is the world that exists. It's the world that we can observe around us. And this is to say nothing of the morality of the world that the Bible describes, and it describes in much more detail. The Bible describes the world that exists. And in fact, as we go through this, we see that, in fact, the Bible describes a younger Earth than what the current scientists are trying to say is a settled fact that the Earth is actually older. No, the Bible presents a younger Earth than that. And it goes on to describe timeframes that are completely different. Does the science, Give any support for that? Well, yes, I think so. For instance, we could look at the rate of the departure of the Moon. We are losing the Moon. It's been pointed out many times. The Moon is leaving us. Don't worry. It's going at a very slow rate. You're not going to see it leave within your lifetime. And it's going to take a long time for it to get away from us. Well, we can calculate the rate of departure. We can also reverse calculate at what point the Earth would be touching the Moon. If the Moon's leaving us, then it must have been closer to us. It was only about 1 billion years ago that the Earth would have been touching us, but the age of the Moon apparently is 4 billion years old. How do we work that out? How does that work out? Again, Dr. Jason Lyle is probably a better person to listen to about a lot of these things. These are just things that I've collected over the years and I've talked to other people about. The decay of the Earth's magnetic field. The Earth is losing its magnetic field. Why isn't it gone already, if the Earth is as old as people say it is? The actual strength of the Earth's magnetic field could support a younger Earth. Unless you want to try to say that something drastic must have changed the magnetic field of the Earth. The cooling rate of the planets also supports a younger Earth and younger universe, I should say. Because as we look at the planets, like Jupiter for instance, they're cooling off. They are losing more heat than they get from the Sun. Okay, so that means they're going to get colder over time. Why aren't they cold yet? If the universe or the solar system, I guess, within our galaxy is as old as they say it is, why aren't they cold yet? Why are they only just now getting cooler? The continued existence of comets. Think about that one. We see these comments, they fly by. As you consider a comment, I used to love just drawing comments as a kid, because it was just one of the fun little things to draw as a kid. I always liked science. If that's not obvious, I may be getting some things wrong, but I have always liked science. You know, as I draw the comets, of course, what do you draw? You draw the tail going off the comet. What causes the tail of the comet? Well, it's actually the heat from the sun destroying the material on the surface of the comet. It's losing material as it goes near the sun. And in fact, as it goes away from the sun, you might see that tail pointing away from the sun, but it's actually traveling in that direction. It's not the speed. The tail isn't indicating the speed of the comet. It's actually indicating the loss of material from the comet. And the comet might have a tail going off like this, and the sun's over there. But the comet's actually moving in this direction, and that's because it's losing material. If it's losing material, at some point wouldn't we expect that the comet would cease to exist? Right? Eventually the snowball melts. Eventually there's nothing left. How do comets continue to exist? Some said, well, maybe there is a cloud, and they've even called it the Oort cloud, that exists outside of our solar system. And it's supplying us with new pieces of ice and rock and material, so that we can have a fresh supply of comets over time. And that's why we still have comets. The problem is we've never observed the Oort cloud to exist. It's just an explanation to explain why we still have comets in a universe or in a solar system that is as old as they say it is. They should have ceased to exist, but they still continue to exist. The incomplete shape of the galaxies also indicate a younger age. Some galaxies are more like a disc, like a frisbee, whereas ours are more like an octopus that's spinning around, I suppose. You know, you have multiple arms coming off. Other galaxies may only have a couple of arms. What do we see with the galaxies? Well, they should all begin to maintain or they should all begin to develop a consistent shape. If you take objects and you spin them around, if I have a plate here, And I spin that plate and there are ball bearings on that plate. What are the ball bearings going to do? They're going to go to the outside edges of the plate eventually. And if I'm spinning it in a consistent manner, probably with something better than my hand, which isn't going to be that consistent, If it's being spun in a consistent manner, those ball bearings are all going to create a nice consistent pattern, based on the perfections of the plate, or imperfections of the plate, and the rate of spinning, and how well we got it spinning, and all of that. The galaxies should all begin to form that disc-like shape. But there are galaxies that are still looking kind of young out there. They're not showing their age just yet. How nice for them that they're not showing their age just yet. They're still pretty young out there. How do we still have younger galaxies? Some might say, yeah, but those galaxies are younger by magnitudes of billions and trillions of years, not by thousands of years like you're contending. But could it be that there is another explanation? Could it be that there's another explanation? I think there is. See, nothing here, I understand this, nothing here proves a young age of the universe or of the Earth. But it does create problems for the deep age models. And what I'm more interested in seeing is this. Is it possible that the Bible does describe the universe that exists? And I think it does. And as we consider some of the problems that are out there, problems that are above my pay grade, by the way, as we consider, for instance, the instances of starlight and how starlight travels and you know how the universes can operate on this grand macro universal scale, but we are considering things that are a little bit beyond all of our pay grades. If you consider Consider for a moment the fact that we can observe the atomic universe, we can observe the subatomic universe. As we consider how some of the particles react, we see within the subatomic universe some things that are pretty strange. The equivalent of a car that goes from 0 to 60 in 0 seconds. Not in a few seconds where you see acceleration, but in zero seconds where a particle can move from point A to point B without there being any intervening motion that we can observe. That's because there's a lot on the subatomic scale that we are still learning. Is it possible that on the macro-universal scale, I guess you could call it, that there are things that we're still observing? How does gravity operate within the universe, within the galactic scale? How does gravity affect things like starlight and the shape of galaxies and the distance of galaxies? These are things that other people will have to discuss and explain to all of us. And we're interested in seeing some of that. But there are points which contradict the naturalistic evolutionary processes. The existence of information, for instance. What do I mean by that? I'm speaking to you in the English language. That would be meaningless to you if you did not know the English language, right? And I might be giving you some knowledge here. Some people might argue I'm just giving you nonsense, but I am communicating ideas at the very least. Those ideas would be meaningless if you didn't know the language. there would be no communication, there would be no information pass. How is it that within each one of your cells you have DNA that can communicate to RNA and to have that computer unravel the sequence that's given there so that it knows exactly what to do in what order and to begin the process of mitosis and all the rest of that? How is it that your body can undergo those processes. How is it that information can exist? How did the language get created and how did the computer learn to read that language and learn to do something with that language? Information can only exist if God created it that way. It has to start somewhere. It has to start somewhere. When we read in the Bible that God communicated with Adam, we read understanding in Adam, and we don't necessarily think about this. How is it that Adam could understand what God is saying? How is it that Adam could then communicate back to God and God could understand what Adam is saying? Information has to start somewhere. The fact that we have information is itself a blow against naturalism. Because within a naturalistic system, it doesn't seem like any information could be transmitted in any way. You might get some kind of primordial soup. You might get some chemicals that are floating around in there. You might get some things that start to float together. But are they going to do anything after they float together? Maybe there might be some chemical reactions, but that's it. No information is being conveyed. We don't expect these chemicals to float together and then a whole novel be produced, right? And by the way, that's what you have in your DNA right now, a whole novel, right? The existence of information alone discounts naturalistic evolutionary theory. The planets, if we look at them, I mentioned this a few moments ago, the spinning of the plate. How is it that the gas is spun around and the sun was formed in the middle as the gases kind of get sucked in, and then the planets begin to form? If everything is spinning, then everything should be spinning in the same direction. Why is it that we have planets that spin in opposite directions? That doesn't make any sense. What about other solar systems? As we look at other solar systems, they look different than ours. If ours represents a naturalistic formation, then other solar systems should, in theory, have the same form and makeup as our solar system. They all look different. What do I mean? Some of them have their Jupiter-sized planets, their gas giants, closer to the Sun, to their Sun. Some have them in the middle. Some like ours have them at the end. Why is it that each of the solar systems that exist out there with planets look different than ours? If the same naturalistic processes are at play, then they should all look the same. But if a creative God is at work, he can create them any way he wants to. You can say, with this solar system, I want it to look this way. This solar system, I want it to look this way, right? The solar systems look different. The biodiversity of life here requires an irreducible number of components to exist. I think it was a doctor back in the 90s, maybe it was late 80s, he wrote about intelligent design. I don't know if he's a believer. But he did come to the conclusion that there should be some kind of intelligent designer behind the universe. Why? Because there are, as he described, an irreducible complexity of components. Or there is an irreducible complexity of components to the universe. What do I mean? Well, in that he described a mousetrap. And if you think about a mousetrap, its most basic design like you might see in a cartoon or that, you know, might catch Tom's fingers as he's trying to get Jerry right. He gets his fingers caught in the mousetrap. What is that mousetrap? It is a base. It is a hammer and release system. It is a spring. It is the actual catching mechanism. And that's about it. Now, can there be more complex mousetraps than that? Yeah, yeah, there's a whole board game, right? Or if you are doing that, and you know, there are different ones that you can create people, you can go on YouTube and different, different social media and see different ideas that people come up with to trap mice and rats and different things like that. People can come up with various mousetrap methods, but there is at a certain level, an irreducible number of parts. If there's not a trap, it's not a mousetrap, right? If there's not bait, it's not a mousetrap. If there's not a mechanism to either crush, kill, or contain the rodent in question, it's not a mousetrap. There is an irreducible complexity to this. Well, as we look at the world, there are certain things that we need to exist. There are plants, there are animals, there is oxygen, there is nitrogen, there is carbon dioxide. We have these elements here that exist and it must all be present at the same time. Otherwise, life can't exist. If there were no plants for the animals to eat, the animals die. And if the animals die and there are no plants, of course, we die as well. We need all these parts. And if we're thinking about plants, we might as well start to talk about insects, which help to fertilize plants. We can talk about a lot of different things that make up a very complex system. These parts must all be in place, even within your own bodies. Even within your own bodies. I was having a conversation with Jake earlier about the weird thing that our bodies do when we go to sleep. And you get that sleep paralysis. You know what I'm talking about with that? Your body actually is somewhat paralyzed. so that as you're dreaming here, not up and running around. And can you imagine for thousands of years before that evolved by chance within us, there were people just running out into the fire and into the water when they had a weird dream and they died. And it's an evolutionary miracle that all of a sudden we have this sleep paralysis now. Now that's just a small component. Can you imagine, you know, heat regulation within your body and metabolism and different things like that so that you can process the food that you have so that you can survive in various environments? All these little parts that make you a human being. that gives scientists reams of data to study. All of these little parts have to exist for a human being to exist. Now, your body, because it's so complex, can exist with one or more of these parts beginning to fail. But at some point, the human being wouldn't be able to exist without some of these parts. This is just within the one body right here. Imagine it within a whole ecosystem. If we didn't have bugs, that's why people are concerned about the bees and everything else. If there's no bees, we may lose plant life, right? People do get concerned about these things because we do have a balance that is needed. Well, if there's a balance that's needed, that means that balance was created. Now, is it as fragile as people say? That's a whole other discussion. But it is something to consider. We also have the poor positive examples. People will talk about the various links between man and an animal, apparently, or some prehistoric creature. So they might bring out all of these $10 names, osteoporosis. Now I'm not going to be able to say it. I had it a moment ago. But all of these supposed links that we have found, a lot of them have been disproven. Nebraska Man, Lucy, all of these things that get paraded around in our museums or in our textbooks that we read in high school biology, these things do not continue to to exist as evidence is because they've been debunked in some way. The geologic column is better explained by the global flood than it is by millions and trillions of years of formations. There's a lot of poor evidences out there. Charles Darwin predicted that there should be just heaps of transitional forms buried within the ground. At very best, we have maybe a handful of debatable evidences today, after looking for them for 150, 200 years. What's going on here? Why are we not finding what we think we should be finding if naturalistic evolution is true? Because naturalistic evolution is not true. The Bible better describes the world. And so what does the Bible say? Well, you see it in Genesis one and Genesis one does give us a a good description of the formation of the world. And you might say, yeah, but it's not as scientific as I would like it to be. Well, the Bible is not going to give us a 21st century standard. It's going to give us a very ancient standard, but it is going to also give us what God thinks we should know. And what does God say? Well, day one, he says in verse three, Let there be light. And there was light. What did God create there on that first day? He created light. What was there before that? Well, there was the absence of light. We call that darkness. God said, No, we're going to create light. And so there is light. He saw the light was good and he called the light day in the darkness, he called night. There is evening and there is morning one day. I would say that he also right there created the day system. because there is a process of light and darkness. There's a lot that he created their day and night day to the sky in heaven. He created the expanse in the midst of the waters separate the waters from the waters the waters that would be above the waters that would be below. And we could talk about that. But this is this is the sky. This is that expanse the firmament as the King James describes it. Then we have on day three, the land and vegetation being for being described, because in verse 11 or verse 10, God created the dry land. Verse 11, the earth begins to sprout vegetation and the earth brought forth vegetation and first 12 plants yielding seed after their kind. That was the third day. And then we have the fourth day. And some have seen some parallels here. Day one, he created light. Day four, he creates the sun, moon and stars. And look at what he says. Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth. God made two great lights, a greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He made the stars also. Why didn't he name them the sun and the moon? Because the sun and the moon were worshipped by ancient cultures. These are just the lights that God created. But note that he created the light bearers On day 4 he created light on day 1. That means that he didn't need the sun, moon, and stars for light. He can create his own light. Day 5 he creates sea animals, the birds. Day 6 he creates land animals. That's the penultimate creation. And then man. That's the ultimate creation there. It builds to the creation of man. Six day creation. Is it possible we've misinterpreted the text? There are people who try to throw out the gap theory out there. Well maybe there's a gap. app somewhere in the text. Maybe there's a day age theory that each one of these days represent long periods of time. Unfortunately, we don't have time to get into all of this this evening. But this just requires us to read this in another way. And I'm going to post these notes late later so that you can have those. Sorry, but we are running a little low on time. So I want to keep moving here. Other texts support what I would say is a natural reading of the text. What does the text say? It says that day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six. Is that the way that we are meant to read it? Yes, because in the Ten Commandments, God says you are supposed to rest on the seventh day. Why? Exodus 20, 11, God created the world in six days. He rested the seventh. Did he create the world in a period of billions of years and then rested for a few billion years? And then, you know, we're supposed to work for billions of years in our work week. I know Walmart wants you to work that way. I know different organizations want you to work that way. But that's not the week that God created, right? That's not the way that God made it. He made it the way he made it as a reflection of his creative work. We have the words of our Lord Jesus. He says that in the beginning, God made them male and female. What does that mean? On day six, he made them male and female. What does he describe that as? He describes it as the beginning. Now, either Jesus is lying to us. Because he doesn't think that we could take the truth at that time. Maybe we're smart enough today. Maybe he would be like, okay, yeah, we know it happened millions of years later. Maybe he's lying. Maybe he's ignorant. I don't like either of those options. Maybe he's describing it the way it happened, because he was there. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was there in the beginning. He actually was the one speaking. He knew. See, people don't wanna hear this, because there are implications to this. There are implications. First implication, look at Genesis 1, 27. Genesis 1, 27. As we begin to wrap this up. 127. You would think I would be able to find Genesis one faster than that, but the pages want to want to flip over Genesis 127. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them and God bless them. Genesis two seven. We have that revisitation of the creation of man here. We have the overview in Genesis one. Genesis two goes into more detail. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living being. God created man that has implications for our life. Why? Because God can command man. He can tell him what to do. He can tell him that you need to go into the Garden of Eden, for instance, and cultivate it and keep it. He can tell him that. He can tell him you can eat of all these trees except for one, right? He can tell man what to do. Why? Because man is his creation. If you just think of it in a parental sense, we tell our kids what to do. We tell our kids what to do, not because we're capricious, not because we are getting high on a power trip, but because we understand that they have to grow up and live in the world that exists. And so as the kid is crawling around, we don't want him to stick something into a power outlet. We get on to him. We tell him not to do that. If he starts to crawl up the stairs, we're watching him because we don't want him to then fall back down. We're trying to take care of him until he can develop some sense. God can command us and God can condemn us. And there's the thing, when we get to Genesis three. We see the fall of man and we see God condemning man and specifically man and woman for their actions. He also condemned the serpent as well, because the serpent is also a creation of God. And so he can condemn the serpent. But to the man, he does something, something unique. He can consecrate man to. And he can predict just 315. I'll put him a tea between you and the woman. He's speaking to the serpent and between your seed and her seed. He the seed of the woman shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. God is already predicting in Genesis 3. That there's coming a Messiah. And what did I say last week that the whole Bible is really about Jesus Christ. Right here, we already see it. God's consecrating a man, and that man is actually going to be God incarnate, where he is going to create the salvation that is needed, the deliverance that we need from the fall of sin, from the power of the serpent. And then we see God comforting man, and we see that in just 321, God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and he clothed them. God didn't have to do that, but he did. As we go through this, we are seeing God explaining the universe that he created. And I hope that you will, as you consider the universe, as you consider the world, which at times seems like it's growing dark, we are considering a world that is under the control of a sovereign God. And we're considering a Word that has been written to us by that God of creation. It's a Word that we should take seriously. It's a Word, I hope, that you will believe.