Eric and Paul mention the “Current” zine and the Genesis Series.

The following program is made possible by the friends and partners of God quest ministries from the C. T. N. Studio in Pensacola florida. This is creation today where we believe the bible is literally true and scientifically accurate from the very beginning and were not ashamed to say. So I’m one of your hosts eric coven and I’m paul Taylor and we’re here every episode to answer your questions on science and the bible and cover what’s going on in Creation today, why it matters to you. If you have questions, you can send them into questions at Creation today. If you tweet on twitter you can tweet us at creation today and on facebook facebook dot com slash Creation today, enjoy the show. Mhm. Welcome to Creation today. In this episode we’ve got several good questions that we’re still answering from the live webcasts and the emails that are coming in. We appreciate you guys submitting your questions and hopefully we’ll get to them three at a time. It’s gonna take a little while with all the questions we are coming and I got to tell you that’s right and and people need to sort of keep an eye on the website to look for the future webcasts as well because you know, there’ll be occasions to to ask us live through That’s exactly right through emails and so on. So right now today go onto Creation today dot org and look for those future episodes. Is that what you’re saying something different? They are new, new zine. Our magazine slash newsletter is out the CSC currents and in it we got lots of great articles. Of course, paul, Taylor has been here in the States for a couple of months now. Uh thrilled to have you on board. It’s just a pleasure working with you. So he’s got a couple articles in there, introduces him, the new genesis project that we’re working on. You can go to genesis series dot com and check that out. But man, I’m telling you just the trailer of this has sparked so much attention and so much, so much love for the project that we’re already doing. I’m blown away. We’re taking the first three chapters of genesis and doing it avatar style. You’ll be able to see the creation of the world, This really is going to be cool avatar style without blue aliens. If people want to see this magazine online, of course you can do that, you can go to creation today dot org forward slash current. That’s correct. So feel free to go check that out. Our first question today comes from luke. Thank you luke for writing in his question is this how would you dispute dan brown’s theory that the bible says we’re created in God’s image. So we are all God’s, you know, I don’t want to be offensive, why would I? You don’t want to be offensive paul. Yeah, that’s a good one. Alright. Bring out the guns. Do we really need to dispute dan Branson about anything that’s a good point. He hasn’t really I mean to be fair on him, I don’t think he ever said that he was presenting a theory. He was making a work of fiction. Of course, he claims in his books that it’s all based on facts, which of course it isn’t. And there are many books out there on the market which look at those theories, if you don’t know who dan Brown is, he’s the one who wrote, wrote the davinci code, Angels and angels and demons and uh, a couple of other things. Did you watch those for research? I haven’t seen those yet. I haven’t I haven’t seen those. Obviously, I saw it for research purposes. Yes, of course. And okay, so how do we go against this? What’s first of all, as as we say, on a regular basis on this show, he’s coming at it from a pre supposition. But let’s hit that and then get into what’s the problem there. And of course, his his presupposition if you read his books, his pre supposition is that the bible isn’t necessarily true. And it’s a question in his mind that he claims that the bible was written At the Council of Nyssa really was put together in the early 4th century at the Council of Nyssa and that they had hundreds and hundreds of possible gospels to choose from, of which they just chose the four that we have in the bible loads and loads of letters from tom Dick and paul and Peter and so on, and you know, and and and they’ve all and they’ve all been compiled. It’s just somebody decided, let’s have that one blindfold, let’s have that one. And and that’s really the way he portrays what’s happening. Of course, that’s not the way it happened. If you go back and look at church history and in the the council, and I say that’s not at all what happened. It’s not the way it happened. You know, even if we were starting to to look at this evidentially, it’s you could there are thousands and thousands of manuscripts and there there’s far more documentary evidence for the bible than all the other ancient, and that’s what gets me together. This is so funny to me that people would argue about something that has so much evidence when they won’t argue about the works of Plato or Aristotle or these other guys that there’s very few manuscripts that, that have survived to today, and there’s from several 100 years after these people lived and yet they go and dispute God’s word. That’s amazing. That’s right. And what the Council of Neisseria was doing, of course, was simply making an official pronouncement in council on what people already knew, you know, before the, even the end of the first century, we had, we knew what these particular books were, you know, I often think about looking at the Book of Acts why is it that that paul didn’t mention in the weather that luke didn’t mention rather in the Book of Acts, the death of paul. And why didn’t he mention probably the biggest historical event in the first century, the things that happened in Jerusalem. And I think the internal evidence which would be a perfect accepted with any other ancient document until evidence is simpler than that book was written before those events happened. That’s why. But you know, again, we need to come back as we did as we always do in these shows to what is the presupposition behind that question? The presupposition is we’re made in God’s image. So we’re all God’s it’s a question of what we mean there by the image of God. Exactly. He’s presuming that there were. You gotta think about it. God is omniscient absolutely. Are you on mission? I’m not, I mean, I know you’re pretty smart, all right. But uh I’m not omniscient either, anybody out there on missions. I don’t think so. God is omnipresent. Are you omnipresent? I’m not because I’d be sat there as well as he Yeah, I mean, I’m pretty fast, but I’m not that fast. Okay, so, um we are what does he mean by we are created in the image of God when he says that and you can’t just take that and say, well, therefore we’re all on the President all omniscient all powerful. You can’t go and put that at those attributes on all of us now is not what the bible means, that means that this is not what the bible means. He’s got the idea wrong, the idea being that. So we’re creating God’s image. Therefore we’re all little gods. And you know, I’ve even heard some christians come dangerously close to saying that sort of thing and it really, really worries me. But of course that’s not what we’re talking about. We don’t look like God. We don’t have those qualities that we talked about. But God is God is a is a moral god. We know right and wrong because of God and we’re made in his image because we are moral beings. Yeah. And you think about it, God is spirit. So I mean just the fact that we are flesh and blood. Now, some people would argue that what about jesus, jesus, was God and humankind, but um the, I forgot where I was going on there a D. D. Moment here. Well, there’s another thing perhaps I can just put in at that particular point as you come back to, because we read, don’t we in genesis five, that Seth was in the image of Adam, you see this. So the image of God is there in in humanity, but the image of God is marred because you’re forgetting as well that there’s the fall that that Adam was disobedient as our federal head. He was disobedient to God, his sin, he disobeyed God, his sin and that sin has brought death. So the image of God there is marred and in a sense, you can say it’s a seeing God through a glass darkly. Very much, you know, this is interesting and I’m kinda, it’s making me wonder here, what all areas are. We literally made in the image of God. Obviously we reflect morally logically through through the laws of logic, which we talked about and that aren’t possible without the God of the bible. Uh, these different areas are areas that we reflect his image. Uh, everybody knows it’s wrong to do certain things. One what other areas? I mean, I I guess I’m I’m drawing a blank here and I’m wondering what other areas? This is an area. I’d love to study what other areas are we made in the image of God as it’s talking about that. I’d like to do some more study on that. I think there’s a huge amount that we can do that. And I know that people have used that with with many other, many other arguments. The fact that we’re in God’s image is very, very important. It tells us something about the preciousness. It tells us something about the depth of our sin as well as the depth of our disobedience to God. Well then let me ask this. Why does it matter if we keep talking about? Why this matters to you. Why does it matter? I mean, his whole point here is to try to try to say something that is not necessarily true it matters, doesn’t it? Because because God is the is the is the most important thing that that there is the bible starts by saying in the beginning, God, it doesn’t argue about the existence of God, but it assumes that God’s there and that’s our starting point with everything we say, no doubt about it. We’ve got lots more to talk about and I want to dig in deeper on that so we can bring you some more info on that. But we’ll have to talk about that on another show. We’ve got a break right now. Got more questions coming up. Mm hmm. Yeah, mm hmm. Mhm, mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two. Mhm. Welcome back, You’re watching Creation today with me, paul, taylor and eric Hovan. Um and now I’m right out some money and I’m sorry about that. Could I just borrow a quarter, please? You don’t have any sense. I don’t have any sense. People often say I have no sense. Well, I got a quarter right there. 25 cents. You know, we were talking before the break about the image of God. Now correct. Whose whose images that there, that would be George Washington’s image, George Washington. So when you get lots of quarters like this, does that make those little Statesmen? No, it doesn’t. I see what you’re saying that it bears the image of George Washington. It doesn’t make it George Washington. Of course not. You know, it’s interesting because as I was contemplating during the break, this whole idea of our wee little gods, I was thinking, you know, it’s true that we are made in God’s image, God made man in his own image. Now, a lot of times we try to return the favor of God, and we make a God in our own image, and we serve a god that doesn’t even exist. We serve a God is the figment of our imagination, because when we make up our own God, we don’t want him to be too judgmental, We don’t want him to hate our sin. That’s right. People say, don’t they? Well, you know, my God is a God of love. That’s right. My God would never send anyone to hell. And of course the answer to that is you are so right. Your God would never send anyone to hell because your God doesn’t exist. Your God is just a figment of your imagination. And we realized that that’s breaking the second commandment, that’s creating a God in our image, that’s literally making an idol before God, not serving the one to God. You know, it’s humanism that says the end of all being is the happiness of man. The reason we exist is for our own happiness. And the evolutionary idea is what brings us to the conclusion that we are God were the highest evolved, we get to do whatever we want to do when we find that this idea, this concept comes from the humanistic or the evolutionary worldview. And so and it really is dangerous. It really is a dangerous thought. I mean, if I really believe I was God and I got to do whatever I wanted to do to make me happy, look out everybody else. But that’s the way a lot of people are living today. That’s right. I mean, it’s practically nonsense. We know that there’s so many things that we do that don’t don’t make ourselves happy, even though we think they’re going to, by the way, thanks for giving me my quarterback. I’m glad you’re not a thief that would have broken another one of the commandments. Let’s get some other questions. Let’s get to another question. Here’s here’s a good question from the webcast, what physical scientific evidence supports the flood occurring worldwide. Oh, I would say great question. But of course, as we’ve been talking regularly, this very question assumes or is is questioning God’s word, that there really was a worldwide flood when he says very clearly, it covered all the high hills, it was not a local flood, it was a worldwide flood. And I don’t mind going into the evidence because I think there is tons of evidence. How can you look around and not see the evidence? The thing is it’s a question of what evidence would be acceptable anyway, isn’t it? You know? And it’s worth asking that what evidence would you accept? Of course I’ve seen I’ve seen the things that people said like, well let’s have a look for say a fossil of a rabbit in the Jurassic era. If you found that, that would totally disprove. Yeah. Yeah. Now there are plenty of out of place fossils around. We could find lots of things like that. We know that there are living organisms today that people until recently thought were completely extinct because they only found them in rocks that today thinks are supposedly millions and millions of years old. And it doesn’t cause them to rethink the theory of evolution. They don’t change that. Matter of fact somebody in a in a in an episode a couple weeks ago I said that the evolution fix the fog like um or if it’s evolution fits the lands fits the evidence like fog fits the landscape. And they wrote me and it was walter reminding the book the biotic message that he says that the theory of evolution fits the evidence just like fog fits a landscape. It’s going to conform to the evidence. No matter what evidence comes out comes out. So if you found a rabbit in the pre Cambrian, they would just make it fit with the evolution theory. That’s right and not incidentally of course is is the main reason why the theory of evolution is not actually a scientific theory because it’s a scientific theory is something that will fit the that that will match the evidence that is suggested by the evidence and that is therefore able to make predictions based on that. Now the theory of evolution, he said is is this this fog conforms thing? So it’s basically change. It’s a, it’s a scientific chameleon is what’s going on. That’s right. I mean in England we call that, changing the goalposts. Got you. Yeah, yeah. My kids do that. You know, hide and seek when you’re when you’re doing that, you know, or you’re playing tag and the kids change their bases. Oh this is base. Oh now this is base, that’s exactly what evolution is. Oh this is evidence. So now this is evidence. So they’re doing the same thing. Did you ever play tag? Okay, all right. I love that game. I still playing around the office, everyone evidence is is dependent on the presupposition as to how it’s going to be interpreted. So somebody that believes the bible, what some evidence for them. Well, you see, if you start from the knowledge of the bible believing the bible to be true, you can see the evidence all around you ken ham has often said that if there was a worldwide flood, which of course there was. If there was a worldwide flood, what would you expect to see? And he says, he says there’ll be millions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. I practiced that many of us. I was gonna say you’re good and you even say it with an accent. I love it. I’ll try and stay in Australian there and what you actually find when you look around the world. Well you find millions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth. There’s the Australia and I love it. And that’s how can you ignore the evidence that the same. Think about it. I know you’re not from here but out in the west while ago a couple maybe 100 years ago they were killing the buffalo like crazy. There used to be millions and millions of buffalo out west big animal. You know what the buffalo is? Well, how many fossilized Buffalos do we see today? How if you went out there and we’re driving to drive around, I went to school in Wyoming, You’re driving around out there. Guess how many fossilized buffaloes you find out there in round numbers in round numbers around very round numbers. That’s exactly right. We don’t find any evidence of the buffalo yet. We find millions of fossils. First of all fossilization takes place when an animal is buried by mud or sediment so that the bones can literally mineralized and turn into a fossil. How do we explain the millions of fossils that we see in the world today? All I mean that we’ve collected literally millions of them. You can go to museums. I mean there’s all kinds of places where they’ve seen these fossils. How do we have so many fossils. Evolutions say it’s because so much time has gone by. No, it’s because there was a worldwide flood. How do we know there was a worldwide flood? The best evidence of all God tells us that that’s the whole point, isn’t it? And the whole point behind this question is well, you know, you can’t give me that evidence be and therefore it didn’t happen. But the point is you see you’re starting from the wrong point and so many christians are trying to search for this evidence that will show them that there that there was a flood that there wasn’t arc and so on. And it’s it’s starting from the wrong point. Starting from the wrong point. Just supposing that we went and we dug up a fossil fossilized piece of wood, alright fossilized piece of wood from one of the planks on the ark and it’s even got inscribed in the woods. Noah was here. Whoa! And we said we said we got that on the show and we’re looking at that what then would be the best evidence that the flood happened and that Noah really had an arc. The best evidence would be because the presupposition and without that we cannot understand the evidence. We cannot interpret. They’re going you guys keep talking about God’s word as if it is the foundation. That’s right. Richard Dawkins complained about that to me, it keeps on saying that the bible is true and that’s why that’s why, because the bible is true. The bible is true. Exactly. Right. Oh, I love this. Alright, we got another question to answer. We’re gonna do that right after this break. By the way, I did a Creation Minute on the Flood. You can go to Creation minute dot com and check out the episode we did on Noah’s Flood. I’d encourage you to do that. We’ll be back right after this beginnings is a creation experience for small groups, churches and individuals from all walks of life. Creation speaker eric Hoven explores the age old questions of life, the evidence for a young earth, and how dinosaurs fit in with the bible. The included guide provides an introduction to each lesson. Creative challenges, great discussion, questions and practical ways to apply each lesson to everyday life. To order this DVD go to www dot Creation store dot org. God has offered his wisdom on so many subjects. Doesn’t it make sense that he’d offer wisdom on the principles of economics. Okay, got genomics offers God’s perspective for the economic decisions of an individual, a family and even a nation. Mhm. To learn more about what the Almighty God says about how he wants us to achieve a life of liberty, prosperity, and generosity. Go to God Economics dot com. Welcome back to Creation today, where we’re answering your questions on science and the bible Creation versus evolution and I gotta say I’m enjoying this, it’s great. But you were talking about buffalo before Buffalo being being an outsider. I was always under the impression that weren’t really buffalo that their bison. Oh, bison. Okay. You got bison burgers because there’s three types of bison. Aren’t those three times? There’s the american bison, It’s a very rare european bison. And then if you need to clean yourself up, that’s the wash bison. Oh, bison. I think maybe that’s the Australian version of it. Um, Hey, next question comes from brad brad. Thank you very much for writing into the program. You say that people live for their own glory instead of living for God’s glory. But the main reason you live according to God is to be redeemed after death. Isn’t that actually just as selfish as living for one’s own glory? Wow. Good question. It’s a very, very big question, isn’t it? But of course the thing, it’s in the motives and it isn’t the motives and what is our motive for coming to christ? And there’s a phrase you see that I don’t really like that much. Do we actually come to christ when we, when we’re saying that there is a sense in which from our point of view, it seems that that’s the case. But of course it’s it’s God who makes them from his point of view. Exactly. It’s the holy spirit that does the work in one’s heart and draws. So now, you know, I don’t know that I could have said everything about the way that I was saved and understood everything about the way that I was saved when I was saved. I didn’t know all the all the theology behind it and what was happening. But you see God was working through those things and you know, we look back in our lives and we could see that God was doing this, this, this and this and and and and he was working through our lives. But what what’s this point about God’s glory? What does it actually mean to live for God’s glory? And in a sense, we’ve haven’t we got to go right back to the beginning again to understand we do. I mean when you go to scripture and according to scripture, what is the purpose to life? I was talking to somebody the other day facebook facebook to message to me and I called him up at 11 30 at night because I thought he was in California and I thought it wouldn’t be that late. Well, come to find out. He was in my time zone, but he was up and he had just put a post on his page about who cares about life? What what difference that what is life all about? You know here, I’ve done this and this and this and this and it’s empty, what is life all about? And we had a great conversation talking about that very point. What is the purpose to life? Why are we here? That’s one of the fundamental questions we ask that in our life, we’re gonna ask for fundamental questions, Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? And where am I going when I die? Why exactly are we here? What is the purpose? According to God’s word, it is clear that we are put here for the glory of God. That’s right. And again, we need to look at what’s what’s happening behind this question. The question is about living according to God, to be redeemed after death as if they’re being redeemed with something to do with the work that we do and we’re not we’re not redeemed by living according to God, that’s not actually how we’re redeemed, the word redeemed is so important. People don’t always understand it, you know, it’s something they throw out. You’ve got to go back really, and and see exactly what it was. Now my my grandfather, as I understand that he died well before I was born, my grandfather was a gambler. He used to, he was out of work for a while and he he used to gamble, used to like to to to put money on the horses and my grandmother would come home and she’d find there was something missing from the house because what he’d done, He borrowed it borrowed in inverted commas something like a clock or whatever? And he’d taken it down to the pawn shop, carefully spelled P A. W. N. And he got some he got some money on that. She was not happy about that. She was not happy in the point was that she was coming home from work from working a long shift at the cotton mill and she had to go back in the evening to work yet another shift at the cotton mill so that she could earn extra money to take it down to the pawn shop and redeem the clock that had been taken that that’s what redemption is because there is a debt, there is a debt that has to be paid. And that of course, doesn’t it goes right back to Adam, doesn’t it Sure does that come from? In order to understand this debt, we’ve got to go back to Adam and the original sin. I was talking to somebody just the other day, his name’s Denton. And then if you’re watching this, I’m talking about you okay. His name is Denton and uh he said I really want to clean myself up, basically, he’s saying I want to clean myself up so I can come to God and know our righteousness is as filthy rags when we stand before God Almighty. Yeah. If we waited to clean ourselves up before coming to God, we would never ever come because it’s simply not possible because there is a debt, You see Adam was put in the garden and he was given a commandment. We’ve got 10 commandments. Adam was given one commandment. You don’t eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There was nothing inherently poisonous about that fruit eating that fruit didn’t kill Adam, did it? It was it was the disobedience to God that killed him because God said the day that you eat of that you will surely die. The process of death will start. And that’s what brought death into the world. And you know, Adam Adam was clothed by God with with the shedding of blood. He was clothed with skins. But you know, that didn’t stop him from dying. You know and if Adam had changed his clothes once a year, a bit more often than my teenage Children, I hope there was He he doesn’t stop him dying, he would have had to kill 90 930 animals. But he still would have died because that was a covering. But it wasn’t the it wasn’t the cleansing for sin and that’s so important because there was a debt to pay that still paid. So he died with that debt. And that debt is inherited. Exactly. This the wages of sin. The bible says is death. And guess what? Ever since Adam, Everybody that’s ever lived. Well I can’t say everybody has ever lived has died. But basically if you’re born you are going to die. That’s the way it was very democratic thing is 10 out of 10? It really does? And that’s why there’s a need for redemption because it’s not something that we can deal with by living according to God. It’s only it’s only something that is achieved. You saw the coverings with the shedding of blood of the animal, but hebrews tells us that there’s the shedding of blood once for all by jesus christ, you know? And that that brings up really the the gospel message so clear because I got to ask, do you know that you’re going to heaven when you die and how do you know? Um I love I love Ray comfort and living Waters Ministry, they put it very clear, Have you ever told a lie? No matter of fact, how many lies have you told? And it’s wrong to lie. Why? Because God commands not to lie? And God is not a liar. Have you ever taken something that doesn’t belong to you that’s called stealing? You’re a thief. Why is that wrong? Because God says because God is not a thief. And if we’ve done these things, the bible says and there’s there’s several more commandments, the bible says, we’re guilty. If you stand in that position today, I gotta say I’m concerned for you. If you stand guilty before God, if you were to judge you today by the 10 commandments and you would be, you would be found guilty, what would you go to heaven or hell? Some people say, well hell, I said, well, does that concern you? Does that bother you? It should, hell is a real place. And if it does bother you, man, I’d encourage you to get in touch with us. We’d love to help you understand the truth about the Salvation message. So please write us email us. We’d love to talk that. Talk to you. You can go to our website and click the are you a good person and get more information on that as well? Well, I want to thank you guys for joining us today for Creation today. It’s been our pleasure. If you have questions, feel free to send them into questions at Creation today dot org. Remember you can get those questions on twitter at Creation today or on our facebook page facebook dot com forward slash creation today. You can tune in each episode and see if we’ve answered your questions on creation evolution, science and the bible. And all those episodes are archived online. This has been a production of God quest ministries, So, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.