Back in 1938, a captain henrik goosen was fishing with his crew off the coast of south africa when they caught a very unusual fish. Matter of fact, it was so bizarre, none of them knew what it was. They brought it back to a director of a museum in new england, south africa, and after doing some research, she said, "there's a problem with your fish. It's been extinct for 65 million years and it's supposed to be one of the missing links." It had these stubby fins that it supposedly used to walk upon land. The problem was, when they caught it, it was in very deep water, and in bringing it up, it died as it got closer to the surface.
It's called a coelacanth. It lived along with the dinosaurs. So how could there be modern coelacanths today -- they've caught several others -- and it really be 65 million years old? Or maybe there's a problem with the dating system. Did we evolve, or did God create us? We're going to find out now in this presentation of M.I.Q. How can I know that God is listening? Did I come from apes or prehistoric sludge? Can the Bible be trusted? What should I do with my life? College? Cars? A job? Can I ever be perfect? Can I make a difference? [All asking questions simultaneously] .
..or what? Announcer: "M.I.Q.": Your questions, God's answers. Where do we come from? Apes? Aliens? Adam and eve? Join us now as we discuss one of the most controversial topics of today. Welcome to M.I.Q. Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to m.
i.q.: Most important questions. We're in pursuit of truth. And today, we're asking the important question, "where do we come from?" I'd like to welcome those in our audience from cedar lake, Michigan, and also the students of great lakes adventist academy. Thanks for being here this evening. Those of you who are watching around the world on the various television networks and on the internet, we'd like to extend a special welcome to you as well.
Thank you for joining this program. Now, if you have a question, we'd like to hear from you. There are several ways that you can get in contact with us. You can go to the M.I.Q. Teens website, and you can post your question right online.
That web address is miqteens.com. And while you're at the website, be sure to check out the various resources that's available. We have other questions that people have posted online that you can read. We have various articles. We also have an archive of all the programs.
So if you've missed one of the previous programs, you can go to the website and you can view it and catch up with the rest of the group. To those of you here in the audience, I hope you have received your M.I.Q. Workbook, and also those of you who are watching. That's a great resource. You know, there's a lot of information in the workbook that we haven't been able to share with you because of time: a lot of interesting facts and illustrations.
So I'd encourage you to take a look at that workbook. Those of you who are watching, you can go to the website: miqteens.com. You can order your workbook online. You can also send us a text message with your question. If you wanna send a text message, the number is 760-5-afacts.
760-523-2287. We'd love to hear from you. Now, friends, we have a theme song that we like to sing at the beginning of each of our programs. Several programs back, we asked for your help to name The Song. The Song was just written for the series.
We've gotten many text responses and emails with suggested names. There has been one central suggestion, one name that has risen up above the rest. And I think we've decided on that. This is gonna be the name. Now, I'm not gonna tell you what the name is, because you'll be able to see it for yourself.
Four words, repeated at least twice in the chorus of The Song. So watch for it as we sing it this evening. Our song leaders are coming forward. At the end of our theme song, lauren will have our opening prayer. Let's stand now as we sing.
When I gaze about the countless stars or on an endless sea my mind may swim with questions bewildering to me but then I read the Bible and seek your face in prayer I'm satisfied remembering your loving grace and care whatever questions I may have whether great or small I know Jesus died to save me and that he forgave me Jesus is the answer to it all Jesus is the answer to it all I have so many questions I wonder in my heart how something comes from nothing when did forever start why can't I see your glory where is the promised land I trust that you will lead me there if I can take your hand whatever questions I may have whether great or small I know Jesus died to save me and that he forgave me Jesus is the answer to it all Jesus is the answer to it all dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this wonderful opportunity to learn more about you. Please help us all to learn more about your word and just be with everyone here on campus and around the world to gain a better understanding. And please help the Holy Spirit to be with us. In your name we pray, amen. Pastor Doug: amen.
Hi, everybody. Good to see you all here. And I wanna welcome our friends who are watching on the various channels, and we're so glad that you've joined us for M.I.Q. This is the most important questions: a special series of Amazing Facts, especially for teens. And you know, I'd like to take a moment to just say -- if I can do this -- I wanna say hi to two Batchelor teenagers that are at home, stephen and nathan, who I think are watching this series.
And I wish they could be here, but they've got school also. And wanna welcome each of you and just send greetings to our families. Well, Pastor Doug, it's question time once again. And you know what? I probably -- now that you mention that, I probably should just greet my family. They're watching at home.
They're gonna feel left out now. They will. I don't have teenagers, but I know my kids are watching, so I just wanna greet the ross clan back in Sacramento. Well, let's get to the questions. I think the first question is ready for us.
Okay. Hi, my name is darquaid [phonetic], and my question is, why would God let others get the wrong idea about evolution and creation? All right. Why would God allow people to even get the wrong idea about creation and evolution? You know, really, that question goes to the heart of another issue: why does God allow the devil to deceive? Because it's -- the whole teaching of evolution is really a deception that many people have bought into, along with many other deceptions. Why does God allow that? Well, our world, according to the Bible, has been invaded -- kidnapped, to some extent -- by an arch fiend called satan or lucifer. He was the highest of God's created beings.
He rebelled. And when he came to this planet in its infancy, he tempted our first parents to listen to him instead of God. The Bible says in Romans 6, "whoever you obey, that's whose servants you are." And when our first parents began to listen to the devil's suggestions instead of the commands of God, he basically kidnapped this planet. And so he's been spreading deceptions ever since then. The idea about our origins is only one of those many deceptions.
Last night, Pastor Doug, we spoke about the Bible. Can you trust the Bible? Well, we have a question that sort of ties in with that theme. And I think it's ready. The question is, how do you study the Bible? That is a very good question. Now, when I first began to read the Bible, you know, I wasn't raised understanding this, and it's written where the Bible is divided up and you've got your books of history and The Songs, the books of poetry, you've got the gospels, minor prophets and major prophets.
And I found it was helpful to get an overview of the history, which is the backdrop for everything else that happens. And you know, frankly, I love the stories in the Bible. And so I was reading the story of the Exodus -- Genesis through Exodus -- the story of the Judges and first and second Samuel, first and second Kings. And then I went to the gospels. And then everything Jesus said in the gospels made a lot more sense.
You might just start by reading little passages at a time. The Psalms are great if you want inspiration and encouragement for the trials of life. And if you want wisdom, I know somebody that reads -- because there's approximately 30 days in each month -- they read one of the Proverbs of Solomon, or one chapter, everyday. And you get a lot of wisdom that way. So there's a lot of ways that you can approach the Bible, but first get the overview of what the main story is.
You might begin, even, by taking one gospel, like the gospel of Luke or John, and just read that and get the backdrop for it. And then just let the Lord speak to you everyday. There are many Bible-reading programs you could use. I have one on my computer. Every morning I use it.
And you know what I'm doing now -- this is new. I'm not only reading the Bible, which I've done for years, reading through the Bible, but I've got audio that will read it to you online. You can hear it read. So while I'm reading the words, I'm hearing it read and I'm finding I'm getting new things I've missed before. It's a book -- you read and read it and read it, and you always get something new.
It's like a mine; you never get to the bottom of it. Absolutely. All right, well, Pastor Doug, I think we have another question we'll go to at this time. My name's lane, and... I always wondered, why is there so little information on Genesis and how we were created and the time span skips so much? Okay, why don't we have more information in Genesis regarding the details of creation? Well, God in the Bible often just sets the backdrop with headlines.
And then he goes in and he fills in the details. The backdrop for the problem that we have here in the world is not that God created us. He basically explains that he created everything, that he spoke things into existence. Matter of fact, it surprised me when I first read the Bible how much information there was regarding creation, because that wasn't really the problem. The problem is sin.
And so he tells us sin was introduced into the world, and the solution for sin. Matter of fact, the first three chapters of the Bible talks about God creating man, placing him in a paradise, and through disobedience, he lost access to the Tree of Life. In the beginning, there's a marriage, there's a serpent. You go to the last three chapters of the Bible, and now you have... Sin is dealt with, there's another marriage between Christ and the church, man can eat from the Tree of Life again, and the serpent is destroyed.
It's the complete solution found in the Bible: how the garden was lost, how to get back to the garden. It's all there, really. We have another important question that has come in. The question is, what is a good Bible translation to study? If somebody wants to study the Bible, where should they start? Well, if you're watching this program in english -- later we expect to translate it -- there are more english translations of the Bible than any other language. And of course, the classic king James version has had more impact on the english language than any other piece of literature.
My favorite, what I'm using here is the new king James version, which is very similar, but some of the language has been modernized a little bit. Matter of fact, I'm holding -- this is going to sound like a commercial -- I'm using an Amazing Facts study Bible. And it not only has the Bible and the red letter and everything, but it's got all of the Amazing Facts Bible study guides in the back, along with a concordance and stuff. So you can go around and give Bible studies. And so, we wanted to develop a Bible to help people not only study, but to give Bible studies.
And you can find Bibles that have maps in them. I think this has maps too. You can find all kinds of study resources. So my favorite is the new king James. I think it's good to stick with a Bible translation that is as close to the original text.
Some are paraphrased Bibles where a person sort of puts it in their own language, and they might be easy reading, but they're not always accurate for study. All right. Well, thank you, Pastor Doug. We have another video question. Hi, my name is khan [phonetic], and my question is, how long were adam and eve in the Garden of Eden before they were kicked out? Good question.
How long did adam and eve live in the Garden of Eden and enjoy it before they were evicted because of sin? Well, you know, we can speculate a little bit. The Bible tells us that adam and eve were perfect and healthy, and God had told them, "be fruitful and multiply." They hadn't had any children yet, and so they probably didn't get to enjoy the garden for very long before they were tempted, deceived and cast out. And so my guess is -- and there's no exact way of knowing -- it was probably just a matter of weeks or months before... You know, the devil comes when people are vulnerable. And they were fresh from the hands of the creator, and he kind of hit them with a blitzkrieg.
So I don't think it was very long into their lives before this happened. By the way, adam's life is given as I think 930 years, and that probably started from his creation. Well, thank you, Pastor Doug. And again, thank you, friends, for your Bible questions. Those who are watching, you can send us your Bible question through a text message.
The number to text to is 760-523-2287. You can also go to the website and you can post your question online. The website is miqteens.com. Pastor Doug, we'll turn the time over to you. Thank you very much, Pastor Ross.
Friends, tonight's subject is just so important, because if you don't understand this, well, it'll affect your whole life. We're dealing with the most important questions. You can't have security unless you understand the three big issues. One: where did I come from? Two: what am I doing here? And three: where am I going? Your whole purpose in life for existing and your whole direction is going to be defined by those big questions. There is a masterpiece of deception that just in the last 150 years has been spreading through the world regarding the origin of man that is exploding.
It's destroying people's purpose for life. Now, this is very dear to my heart because I was raised -- you know, I went to 14 different schools. And I went to catholic schools and Jewish schools, public schools, military schools, free schools, all kinds of different schools. And most of the schools I went to, they taught that we have evolved from lower forms of life and there's really no purpose to life, that we're all just... Biological accidents of chance and time and that your values are no important [sic] than my values and there just really is no truth, nothing matters.
And I used to think a lot about suicide, because I thought, "well, if we just sort of evolved from sludge, and we're going back to fertilizer, then what is the purpose? And if people struggle with unhappiness so much of the time, why not get it over with?" Is it any wonder that with the increase in the teaching of evolution, there's also been a spike in teen suicide? Because I think it really chops away at the purpose of life. But if what God says is true, if we have all been created in the image of God with a great purpose of God and designed by God and he has a plan for our lives, well, that changes everything. Your whole perspective about why you're alive is changed. If you and I have evolved, there really is no purpose. So the devil is working with all of his power and skill to try to reinforce this false teaching of evolution.
And I should also add... I grew up believing in it. I used to laugh at people that believe that God created. I thought it was absurd. And now I'm actually ashamed.
Not because of just what the Bible says, but the abundance of logic and reason and scientific information, I just cannot convince myself to believe that it is all an accident of chance. Now, in our lesson tonight -- and I might not even get through all the questions in the lesson. I'll cover as many as I can, because I really wanna nail down some points. But in our lesson, we're gonna cover a spectrum of issues that deal with, "where did I come from?" What does the Bible say and what are some of the issues that are being challenged by the theory of evolution? And by the way, it is still a theory. You might get a lot of.
.. Evolutionary scientists to sort of stand together and say, "absolutely, we believe it," but you start asking them individually the specifics about what they believe and the dating methods and the geologic column, they all begin to argue and fight and claw each other like cats. They don't agree. Matter of fact, maybe before I go any farther, I oughtta just say this while I'm thinking about it. Why do we have this theory? I've got a theory about the theory.
You're here. Matter of fact, you might do a check right now. Feel your heart? Are you breathing? Let's assume that you just don't imagine you're alive, that you're really alive. Okay? Let's establish that fact. How many agree with that? You're alive? Okay.
And these other people are alive. They're not just figments of your own little delusion you're living in. They really live too. All right, so we're all here. Either God made us -- we are the result of an intelligent plan -- or there is no plan.
You really only have those two choices. If there is a God, then that means he's in charge. And that means he is, we're responsible to him, that he's the leader. Some people don't want God to be in charge. They don't want to be accountable to God.
They want to do whatever they feel like doing, like an animal, and not feel guilty about doing it or feel responsible. And so they've developed a theory that removes God from their conscience and from the equation. That is the reason. That's where evolution comes from. You know, when I first learned this, I went to a school.
It was a boarding school. Not a Christian school. Matter of fact, it was the opposite of that. Had a science teacher. Was married, pregnant wife.
One day she came into the cafeteria crying her eyes out. We all began to console her and try and find out what was wrong. And she said, "well, my husband is having another relationship with another faculty member, a lady." And we said, "well, how can he do that so openly?" And she says, "well, he believes this is natural for animals and that we should just go with the flow." And that's where that kind of thinking leads. He was a science teacher, by the way. He said, "look, we're all animals and this happens in the animal kingdom.
We should just accept it. It's normal; nothing personal." That's what he was telling his wife. And so, it does make a difference what you believe. And back then, I was an atheist. I thought, "something isn't right about this.
" And I began to think that there must be some moral truth. There must be some accountability and responsibility for the way you live. And so having said that as a big introduction, let's get to our first question. Question number one in our big question-answer book. It says.
.. Let's find out what the Bible says. This is the book that's our source book. In Genesis 1:3, it reads... Now, you and I think, "wow, that's pretty simple.
God just says, 'let there be light,' and there is light." You know, I saw an interesting program put out by nova. Nova is a scientific organization. They are evolutionists. They make fun of people who believe in creation. And in this program called the elegant universe, nova reports "the newest research indicates that all of the universe came as a result of sound.
" I'm quoting now. "According to string theory," some of you maybe are studying that, "absolutely everything in the universe, all of the particles that make up matter and forces, is comprised of tiny, vibrating fundamental strings. Sound waves." Ha! That's what it says in the Bible. "And God said..." He spoke things into existence. Now I know you and I are thinking, "how could that possibly be?" But think about how little we know, compared to how much knowledge there is.
One thing you're going to find out, you kinda of go through a curve in life... When you're you know... 6, 7, 8, 9, You realize, "you know, I don't know very much. Everybody around me seems to know so much," and your parents, you think they're geniuses. And then you get into the teenage years and you think, "wow, my parents don't know anything.
" And then you know, around, 18, 20, you start coming out of that and your concept of how much you know starts going back down again. You get a little more humble. And then as you get older, your idea of how much you know is gonna go like this. Your knowledge will go up because the fear of the Lord and humility is the beginning of wisdom. So the older you get, the more you know you don't know and that means you know more.
Did you get that? The more you learn, the more you'll realize, "I don't know." So for us to say, "how can God create things by speaking them into existence?" Don't worry about it. He said it, he can do it. And we may need to catch up with all the scientific answers for that. And someone asked a good question: why isn't there more in the Bible about the scientific nature of creation? You know how many books we'd have here to try and get us to understand how God can speak something into existence? Think about the universe again. He's very powerful.
He's very big. But he gave us what we need to know. And so trust His Word. Question number two: now, before I go to the Scripture to give you the answer... Any of you ever heard of a ligar before? You have? Oh, they got it up on the screen there.
A ligar is a cross between a tiger and a lion. I don't know why they don't call them "tions" but they chose to call them "ligars." What do you think you get when you cross a zebra with a donkey? A zonkey. [Laughter] isn't that a cute little zonkey? Now, Pastor Ross is from south africa. I don't know. Maybe he's seen a zonkey before.
I don't know what you do with it. It looks, it kinda looks pitiful if you ask me, but they're cute. And there are a number of other creatures that you can cross, but you must do it within their species. And matter of fact, you can even cross a whale and a dolphin and what do you suppose you call that? It's a whalphin. It's true.
Matter of fact, in our answer, we've got a picture of one. Genesis 1:21, 24. That's a whalphin. And it goes on to say in verse 24: according to its what? Kind. That means species.
Notice, according to its kind. Its kind. Its kind. And it says, "it was so. Cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth, each according to its kind.
" Now you can cross a lion and a tiger. But you're not gonna cross a zebra and a lion. And you're not gonna cross a dolphin and a donkey. I don't know what you'd call that anyway. You can only cross things within their kind.
Now one, one of the great bamboozling myths that evolutionists have perpetrated on people, they say, "we've got so much evidence of evolution in the world," and you know what they always point to? They always point to something called "micro-evolution." I believe in micro-evolution. You believe in micro-evolution. Every time you look at any kind of breed of dog, you're looking at micro-evolution. When you look at the brown hare that's in the desert and you look at, I don't mean this kind of hair, I mean the rabbit, and you look at the white one that's in the arctic, they are both rabbits, but they have micro-evolved into different strengths within their species, for their environment. But you don't have a rabbit evolving into a cat.
There is no evidence. There is not a single, solitary example of evidence of evolution between species. That's what God said. "Each according to their kind." And yet they hold forth, they say, "look, this butterfly has gone from being gray to black because it's landing on black trees and because of selective breeding." Well, they're still moths. They're still butterflies.
You know, I heard, matter of fact, it was on the cover of national geographic magazine. The article, I don't remember the year, you can look it up; it was called "from wolf to woof," like "woof woof," a dog? And it showed a wolf on the cover and some little poodle or something. I don't remember. And they said that they have now tracked the d.n.a. Of all the dogs and they can trace all the dogs in the world, all these.
Really, look at all the difference in dogs. You got those little, little wiener dogs, dachshunds, and then you got the chihuahuas and you got these great big great danes and then you got the dogs that are covered with wrinkles and a lot of dog names you can't even say. They got some poor dog that's a hairless dog. Little hairless chihuahua. I think that's mean to do something like that, to breed that.
[Laughter] and all... They shiver all the time. You seen them? They always look scared and they're shivering. All of those dogs, they say they can be traced back to two wolf-like dogs. So when Noah got on the boat, did he have to take a beagle and a german shepherd and a husky and a dalmatian and all these -- no.
All of the diversity that you find within dogs was in those original dogs. Look at all the diversity of people you find in the world. And you know what? People can cross-breed with people, because we're all related. We're all in the same kind. But look at all the variation that you've got.
So sure, you can see micro-evolution there. But we're all humans. See what I'm saying? And so it's a scheme really to confuse people by that. All right. Let's move along here.
Question number three: answer: Genesis 2:7. And man became a living soul. Now, you and I can take dust and particles and we can't make it alive. And neither can chance. Let me, I want to.
.. I need a couple of volunteers. Okay. Well, you're in the pink. You're easy to spot.
Why don't you come up, if you can get here real quick. I know I got one guy. Got a girl somewhere, right here. Can you get out? Will your friends let you out real quick? While they're coming I've got to grab some of my important stuff here. Okay? All right.
You want to hold that for me? All right. What you've got there is you've got a bottle of lake water. It's got algae and all kinds of biologic... Don't drink that. [Laughter] all right? Now, we're gonna try to make life right here on the program.
Here's some peanut butter. You need protein. So if you could open that up and put some peanut butter in the jar. You can take the lid off that. Did I mention, don't drink it? Oh, that's honey.
Well, let's, we need some sucrose in there too. So here, why don't hold that for her. Just don't get it on the stage or I'll get stuck like a fly and I won't be able to move. Okay. Honey and peanut butter.
That oughtta make life, don't you think? Okay. All right. No, I just won't stand there. All right. And here's.
.. You can put that back in the bag. And here, we don't want to make you -- put some peanut butter in there. And we already got our sucrose in there. We don't want this to be fat bacterium, so we've also got some nutrasweet.
We want to thank our hotel locally for providing the ingredients to create life. [Laughter] that's probably enough for our experiment. Yeah, you can -- yeah, well you'll shake it in just a minute. We're gonna put the lid on, we're gonna shake it until we get life. [Laughter] so, why don't you open that up and put some of that in there.
Oh. The most important ingredient is in the bottom here. I'm gonna be licking my fingers through the rest of the presentation here. Oh come on. There we go.
You need electricity. This is to simulate the lightening. So why don't you put that sticky battery in there. [Laughter] okay, put the lid on. There we go.
Yeah. Now you can shake it. Here, give it a good shaking. We're gonna make life here. Boy: I don't think so.
How long do you think we need? We got electricity in there, we got all the ingredients that are necessary. It's not working. Now, I want you to think about how absurd it is, how many millions of years do we need to shake that? How many billions of years... Before we get some life? There's probably some single cells in there right now, but it is ever going to produce a human? No. I just wanted to illustrate this to show you how absurd it is to say that some kind of combination, any combination of sludge you want.
Look at all the sophisticated laboratories that doctors have today... [Laughter] you better give that back to me in case you're tempted. [Laughter] thank you very much. Let's give them a hand. Thank them for their help with that.
[Applause] with all of the sophisticated laboratories that they have today, I mean, we're just doing a really silly experiment. Have they been able to create life from non-life? No. They can try and recreate all the environments and all the ingredients and they haven't been able to create a single cell, and yet they say the world was filled with these living creatures. And you know what, you know what's one of the most amazing things to me -- we just read about God creating male and female in the beginning -- is sex. Can I have a volunteer? No, I'm just kidding.
I'm just kidding. [Laughter] but I knew I'd get your attention. No, I'm really serious. I'm really serious in that -- think about, think about this for a second. You've got two cells.
What's the most efficient way for a cell to reproduce? Well, you got one cell and it's gonna, how did the early cells, and they still do it today, how do they reproduce? They just go... They split. Now you got two. And when this one wants to start a family, it doesn't need this one; it just splits. You got another single cell of life.
What in the evolutionary scheme would ever create the need of two opposite genders, that cannot procreate without a cooperative act? Isn't that right? God said he made them male and female, after their kind. There's no, they have no explanation and I've talked to evolutionists about that before and they said, "it's a problem." That's their answer. "It's a problem." You bet it's a problem. There's a lot of problems with the theory, but they want to get rid of God. All right.
We're going to go to... Oh, they're telling me we got a text question that came in. All right. Let's see what we have here. Well, there's a combination of things for why you are the way you are.
First of all, the Lord blesses every person with a purpose. But the, obviously, your genetics have a role. Your ancestry has a role and God uses that for you to fulfill your purpose when you trust your life to him. Now I might ask the question, I had a brother that was born with cystic fibrosis. If God is good.
.. Why was I born -- my brother used to say, "doug, life is not fair." He said, "you're so healthy and you're so dumb, and I'm smart and I'm sick." [Laughter] it's probably right. He was very bright. But my brother's passed away from his disease. And you might say, "why did God make him that way?" Well, God didn't make sickness and disease.
That came as a result of sin. And we're gonna talk more about that in another presentation. Question four: when you read the answer, Genesis 1:27: man was not made like the other creatures. God spoke the other creatures into existence, but when God made man, he pulled him together with his own hands. Made him in his own image.
And all through the Bible, when it describes the nature of God, God is described as having a form like us. Or we're really like him. He has eyes, he has hair, he has hands, he has feet, he has a torso. God... Basically created us in his image.
We were to be the rulers of this world. Man was given dominion of this world, and that's obvious from what you can see today. You know, I just remembered a story. There was a man looking for work and he was flipping through the ads in the paper and he saw that the zoo, the city zoo, was looking for an employee. So he went and applied for the job.
And they said, "well, the job involves your dressing up in a gorilla suit and going into the gorilla cage." He said, "what?" He said, "no I'm not gonna do that." And they said, "well, you know, our most important attraction is a gorilla and it died. We don't want people to know that because they're going to stop coming. And until we can get another gorilla, we need someone just to fill in." They said, "look, the d.n.a. Between humans and gorilla, very similar. You'll be a natural.
We got this very realistic suit. It's comfortable. You just gotta go out there and just walk around and grunt a little bit. The people will come, they won't know the difference." Well, the job paid well, so the guy said, "all right, well I'll try it." So he got out there and at first he sat there. He felt a little self-conscious.
But pretty soon, he saw some people gathered and so he kind of walked around and more people came. And the kids were pointing, and they go, "oh, look, look, look," and so he... He started getting into it. So he's walking around on his knuckles and pretty soon he got up and he beat on his chest and oh, a big crowd came over. And he thought, "oh, this is pretty good.
I like this." He liked the attention. And they had a concrete tree there and so he started hanging on the tree, and they're looking, and big crowds are gathering. He said, "I can climb the tree. I can climb." So he climbed up the tree and he was getting so carried away with the gorilla thing that he tried to swing from one branch to another in this concrete tree. And he fell.
.. Into the lion's cage. Audience: ah... And naturally, he saw that and he yelled, and the lion ran over to him and said, "be quiet or you're gonna get us both fired! " [Laughter] all right. Man was made in the image of God.
Let me give you a little bit of information that may help. One reason the theory of evolution took hold, back during the days of darwin, when darwin was developing his hypothesis of the origin of species... The microscopes were very primitive. Do you know before the time of darwin, they believed in something called "spontaneous generation"? They really believed back then that life grew out of nothing. They thought, for instance, if you had old meat that was just sitting out there, kind of decomposing, worms and maggots began to appear and crawl out of it.
They said, "life is just coming out of the meat." You left some old strawberries sitting on the counter. All these -- this mold began to grow out of it. And they said, "life just comes out of things." It's called, spontaneous generation. This is what people were thinking back then. Louis pasteur said came along and said, "uh, no.
If you put that meat in a sealed environment and flies can't lay eggs on it, you're not gonna see any maggots. If you put that strawberry inside a jar, and no seeds from the fungus land on it, you're not gonna see it spring." And so it sort of destroyed that. And back when darwin wrote his theory -- oh, when they looked at the cell it was just a little blob of protoplasm, and they said, "well, that might evolve; it doesn't look too complicated." Well, you know what they know now? They've done research, and a single cell of life is more complex than New York city -- one single cell of life -- more complex than New York city at rush hour. Think for a minute about all that would be happening in new york city at rush hour. The subways and the traffic, and the phone lines and the plumbing and the activity.
.. The elevators going. One single cell of life has more machinery and more processes going on, because now we can look with these fantastically powerful electron microscopes. The idea that that could come by accident: how absurd is that? If you're walking along in the desert, and you see a rock sticking out of the sand... You might think, "oh, look at that rock may have been here for thousands of years.
" You might sit on it, rest, take a drink of water. Then you resume your walk and pretty soon you come up to a laptop computer. You would never say to yourself, "well, I wonder how long it took for that to come up out of the desert." Would you ever say that? Think about how many processes it performs and all the programs it runs and all the features it has and all that it does and the design and the shape. Do you know -- if a man is walking along a trail in the desert, and he finds five stones stacked on top of each other, he'll stop right there at those stones and say, "somebody was here." Those five rocks stacked up means a trail has been Marked. There's been some intelligence here.
Think about how crazy it is for us to look at all the design and organization and systems in the world today and say, "hey, it just kinda took a long, long time; it just happened by accident." I began to ask those questions, I said, "something's not right." There is a conspiracy to mesmerize a generation into thinking that they're just gorillas, that they've just evolved. It's not true. Alright, back to our lesson. Question number five: you can find the answer to this in Exodus 20:11. This happens to be also the fourth commandment.
How many days? Six days of creation. Well, if you wanna count the Sabbath, he also made another day that incorporated time. So let's say seven days. Anything that you read there that would make you think those seven days -- "really there's a spiritual meaning to that. It really means 7,000 years.
" Or "it really means 700,000 years" or 7,000,000 years or 700,000,000 years, or four billion years or... Wouldn't you have to sort of torture the text to make it say that? If you read it the way it speaks. By the way, you look around the world today and it's very clear. We don't have any written history that goes back beyond 4,000 years. It's like suddenly man went through this explosion of intelligence and civilization.
He goes from dragging around his wife by her hair, to building pyramids... Overnight. That's what they want us to believe. It's not true. Now I wanna illustrate this.
I've got one more illustration here. I was gonna use a mousetrap but it was so small I didn't think they could get it on camera. You've maybe seen this before. It's pretty simple. This is a simple illustration that has been used -- it's talked about or referred to as irreducible complexity.
Now, you got a mousetrap here and it's got several parts. You got your lever, you got your hammer, you got your bait and you got your platform. You got your spring. So what did I say, about five parts there? And if you remove any -- you know what's amazing to me? Well, I gotta finish what I'm saying here. You remove any one of these and the whole thing loses its purpose.
Any one -- take away the platform -- any one part of it, and it ceases to have a purpose for existing. In your body and in every cell, there are so many machines. Even in the cells, there are machines that have several moving, working parts that only have a purpose for existing as they all come together at the same time. There is no explanation in evolution how all of a sudden there would be some force that would bring all the parts of the mousetrap together at the same time, and make it a working mousetrap to catch mice. Or in this case, rats.
Can I have a volunteer? [Chuckling] I'm serious. Oh, no hands are going up now. When I mentioned sex, I had several hands that went up. [Laughing] alright, who's my volunteer? Green shirt. Okay.
I've done this before and this is not a mousetrap. This is a rat trap. Now we may need this; you never know. Because we're talking about evolution during this program, something could crawl out of the stage, and we might need to catch it. Oh look, what have we got there? [Laughter] go grab that real quick before it gets away.
[Laughter] let's bring that over here. Let's see if this thing works. [Snap] [laughter] did it work? You saw me jump three feet off the ground. [Laughter continues] boy, this could have gone bad... If my hand had been caught in that.
They gotta be sensitive. Go ahead, put your hand in that glove there. No, no. [Snap] I'm gonna let this go right there. Thank you very much for helping.
We'll assume it's dead. [Laughter] I don't wanna push my luck with that thing, and I'm running out of time. Alright, let's get back to our lesson here. Question number six: have you heard that said before? "Oh, we've been here for millions and billions of years." Answer: Matthew 15:9. They're not the commandments of God.
There are men who are confusing people with their own theories that are going against what the plain teaching of God's Word is, as well as the evidence of science. It's not been millions and billions of years. Let me give you an example. For one thing, I talked about the history of man -- a written history. But what about in the trees? Trees live a long time.
This is a picture of what they call the methuselah tree. It's supposed to be the oldest tree in the world, there in California. When they do the research and they bored a hole and checked the rings on it, it came out at about 4,800 years, and that's an approximate guess, because some years -- because of the seasons and the rains, it can sometimes confuse the rings a little bit. But isn't it interesting that the history of man -- the written history of man, and the history in the trees, and in so many other areas, it just seems to go back 4,000 or 5,000 years. And then everything sort of drops off into speculation.
Suppose that you go into a room. I got a room, and there's a door. It's a dark room, and I open the door and you look in the room and there's a burning candle. And I ask you, "can you tell me how long that candle has been burning?" And then you shut the door. Can you tell me how long? Well, let's just see.
If you knew how tall the candle was when it started, you might look at the clump of wax that's at the bottom, if it's leaking. Good candles don't leak. But if it's leaking a little wax, you might try and measure how much wax is there. And you might do a bunch of calculations and say, "well, based on the size of the ceiling, and based on the room and how quickly the candle is burning, the candle must have been this tall when it started." But suppose there was more oxygen in the room or less oxygen in the room before you opened the door. Does that affect the speed at which it burns? It does.
The whole dating method is built upon assuming that everything has been the way it is now, and the Bible says it hasn't. Our whole planet went through a very radical, catastrophic change about 5,000 years ago -- 4,500 years ago. It's called the flood. The whole environment was changed. The atmosphere was changed.
And you know they see this in the fossil record everywhere, where all of a sudden animals, even mammals, that were very large suddenly got very small. It was like the oxygen levels changed. Where do you think we get these massive coal beds and oil fields from? The only explanation they've got for that is there was some kind of catastrophe that quickly covered all of this living material and compressed it. Think about how much oil we burn everyday around the world. That all came from -- you know you drive to school on dinosaur blood.
Ever think of it that way? It really is: it's a prehistoric world that's driving our whole culture today. Alright, they tell me that we got another text question coming in. Here it is: yes, they did. And one of the big reasons that they are coming up with these different theories is because of what they think they see in the geologic column that the dinosaurs are deeper then they may find some of the human remains. But really that has to do with what happened wi5h the flood, how quickly their reptiles sink as compared to mammals.
That would affect everything. That's why you would have all the seashells on the bottom. I've been to a park in the... Glen rose, Texas dinosaur park. Dinosaur footprints everywhere in that park.
You can walk out there and look at them. Families can go there on a picnic. I've been there. And they got human footprints, big human footprints crossing over right along with the dinosaur footprints. And if I knew this question was coming in, I would've shown you a picture of my foot next to one of these footprints.
I think that they did co-exist together. A matter of fact, got that tyrannosaurus rex. How many of you heard about this tyrannosaurus rex they found in 2005? And the evolutionist, probably atheistic paleontologist dissecting a piece of the tyrannosaurus rex bone. "60 Million years old." Was shocked when she found soft tissue hemoglobin and blood cells. And there's a picture of it.
You can find this online. Then they began to really talk jurassic park when they saw that. And they said, "whoa. We have always believed that any soft tissue is destroyed after 10,000 years." Well, they're wrong about that: 10,000 years. They said, "how can we explain that we have soft tissue in a tyrannosaurus rex that's 60 million years? That could never happen.
There must be something wrong in the way we're calculating soft tissue." They wouldn't accept that they might be calculating the dates wrong. The dating system that is used by evolutionists is the holy cow. Once you show that their whole dating system is based upon bad data, the whole evolutionary system crumbles like a house of cards. I've got so much to share with you. Maybe I'll be able to cover more of this information in some of your questions that will come in.
I got a quote here. Let me see if I can find this real quick. About -- yeah, carbon 14 dating. This is from collier's encyclopedia. "Carbon 14 is produced in the earth's atmosphere when nitrogen 14 or n14 interacts with cosmic rays.
Scientists believe that cosmic rays have been bombarding the atmosphere ever since the earth was formed while the amount of nitrogen in the atmosphere has reMained constant." They're assuming that everything is constant. That's the only way they can use that theory. "Consequently, c14 formation is thought to occur in a constant rate." It's "thought to"; this is the encyclopedia. "Although the current ratio of c14 and other carbon atoms in the atmosphere is known, scientists are not certain that this ratio has been constant." This is the encyclopedia about their dating method, upon which this whole theory is based. "Errors in radio carbon dating can be caused by inaccurate radiation or particle counts, contamination of a sample with a more modern carbon and a stray radiation striking the counter.
" "Using such data, scientists are able to distinguish which events came before others. But usually cannot pinpoint precisely when the events occurred." It is a very loose, sloppy science. I have a friend, used to be an evolutionist. Worked in a dating lab, where they... Radio isotope dating.
And when people submit samples to be date [sic], they tell what they recommend that the date to be based on how deep they found it. She says, "it was staged and you sent the same samples to different laboratories. They come up with all different kinds of readings." And so, the science is so terribly flawed, and yet it is being brought and presented as "oh, this is a fact. It's a fact, and you're foolish if you don't believe it." By the way, there was a very scientific group of people called nazis... That said, "everyone other than aryans is inferior.
" And they were considered, I mean they had a military machine. Very scientific, but you know what their belief was that they taught everybody? The problem with the world is jews. I guess they would've had a problem with Jesus too, right? Scientific people, very educated. And I'm not trying to be hard on germans. I'm part german, my wife's german; you understand what I'm saying? But adolf hitler and others have said, "if you tell people a lie often enough, they'll get to where they believe it.
You tell enough people a lie often enough and well enough, and if you intimidate them for believing something else, pretty soon they'll start to capitulate and believe a lie." Well friends, we're about out of time for this presentation. But I think I've made the most important point. You did not happen by accident. You were created by God. I was talking this last year to a friend who's on national television everyday.
Doesn't believe in God, he's an atheist and we and i, he and I have friendly conversations. And after we got done talking one day he said, "well doug, I know one of us is right." And I thought to myself, "yeah, but... If I'm right, nothing is more important. If you're right, nothing really matters." If it's all a big accident, then nothing matters. But if what I'm telling you is the truth, friends, then nothing is more important than God being central in your life.
Can you see how important this question is? And having the right answer to this question? Because if God made you, he's got a plan for your life. And if the devil is trying to destroy you and there's a battle over your allegiance and your love, and Jesus is trying to win your, your faith and your trust, nothing's more important. And that's my appeal for each of you to know: that you are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God... And he has a plan for your life. I hope you'll invite him into your hearts.
And you too, friends, who are watching. We'll look forward to seeing you in the next most important question program. Thank you for watching this episode of M.I.Q. In our next presentation, we'll be discussing life, and can it really last forever? You won't wanna miss this. See you then.
How can I know that God is listening? Where is he when I need him? What is heaven like? Can I ever be perfect? Is church for me? Did I come from apes or prehistoric sludge? Announcer: do you have more questions about God, the Bible and living a Christian life? The official companion to the "most important questions" tv series has more answers. Get all the Bible-based answers to hundreds of the most frequently asked questions. To order call (800) 538-7275, or visit... Store.amazingfacts.org.