in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without
form and void and darkness was upon the face in six days the Lord made heaven
and earth the sea and all that is in them and God saw everything that he had
made and behold it was very good.
Greetings and welcome to the Institute for Creation Research and the Museum of
Creation and Earth History. Since the museum opened in September of 1992 in
just its first year some 30,000 people came through. Hopefully they were
entertained but also educated because as you see this museum is laid out in what
we call a walk through history. It gives the creationist and the biblical view of
history as in contrast to that of most museums. We start at creation then we go
to the fall then the flood of Noah and then the Tower of Babel incident and on
up through history up until the present time and we're sure glad you could join
us for this walk through history. ICR is basically a group of scientists but we're
not only scientists we're Bible believing Christians. We have physicists
here and biologists. I happen to be a geologist and in this museum what we
want to do is present some of that scientific information that we think
supports creation but you know we also want to answer some of the big questions
of life like where did I come from and what's the meaning of life and what
happens after I die. Now it may seem strange that in a science museum like
this it would be asked in questions like this but you know philosophers tell us
that these all of us ask these questions from time to time. The first one where
did I come from? This perhaps is the most basic question of all and actually the
answer to that question dictates your whole understanding of life in
particular the answers to these other two questions. You see ideas have
consequences. Ideas have real power and the way we think about the past
evolution or creation dictates how we think about things. What's the meaning of
life? If evolution is true then what we are we're really just the chance random
byproducts of the of the random forces of nature. What's the meaning of that? If
we've descended up from the animals if up through the fish up from the single
cell organisms and the primeval slime then who cares? But you know if we were
created in God's image if we were created by God then then we have real purpose.
Our purpose is to have fellowship with Him and to bring glory to Him and of
course where we going? What happens after I die? If evolution is true then what we
think is that we're going back to the elements. There's no eternal part of us.
Hopefully what you'll see in these next few minutes as we go through the museum
will better equip you to answer these vital questions. Before we go on we've
got to discuss a couple other issues and the first one is the nature of science.
What is science? Now all of us in high school we've studied about the
scientific method what that is. That has to do with observation. We we make our
observations we run our experiments we gather our data and then we come to some
conclusions about that data and using science and the scientific method
scientists have been able to do some amazing things put men on the moon. But
when we talk about creation or evolution we're talking about something else. You
see who's ever observed evolution? Who's ever observed creation? Nobody can
observe either one of these things. In fact my evolutionary colleagues they
don't even claim to have seen evolution. They're very frustrated they say that
evolution seems to have stopped or or maybe it's just going too slow to see.
Well but creation is in exactly the same boat. If creation ever occurred no one
saw it take place and so you see these are both ideas about the past. They're
ideas about events that may have happened in the past but in essence
they're really kind of historical reconstructions. Neither is really in the
realm of observational science. So what do we do? The best we can do as it turns
out is to compare the two and see which one works better. See which one is a
better fit for the scientific evidence. It's important to recognize that because
these are both ideas about the past neither one can be proved or disproved.
They're both just ideas about the past. The issue is which one fits better, makes
better sense out of the evidence. Well I'm convinced that the creation idea
about the past, the creation historical reconstructions makes a whole lot more
sense out of the past and out of the scientific evidence than does the
evolutionary view. In our walk through time we'll be doing just that. We won't
try to prove the Bible. What we will do is show how the scientific evidence fits
with the Bible. As I say we don't prove the Bible. We don't even try to prove the
Bible. We believe it but if it's true it ought to work and when we look at the
evidence we see that it does. Next I'd like to destroy a myth about science.
Something they would like you to think about scientists. They would like you to
think that scientists are unbiased observers. That they gather their data
and they come to conclusions about whatever they're studying. Now this may be
true as they study the present. Present processes, present data but you see when
they're reconstructing the past there's a problem. Even fossils. Fossils exist in
the present. Now they may be the remains of creatures which lived and died in the
past but they exist in the present and when we find them in the present they
don't come with labels on them telling us how these fossils got to be that way
and how old they are. Rocks don't come with labels on them. They must be
interpreted by one's assumptions about the past and if we assume evolution is
true then we can tell a story about these rocks and fossils but we can't
prove it because we weren't there to see it. It's an unobserved idea about the
past likewise for creation. If we assume creation we can tell a story about these
rocks and fossils. It's a different story and I'm convinced a better story but
it's a reconstruction of the past. Unfortunately most modern education and
even scientific research proceeds with the assumption of evolution. They assume
evolution is true. Creation if it's even mentioned what it might be ignored or
denied or even ridiculed and the interpretations that are derived then
are consistent with evolution thinking. Well of course they are. Evolution has
been assumed. It's never proven and creation has never disproved. It's just
denied. Really neither evolution or creation could ever be proved or
disproved. They're both ideas about the past. I'm convinced that the exclusive
teaching of evolution that we find in our modern schools is not really
education at all. It's more like brainwashing. It's the repeating of the
politically correct philosophy about the past but here in this museum we'll tell
you the creation story, a different story. We'll show how the evidence fits with
the biblical view of history and so if we're gonna do that where do we
begin? Well we begin at the beginning and in creation we begin at day one of
creation week.
What was created on day one? The Bible says in Genesis 1 1 that in the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Sounds simple enough but let's
look. Heaven, what's that? God created the heaven. In this context that seems to mean
the idea of space. God created space, three-dimensional space elsewhere in the
Bible that says he stretched out the heavens or stretched out space. Now we
might think of space as being nothing but it had to be created along with
everything else. Verse 3 says and 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 the light God called day and the darkness he called night and the
evening in the morning were the first day. Notice that there was no Sun yet.
There was a day night cycle but there was no Sun yet. The Sun was created on
day four but here that day night cycle was started. Some have said that the days
of Genesis chapter one might mean long periods of time and maybe this is where
we get the billions of years of time but notice the very first time that word is
used. It says it's talking about the day night cycle and God called the light
portion of that day night cycle day and the darkness he called night. The word
day while in some places it might mean a long period of time but here it means
the daylight portion of the day night cycle. Now other things that we might not
think of as having been created look at that verse Genesis 1 1 it says in the
beginning in the beginning evidently God started time here. Now what was before
time beats me but remember Jesus told the Pharisees he said before Abraham
was I am. Now we might think of that as being bad grammar but it just means that
God is outside of time. God created time and then it says he created the earth
evidently this was the solid matter out of which he formed everything else. So we
see that on day one God created space and time and matter a full day's work
day one. Now let's see what he did on day two. Day two. What happened on day two?
Now here Genesis talks about waters. Waters it says above the atmosphere and
waters below the atmosphere. The atmosphere of course is essential for
life and both plant life which was created on day three and animal life
which was to come later. Now today many people are concerned about the atmosphere
and its makeup especially the ozone and carbon dioxide levels. But you know the
scientific evidence seems to indicate that in the past a greater amount of
water vapor water vapor was in the atmosphere. This is water in a gaseous
state. Now lots of water is possible in the atmosphere a lot a lot more than is
there presently. You know if you took all the clouds and all the world and
squeezed every drop of water out of the clouds it would rain of course it would
rain for maybe 24 hours and produce about two inches of rainfall. But you
know this water vapor canopy which was created on day two when it was destroyed
at the time of the flood it rained for 40 days and 49ths of intense rainfall. A
great deal of water was out there above the atmosphere. Furthermore this water
vapor canopy would have had several other beneficial side effects. It would
have been like a blanket around the world and would have made a warm
worldwide climate evidently. There would have been no major temperature
differences between the ocean and the continents and so major storm patterns
could not develop. Evidently the whole world been a warm and wonderful place
in which to live. The conditions would have been just right for long lifespans
and large sizes. These are things we see when we look at the fossil record. Now
here at ICR we do a lot of research on this water vapor canopy. Now we weren't
there to study it so as scientists we don't know exactly what it was like but
we can go to Scripture and get the clues that are there and when we do and we
build our scientific model based on the clues given in Scripture we find that it
fits. It works just like it ought to work. Well now with the ocean in place and the
atmosphere present the earth is prepared. It's ready to support life and
life was created on day three.
Plants. Land plants. Obviously for there to be land plants or had to be land and
so God called the land up out of the world ocean and then created the plants
to grow on it. Now we're not talking here about simple plants like algae
something like that we're talking about fruit trees the Bible says bearing fruit
or seed bearing plants or grasses or herbs. Complex plants right at the start
able to take the incoming solar energy and through that marvelous process of
photosynthesis converted into useful energy and growth. Complex plants right
at the start no hint of evolution from simpler plants to the complex. Speaking
of kinds the Bible says each basic category was created after its kind and
it repeats that phrase over and over again both here at day three and also in
days five and six for the for the animals. After its kind and if we count
you see that the Bible repeats that phrase ten times. Evidently what it's
trying to tell us is that each basic category was created as that category
and did not descend from some other sort of plant or animal from some other kind.
Thus the Bible says as strongly as possible that evolution did not happen
that each basic category was created just as we see it and did not descend
from some different kind of category. Well now the earth is finally fully
prepared for animal life with the oceans with the food source but the plants with
the atmosphere everything's ready for animal life but God chooses to wait
another day to create animal life and on day four which follows this he creates
the sun and the moon and the stars. By the way some people like to say that both
evolution and creation they might both be true that God may have used evolution
to create but I don't think so. If we look carefully at both evolution and
biblical creation we see that the two stories are dramatically different they
could not possibly both be true the order of each is very different and they
just can't both be true. Evolution says for instance that the fruit trees came
after many of the land animals but what does the Bible say it says the fruit
trees came first. The evolutionary worldview says that the sun and the
stars came before the earth as we know it but the Bible says the earth was here
before the sun moon the stars and even that that plants were here before the
sun so it just doesn't work the two stories are too different to both be
true they cannot both be true evolution and creation are mutually exclusive. Now
maybe as we've gone along you've noticed these boxes on the walls in which there
are articles these articles are written mostly by the ICR staff to explain the
various points that are mentioned in the exhibits on the wall and visitors to the
museum can select and take these articles home and study them later giving
them a fuller understanding of things. Now visitors to the museum by the way can
either go through a self-guided tour reading the labels on the wall and and
taking home the articles or they can join a guided tour and have one of our
tour guides give them a a tour of all the different rooms. For day four as we
study this issue of the creation of the sun and the moon the stars let's join one
of these guided tours in progress. This one happens to be led by our museum
curator Mr. John Reicha. Let's join.
Okay what did God make on day four? Well as we look around the room we realize
that God made the sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets. Let's look at the
Sun for just a sec. Sun is very hot about 12,500 degrees if you tried to touch it
and when you get into the area around the Sun that temperature goes up to
about a million degrees so it's very warm there. The moon it turns out is of
course next to the earth and here's a place where what people believe about
creation and evolution sort of tells a little bit about how they do their
research. For instance when the astronauts first went to the moon in
1969 and came back what they did is they put them in a little house trailer and
they're waving through the window. The reason well life evolved here on the
earth it might have evolved on the moon and the astronauts might have picked up
hostile moon germs and of course we wouldn't want a moon germ plague to
spread across the face of the earth. People who believe the universe made
itself or evolution believe that perhaps life can evolve in all kinds of places
around the universe. All right and so that's why they investigated the moon
like they did. We realize that life is only in one place in the universe here
on the earth where God put it. Other things we want to look at are well for
instance nebula. Let's look at beauty. All kinds of different colors in nebula is
basically either blown up stars or scattered dust throughout the universe
and when God shines light through it you get nice pretty colors. You see these
things all over we only knew these existed in about the last hundred years
or so as scientists started to build the big telescopes. One last point we want to
make the number of stars. For a long time the Bible said that there were so many
stars you couldn't count them all. Ancient astronomers used to laugh at
this they said yeah there's a lot of points of light in the sky but there's
only about 5,000 or so and they had them all counted and named. It wasn't until a
guy named Galileo came along with this little telescope looked up in the sky
and said wow a lot of stars. Scientists tell us now there are 10 to the 22nd
stars that's the number one followed by 22 zeros or 10 septillion. That's a lot
of stars and God in Psalms 147 says he has them all named. All right that's a
pretty good filing system. Also Bible also tells us in Corinthians that each
star differs in glory. In modern science we know this is true. There are red stars
there are blue stars there are giants there are dwarfs all kinds of different
stars that God made. Okay as we look around the solar system we can see if
there really is life on other planets. As we look at Mercury it's a big hot rock
about 350 degrees on the hot side 150 below zero on the cold side no
atmosphere no life on Mercury. The next planet Venus is just the opposite
shrouded in clouds all the time and about 900 degrees and an atmospheric
pressure that pushes down so hard it's what scientists call a hundred
atmospheres that's like standing under a half a mile of water. If you walked out
of your spaceship on Venus you'd be crushed almost instantly. The pretty
planet we see on the wall is of course the earth nice clouds pretty water all
kinds of things that just suggest life. Now we've actually been to another
planet in our solar system we've been to Mars and as we look around the surface
of Mars and as scientists dug into the surface with the Viking landers we found
there was no life there either. Other things we would like to talk about are
comets and as we look at comets comets are like big dirty snowballs with rocks
in the middle and every time they come around the Sun they lose pieces. Haley's
comet the one pictured here has all kinds of pieces falling off of it and
it's what we call a short period comet. Short period comets are comets that
come around every hundred years or less and so every time it comes around it
loses more pieces. Scientists tell us these short period comets can last only
a hundred thousand to maybe a million years. Now I know a million years is a
long time but people who believe the universe made itself say it's on the
order of billions of years old. If that's true we probably shouldn't have these
ice balls anymore. Two ideas have been suggested. Some people say well maybe
they're being made somewhere. The old idea was Jupiter every once in a while
sort of belched one out but of course we know today that's not the case and so
now the idea is way out there way past Pluto there's a thing called an Oort
cloud, a giant cloud of comets and every once in a while these comets get rattled
and new ones get pushed into our solar system. That's a good idea except nobody's
ever seen this comet cloud. It's in somebody's imagination. What we see
around the universe are ice balls falling apart very quickly telling us
the universe hasn't been here very long at all just like the Bible says where it
says that the heavens are wearing out like an old piece of clothing ready to
be replaced. That's what we observe around the universe.
Thanks John, fascinating material. Day four now let's go on to days five and six
the creation of animal life. Well what was created on day five? Basically the
Bible says things that live in sea and things that fly. That means more than
fish things that live in the ocean that be sharks and whales and crabs and on
and on. Actually the Bible says that the oceans were commanded to team with life
and that's what we see when we look from microscopic life to giant animals that
live in the ocean. The oceans are just swarming with life and how about the
flying animals? Well I guess this means the birds but also the bats and and many
insects and how about even the the pterosaurs the the giant flying reptiles.
Speaking of giant reptiles how about the plesiosaurs those those marine reptiles?
I suppose they were created on day five too. Now on day six God creates land
animals and all categories once again after their kind there was mammals and
the amphibians and the reptiles and I guess even the dinosaurs those giant
reptiles of the past and and you know some ask how come the dinosaurs why
would they mention in the Bible? Well I think they were they are. The Bible talks
about the different categories of things that were created it talks about the
beast of the earth evidently large animals and of course many of the
dinosaurs were large but also mentions the creeping animals that the creeping
things small animals then and did you know that many of the dinosaurs were
actually fairly small? You remember on day five talking about the the the marine
reptiles the giant reptiles created on day five? In verse 21 of chapter 1 the
Bible mentions well in the King James it translated great whales and in other
translations it mentions sea monster something like that but actually the
Hebrew word that's used there is actually the word that everywhere else in
scripture is translated dragons. Dragons you ever stop to think about dragons?
Well you know these legends of dragons they're almost every people group around
the world on every continent they have these legends of dragons and and the
descriptions of these beasts many times with huge girths and long necks and
prickly spines these their descriptions very much fit our reconstructions of
dinosaurs from their fossils. I don't know but I suspect that maybe the best
way to understand these dragon legends as perhaps as as faded memories of human
encounters with dinosaurs well the dinosaurs mostly the the dinosaurs I
suppose died in Noah's flood but you know maybe some of them lived afterwards I
think they were on board Noah's ark there's plenty of room on board the ark it's
even up to the Middle Ages people are talking about about dragons and dragons
in the ocean and you know even the Bible mentions the dinosaurs after the flood
it mentions dragons many times and and even in the book of Job Job lived right
after the flood and so the book of Job was written soon after Noah's flood and
even in the book of Job where God himself is talking to Job he describes
two animals that that seemed to me to be dinosaurs in chapter 40 of Job it
mentions a huge beast called behemoth a thing with a huge girth and and a tail
that looks like a cedar tree living in a swampy region if that's not a
brontosaurus like creature then then I don't know in chapter 41 it talks about
a marine dragon called Leviathan and a huge animal with fierce teeth and and a
vicious creature it sounds an awful lot like our reconstructions of plesiosaurs
from their fossils here in a museum we don't have any live dinosaurs on display
but we do have a number of live animals that real favorites with the kids we've
got birds we've got fish we got insects we got spiders and snakes and small
mammals in fact let's watch as John shows us one of his favorite animals a
hissing cockroach from Madagascar
this is one of my favorite animals this is a Madagascar hissing cockroach he's
come of course from the island of Madagascar small island off the coast of
Africa and the reason they call him a hissing cockroach is because he does
just that so if we all listen closely maybe I can get it to his let's try all
right how would he get oh yes oh all right and the way he does that is he
actually has slits along the side of his body and what he does is he takes and
blows air out these slits and of course what it's supposed to do is scare the
people who want to eat him or whoever wants to eat him away and generally it
works pretty well some people ask us well why did God make cockroaches after
all they're slimy sort of a thing well it turns out several people have given
answers but the best one seems to be that God made cockroaches as sort of a
cleanup crew around the earth if we didn't have cockroaches to eat all the
decaying leaves and plant materials and other things why the earth would be
piled high with things just rotting all over and so we really do owe a lot to
the cockroach who cleans up after all the things we drop behind I hope those
critters don't get loose actually life any kind of life I think it's the best
scientific evidence there is against evolution no matter what individual
creature we study from huge giant mammals to single-celled organisms we
find a complexity far beyond even our ability to understand it from individual
organs or even organs in a cell or any part of a cell it's all too well designed
to be the result of chance as evolution teaches each aspect of life had to be
created by a master designer you know the Bible says that the evidence for God
as creator is clearly seen by studying the creation it's so clearly seen the
Bible says that they're without excuse if they deny it actually all of life bears
a stamp of an incredibly intelligent designer behind it all certainly the
crowning achievement of God's creation week is is the creation of his image in
man created in God's image in some way reflecting his image in person look at
this display showing the incredible design and complexity of the human body
of the human organs like the eye or the ear the heart of the lung or each cell
type or any part of the cell the engineering and design reflected in these
charge only scratches the surface modern science has only discovered some aspects
of this complexity how ludicrous as evolution teaches to think it could
happen all by chance they can tell this story and they do but I got to tell you
it's not a credible story well days five and six now we come to the end of the
creation week and the rest day day seven
ah rest a bench strategically placed on the day of rest after God created all
things he declared it to be very good and did you ever stop to think about what
could the God of the Bible the God described in the Bible what could he
declare to be very good the merciful loving gracious God of the Bible what
could he call very good well I guess there must have been no bloodshed no
carnivorous activity no death certainly no sin it must have been absolutely
perfect and he declared it to be very good and he rested now this rest this
six-day work week is very important in God's economy he even patterned our work
week after it he says to work six days and rest one day just as he did in fact
he even codified that in the Ten Commandments where he instructed his
creation to pattern their lives after his creation week he says work six days
and rest one day just as he worked six days and rested one day now again some
have suggested that these days given in Scripture might have been long periods
of time and and equated with the millions and billions of years of so-called
geologic history and it is true that the word day in Scripture can have a
variety of meanings but whenever a word in Scripture needs to be defined we
must go to Scripture in the context to define it and I'm convinced that here in
the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20 it lays the issue to rest here we see
that God worked six days and rested one day and we're still to work six days and
rest one day just as he did it's the same word day the same modifiers the
same sentence the same slab of rock on which it was written the same finger
that wrote it as I see it there's no other possible interpretation God
created all things in six literal days just like our days and here's another
thing the Bible says that after the sixth day God rested he no longer
creating things he's sustaining things and upholding things the Bible says but
no longer creating things did you know that the very basic law of science says
exactly the same thing we call it the first law of science or the first law of
thermodynamics it's never been known to be violated the essence of that law is
that there's nothing being created nor destroyed in the world today this is
exactly as it should be if the Bible is correct and here's another important
thing to consider when that fruit tree was created the one with fruit already
on it how old was that tree obviously it was a freshly created but how did it
look well it looked like a mature tree the same thing could be said for the
animals or Adam how old was Adam when he was created he wasn't created as a baby
or an embryo something like that he was he was created as a full-grown man well
how old was he when he was created obviously he was just freshly created
but how old did he look he looked like a full-grown mature man now I suppose if
we could have studied Adam at that point we would have seen in his veins there'd
be no cholesterol built up there'd be no cavities in his teeth there'd be no
mutations in his genes he would I suppose if scientists really studied him
objectively they would say my goodness this person must be fresh freshly
created there's no evidence of aging here at all but yet on appearance he
looked like a full-grown man he looked like he had a history when in fact he
was just created well it's important to recognize that that this is not
deceptive God didn't try to deceive us by creating Adam as a full-grown man now
just in case someone might get the impression it was deceptive he went to
great lengths to tell us in his word when and how he created just in case we
might get it wrong but if we deny his word his reveal word his story of how he
did it and when he did it if we deny truth and then try to reconstruct
history just based on our own experience of things we might get it wrong we might
mistake that functional maturity for age well this perfect world this created
world this Edenic world we wonder how long it lasted it doesn't appear to have
lasted very long but we just don't know but soon we do know sin entered into the
world and things change they change drastically and and with with great
effect and today we live in this world that's marred and distorted by sin in
its presence theologians call it the fall and that's our next room in our
walk through history
okay so this perfect world was ruined by sin well what's the world like now we
see the world is full of death and violence and disease and mutation even
in the non-living world we see that everything is in this process of decaying
now we talked about the first law of thermodynamics this aspect of decay
that's reflected in the second law of thermodynamics the second basic law of
science everything is in this process of decaying there are no exceptions well
now think what this does to evolutionary thinking evolution says that over time
things get better these are going uphill well the second law of science which has
never been known to be violated says that everything is in this process of
going downhill of decay there's no way to avoid it well my evolutionary
colleagues try to they say that well yeah things go downhill but when we have
a lot of energy available to the system and the system is open and so the system
can receive outside energy while you can you can overcome the second law of
thermodynamics and go up well I'm afraid that's not enough at least as it relates
to evolution we must have in order to overcome the second law we must have a
way to take this incoming energy and convert it into useful forms and then
have some kind of a blueprint to to use it and and to direct its its growth well
in plants this is is known as the photosynthesis process it takes that
incoming energy and converts it and uses it and then the DNA the DNA code uses
that energy along specified guidelines and it directs the growth that's that's
possible in the plant now these two things must be present it must be
present at the start in order for the plant to use the energy from the outside
even if it's an open system of course all systems are open but even if it is
open energy doesn't necessarily help unless you have a way to convert that
energy into useful forms and then to direct its use the second law I'm
convinced is a serious problem to evolution so we have a world then that's
that's dominated by this death principle and decay how did that happen it wasn't
that way at the start you remember in the start God had promised Adam that if
he were to obey that that perfect world would continue but he gave him a rule
you see God had the authority as creator to set the rules over his over his
creation and he set that rule he said you can eat of any tree in this garden
but of that one tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the day that you eat
of that you begin to die he said well Adam of course we know the story Genesis
chapter three he chose to set his own rules and chose to eat he rebelled
against the creator's authority he sinned well we see in the New Testament
that the wages of sin is what it's death God had promised that death would be the
result if sin were to occur he chose to sin and God came down in Genesis chapter
three and pronounced that awful curse on all of all of creation and it basically
was the curse of death and decay as reflected in the second law and as
reflected in in nature we all know that this is the way it happens in that curse
Genesis chapter three it says the whole creation was affected plants were
affected from then on they would have thorns and thistles the animals were
affected it turned to the serpent he says you're cursed more than the rest of
the animals implying that all of the animals were cursed Adam and Eve were
cursed the sweat of your brow and in difficulty in childbirth and it even
says the earth is cursed for your sake Adam it says in Romans 822 that the
whole creation is now groaning and prevailing in pain together until now
because of this curse because of the presence of sin and death well before
the curse then there evidently was no death and no bloodshed but now
everything dies and and many animals eat meat how did that happen evidently after
the curse for some by some mechanisms we don't have all the details but some
animals begin to acquire a taste for meat and and maybe even these offensive
and defensive characteristics these were evidently adaptations after the curse
certainly not part of the original creation we don't know all the details
some mechanism we can think of several possible mechanisms for that the Bible
doesn't give us all the details but it does tell us that very soon after that
curse in the years that followed the Bible says that the world was filled
with violence the world was just so wicked and so evil that God says I'm
sorry I even made this creation and so well violence what does that mean
certainly that means people human violence but also maybe the animal violence
maybe this is where we see the dinosaurs and and all of the carnivorous activity
the world was just full of violence and God judges sin God judges human sin and
God is not this kind of God that will allow sin to go unpunished and so he
sent Noah's flood as a punishment for the sin but he didn't want his entire
creation to be annihilated so he told Noah who was a faithful man who found
grace in the eyes of the Lord he told Noah to build an ark and to take on board
that are two of each category of animal for their own safety and survive the
flood and so he did he built the ark and well of course the next event in history
is the flood and so the next stop in our journey through the through time is the
ark so all aboard
here we are in Noah's Ark in Noah's Ark I love this room I've been involved in
the search for Noah's Ark for some 20 years now and we never have found it but
you can you can believe it I would like to be inside Noah's Ark here in this
room the artist has painted it such that it really is realistic it looks like
you're looking down a long corridor there and it's so realistic we've had
several people actually just walk right up to the wall and ping right into it
then we put a rope across it now I guess we need a sign on the rope says family
members only something like that but actually the flood I'm convinced that
the flood the flood of Noah was really a bottom-line issue in this whole creation
evolution controversy we've got to get the flood right if we're going to really
understand the whole issue and the reason for that is if Noah's flood
really did happen the way the Bible says that happened I mean if it really did
happen that way then it would do what floods do and what floods do is to lay
down lots and lots of rocks and fossils but if you ask an evolutionist where's
the evidence for evolution where's the evidence that the earth is billions of
years old the answer will always be it's in the rocks and fossils and so I'm
convinced that they misinterpret those rocks in the fossils they make a
mistake in their reconstruction of history they denied true history and
have tried to reconstruct it otherwise and and yet if Noah's flood really
happened if it really laid down the rocks and the fossils then those rocks
and fossils can't be used as evidence for evolution and old earth so if Noah's
flood laid down the rocks and the fossils there is no evidence left for
evolution and old earth I'm convinced there's lots and lots of good scientific
evidence for Noah's flood well we'll talk about the geologic evidence here in a
few moments but here in this room let me point out some good some good
evidences one very important kind of evidence is called flood legends did you
know that almost every culture around the globe everywhere has in their body
of folklore a legend of an event like Noah's flood I've studied over 200 of
these flood legends and we've got them compiled here on the wall we've noticed
that two-thirds of all of these legends say that the flood was caused by the
sinfulness of man the wickedness of man brought it on 95% say that though the
whole world was covered by water and about that many say that there was a
favorite family someone who found grace in the eyes of the Lord as it were that
person was forewarned told to build a boat so that his family and the animals
could be saved and then that boat as the flood came to an end landed on a
mountain it's the same story that the details are different somewhat yes that's
true but the essence is the same of course it should be because all of the
people alive today descended from those on board Noah's Ark they all descended
from Noah and his family well there's another kind of possible evidence and
and that's in the the possibility that Noah's Ark itself has survived even up
to the present day over the years in our search we've located several hundred
individuals who claim to have seen the Ark some claim they've walked on the
deck some have walked inside they've seen the rooms with with the stalls and
the animals were kept we don't have the proof of any of these things these are
eyewitness accounts but the evidence is strong all of these people say the Ark
is it looks the same as a long linear barge looking boat they talk about it
being in the same kind of terrain and in in stair step topography partially
exposed partially covered by snow or rock or something and so we've got this
circumstantial evidence but we don't have firm proof that's what we're
looking for though is the firm scientific proof of the existence of
Noah's Ark here on the wall of the of the Ark room we've got a number of these
sketches that these eyewitnesses have given us and if you notice all of those
sketches seem to tell the same kind of thing again that the long linear shape
the the stair step topography this is supportive evidence it's not firm proof
but that's what we're after the firm scientific proof of the existence of
Noah's Ark well the evidence is strong the flood did occur just as the Bible
says it did and it was a geologically significant event and because it's so
restructured the surface of the earth any attempt to reconstruct history
without using Noah's flood is doomed to failure how can you succeed if you deny
truth so let's go to the next room the geology room the flood room we might
call it and see some of this strong geologic evidence for Noah's flood
turns out we actually just don't start digging in one place what we actually do
is we we see the fossils on the surface and that's how come we start digging in
a certain area now what do you think do you think it takes a long time to make a
fossil or a short time let's take a vote how many think a long time how many
think a short time it turns out it probably takes a short time and the
reason is is because if it took a real long time the animal would rot and fall
apart okay and so we won't be able to find it it looks like it has to be
buried quickly under the right kind of layers real fast and then those layers
turn hard and that's where we find fossils okay in fact you guys have
probably made fossils anybody here ever put their hand in concrete or cement and
wrote their name or something like that all right yeah you know how hard that's
that turned after a while well it turned out basically what you did is you made a
fossil of yourself real quick there that's how fossils are made not over
millions of years otherwise things would rot and fall apart but a real short
amount of time so that it turns hard okay now let's look at one other thing
let's talk a little bit about Grand Canyon we can look at the picture over
here just real quick the Grand Canyon is about a mile deep it turns out and all
these layers are what we think are laid down at the time of Noah's flood
thanks John the Grand Canyon I love the Grand Canyon I spent a lot of time in
the Grand Canyon during research and actually this has been area of real
concentrated research for several years especially under the leadership of dr.
Steve Austin the chairman of our geology department and as it turns out these
last few years we've been taking tours to the Grand Canyon and each year over a
hundred people or so go to the Grand Canyon with us and and study there they
get to know the rocks personally and that's the best way now many times
evolutionists will say that the Grand Canyon they call it exhibit number one
for evolution and for an old earth but I don't think so I think rightly
interpreted these rocks in the canyon give evidence for creation and
especially for Noah's flood now I stress that word interpretation because we
didn't see the canyon form we didn't see these rocks laid down we're trying to
reconstruct the past we're trying to interpret that evidence but here's the
proper way to proceed if Noah's flood really happened the way the Bible says
if it really happened that way then because the Bible describes it as an
intense world-destroying process we ought to see evidence that the results
of those processes were catastrophically deposited the rocks and fossils ought
to give evidence of this rapid intense event in the past we ought not to see
any evidence also for for evolution in the fossil record and in fact we don't
when we look at the fossils we see evidence that the fossils well we see
the fossils up and down the column but we don't see evidence for evolution and
as a matter of fact if we look at the fossils down here at the bottom those
fossils are quite complex like trilobites with these incredibly intricate eyes but
up at the top we see things like coral stuff like that but here at the Grand
Canyon the complex fossils are at the bottom not at the top just backwards
from the way evolution would say we don't see we don't see any clue of
evolution in the fossils another prediction we might be able to make from
scripture since that flood was worldwide in scope those processes involved will
have been operating on a large scale and the results ought to be in on a large
scale widespread strata and that's what we see the rocks that we see in Grand
Canyon can be traced laterally way up into Utah up into Wyoming many times and
and all the way through the mid-continent sometimes these rocks are
widespread they're they're semi continental in scope these are not slow
and gradual local deposits as evolutionists would think these are
widespread catastrophic deposits another prediction we might make from scripture
it has to do with erosion now these forces operating in Noah's flood would
have caused erosion on a scale far beyond the kinds of erosion that's going
on today and that's what we see here at Grand Canyon of course the canyon itself
that's an erosional gully as it were a large one you know this is an interesting
time to be a creationist because even my evolutionary colleagues are starting to
abandon some of their ideas from from long that they've held for long times in
fact they used to say that the Grand Canyon was carved out slowly and
gradually by the Colorado River and now they're saying no evidently something
very catastrophic happened just fairly recently that carved out that canyon in
a hurry they're talking like us now and I'm convinced that this is just a
wonderful time to be a Bible-believing creationist because the evidence is so
strongly in our favor another thing we might predict from scripture has to do
with tectonic events or our major earth-wrenching forces particularly
early in the flood when the fountains of the great deep broke open and and then
late in the flood as the continents rose up out of that world ocean and the
results of these forces we do find they are just like they should be if the
flood really happened actually these two events these early flood tectonic events
and then late flood events help us to date the canyon I suppose you've heard
about radioisotope dating and and this is how evolution has sometimes come up
with the millions and billions of years they throw around actually it's
important to recognize that these major strata in the Grand Canyon area those
are sedimentary rock those are rocks deposited by water the water was over
this land and those are sediments laid down by the flood and and of course
these sediments laid down by the flood had dead things in it now the sediments
have turned to rock and the dead things have turned to fossils but those kinds
of rocks cannot be dated by these radioisotope techniques the only kinds
of rocks that can be dated by them are the igneous rocks and there are a few
igneous rocks rocks that used to be in a hot molten condition there are a few of
them in the canyon particularly down here at the bottom there's a rock called
the cardenas lavas those these are thought to be some of the oldest rocks
in the canyon below all of the others that that are on top and then there's
some recent volcanoes have be erupted up on the rim and those form some rocks
too and so we can date those two rocks and interestingly enough using the kind
of processes the kinds of theories that my evolutionary colleagues used to come
up with millions and billions of years well we've dated those same rocks with
their theories and using the very best techniques we've been able to show that
the evidence using that theory shows that the the rocks up at the top are
about a billion years older than the rocks at the bottom well obviously that
can't be that's ludicrous I'm convinced that the whole method doesn't work it's
just not a good method the problems with that method have to do with the
assumptions that go into it not the techniques itself but the assumptions I'm
convinced are illogical and they produce such bizarre results most of the time
that we really just don't have to be intimidated by radiometric dating but
remember even though the evidence fits with the biblical model we didn't see
Grand Canyon form we didn't see Noah's flood happen we're just we're just
trying to interpret and reconstruct the past when we do we see that the evidence
fits with the biblical model but interestingly enough there is one event
that did happen recently that we did see it was a catastrophic event and I think
it helps us understand Noah's flood this was the eruption of Mount St. Helens in
1980 and the events employed surrounding that eruption are the kinds of things
that I think happened during Noah's flood and it helps us understand Noah's
flood well here at our ICR Museum we have a Mount St. Helens room and we have
a lot of that evidence to display there so let's go in our Mount St. Helens room
we call Mount St. Helens explosive evidence for the flood
actually that eruption of Mount St. Helens that was quite a catastrophe
it wasn't a catastrophe like Noah's flood but it was a terrible catastrophe
and I think we can use Mount St. Helens and the events there as an analogy to
help us understand Noah's flood now you might think what in the world does a
modern volcanic eruption have to do with Noah's flood but actually as we've seen
much that went on at Noah's flood was volcanic and tectonic related and as it
turns out much it went on at Mount St. Helens was water related particularly
as that glacier up on top of the mountain melted and as that material
came down it picked up dirt and mud and trees and whatever and descended the
mountain as mud flows and as these mud flows then came down the mountain and
distributed this material there at the base of the mountain believe it or not
it deposited up to 600 feet thick of water deposited strata there at the base
of the mountain well how long does it take to deposit 600 feet of strata oh
millions and millions of years well no it took one afternoon when we look at
these layers up close we see that they're layered just like Grand Canyon
and look at them really closely you'll see that there's paper thin little layers
in there and you know when I went to graduate school in geology I was taught
that these little laminations like that those are the result of yearly deposits
maybe a winter summer couplet and so a geologist to study this region here the
way that they would answer the question how long did it take for this deposit to
accumulate they would go in there and they would count those layers and and
there are millions of these layers in there all of them deposited rapidly but
they would conclude that those are yearly deposits and so they would say
oh this deposit took long periods of time to accumulate when in reality it
accumulated rapidly later another mudflow came down the mountain and
breached a canyon through that recent deposit and this canyon the more we
study it boy it looks like Grand Canyon it has the same feature it's a scale
model of Grand Canyon canyons don't take a long time to form now these events
particularly the eruption and that and that gas cloud that came out as the
mountain erupted devastated about a hundred and fifty square miles of virgin
timber a forest and and the mud flows then brought these timbers these these
logs into lakes and into the streams draining the mountain many of them as a
water log they assumed vertical positions and then sunk to the bottom of
the lake where they were buried in growth position but not in growth
location now this at Mount St. Helens there that that refuted one of the
classic arguments for an old earth we find it up in Yellowstone Park up in in
Wyoming where numbers of petrified tree stumps are found in a number of
different layers and the interpretation is that each one of these layers
represents a successive forest that was buried by volcanic eruptions and and
petrified over time and and they would say that this whole series of deposits
took many many thousands of years to deposit longer than the Bible will allow
well here at Mount St. Helens those tree stumps are petrifying now and they're in
these volcanic layers they they look just like the ones up at Yellowstone
Park and so from Mount St. Helens we can see that the classic argument that the
Bible is wrong is wrong the Bible's right and furthermore these decaying and
water logging tree materials as they as they sink they they're forming a layer
of organic material on the bottom of that lake and it's a peat deposit now
peat we know as the precursor for coal the idea is that peat over millions and
millions of years of heat and pressure will turn into coal well actually it's
not quite that way that's a story they tell about the past but it doesn't
really work that way actually in the laboratory now we we know of a number of
different ways in which organic materials can be transformed into coal
in a matter of hours or minutes even it takes the right conditions not it
doesn't take a lot of time in fact it it takes heat that's the main that's the
main requirement well here at Spirit Lake on the north shore of Mount St.
Helens where all of these logs are accumulating and the organic material
at the bottom of the lake that's a peat deposit and this is the first step in
the formation of coal it doesn't take millions of years even in nature we look
like we're going to have coal here before very long if the conditions
continue and that's the point if the right conditions are present it doesn't
take a long time to deposit layers or to to erode canyons or to petrify wood or
even to coalify wood if those right conditions are present in abundance they
can happen in a hurry and I'm convinced that the flood would have produced those
right conditions you know it also doesn't take long for a devastated area
like this to re-vegetate now my evolutionary colleagues would say oh it
takes hundreds and hundreds of years for a devastated area like this to to grow
again but you know in the decades since the eruption my goodness all kinds of
plants are growing in there and animals are returning to the area you know this
would have been very much like the world after Noah's flood the whole world was
destroyed but soon of course seeds were beginning to sprout and and maybe sprigs
and and animals migrating to the area insects were there and and the area
would have re-vegetated in a hurry just like we see here at Mount St. Helens well
you know when the flood was over of course the major intensity of
destruction was over but it would probably have taken several hundred
years maybe for the earth to settle back down into a calm environment and those
catastrophes after the flood sometimes we call them residual catastrophes and
probably the most important residual catastrophe was the Ice Age which
evidently followed Noah's flood as a direct result of Noah's flood now the
evidence for the flood as the cause of the Ice Age is so strong I think the
well I think the Ice Age room here at the museum is my favorite let's go see it
you know if it was hot in that Mount St. Helens room it's cold it's
refrigerated in this Ice Age glacier now the Ice Age followed soon after Noah's
flood just as intimated in the Bible did you know that in the book of Job which
was written soon after the flood that book contains many many references to
ice and snow probably more than the rest of scripture put together now Job didn't
live in a glaciated area he lived in Saudi Arabia but you get the impression
from that book that Saudi Arabia was a well-watered and pleasant place in which
to live not like the desert it is today but he evidently knew about the glaciers
up north in Europe actually don't think that the Ice Age was a time when the
whole world was covered in ice actually just the the polar ice caps were larger
than they are today the rest of the world's probably better watered and more
temperate than it is today do you ever stop to think what's necessary for an
Ice Age well briefly you've got to have more snowfall of course and that snow
then packs into ice in order to have more snowfall you got to have more
moisture in the atmosphere in other words more evaporation and then once
the snow falls you got to keep it from melting well how do you do all that well
many scenarios have been proposed and well you know like cooling the earth or
less solar radiation something like that but none of these scenarios have proven
to be adequate I'm convinced the key to the Ice Age it turns out is more heat
specifically more heat in the ocean well now think a minute before the flood the
world was much warmer than it is today and the fossils that we see give evidence
that the whole world was much warmer than today and during the flood you have
a lot of heat available there with the fountains of the great deep breaking up
materials from down inside the earth very hot material and also the tectonic
movements and events going on during the flood a lot of heat available well I
suspect if Noah on the day that he got out of the ark if he went over and put a
thermometer in the ocean and measured the temperature he would see that it
would be several degrees warmer than it is today now well that's very significant
you know what that would do that's necessary for the for the increased
evaporation to produce the snow and you know the warmer the water is the more
evaporates this will provide that raw material for snowfall next at the end of
the flood think about it the continents would be just like a mud slick totally
bare and nothing growing on them you'd have cold continents you'd have warm
oceans be a big difference in temperature and that temperature
difference would produce long-lasting and intense snowstorms well also at the
end of the flood you'd have increased volcanism particularly as the mountains
are coming up and all and and this volcanism would produce a lot of
aerosols in the outer atmosphere which would block the solar solar radiation
from coming into earth this would mean less snow melt well think about it all
of those three requirements then are met by that flood model more evaporation
more snowfall and less snow melt all of this would continue I suspect until the
atmosphere finally cleared and the ocean gave up its excess heat this would end
the ice age now the ice age also assisted in the migration of peoples and
animals after the flood with so much water trapped up in the ice cap sea
level itself would have been lowered about 600 feet and if sea level today
were lowered 600 feet all the continents would be reconnected animals and people
would be able to migrate anywhere on earth at that time of course the people
migrated mostly not after the flood but after the Tower of Babel incident which
of course soon followed the flood and this event is very important in the
development of the modern world so let's take a look next stop babel boys and
girls this is a model of what we think the Tower of Babel looks like more like
this than some kind of giant spiral pyramid a giant step sort of structure
scientists and archaeologists call these ziggurats and we find these same sorts
of things all around the world now a lot of people ask why did they build the
Tower of Babel and the Bible mentions that the tower was built because they
wanted to reach God the idea there is they were rebelling against God and
saying that they were better than he was God said no don't want you to do that
want you to spread across the face of the earth so I reached in their brains
clicked in different languages and what we had then are small wandering groups
of people going across the face of the earth who couldn't talk to each other
anymore and of course this is a thing that really separates people not so much
skin color but if you can't talk to somebody you just sort of make funny
faces and move on now we don't find the Tower of Babel any place on the face of
the earth today one because when we see these that doesn't say Tower of Babel on
the side so it's kind of hard to tell but like I said we do find these all
around the earth and another thing we learn about the Tower of Babel of course
is we do find the different languages around the earth now do we see that in
science and sure enough when we look at the wall over here we see some very
interesting things about language we learned for instance that no group of
human beings today speaks what we would call a primitive language so for
instance when the missionaries and other folks go back in the jungle and find
people who have never really seen other types of people they're not sitting
around going gradually working their way up to a language but they're speaking a
full-blown language like we know today we also learned that no group of human
beings in the past spoke a primitive language so for instance we look at the
ancient Egyptians we realize that they were speaking a real nice language with
nouns and verbs and prepositions just like we do today all right we also know
that the observable evidence tells us that by 2000 BC all the people had
broken up into these different language groups already this is what we'd expect
from the Tower of Babel all right the right kind of time frame finally one
person suggests that not only that but people groups and language broke up at
the same time remember what I said before as the people spoke different
languages and wandered away from the Tower of Babel they kept them these
little groups and as these groups married within those groups what we
would get is a different skin colors and facial features today we know as a
different races the Bible never talks about races though it talks about tribes
and nations and in fact it says in the Bible that we are all of one blood races
is an idea put on later by man to divide people God says we all belong to one
family but the different skin colors we see came as a result then of the breakup
of languages at the time of the Tower of Babel
thanks John speaking of the races let's look at some others let's look at
Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man now evolutionists used to teach that these
groups were ape men they were evolutionary ancestors of men but they
don't teach that any longer they now know that both groups were fully human
Neanderthal now they did have a primitive culture but not an animal
culture in fact on average the Neanderthals had a larger brain size and
modern man Cro-Magnon they were more sophisticated in their culture they had
agriculture they had cave paintings they were fully modern in every sense what
was thought to be these pre-human characteristics like a stooped posture
in the teeth jutting forward those are now known to be due to disease like
arthritis and rickets and even extreme age remember in the early days after
the flood some language groups migrating away from Babel they wouldn't have had
much technology and they would have been living in the harsh conditions of the
Ice Age and they would have had a primitive culture be living in caves and
even in those early years after the flood you remember in the Bible it says
that that people still live to great ages and some of these features the
teeth and all that those are those are features of extremely old persons
evidently the Neanderthals were a language group that eventually all died
out but they were fully human they were descendants of those people that were
driven away from the Tower of Babel but not so with some of the others like the
australopithecines now these are still touted by evolutionist as ape human
transitions you remember Lucy do you ever hear of Lucy now these creatures
Lucy included were not at all human-like they were chimps in every sense careful
studies have shown that they did walk somewhat erect like today's pygmy champ
perhaps but they did not walk in the human fashion Lucy herself this
discovery by Donald Johansson some years ago Lucy would stand about three feet
six inches tall she had a chimp size brain and skull furthermore the
australopithecines all had long curved fingers and long curved toes just right
for climbing in trees not at all for walking on on the ground surely they
were not the causes of the footprints that were found in a nearby rock these
footprints were totally human in every sense but evolutionists say at the time
that this rock is dated people didn't live back then they say furthermore even
human artifacts have been found in that strata and lower strata this is
incompatible with evolutionary thinking but it's predicted by creationist
thinking
getting back to Babel these events are more important than most people usually
recognize was the origin of languages and races and nations yes but it was
also the origin of anti-god pagan religions they see Babel was a rebellion
against God and each language group then carried this rebellious thinking with
them as they migrated away and from this point on the long war against God gained
steam and the world sunk into religious chaos it's reflected in many ancient
religions and even in modern religions but eventually God chose one nation
Israel through whom to bless all others through whom he could reveal himself in
his word and through whom the creator himself would one day return in human
form to begin the process of setting things right once again and here in the
museum we have many artifacts on display which testify to the historical
accuracy of scripture but Babel not only speaks of pagan religions it was also
the beginning of modern evolutionary thinking and its expressions in
pantheistic and polytheistic religions now this gate serves as the entrance to
these pagan thought systems it's a scale model of the Ishtar Gate as seen in
Daniel's day and as Saddam Hussein is trying to rebuild even today with its
blue glazed brick it must have been quite a sight but it represented all-out
war against God and his plans and it's a war still raging today the hallway
itself is patterned after the tomb of an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh a practitioner
of one of those pagan religions let's enter with caution
polytheism the idea of many gods the best-known examples of polytheism I
suppose are in ancient Greece and Rome but here the forces of nature are given
names and and worshiped as persons you know the god of the Sun the god of the
thunder the ocean on and on but the forces of nature then are thought to be
responsible for the origin of all things and involved in human affairs ascribing
to nature in natural forces those qualities and powers usually ascribed to
God unfortunately polytheism is making a comeback these days on university
campuses but polytheism is not very much different from pantheism the idea that
all is God that that nature in general is God and we're a part of it now the
Eastern religions are typically pantheistic but this thought system
seems to be infiltrating Western civilization these days it's coming in
perhaps as transcendental meditation or the various cults but it's also when the
various New Age practices masquerading usually as stress relief techniques or
various self-help methods and worse but each of these religious systems are
based on some concept of evolution now think think about that the forces of
nature are responsible for things as we see them think Mother Nature here in
father time our nature will find a way as the movie says think natural selection
or that that nature is alive and well and doing these things on purpose this
is the opposite of the biblical view that the personal God created and
oversees all things including the forces of nature look at what scripture says
here in Romans chapter 1 it says for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the
truth in unrighteousness because that which may be known of God is manifest in
them for God has shown it unto them for the invisible things of him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are
made even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse because
that when they knew God they glorified him not as God neither were thankful but
became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened
professing themselves to be wise they became fools and here's a good lay
definition of the concept of evolution they changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible man and the birds
and four-footed beasts and creeping things wherefore God also gave them up
to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts to dishonor their own bodies
between themselves and here's a good lay definition of the concept of humanism
they changed the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature
more than the Creator who is blessed forever amen God condemned such thought
structures as this but he blesses those nations that submit to him well how did
the world get in such a mess well of course by rebellion against God and his
revelation and how can we set things right well we can't but God can and he
is and his plan centers in on the work of his son the Creator who voluntarily
became man to redeem and restore creation and fallen mankind for by him
were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and
invisible whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers
all things were created by him and for him and he is before all things and by
him all things consist Colossians 1 16 17 the Bible reveals Jesus Christ our
Savior as the Creator now think of it the Almighty Holy God created all things
very good in the beginning and it was sinless and deathless he created man in
his image one on whom he could shower his love and his grace but the creation
Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God's authority they sinned against him
and in his justice the Creator pronounced since penalty the wages of
sin his death were told and there's nothing man could do about that
situation but God the Creator chose to do all that was necessary thus the
offended Creator the righteous judge became man to pay since penalty for
condemned man the wages of sin is death but praise God Christ died for our sins
and then he rose from the dead and victory over sin and death to offer us
eternal life the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord this is mankind's only hope death is sins
penalty and Christ paid that penalty now contrast this with evolution and in its
implications if evolution is true then death has been here for billions of
years long before man arrived death was here long before man sin certainly thus
in this system death is just the normal natural state of affairs now we're
talking here struggle for existence and survival of the fittest extinction and
natural selection for instance it was the extinction of the dinosaurs which
led rise to mammals and then finally man in evolution death brought man but what
is the Bible saying it was man's rebellion that brought sin and death you
see the problem the theological problem if death was here before sin then death
is really not the penalty for sin it was here before sin if that's true then what
in the world good to the death of Jesus Christ accomplish evolution and
Christianity are incompatible concepts now when men reject the truth of creation
and in true history it sets up a bizarre belief about the origin and meaning of
life this is true in the past it's true throughout history and even up to the
present time now in this section of the museum we trace that concept from
history up until the present time looking for implications of these
foundational concepts of of creation and evolution and the expressions in human
culture let's join John Reich for a tour of this part
all right as we saw in the other room people during the time of the Tower of
Babel were actually going against God and in Romans chapter 1 the Bible tells
us that as people kept doing that they would start worshiping other things like
beasts and four-footed things and as we see for instance in Egypt people would
worship snakes and cows and bugs everything except the true God they
would also come up with different ideas on origins for instance the Greeks over
here believed that this giant snake laid the universal egg on the waters and when
this egg hatched out the stars came out the moon came out the Sun all the
different planets and the universe again sort of an evolutionary account
believing that the universe was here for a very long time we even see that for
instance in Asia Africa in the Americas people would worship forces or trees or
thunder everything except the true God and of course this is what was predicted
in the Bible and this is what we see when we look around at the civilizations
of the world
what we want to talk about now is the rise of science and some creationists
and evolutionists of the past what people realized in the Reformation at
various points was that God told us true things about himself in his word and
also true things about the universe and so these great men figured that they
could go out and explore the universe one of these gentlemen is right here
Michael Faraday worked a lot with electricity and magnetism and a lot of
our modern inventions based on these things are from his work a good guy
believed in God did good science now of course some people today say you can do
science and believe in God at the same time but of course if we look back at
the founding fathers of science like Michael Faraday and Isaac Newton and
Blasey Pascal and others we realized that it was because they thought God
made an orderly universe that they could do their science another gentleman here
is Louis Pasteur on the side of every milk carton your milk is pasteurized why
well hundred years ago people were dying from diseases that were in milk Louis
Pasteur looked at it realized that these were germs in milk came up with the idea
of pasteurization bringing your milk to a low boil and back down again which
kills these germs and so we even use his process today pasteurization now on the
other side here we have people like Charles Darwin he came up of course with
the modern theory of evolution based on what he considered science that he saw
when he did his voyages down in South America and off the Galapagos Islands
other people took his ideas though and put him into other places for instance
Karl Marx here wanted to dedicate his book on communism Das Kapital to Darwin
because he said this was where he got his ideas for a political system other
people took it into business and we had people like Andrew Carnegie who said I
remember though the light came in as a flood and it was all clear not only had
I got rid of theology in the supernatural but I had found the truth of
evolution and he used this to do hostile takeovers and various things in the
business community now as we go into the next century we'll see both of these
kinds of scientists too and some of the ideas that finally hit the world when we
look at creation and evolution as we come into the 20th century we look at
even more of the scientists who were involved in creation and evolution here's
one scientist who believed very strongly in evolution his name was Ernst
Teckel and what he said is well as you grow and develop inside mom you go
through various stages and these stages look a lot like the stages animals go
through and so he said what it's basically doing is mirroring evolution he
gave it a big long name he called it embryological recapitulation or again
as you grow and develop you sort of go through the stage in evolution now we
found of course a couple of problems with this it turns out these drawings
aren't exactly accurate and so he sort of moved the data around a little bit to
make sure that it fit his theory and of course that's not good science we'd
expect some similarity because we have a common creator who made us all and so
we'd expect things to perhaps look alike and while this basically isn't used
today it's still used in one place that might surprise you some abortion clinics
to justify abortion because what people say is that well you're not really
killing a child you're killing something on its way to becoming a child of course
that goes against what we believe about a creator God who made the universe now
we see further down the line at the scopes trial in 1925 that these two
issues sort of came together here a man was put on trial for teaching the theory
of evolution and what he was done is he said well yeah now that he's done that
because it was against the law at the time they were going to get to convict
him and put him into jail what this turned out to be though ultimately was
people making fun of the idea that creation is really true and that the
Bible is really true and so it turned out to be actually a bad case against
creationism and from that a lot of Christians pull back and didn't want to
talk about that issue anymore we see it further developed in people like Sigmund
Freud who because he came up with a lot of ideas of modern psychology said well
the reason you do bad things is not because you're a sinner like the Bible
says but way back in your history you were an animal and every once in a while
that kind of behavior just sort of blurbs out well bad idea the Bible says
you're responsible for your actions one man took it even a little bit further
Adolf Hitler said that well we are the master race we're better than everybody
else we are going to conquer the world and when he was finished millions and
millions of people were dead because of his wrong idea about evolution and who
made the world now people today are even saying some of these things plus what we
call new age or they're looking for a new world order and what they're saying
as well now we have to evolve in our minds way beyond what we are today get
rid of all those ideas of right and wrong and the people who hold to them
and go to a new society they believe of course that man on the inside is
basically good and not created by God and didn't go through a fall we of
course believe that God made the world and that there really was a fall and
that we need God to help us get to heaven these are the two ideas and that
have been in conflict across the ages and this is why we have built this museum
the way we have
well here our walkthrough history comes to an end we've seen some of the
scientific data and the cultural implications of one's view of origins
we've seen the fruits of evolutionary thinking evil fruits produce corrupt
fruits and we've seen the fruits of creation thinking proper roots yield
sweet fruits we've also answered those questions posed in the first room where
did I come from we're created by God what's the meaning of life we're
designed to serve him and have fellowship with him and bring him glory
and what happens after I die well we can spend eternity with him he's promised to
return one day and reign as king over the restored creation and we can be with
him of course we can only enjoy eternity with him if we know him having accepted
his free gift of forgiveness and salvation made possible by the death of
Christ on the cross because he's paid the penalty for our sins we can then go
to God the Father in prayer recognizing our own sinful condition and in true
repentance for that sin recognizing that he's done it all there's nothing that we
can do to solve the problem and then we can ask God the Father to apply Christ
death to our own personal sins and only do he'll forgive us for our sins and
he'll make us a new creation he'll create in us a clean heart we'll be
born again in his family and his purpose and creation will be realized to some
extent in our own lives we'll live forever with him in the new heavens and
new earth the creation purged of sin and all its effects what a glorious future
awaits us
well I hope you've enjoyed your walk through history and I hope you've
learned a few things along the way I trust that you'll come visit us sometime
soon the museums open from 9 to 4 6 days a week you can contact us at the
address that's on the screen or phone us for a guided tour by the way if you
don't already get our monthly newsletter acts and facts you can ask for it we'll
send you a free subscription and also some other information about ICR we'll
also send information about the publications that we have as you see
here on the on the bookshelf we've got books for kids we've got books for for
technical people we've got books most of our books are for the interested
Christian layperson they make great Christmas gifts or birthday gifts so use
them if you can we'll also send information about our seminars that we
have around the country or the research that we're doing our graduate school in
the sciences let us know how we can help you in closing let me just quote that
marvelous passage of Scripture in Revelation chapter 4 verse 11 thou art
worthy O Lord to receive glory and honor and power for thou has created all
things and for thy pleasure they are and were created
you