Discussing angels, punishment and biblical authority.

The following program is made possible by the friends and partners of God quest ministries. Why would God order the killing of Children. That’s what we’re talking about today on the creation today’s show. I’m one of your host, Erica vin and I’m paul taylor. And on today’s show we’ll be discussing what angels look like. Do you know what angels look like? We’re gonna find out, we’re gonna find out. We’re also going to be having a little bit more to say about radio metric dating and we’ll also be discussing kind of loving God really punish people all that on the creation today’s show where we believe the bible is literally true and scientifically accurate in every single detail and we are not ashamed to say so. I hope you enjoyed the show from the C. T. N. Studio in Pensacola florida. This is the creation today’s show. And we’ve got a lot of great questions to answer for you on today’s show. We have indeed got a lot of great questions but don’t forget please about the questions that you can have answered at our proof of God conference in March 2012. That’s a very very important thing to go to proof cut proof of God conference God proof conference dot com. And that is gonna be a great conference where we’re gonna teach you how to defend the God that absolutely exists not a God that maybe exists or possibly exist but the one true god of the bible. How do you defend him to your neighbors, to your friends, to your relatives. That’s what we’re going to be talking about this, right? And who’s going to be there. And then we have got some incredible speakers, some absolutely fascinating speakers on the topic and we’re going to be there. We’ve got carl Kirby from reasons for hope ministry, he’s gonna be there, I don’t forget, we’ve got Mark Spence from Living Waters Ministry and Seidenberg and kate from proof that God exists dot org. All gonna be at this conference in Orlando florida, march 16th and 17th of 2012. So don’t miss that. Yeah, you’re gonna want to register and come come see us there. We’ve also are making some incredible progress on the genesis series. We are really excited about that. If you haven’t gotten to see that product, you need to go check it out at genesis series dot com. Uh and we just, I can’t wait to see genesis come alive in a in a three D world where you’re watching God create the heavens and the earth. Instead of just reading it, you’re watching it take place. It’s gonna be gonna be absolutely amazing. That’s genesis series dot com, genesis series dot com is where you check that out. Excellent. We’ve got a couple of questions by the way, if you’d like to have paul and I come and speak, We do live events, creation today, live events and we’d be happy to come to your area, just let us know through email at Creation today dot org. You can get our email address there and we’d love to, love to come speak to your group or church or school or all of the above about what we love to talk about God and his word and creation. That’s right. And we’re quite happy to answer questions as we are now as well. So keep your questions coming in. And we’ve got a question here from Daniel, Daniel says, how do angels actually look? And he’s got a several riders to the question with her eyes. Duh, Somebody told my daughter, anytime somebody says, hey, how did you sleep? She goes like this. So I love that. How do they look with their eyes? Yes, I don’t think that’s what he really meant. I don’t think so. I think he meant, What do they look like? Okay, what do they look like? Which, you know, I, I experiment on that by looking in the mirror first thing in the morning, I experiment on that by looking at my wife, I’m gonna get a little more brownie brownie points there. Yes. Do the cherubs have four faces? Was Lucifer cherub? If he was a cherub, then how can he be? Pretty Daniel says, why are there different kinds of angels who is more dear to God? Humans or angels? Was a huge number of things. Also quite a few. First of all, Daniel, we talk about Creation versus evolution. Typically not angel ology. That’s right. Well, we’ll do our best on this. We’ll do our best. But there are certain things that we can comment on, we’re not going to comment on all the strange and wacky stuff to do with angel ology, But so there are certain things that we can say and we take that story from scripture straight from God’s word. That’s right. I mean in genesis one, we don’t read about what day angels were created, for example, we don’t know that, but since they are created beings, then we know that they must have been created sometime in those six days in those six days, God made everything that he made. So that must include angels. And at the end of day six, God looked at everything that he had made and it was very good, which is why satan sin could not have occurred before that point. It must have occurred after that point, because everything was very good at that point. So what do angels look like according to the bible? I mean, do we actually know what angels look like? Well, we’ve got a couple of places, haven’t we were and and there are various different descriptions given, you know, you’ve got the, the Angel of the Lord does destroying the people at the time of King David, who seems to be quite a large creature. It’s interesting that in secular, in the secular world, they try to portray angels a lot of times as these, these little cherubs is these little, you know, the love angels and the the cute little things. And and man, when the bible talks about these things, you’re going, whoa, If you saw one of those, you’d be scared to death. I mean, powerful. Mighty. Oh, wow. Yeah. I was I was a member of a church in south Wales where we had a nativity play every year and the pastor’s wife organized this and she’s and she always made sure that all the angels in the scene were blond head, teenage girls. That’s what I used to. Well, I just can’t imagine a blond haired teenage girl doing what some of the things these angels did in the scriptures that God commanded. I don’t know, you know, the angels sent to mary, don’t be afraid. I suppose if you’ve seen certain blond haired teenage girls, you would be. But that’s getting a little bit. But was was Lucifer a chairman. I think this is perhaps the important point that we can we can address can be because now we can’t be totally dogmatic on this, but we know that I think what’s being referred to here is Ezekiel chapter 28. Well, we should mention that some people don’t believe that this is talking about Lucifer. Absolutely. I think it’s in Ezekiel chapter 28 it’s important to mention that because there are different views, I guess I’m probably of the opinion that it is I am as well, this is where it talks about Lucifer in the in the the garden. However precious stones. In fact, the word, the word Lucifer is not mentioned in his equal 28 Lucifer is mentioned in Isaiah 14, a similar similar passage, but in Ezekiel 28 it’s talking about the King of tire and saying you were the signature of perfection full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering. And it goes through a list of stones saying you were an anointed guardian cherub and it says you were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till unrighteous Nous was found in you. And I think that’s really it sort of indicates we’re talking about an angelic being. There was some sort and being therefore who would be very beautiful, extremely beautiful. A lot of people have this image, don’t they have of satan and the devil is in the red guy. Yeah, probably not accurate when they describe him as an angel of light and thinking and and a being that people would be attracted to. Yes. And of course in the new testament we dealt with it, satan can appear as an angel of light and you know, every every false religion that has been has been created by satan only one true religion, which is the worship of God. But there’s been so many counterfeit religions produced and they seem appealing at times, they seem very appealing because satan is a figure of beauty. Who will, who will it says almost deceive the very elect if that. And he’ll appeal to different things. He’ll appeal to things like your knowledge or intellect or or your emotions and he’s very good. He’s had a lot of practice at fooling people. Yes. So we can’t really fully answer the question about what a cherub looks like. Some people get the wrong idea about that. I think people sometimes think about the the statue of eros in London that people often referred to as a chair because it’s a sort of pretty baby figure with wings. That’s not really what we were talking about. Arabs have four faces then. Well, that’s that’s again in Ezekiel. Isn’t that correct? Where it talks about what are the I don’t remember the four faces off the top of my head, but it talks about him having the face of a lamb, a lion cheetah. Am I right on that? And I think in revelation? No, Well, both. In fact, except in revelation, we’ll look at four beasts. Can’t remember the four animals. That’s why I’m looking blankly at you google it, but it’s the same. It’s the same animals. Four faces in Ezekiel for actual creatures in revelation, presumably talking about the same sort of thing, so and are what are the different kinds of angels then. Well, the answer to that is we don’t actually know why God is a God of variety. Look around the world, looking around to the different kinds of people and the different kinds of animals and plants. There is a lot of variety out there. That’s right. But it’s very quick to answer who is more dear? It’s humans who are more dear to guardian angels. And you’ll find out more after this break. Mhm. A Okay, mm hmm. Okay. A mm hmm. Welcome back. You’re watching Creation today with me paul taylor and with eric Hovan and we were talking about angels and perhaps we just rushed out at the end there we were saying because part of the question that Daniel asked was who’s more dear to God, is it angels? Or is it humans? And the bible does say God created us a little lower than the angels. But it talks about it speaks of how the angels almost envy our position with God. We are made to give God more glory than all the angels. And I love the fact that I love it. When people point this out, we are made with the ability to give the God to give God most glory and we do that when we repent some sins and when we trust in christ God can get no greater glory, no greater joy than when we do that. And of course there’s no salvation for the fallen angels. There’s no repentance of the fallen angels all separately created. So there’s nothing no one who can represent them. It’s it’s it’s we who are represented were represented first in the garden by Adam who failed on our behalf. And that’s the sins imputed to us. And then represented again by the second Adam, the last Adam, jesus christ and therefore can have salvation. Things that angels long to look into. We’re reading scripture. So that tells us something about the importance of human beings gets a little bit into our limited knowledge of angel allergy. So, we’ll move on to another question now, I think so. We’ll go onto a perhaps a more traditionally creationist type question here from roman And Roman says I’ve got a question about radio isotopic method of dating. As some physicists say, carbon 14 method is never used for dating millions or billions years age of our planet. They speak of potassium argon, rubidium, strontium, uranium lead and other methods of dating. What can you say about these methods? Could these arguments be refuted the dating method that I used most was just be a good friend. Hang out, have a good time and that’s what that worked for me. I got my man, my wife and I get along great now because we’ve developed a friendship first. So I don’t know about these other dating methods, but that one worked well for me. That might not be quite the dating methods. Alright. He’s talking about radioactive carbon 14 dating, which we hear all the time as evidence against creation and for against creation and for evolution, right? Yes. That people will have done radio metric dating perhaps using uranium lead method and found out that a particular rock might be, say 1.5 billion years old. And I think there’s some misunderstanding about this sometimes and creation is sometimes a little bit loose in their language. You know, I’ve heard people sometimes say, well, that that’s because the radio metric dating method is not accurate and that’s not really the case. We’re not arguing that they’re not accurate. We’re arguing that they’re playing wrong actually. It’s a bit more serious measures. The measurements that they do on the science that they do on the actual fossil or rock or whatever they’re looking at is very good. Yeah. And we should explain as well that generally speaking, it’s not with some rare exceptions, it’s not possible to do radio metric dating anyway on fossils because fossils by definition will be found in sedimentary rock. Radio metric dating is done on igneous rocks, the ones that have come out of volcanoes so that you can try and estimate how old that rock is. So, basically what you’ve got is you’ve gotta rock say a lump of granite, it’s got in its uranium and it’s got lead okay. And lead is one of the products of the radioactive decay of uranium. So we can turn into lead. Yes. So what they are going to do is they’re going to take that rock and they’re going to measure how much uranium is in the rock and how much lead is in the rock, there’s no date in it. They don’t knock the rock open and find the date down the middle of it. You know when when I was a lad, we used to go to the seaside to a seaside town in the northwest of England called Blackpool and used to get seaside rock there. I don’t know, it’s something that you have here is a long stick of sweet sugary candy, very bad for the teeth but you broke it open and inside was written the word Blackpool all the way through the stick of rock. And people often think that somehow you can break open a piece of granite and there’s a date stamp through the middle of the road. It’s not true. What they measure is the amount of uranium and the amount of lead. And they do that very, very accurately indeed. The only thing that says inside, by the way it’s made in Taiwan, that’s pretty much the only thing you’ll find in there that’s great. But the point is then that they have to use those measurements to calculate and here’s where the assumptions start coming in. So the amount of their measuring, nothing wrong with that most likely they’re getting those right. They absolutely they’re getting it. Absolutely, very, very accurate indeed. But in order to calculate the age of the rock they have to make three assumptions. First we said that lead comes from uranium, correct? So they have to know how much of the lead came from the uranium there, assuming all of it came from the uranium. But when the rock was originally formed, there was no lead in it at all. How did they know that if they believe that rock was millions of years old, how did they know that they’ve been, they’d have had to go back into time machine and see the rock form and that’s only been done a couple of times and that was in a movie. So that doesn’t count. Second assumption. They’ve got to assume that none of that lead got there by any other means. You know, none of it was washed in by water or washed away by water basically, that it’s not contaminated. Of course lead compounds are reasonably soluble. So the idea that a rock could sit there for millions of years without the lead being washed out even is really very, very unlikely. The third assumption is that the rate of change of uranium to lead, what’s called the half life of the uranium has never changed. And what’s interesting is that even that assumption today has been challenged by many creation scientists because I’m wondering what all could affect the actual change rate is, is it governed by location, uh things that things that um would affect it, like contamination, like water, like where it’s located, like heat pressure. Well, that wouldn’t necessarily change the radioactive rate that the the half life of the rock. But we do know two things that would change their half life. And you see the whole point is that if the half life has never changed, that’s what we call a uniformity terry in principle has never changed. Which of course we read about in 2nd Peter chapter three where we read that people are scoffers who say that all things continuously were from the creation of the world. But of course there are two things that I’m wondering what those two things. Two things, two things that they deliberately forget the dumb on purpose. That’s what the bible says. They forget that God created the world and they forget that God flooded the world. And you know, some of the, some of the writers who have been studying this and researching this, has said that that is the two occasions on which the half life of uranium could have altered. You know, there’s a book called thousands, not billions, written by Don de Young, which is actually, it’s quite a tricky book to follow. But this is a simplified version, believe it or not, of another book called the Radio activity and the Age of the Earth Project project. They did a great job with that. One of the things they did was measure the the age of crystals in granite by two different methods. One by the radio metric method where they got the 1.5 billion years, and secondly by another reliable method using helium diffusion, which gave an age of about 4000 years. Whoa, totally different ages from the same, from the same rock, but also from the same radioactive process. So for both to be correct, the only way that they can both be correct is that one of the assumptions is wrong, and the only assumption that could be wrong is that the half life has never changed. So in other words, the half life must have changed. So the rate project really exposed a lot of this and I’m really glad that they did that. By the way. If you haven’t checked out, I see our that’s the the Institute for Creation Research now located in Dallas texas, correct, correct. And they do they got some scientists on board, they do some incredible work. So I encourage you to check them out and and get some of their resources to help you better understand the scientific things that affect creation, but of course thousands not billions you can get from Creation store dot org could get that from Creation Store or their website, but we love it when you get it from the creation story dot org. Well, we’re gonna have another question coming up right now, why would God allow the killing of Children? Let’s talk about that after this beginnings is a creation experience for small groups, churches and individuals from all walks of life. Creation Speaker eric Hovan 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. Mm hmm. You’re watching Creation today with Erica vin and paul taylor. And I love some of these questions we’ve been talking about creating carbon dating, What’s the truth about that? The different dating methods? What about angels? And I really want to get to here in just a second. Why would God allow the killing of Children that is involved in one of the questions we have in the last segment we were talking about how do you know how old the earth is a great resource if you want to get that is the Young Earth by john Morris, Of course, Henry Morris is the grandfather of the Creation movement and his son, john Morris has taken over Institute for Creation Research, which we were just discussing. So you really ought to check out his book on the Age of the Earth, The young Earth by john Morris, a really good resource they’re well worth getting hold of? Well, we’ve got another question here and it’s quite a lengthy one and I’ve actually edited this down from the email, but jennifer asks uh what she says this while I do believe Jesus Rose from the Dead and I have no problem with the new testament. I do struggle to understand the old testament. Sometimes, I cannot believe in the early books of the old Testament. The later books are find easier to comprehend. I do not think I’ll go to hell for not believing in the literal meaning of genesis, I give my sins to jesus every day, and I know that’s enough. When I preach to unbelievers, I start with the resurrection, not genesis, my faith starts with jesus and ends with jesus. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there are lessons to be learned from the parables in the early old testament, I just cannot bring myself to believe in a god who would constitute people being mauled by bears or the killing of Children, wow, did God really allow the killing of Children? And that is something that people use regularly, not just people claiming to be christians saying hold it, can God do that, But from the evolutionary atheistic side, the unbelievers side saying, I’m not going to believe in a god that would allow the killing of Children, that’s not a god, I want to believe in. Yes, it’s quite a serious thing. There’s a huge number of things mentioned in this in this email, but the basic basically boils down to I don’t want to believe in genesis, we should just talk about jesus and also then there’s the bringing in of the idea that the old testament is talking about an angry god who does a lot of killing. Whereas the new testament is all about a loving god. I hear that all the time. You know, the God of the old testament is different from the God of the new testament. Right? Well, look at read, it’s different. It’s the same God, the God of the old testament. The God of the new testament. The same god. You think that allowing some Children to be mauled by a bear because I believe they were talking about who was that? The Elijah, the prophet, his bald head. And so he allowed a she bear to come out and attack and kill these Children. People say, wow, I’m not going to believe in a god that would allow that. Well, you can believe in whatever God you want, but I would encourage you to believe in the God of the bible because he’s the only god that exists any other god is a figment of your imagination and your breaking commandment number two, you’re creating a God to suit your own needs to suit yourself. Right. You know, I’m I’m from Britain, as you may have gathered. I got that I could really impress you couldn’t I by telling you that I had met the Queen. That would be impressive. Supposing I said, you know, I met the Queen the Queen of England and she’s tall and blonde very young. I would say, hold it, I don’t think he met the Queen of England. You might have met a queen of something, but it wasn’t exactly because the description that I gave is not the description, you know, to be correct. So if I’m describing someone, it doesn’t matter what I call that person, it can’t be the real person. If that’s if the description is wrong now, in the same way, if someone says, well my God is like this, I’m going to describe what my gods like and their description of God is different from the description of God that we have in the bible, then it’s a different god, I’m sorry, and that is a problem. I see over and over and over as we travel to churches, I see people creating a God to suit themselves. They say, I don’t want to believe in a jealous god. I want to believe in a God that is just love. I don’t want to believe in a God that would judge me for my sins. I want to believe in a God that would just forgive me. No matter what. Alright, I’m going, look, it’s time we stop and we check out the God of the bible, stopped believing in a God that you want to exist and believe in the God that actually exists. Now, presumably when we’re talking about the killing of Children, we’re talking about where God has commanded whole nations to be wiped out. And you know, the the one example that would be the malachite when God said that the um al kite’s must be wiped out. And at first sight, if you take that out of context, that sounds very cruel and you know what, what what are we reading about here? We’re reading about the complete genocide of a people. That’s the whole point is you’ve got to read into it and read the reasons behind it. The background when you study that story out and this is just fascinating. If if God waits too long to serve justice, people get mad. If he gives justice right away, people get mad, they just want to be mad at God. God had given the family kites a long period of time, hundreds of years, 100 years and to turn to him and to stop worshiping idols and to stop treating their people and their Children and their animals certain ways and and they didn’t. And so God judged them. And that is the problem that we see, people are judging God when he is, where we get justice in the first place, there is no case where God has, has ordered the killing of people like that. Where there hasn’t been a warning and a command to repent. You know, there was a warning of the destruction in nine over. But there there was actually repentance there, which Jonah wasn’t happy about, he said, I don’t want him to repent God, I want you to destroy him because he knew how wicked and how evil they were. There was also the long term warning of judgment on the Canaanites on the more bites. And what’s interesting in both those cases that we know of people who were saved out of those, all of the peoples were killed. You know it’s ray habit the battle of Jericho saved because of her faith as ruth saved out of the motorbikes because of her faith. Where she says your God will be my God, your people and my people was repentance and faith and and it’s always salvation. So God is both just and merciful. The two qualities are seen there throughout the old testament. There’s the mercy of God in giving the warning but that the mercy will not last forever. There is justice as well. What would we think of a god who says, oh it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter. Just let it go and Hitler can be in heaven and it doesn’t matter everything. That doesn’t worry, it’s not the God I want to serve the God I serve is a just God. Now her question here, jennifer says, I don’t think I’ll go to hell for not believing in a literal meaning of genesis. Guess what I think you’re probably right. I don’t think that’s what’s necessary to go to heaven. What’s necessary to go to heaven is that you repent of sins and that you trust in christ that is what’s necessary to go to heaven, but just so you know, you’re talking a lot about jesus, jesus talks about a literal adam and a literal eve, he says in Matthew 19 4, have you not read that he, which made them at the beginning made them male and female, So if we’re just going with what Jesus teaches, well he taught that genesis was real, that it was literal, that it was historical, he wasn’t referring to figments of his imagination or made up characters, he was referring to the literal adam and the literally, you know with respect, we have to ask you jennifer and people who have the same view say we should talk about jesus, we shouldn’t be talking about genesis, we have to with respect, say do you actually believe the words of jesus or not, wow, that’s what it comes down to. What are you going to believe in your ideas, your made up God or the god of the bible that says this is my word and you should obey it, that’s really what it comes down, that’s exactly what it comes down to. Well thank you guys so much for tuning into the creation today’s show, remember if you want to write in, you can write your questions to questions at creation today dot org. You can also join us on twitter, which is twitter dot com at, at creation today on twitter and facebook facebook dot com slash creation today, Don’t forget to tune into each episode so that you can see whether we’ve answered your question or not. And also there are questions archived at Creation today dot org. While this has been a production of God quest ministries. Thank you guys so much, we want to remind you that there are some more great resources, including some great bibles at the creation store dot org. This program is available on DVD by visiting Creation store dot org or by calling 877479 34 66. 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