Well, let me have you turn to Genesis chapter 1. Now, how would you tell somebody how to get to Genesis chapter 1? Like if you say Mark, you say, okay, it's right after Matthew. Like Genesis, what do you do? You just say after the cover or? Genesis chapter one. Okay, we're gonna read and we'll pray In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth The earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters then God said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light that it was good and God divided the light from the darkness and God called the light day and the darkness he called night, so the evening and the morning were the first day. Then God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. Thus God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven, so the evening and the morning were the second day. Then God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And God called the dry land earth. and the gathering together of the waters He called seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let the herb bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself on the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the third day. Then God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth. And it was so. Then God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day. Then God said, let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens. So God created sea creatures and every living thing that moves with which the waters abounded. according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth. So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Then God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature, according to its kind cattle and creeping thing and beasts of the earth, each according to its kind, and it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him. male and female, He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, See, I have given you every herb that yields seed, which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed. To you it shall be for food. Also to every beast of the earth to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth in which there is life I have given every green herb for food and it was so Then God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was good. So the evening in the morning were the sixth day Well, let's pray Fathers we would now consider this important topic of creation and evolution Lord the great attack that is coming upon your church and sadly is more and more being accepted even by many within our Christian realm, Lord, within great schools, Lord, Christian schools in our land and so on, Lord, we pray that you would help us to understand these issues, the importance of them and what's at stake. And we ask that you would be with us and bless us and grant us, Lord, the simple faith, Lord, to trust that you are God and that you have done these things exactly how you've written them. So please bless us now, Lord, forgive us for our sins today and each day. And we ask that you bless this whole Lord's day and be glorified in all that we do. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Evolution. Why even address this issue in the church? Is it really relevant for our church? Since we know, probably most of us, I would assume, as Reformed Baptists and those who take doctrine seriously, that evolution, we know, is really filled with utter nonsense, which ultimately is designed and has been designed to deny the very existence of God, let alone the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why would this be something that is significant for us to study? Well, let me begin by giving you at least three main reasons for why I believe we ought to work through this topic. I want you to see that this is important for us to study, and it's a lot more to this system which has developed and changed and evolved in many ways over the years, and that we really need to have a grip and an understanding of these issues as a church. I think it's very important for us. First reason I believe this topic is important is that evolution is the scientific foundation for most public secular schools, including colleges, of course, and it contains the worldview within which many people, especially the younger generations, are beginning to think and live. It is affecting and influencing our younger generations. It's filled fills the scholastic system that surrounds us. Our colleges are filled with this kind of teaching. Everything is built on these teachings, and so it's important. In fact, creationists are viewed as unscientific fanatics by most in the realm of scholastics. We must be ready to stand up against the growing tide, especially for the sake of our children. who as they grow older and begin to think more critically will not be as easily persuaded by simple arguments such as, well evolutionists believe that we came from monkeys. We have to be able to answer our children with much more than that kind of a sentence because there are a lot of things. that evolution teaches that seem to make sense. There's some logic to this and some truth in the facts that they use. Now their interpretation is a problem with that, but there's truth in the facts that they see and what they're identifying. And we need to understand those things and have more to say to our children if we're going to see them preserved from the culture that we live in. We must understand the terms. We must understand what is indeed scientific and not, and be able to explain the truly scientific from a biblical standpoint. We need to understand what evolution teaches, where they get their information from. Not just what we see in scripture, that's important and that's critical, but we need to be able to take what they're saying and bring it to scripture. We need to teach our children what evolution teaches. We don't want to hide them from it. Tell them specifically, scientifically, or at least theoretically and scientifically, what's being said and how they come to these conclusions. We must expose the lies and all that the evolutionists have come to embrace as scientific fact, which really is nothing more than guesswork, which has been interpreted or treated as fact in the world of our classrooms. And so, brethren, It is indeed important. We need to understand that they have interpreted a lot of things in our creation that we see around us in a very biased and fictional way, and they take us back to times and places in their interpretations that no one has access to anymore. That's the problem, isn't it? We see scientific evidence in front of us, but they take that and they deduce from that certain so-called theories, and what they consider facts, about information that has to do with periods of time that no one was even there, or no one remembers, or we have no one alive that can say this is the way it happened. Who was there when God created everything? Who was there at the beginning? Only God Himself. And so they tend to tie their interpret what they see in our nature and in our world with their presuppositions and assumptions, and we have to see them for what they are. We must seek to understand their presuppositions and the so-called givens which lie at the very foundation of evolutionary thinking and the process by which they develop their hypotheses. We need to understand such terms. Today we'll discuss some terms and we'll see these ideas develop over time as uniformitarianism. What do we mean by that? What do they mean by that? What is the presuppositions of evolution that they assume right from the outset? What do they mean by naturalism? What is the difference between observational science and historical science? What are these things? So that's one reason why we ought to address this topic. Secondly, evolutionists make use of just enough truth to convince people to swallow the entire system. Now we've seen this in church doctrine as well. There are times when people can come to us with some doctrines that are false. But there's enough truth in there. They have some truth in what they're saying. And so you can relate to that and say, yeah, that makes sense. But it kind of becomes a slide that causes you to slide into everything else that they say. We have to be able to separate different things, truth from lie. And they give you enough truth in evolution that would convince you to swallow the entire system if you're not careful. Indeed, they deal with the same observational data which creationists deal with. We all have the same data that we deal with, we wrestle through. But if we are unprepared, we can easily be swept into their interpretation and processing of that data simply because they seem logical, they're better educated about that data, they understand more about it. and their description of the facts themselves are accurate at many points. They can look at facts that we have in our geologic record, in what we see in our nature and so on, and they can be proven factually certain things that they observe are undeniable facts. And we need to understand what is fact and what's fiction, but we need to be able to interpret those facts properly lest we get swept aside by the entire system. One can point out a lot of observational facts and yet string those facts together and draw conclusions about those facts which are grossly inaccurate. But if we are not prepared, if we are not Bereans even in this sense, then we will be incapable of defending what we know to be true in light of the given and interpreted facts. If we don't understand what's going on in this system, how they think, what the facts really are and what's not, because there are lies too, obviously, we're going to be in trouble. We're not going to be ready. And then lastly, the third reason that I want to give you for why it's important for us to study this topic of evolution. Thirdly, and this is perhaps the most important point, many Christian scholars Christian scholars, people who you and I know about, brilliant people of the faith, have already compromised attempting to somehow bridge evolution and creation together. Okay, they would not obviously say there's no God. These are Christian, professing Christian, and a lot of them we would say are true Christians, sincere Christians, but they have compromised in some sense and said, look, why can't we just bring so-called science and Christianity together and just work together on these things and say, okay, there is, evolution is possible, it's feasible, but why couldn't God have used evolution as a system by which he created the world? This is where we in fact get the term, theistic evolution. There's a term called, a system that some Christians embrace called theistic evolution, which embraces the teaching that God is indeed the creator, but he created through the use of evolutionary means. And so such scholars would deny, for example, and here's where we're going to start to see the trouble here, such scholars would deny a literal interpretation of Genesis chapter 1, which we just read. They would say that's not literal. That is a poetic writing of some sort, or it is allegorical. in some sense. It's not literal, and they would say that the days of the week listed would say that on the first day God created, and then there was evening and morning the first day. It doesn't seem to be any clearer than that, but somehow that's not clear enough. That's just supposed to be poetic in some sense. And so they would say that those days, and would have to say that those days, if you embrace evolution in any sense, are not literal days, and actually represent billions and even millions of years allowing for an old earth and evolutionary processes to take place in the formation of animals from single cells to animals to mankind if you carry it all the way through. In fact, among many scholarly Christians Christians, it is almost foolish or unintelligent, childish, to embrace the notion of a young earth, an earth say 6,000 to 8,000 years old, which is what we would believe to be the case. It's almost foolish to even think that among Christians. Brother Lou, let me borrow a DVD, we may see it at some point, that gives you the quotes of many what Ken Ham has done, as he has had interviewed people from different colleges, Christian colleges, that we would probably respect and hold in high esteem. And he pulled out some of these scholars from one of these colleges, people who we respect. and try to get their input on the young earth, old earth. And most of these people in these colleges believe in an old earth, in this idea that evolution in some sense is true. Why is this important? Why can't we just say, well, why don't we just allow for that? What's the big deal if God used evolution or not? And Genesis chapter one is not literal and it's millions of years. Well, brethren, for many reasons, one of course, one basic reason that I'd give you, and there's several, would be the fact that death would have had to existed before the fall of man took place. Isn't that significant? if evolution is true and animals and molecules eventually came became man right they would say would have no problem with saying well then these things had to have died that's part of the assumption to be able to they've evolved and death took place in the we are here where we are today and man has come about but these things happen before Adam millions of years even took place before Adam even came and deaths have taken place before sin was in the world I think that's pretty significant to our doctrine and our understanding of the fall of mankind But most of all, and there's many reasons, Lou's over the itch, and he's like, he's got 100 coming out of his ears right now, but we'll get into some of those. But most of all, brethren, I think the most significant problem with this is this. And if I didn't see it happening before my very eyes, I'd still believe it's a problem, but I might not be as severe as I am about this issue. Most of all, it will bring the integrity of the scriptures into question, won't it? Once you start taking something historical in Scripture and saying, well, maybe that's not historical, what happens then over time? If we deny the literal days of Genesis 1 and we say, that's not literal, and declare the first few chapters to be poetic or allegorical, well, what do we do with the historical Adam and Eve? What do we do with Noah's flood? What do we do with the Tower of Babel and many other of the historical events given in Scripture? What do we eventually do with the miracles of Jesus? What do we do with the teachings of Jesus and others in Scripture who seem to say that it was literal days? What happens, here's the question brethren, here it is. What happens when it is left up to fallible, sinful man to begin tampering with God's history, determining what might be allegorical or not? What happens when you open that door? When it's in man's hand to make that assumption. Well, we did that in Genesis 1. Why can't it be for the flood? And if you've done that with Genesis 1 already, and you've opened that door, you really don't have a case to say, well, no, that's historical in the flood, but not in Genesis 1. And brethren, people like Bruce Walkie, people like John Piper, people like Tim Keller, I think even Sproul, right? Okay, came to young earth, okay. Many scholars have compromised even in minor ways. Now again, there's a variety of degree. I don't want you to come out and say, you know, John Piper's an evolutionist. He's not. But I am saying that the old earth, young earth issue, these people, there are wavering going on. Keller is big time wavering on that. I mean, he's already, he's written some things, very controversial on that issue. Trempe Longman. Now, you've probably never heard of him, but he's a well-respected scholar who's written some fine commentaries. And there are many, many more. Many as well, though not all, who have begun to deny the literal interpretation of Genesis 1. have also denied, now this isn't those people, but many, who are further down the line, have also denied the historicity of Adam and Eve, which would also bring into question our Lord's teachings, who taught about a historical Adam and Eve, the Apostle Paul, who taught about a historical Adam and Eve, You see how it affects them. There was this, the head of, I don't know if you've ever heard of Biologos, there's a website. These are people who are theistic evolutionists. They believe they're professed Christians. Am I right, Lou? They would profess to be Christians or not at all? Okay, some of them would just say there's a God, they may not be the Christian God. But among these people, one thing that they seek to do is to bridge together evolution and creation, to bring these two together. And at the head, the director of this, of Biologos, on the film that Lou let me borrow, it was insane. This guy It started with denying the historicity of Genesis 1 and 2 and some of the things, young earth, old earth. He's denying the historicity of Adam and Eve. He had to go so far. It was insane. I mean, you had to fall out of your chair. Where he was trying to make a case to try to say, well, maybe why Paul spoke of a little Adam and Eve and Jesus. He's trying to now tamper with their words and trying to get rid of the damage that he's done to the New Testament text because he's gotten rid of the Old Testament text. You see, it carries over. That would bring more mocking to Christianity than it would be to say, hey, young earth. I'd rather be accused in that area as being a child, especially when you see the scientific facts, than to say, okay, well, what do you have left in your scriptures now that you've compromised, Christians? Others have denied the historicity of the fall, saying that it's just illogical to presume that Eve was tempted by a serpent. Now that sounds pretty ridiculous, right? If you're going to fold on Genesis 1, it's not going to be too hard to say that, okay, this serpent stuff, that's just allegory. Now you start tampering with the fall. I mean, you're talking about foundations here, aren't you? the universal flood of Noah's day, and even the miracles of Christ have come into question as well. You see, the enemy, brethren, is glad to chip away at the foundation because he knows that over time the whole building of Scripture will collapse. If you start tampering with Genesis 1, eventually it will collapse. And you know what the interesting thing is? We would say, no, these guys are solid Christians, and that may be the case. It's not our generation that I would be overly concerned about. the enemy would be glad to take our children or our children's children. Because you know what happens, the regression gets worse and worse, doesn't it? As time goes on. If he can bring the integrity, authenticity, sufficiency, and inerrancy of Scripture into question, then he has done a fine job of eroding the Christian faith. Because our Christian faith begins by resting in the, we have a confidence in the authenticity, the infallibility, the authority of God's Word, doesn't it? If you can win the battle against me on the issue of Scripture, I'm lost. Once you take that away, everything else falls apart. Everything becomes a question. The gospel, everything. If scriptures are not the authoritative, infallible truth that we claim that they are. That's why the confession of faith that we have begins not with the doctrine of God, not with the doctrine of Christ, or the doctrine of the gospel, or the doctrine of man. It begins with the doctrine of scripture, doesn't it? Because that's the most important thing. If that folds, Everything else falls apart. The Scriptures stand together, and one loosened wall will ultimately bring down the whole building. And so, brethren, we have to be ready and prepared lest we be swept away with so-called scholarship and critical thinking. And these people use long words. They know the facts of what is observed out there, and we can look like a fool and say, well, that's not true. and find out that something they're saying is true, and we can be quite embarrassed for it, we have to have some knowledge of these things. We must know the facts and what is at stake, and we must be prepared to go to the mat without compromise when addressing the integrity of Scripture. Again, people like Bruce Walkie, D.A. Carson was another one, Tim Keller, Trempe Longman III, John Piper, and many, many others have already begun to waver some worse than others in this area. Brethren, the short form is this, and I've just said this, but I want you to hear it again. While we may ultimately survive the onslaught of such compromise, our children may not survive it. And it's being proven in our day, in our generation, another study that Ken Ham had done, and you see that book that Lou has been mentioning, already gone, right? With our younger generations, we're losing our young people, and part of the reason is because they're saying that that Christianity is this fable. It just doesn't meet with science, because evolution is considered science. And they see some of the observable facts, but they embrace the interpretation of those facts, such as the issue of an old earth. And they look at their parents, and their parents say, well, children, look at Genesis 1. Look at what it says here. And the parents don't have enough of an education of understanding what's out there, even scientifically, to really even address things with their children. And you know how it is, they look at their parents as if, when they get to that age, that they don't know much anyway. And so, the onslaught of such compromise may not be, we may survive it, but our children may not, and certainly our children's children will not. We must protect the truth for our own generation indeed, but also and especially for future generations. Many Christian colleges have already compromised in these areas. So you think your kids are safe. They've graduated high school. You've home-schooled them maybe. Maybe you sent them to a Christian school or even a secular school, but they seem to be embracing the Christian faith. And you say, okay, we can put them in this Christian college and have a lot of confidence. Send them over to Westminster or some great school. and not even realize that they might be being taught by these professors who embrace evolution. Great men of God. I'm just saying that there's a lot at stake here, brethren, and we need to be concerned about future generations. We don't want to be like Hezekiah, do we? Hezekiah was a great man of God, a great king, one of the most faithful kings in all of Scripture. And remember when he had exposed all of his wealth and all of the luxuries of his kingdom to the king of Babylon who came there. He showed him everything that he had and his pride was filled. And there was judgment brought upon him because God said, because of that, all these things will be taken by Babylon. And he said, but it won't happen in your generation. And Hezekiah was kind of like, oh, OK, it's not in my generation. Great, you know, as if like, you know, again, it sounds silly, but it was no concern for his children or his children's children. Well, at least it's not going to happen now. We don't want to have that kind of mindset, brethren. Okay, well, let's move into some basic groundwork here about evolution that I want to get into. That's kind of the introduction there. it's important for us to understand first as we think about this topic brethren and the next at least next week maybe the next couple weeks is a lot of foundational stuff before we get into the meat and bones of some specific science on which is the fun stuff but it but it's gonna be on Interesting to get there one of the books that I'm using a couple of books that I've read through already that I've used that have been very helpful to me personally is from You can get these romances in Genesis if you want to Otherwise, I'll be using some of these as references that are really good stuff. One is called evolution exposed by Roger Patterson and its biology And then he has another one, a second book called Evolution Exposed with Earth Science. What he does here, as you can see, he has these textbooks on here, and it's actually a guide. It gives a lot of information, but it also gives you a guide. It shows you the main textbooks used in our high schools. And what he does is he has chapters and stuff and all kinds of references from those textbooks and shows what they teach. And he deals with those teachings, both from a scientific standpoint and, of course, a biblical standpoint as well. And he gives students something to use and even questions to ask their teachers to kind of address some of these assumptions that are made with evolution. Anyway, it's well written. Tons of good materials from Answers in Genesis that you can get easily online if you'd like to. Well, the first important thing we need to understand is this. As we begin, evolution... is not an observable science. That's extremely important. Evolution is not an observable science. So let me explain what I mean by that. First, let me say this, just to clear this up. When we think of the term evolution, let me say this, as Christians, negative thoughts and feelings tend to immediately arise, don't they? It's kind of like if I were to say to you this morning, we're a Catholic church. But we really are a Catholic Church from a scriptural standpoint. We wouldn't use that term because sadly it's been abused and mutilated by the Roman Catholic Church. If I were to say, we're Jehovah's Witnesses! Whoa. Well, why do we have windows, right? Well, we are witnesses of Jehovah, aren't we? I'm just saying, so terms tend to take on a bad meaning when they're used or misused in some way. How many of you named your children Judas Iscariot? Anybody named their children Judas? The name is shot, isn't it? Or Lucifer? Right? We wouldn't do that. Anyway, so the term evolution, right, is thoughts of negative thoughts and feelings tend to arise. Now we must understand, of course, brethren, that the word evolution in and of itself is not evil. It's not an evil word. The idea of evolution in its most basic, definitional sense simply means change of some sort. It just means change. So if you hear a brother or sister in Christ use the term evolution, you don't want to jump up and down and call them a heretic, because there's a place to use that even in a proper sense. It can be used then in a pure sense, but unfortunately, because of what has become known as the system of evolution, that is the system that tells us that molecules have evolved and eventually over time have become man, right, to animals and etc. Molecules to man evolution, because of that system that we know is in place, we unfortunately have to cautiously detract from using that term in any positive sense. So we're cautious, we don't like to use that word, we feel sinful when using it. But I'm just saying it's not a bad word. What we mean by evolution, though, when we have this study, of course, what we mean by evolution, then, or the system with which the term has become directly associated, is the idea that all of life on Earth has come from a common ancestor. That's a simple way of understanding what I'm going to mean by evolution, if you want to sum it up. All of life has come from a common ancestor, a hypothetical single-celled organism of some sort, which came from nothing, ultimately, from matter, from non-living matter, but that's beside the point right now. But everything comes through this tree of life, is connected, and ultimately comes down, every living thing, to a single-celled organism of some sort. Through some form of process of modification and change, which we'll go over in probably two or three weeks from now, Every living thing has evolved into the complex living forms that we see today. And we'll get into it. It's not to say that there's a direct connection between everything, because certain things have evolved in more than one direction. But ultimately, we're all of the same, come from the same right cell. Dogs, cats, iguanas, kangaroos, apes, eagles, pigeons, alligators, elephants, whales, catfish, dinosaurs, ants, right? All these things and etc. have all ultimately come from the same single-celled ancestor. Now we must understand, brethren, that evolution in this sense, molecules to man evolution, in this sense, is not to be equated with observational science. You have to understand that. Although, sadly, such an assumption is often made in the world that surrounds us. It is assumed, when you hear people tell you, Evolution is true. You have to understand, they're assuming something that is fallacious, that is not true. They're assuming in our school textbooks, in the museums, if you go to the different museums, the, what's the one over in Washington DC? Smithsonian, if you go to these different museums, science programs, magazines, National Geographic, right, and TV, and scholarly lingo, it's assumed that these things are just fact, are observational, seen as if evolution has been seen to have taken place, observed in some sense. And you have to understand, brethren, that it is not observable science. Rather, this is what evolution is. It is one interpretation of observable science. It is an interpretation of, there is observable science, but evolution in itself is not an observable science. It is an interpretation of that. You see, for science to be science in the observable sense, right, in the real sense, when somebody says, well, you're just denying science, or they pin science against Christianity or religion, They're drawing a conclusion that's fallacious or they're assuming something that's not true when they try to put them on opposite sides of the aisle. Because for science to be science in that sense, it must be observable today. You have to be able to observe it today. It must be able to be tested in some sense. It must be repeated in some sense, or falsifiable. It has to be able to be proven false, right? For it to be science, those are some important things that must be in place. It must be observable, it must be able to be tested, it must be repeatable, and it must be falsifiable for it to be true science. And evolutionists, of course, are not capable of doing this. Now, how many of us know that science, in the sense of when it was first, and again, I know this would be debated, but when it was first created as science, when it first existed as science, the original scientists, Kepler and all the people who started science, so-called, how many of us know that most of them were creationists? All of them, I think, the great bulk of them were creationists when they studied science, the original people who started science. Well, you don't hear that today in where science has evolved, do you? And so this then, therefore, takes us to two critical definitions, brethren, which will help us properly identify and classify the theory of evolution. I want us to be able to classify evolution. What is it? Well, we need to understand two things. First is what I just mentioned, there is observational science, or you might hear people call it operational science. Observational science is a systematic approach, now this quote I'm taking from Patterson here, is a systematic approach to understanding that uses observable Testable, repeatable, and falsifiable experimentation to understand how nature commonly behaves. That's observational science. That's science in the way people use it or should be using it in our language today. It is a systematic approach to understanding that uses observable, testable, repeatable and falsifiable experimentation to understand how nature commonly behaves. In other words, brethren, we can study today and observe today general patterns and or codes that are given us in nature, which can lead us to draw general conclusions about the thing we are studying. That's science. We can study observable things. We can do trial and error runs and different experiments and learn things about creation that we can observe today. Through observational science, for example, we can understand such things as how DNA molecules code for proteins. If you've never studied the fascinating way that the body works and how DNA works and codes, it's absolutely mind-blowing. But we can study that today. We have the tools to be able to see DNA at work, and how it codes, and how proteins are formed, and how RNA is used, and just the amazing way the coding together, the design of the human body, and of animals, and etc. Observational science is what enables us to advance technologically. giving us the ability to develop new products. We use observational science to develop products. To develop cures for diseases, we use observational science. How do we come up with these cures, and these medicines, and these antibiotics, and antidotes, and etc.? Well, it's through observational science that that happens, based upon the natural laws that are discovered by various studies, and trial and error, and etc. Right? Scientists study things, they study laws, they see how things react with one another, and they're able to develop different kinds of technologies can come out of these studies, because there are patterns in our natural order. And the true genius, brethren, here's the important thing, the true genius involved in observational science, which of course the atheists would deny right from the outset, but the true genius involved in observational science is that God has created this wonderful creation in an orderly fashion, providing us with observable natural laws which we can use for further advancement in many areas of living. That's the genius. Now they don't see that. That's denied by evolutionists, of course. But I'm saying from the Christian standpoint, we ought to marvel that God has given us natural laws Things we can study so that we can learn how to advance and so on, how to protect ourselves, all kinds of things He's given us. Imagine if there were no natural laws. We'd be in big trouble. But He's given us that. God coded creation as it were. And again, you study human life and what happens right from the time of inception and the development of a baby and etc. It is absolutely mind-blowing to see how DNA works and how everything forms, the eyeballs and the way the eyeball works. Any little thing, part of the body that you study, it's absolutely amazing. He gave us natural laws that work consistently so that we could grow in our understanding of His creation. And so that we could develop ways to utilize it, especially in the advancement of technology. So we can fly, we can have submarines in the water and boats, we can take pictures, we can have computers and send emails and do all kinds of these kinds of things because of observational science. Because God has given us patterns. in nature that we can study and utilize. Can you imagine what it would be like for people who have problems with certain diseases or their eyes or whatever it may be if God didn't allow us to be able to study the eyeball and develop certain natural laws about how things work and be able to cure different things and so on. Well, that's observational science. Sadly, evolutionists see these laws. Here's the key, brethren. We're getting right down to the presuppositions here. We're getting right into them. Very important. Evolutionists see these laws, these natural laws, as laws unto themselves with no necessary creator or designer behind them. So they study the laws. They benefit from the laws, but they deny that a creator has put them in place. And they attempt, and this is important, you have to understand this, they attempt to search for truth by means of these laws under the assumption that a designer does not exist. That's the assumption from the outset. There is no creator. There is no supernatural. But they see these laws. And they study these laws. And the laws become the creator, in a sense, to them. And they try to solve everything in life through the laws themselves. And the laws aren't meant to do that, are they? They're meant to lead us to the creator. Now we'll get back to this in a moment, brethren, but for now, it is important that we understand that observational science deals with that which can be tested, which can be repeated and observed happening, proven falsifiable, it's happening in the present sense, it can be recognized and seen. When you deal with the question of origins, therefore, where do we come from? How did this all start? It is impossible to prove origin on the basis of observational science. Now, we can say as Christians in one sense that it can be proven in observational science, because there was somebody who did observe it, and who was there, and so on, right? God. But again, if we're going to play in their realm, I'm just saying that technically, from a purely worldly standpoint, When you're dealing with the question of origins, it is impossible to prove origin on the basis of observational science, because no one, with the exception of God, of course, was there to observe the origin of all things firsthand. Now this is important, brethren, because oftentimes evolutionists will claim that evolution is scientific fact, which has been proven, when in reality it has not been proven at all, nor could it be, because no one could go back and actually observe millions of years which have brought molecules to man. When they're telling you that it's fact, what they're saying really is There is observable data that we have in fossils and the geologic record and isotopes and how they decay and how rocks form and all kinds of things that we can study. Legitimate facts, but what they're doing is they're equating those facts with their interpretation of those facts and saying evolution is science. Do you understand that? The observable science is there. We can look at fossils and we can look at all kinds of things and how things erode and so on, right? And even change in certain ways. And we can see how there's certain kinds of genes in different animals so that they can have different colored cats and so on, right? We can see that. But they're interpreting that under the assumption that there's no creator, and making a lot of hypotheses about these things. They're making a lot of guesswork, even, and they're putting it all together and saying, look, science has proven evolution. But it hasn't. But we need to know the observable facts, don't we? What evolutionists do then is attempt to interpret various evidences located throughout our world, deposited pieces of history as it were, such as fossils, various rock layers, starlight distances, etc., and other observable present day patterns such as rock decay, radioactive isotopes, we'll get into that and how they how they change, how they decay, half-lifes and etc. Don't even worry about that now. As a means though of drawing conclusions about the past. So they take these things that they see before us and draw conclusions about the past and they call that all observational science when it is not. So they take factual data and use it as a means of drawing conclusions about unobservable events of the past, which take us then to our second critical definition. So evolution is not observational science. Here is the second key definition we need to understand. Historical science, historical science, historical science is to interpret evidence from past events based on a presupposed philosophical point of view. Now this is important. Historical science is to interpret evidence from past events based on a presupposed philosophical point of view. Now brethren, if you're confused, this will make sense by the time we get to the end of at least maybe today and at least next week. Over the next few weeks you'll understand all this, probably today even. Evolution, you need to understand, is an historical science. It is not observational science. In fact, creationism is an historical science as well. Now again, we can say it's observational from the standpoint that God was there to observe it. I said that already. But I'm saying, barring the fact that we weren't there, there's nobody who can say that they were there or who saw what happened at the beginning. beside God himself, it is both of these are historical sciences in that sense. There are presuppositions that are used to interpret what we observe today to make conclusions about the past. Whether you're an evolutionist or creationist, both are true. They're true for both. Both deal with the same data. The same deposited evidence has given us in the past. Now you need to understand this, because people will tell you from within evolution, well you guys just deny the facts. You don't even look at the stuff that's out. Like as if creationists say, you know what, creation scientists say, you know what, I'm just going to sit in my Bible and I'm not going to go out and look at the fossils and all that stuff, because I just believe that, you know, as if that's what they do. No! They're into that data. They're out there. They're studying. There are groups of scientists, creationist scientists, who are out there studying rock layers and everything else at this very moment. The same evidence that evolutionists are studying, creationists are studying. Both are studying the facts. The difference is there's different interpretations of those facts, especially about what happened in the past. And that's how we get into historical science. So both deal with the same data. But they both deal with it within the realm of two different presuppositional systems. Creationists look at the same exact data that evolutionists look at. Remember that. Don't let anybody tell you, well, they don't even look at the facts. No, they look at the same data. Creationists do not deny the facts. They just interpret them differently. In fact, as I said, we have the advantage because there was one who was there to observe what really happened. So we do use scripture as well to help us in our interpretation, but in our science, we are able to show, in a lot of these cases, how well the Bible is proven even by observable science. We can show that in many ways today. Evolutionists, however, begin with various presuppositions as well. It is important to note, right, we have our presupposition that scripture is true, that God created, and so on. Well, they have their presuppositions as well. But it's important to note, brethren, and we'll probably do this next week, as we prepare to consider some of the presuppositions of evolution that evolution is not an observable science. It is an historical science. From the standpoint of man, evolution is no more of an observable science than creationism. Now brethren, what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut it off right here, because next time I want to get into the specific presuppositions. What is in the toolbox of evolutionary thinking right from the outset? When you do math problems, those of you who are more advanced in school years, some of you are too young to know this, some of the algebra problems that we've done, you have the givens. If such and such is this and such and such is this, then solve for x or solve the problem. You can't change the givens when you do that problem. If you do, you'll get the problem wrong. You have to accept the givens from the outset before you come to your conclusion. Those are presuppositions. that are given you. Now, math, it's perfect in that sense, right? Because you're going to come to a proper answer. But in the realm of science, evolutionists and creationists, right, come as well with a set of presuppositions, givens. These givens cannot be changed under any circumstance. And they draw conclusions when they take the givens and they process the data that's observable, they come to conclusions on the basis of those two things. The problem is, It is what if something is wrong with the givens, right? What if some of the givens are not really true facts? Well, we have to go over those givens, those presuppositions next time to see where they begin, the assumptions that have to be in place and cannot be changed from the standpoint of evolutionists. We have a few minutes. I want to believe if anybody has a question, anything I can clear up with that. Next time we will get into some of the, again, the presuppositions and I think a lot of this is going to become clearer and clearer as you stay with me. By the time you get to the end of these lectures, I think you're going to really have a greater understanding of these things. Anybody have any questions or anything they want to say? Brother Dave McMillan. You used the term falsifiable. Can you tell us exactly what you mean by that? In other words, it has to be able to have the opportunity to prove it false. If you make a statement to me and you say this is fact, in that sense, within the realm of science, I have to be able to have the chance to be able to prove that false. That data has to be here. In the sense of evolution, what their conclusions are about origins, they're giving you information that they're accepting as fact that nobody has the ability to show that it's false because we can't go back and take everything as it was originally in that sense. So it has to be able to be proven false. It doesn't mean it's going to be, obviously, because if it's not, right, it's going to be used in some sense, but it has to be able to be proven false for it to be science. It has to be able to be testable in that sense. You were speaking specifically of evolutionary origin, not when we would get, say, into an argument today where people would say natural selection is part of evolution as opposed to breaking natural selection apart as something else. We're going to get into natural selection in probably two or three weeks. That's a big, big factor on how they would see it. Right, but still you can use the scientific method and observable sciences for that. Yes. So I just want to make sure that I'm understanding. When you're talking about historical science, you're really talking about the philosophy of the origins. Yes. Is that the definition? Yes. Natural selection is observational science. Yeah, it can be proven. Yes, you're right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right. I'm talking about the study of origins. And eventually with earth science, if we get there, I think I wanted to start with biology, you start getting into the history of the universe and what happened and et cetera there. The Big Bang and that kind of stuff. Anybody else? Lou. Oh, Lou. Lou, you know we got an 11 o'clock service, brother. Lou's going to get here. Lou, you want me here? Go ahead, Lou. Where's the missing link? It's still missing. Where are you there? The, uh, the crux of the whole matter, and this is important for all of us. I mean, I just had a recent conversation not too long ago with a fellow, uh, both, um, anchor and I know that when we took the computer class together, this fellow, Howard, a Jewish fellow, very intelligent fellow. Um, and he believes still, you know, uh, things that have been proven false, even by evolutionists. There's like embryonic recapitulation where, you know, They used to believe the baby in the womb went through all these different stages, the salamander, the rabbit. And there was this man, Ernst Haeckel, a German philosopher. He had drawn that famous picture. showed you a rabbit embryonic, a salamander, a human, a couple, and they all looked exactly the same. It came out a generation later that he fudged that. He made it look like that. When you look at those real embryonic pictures of those, they look different. So anyway, but the crux of the matter... And there's still, real quickly, what Lou's saying about that, not only that, there are not only been scams and lies that have happened, that have been found out, and unfortunately after the damage has been done, but there are still textbooks using some of these things, that still have them in it, that have been proven to be a sham, a lie, like what happened in China, right, where they had the situation where they found the they developed the bird or whatever, whatever, I forgot what it was, they put hair on it, whatever, something, but it wasn't even true. It was a sham, and they didn't find out, and National Geographic actually published it as fact at the time, when it was originally found, but they found out later on that it was actually fixed, it was made up. And they used to justify abortion with that, I mean this plays into everything else, whether it's marriage, abortion, as you'll get into, I'm sure, later weeks. They used to justify abortion, say, listen, it's just in the salamander stage, it's not a human yet. Now we know different by the technology we have. But, uh, I think everyone's got to keep in mind that when you mentioned, and we'll watch the film sometime, it's really revealing. Ken Ham, uh, produces video already compromised, uh, to go along with already gone. He lets them speak for themselves. So we're not putting words in their mouth. The, uh, Trevor Longmans, the, um, uh, the a caution, the Kellers and so on. And other people from schools that some of us have might've even attended in the past, uh, where they're at now in their science and philosophy departments, you'll see they're wavering on it or they've capitulated already. But the crux of the matter, we have to remember, is the gospel. Because Romans 5.12 says, therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. That's really, really, it is the gospel. Why did Jesus Christ have to come in the first place? Why is there death in the world? If there was death before man, then the whole message, even true evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould, he even realized, listen, do you guys really believe this stuff or not? Sadly, some of them understand it more than us. Yeah, and just to say this too, by the way, my own opinion about why a lot of these deep scholars, these guys who have forgotten more than I know, I believe there's some compromise. Again, I want to be careful when I say this. I think when you pursue scholarship, you can get to a form of critical thinking that can really contend with the simple faith that God is looking for, right? The faith, the child, in a sense of just, again, not that we want to be ignorant, but just the basic truths of Scripture, like the flood and the miracles and things like that. And when you put everything about God into the realm of critical thinking, you know, I tend to think God will start to give you over to some of that, you know, to some of those things and say, okay, you want to, you think you can solve everything in that way? You know, here you go, you know. Again, I don't want to pick on Timothy Keller, but you have a guy like Keller who is brilliant in many ways. His audience tends to be college students. He tends to be very philosophical when you hear him speak. So there's more of a proneness, I think, for someone like that to kind of dip into some of this. Again, he's not a hardcore evolutionist. He wouldn't deny the historicity of Adam and Eve, but he would definitely be open to saying that the first few chapters of Genesis are not literal you know and even the whole issue of the old earth young earth thing you know we have people who used to come to our church who are attending over there and you know seem to not find a big issue with that but to me that's significant anyway we need to pray and if you have any other questions we can save them next time I have for this first lecture I have a little more to go on it, but I think there'll be more time for questions if you'd like. You can do that. Hopefully within the next three or four weeks, I'd say next week is still foundational. The week after that, we'll start to get into some of the natural, some of the meat and potatoes, the real interesting stuff as far as the things we can observe and the interpretations of those things. So we'll look forward to that. Let's pray. Father we do thank you for your grace and your mercy to us for giving us the truth of your word We thank you Lord that your word is is true Lord, and it's not Compromised that it is sharper than any two-edged sword Lord. It's it pierces the soul and separates soul and spirit as it were Lord and bone and marrow and We we know Lord that when man thinks that we we can step out of our Our position, Lord, that you've put us in when we try to step into your authority, Lord, and try to be God's, Lord, we get into a lot of trouble. We pray that you would help us, Lord, to believe what your word says, Lord, not to deny what's observable. To study these things out is fine, Lord, but to be careful, Lord, with where we go with these things and to know that you're God and that your word will never fail. We thank You, Lord, that the test of time has proven that over and over again. And we pray that we would stand firm, Lord, as a church and teach our children so that they will be firm and be ready to answer those who debate these things. We thank You, Lord. We know that ultimately debating these issues is not going to win the day. We know that it comes down to the Gospel and that the Holy Spirit will work. as we proclaim that gospel. But at the same time, Lord, we know we want to be able to, it is right to have an understanding of such things, Lord, so that we can defend even in these kinds of ways, we pray. So please bless us. We thank you for Anses and Genesis and Ken Ham and all those who work with him and pray for your blessing and preservation of that ministry. And we pray that you would help us now as we would seek to worship you, that you'd be with us as we gather together to give you praise. We pray in Christ's name, amen.