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All right, so grab your Bibles, Genesis chapter 1. That's the first book in your Bible, first chapter, Genesis chapter 1. So again, going through our statement of faith. This is the last one on this series where, you know how I've mentioned the first six points in our statement of faith were about the gospel. Important facts about salvation, important facts about hell, important facts about salvation by grace through faith and not of works. Then I said the next three are not doctrines you need to believe in order to be saved, but if you don't believe these doctrines after reading the Bible, I'm kind of like shocked. I'm kind of shocked, like do you even believe the word of God? Do you even, I'm not saying you're not saved, I'm just surprised why people believe different things on abortion, why people believe different things on abortion, why people believe different things on marriage, why people believe different things on creation and how old the earth is. If you've looked at our statement of faith, it says that we believe that God created the earth in six days and he rested on the seventh day. And also I believe that the world is about 6,000 years old. And most people think that's nuts, I think that's crazy. And yet most calendars throughout the world, not just our Gregorian calendar but other calendars like the Chinese calendar, the Jewish calendar, other calendars throughout the world all point to a young earth. They all point to 4,000, 5,000, 6,000, maybe 7,000. You know, I'm not saying they're right, I'm just saying hey, I mean it should make you think why do all these calendars point to a few thousand years of the world being created. Now in preparation for this sermon, I'm going to get you guys to do an activity on the second half of the sermon, I'm going to give you some sheets and to fill out some ages. We'll do that later on but as I went through this, I thought it was going to be pretty straightforward for me to work out using the Bible how old the earth was. It was quite easy originally, like yeah, it was pretty simple. Now the reason why God gives us like, you know, the genealogies and how old someone was before they gave birth is so it gives us the ability to go back and work out how old the earth is. And I didn't want to just quote 6,000 years because I've heard that, but I wanted to show you from the Scriptures how we can work that out ourselves and come to that understanding. But as I did it, I realised hey, it's more than 6,000 years, it's about 6,200 years, just under that if my working out is 100% correct. So I updated the website, the Sermon on Faith, to say not just 6,000 but roughly approximately 6,200 years. But we'll get into that later on. I want to point you to the first verse in your Bible, In the Beginning, God. This is a book written by God, the first thing he wants you to know, In the Beginning, God. He is the author of the Bible. He is the focus of the Bible. He ought to be our focus. In the beginning, God created, he's the creator. He's the creator of what? The heaven and the earth. Not just heaven, but he's the creator of earth as well. And if you're on this earth and you are, that means you've been created by God. That means the God of the Bible is your creator. That's the first thing God wants anybody to know when they open up the Word of God, right? The first thing they do, like I said, they turn to Genesis, let's see what this Bible's about. The very first verse that they read is God's my creator, alright? Now we have atheism, we have evolution, and they try to explain away God. Actually they cannot accept the first verse of this Bible, alright? They don't want to think about God. The first thing God wants you to know is I'm your creator and because I'm your creator you're accountable to me, right? You can't just do whatever you want, I'm the creator, I'm the boss, I'm the authority, and I'm going to tell you how things are. That's what God's saying in verse number one. And the world does not like this. The world does not want to be accountable to God, alright? But they're without excuse. Anyone that's read the first verse in the Bible knows this to be true. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Verse number two, and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now before I just get into verse number two, there is this teaching that there's a gap theory, alright? I'll just cover this very briefly. But some people out there teach that there's a gap between verse one and verse two. Maybe millions of years, maybe thousands of years, different thoughts like a pre-Adamic world, other human beings, other types of humans, or things like humans lived during that period. And that's why the Bible says that the earth is without form and void, like God destroyed that first earth and then he created this new earth. That's what some people believe, that there's a gap between verse one and two. Or there's another teaching that there's a gap, but that's when Satan ruled the earth, the angels ruled the earth, and they rebelled against God, and that's why the earth is without form and void. Now what did verse number one say, created the heaven and the earth? We're looking right now, let me keep reading, verse number three, and God said let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day. So this is day number one. What did God create on day number one? The heaven, the earth, the earth was in darkness, and the earth was covered in water. So God created water, and he created light, right? He caused that light not just to be a light, but to be a division from darkness, and that's how he created day and night, right? His first creation, heaven, earth, light, the water on the earth, and to be able to divide the light, to be able to divide the day and night. That's day number one, according to the Bible, right? Now those that say there's a gap there between verse one and two, you know, they try to add more things there, right? Now the reason I ask you to memorize Exodus chapter 20 verse 11, because I think this one destroys the gap theory straight away. 20 11 says, for in six days, so how many days? In six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, right? We saw that in day one, and what else did he create? The sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. That was in memory of us, right? Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. So my point is, if that's day number one where he creates heaven and earth, there cannot be thousands of years between that to verse two, because otherwise that's not saying that that verse, the memory verse, Exodus 20 11, is not telling us the truth. It's telling us, it is the truth. God created heaven and earth in, within that six day period, and then everything else that follows within that six day. There's no gap of thousand years, otherwise Exodus 20 11 would not make any sense. So that's day number one. Try to remember as I preach, as we go through, I know these are the things we teach our kids and things like that, but try to remember what things were created on the days. I know this is the basic teaching, but still, even though it's basic teaching, Christians still miss it, right? They still miss it. Day number two, verse six, day number two, and God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. So on day number two, God divides the waters, okay, and he creates this firmament. And by the way, if you don't know what that means, and we'll see that later on, firmament just means heaven or space, okay? And God made the firmament and divided the waters, which were under the firmament, from the waters, which were above the firmament, and it was so, so there's a division of waters. And between that division of waters, God calls that heaven, or he calls that the firmament. Verse eight, and God called the firmament heaven. So it's called the firmament, that period between the separation of waters, and he calls it heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. Now, the first thing you might ask is, Kevin, didn't he already say he created the heaven and the earth in day one? Yes, the first, the heaven that he created is where he lives, is where his throne is, okay? The evangelical hosts are, but this new heaven that he created, this separation from the water on the earth to the water above, is also called heaven, that's the sky, okay? Now in Spanish, we call heaven cielo, which is where we get the root word ceiling, right? It's a space there, which hits the ceiling. That's the firmament, that's the heaven. I'll prove that later on, that it's the sky, but I just want to point out to you on day two, God divided the waters on the earth and above, and in that space was the heaven. Now, some people teach that that water that was above the sky is a layer of water around the earth during this time, or a layer of ice, and it created like greenhouse effects. You might hear about this if you've heard creation science ministries or videos that they put out. They'll talk about this layer of water, this layer of ice above the earth, and that prevented certain, it had an effect on the sun's rays, it had an effect on the oxygen on the earth, there was more oxygen on the earth. Now I don't know if that's true, I'm not sure if that's 100% true, obviously the Bible doesn't give us that detailed information. It is interesting though, I think it's interesting to think about that, that it creates like greenhouse effects, and things can grow longer and greater in that environment. But I don't know whether that's true, because there is water in our atmosphere. I don't know if you realise, I mean obviously the clouds, we know there's clouds. Some people say well there couldn't be clouds because there wasn't any rain at this point. That's possible, but even without the clouds, there's, I looked this up, there's 142 million billion litres of water in the sky, in the atmosphere. There's a lot of water in the atmosphere. And I also read that if all that water fell down on the earth, that the whole earth would be covered in water, by about one inch of water. Just the whole earth would be covered, including the oceans. If all that water from the sky fell, the whole earth would be covered by about one inch of water. There's a lot of water in the sky, God created this division from the water on the land. Now day three, Genesis 1 chapter 9, I mean verse 9, and God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear. So now we have the earth covered in water, now God's gathering all that water in one place, he calls it seas, and then dry land appears because he's gathering water in one place. And let the dry land appear, and it was so, verse 10, and God called the dry land earth. Okay now, you go, Kevin, didn't God create the earth on day one? The heaven and the earth, yes. When we look at the planet, yes, God calls that earth, but then God also calls the dry land earth. And we call the planet earth, and we call the dry land earth, right? We talk about earthworms, we're talking about worms that are, that you know, live in the earth, live in the dirt. And God saw that it was good, verse 11, and God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. So on the third day, what did God create? He separated the water, created seas, made the dry land appear, and then he created vegetation upon that dry land, right? The grass, the trees, the fruit, the fruit yielding trees, vegetables, so on and so forth. That's day number three. So God's getting things ready for life. He's given it the light, he's given the water, he's given the fruit and the veggies and the things that, you know, life would need to sustain itself. Day number four. Day number four, Genesis 1 14. And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. This is when God creates the sun, the moon, and the stars. Verse 15, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and it was so. And God made two great, before I move on to there, now you guys have heard of the flat earth, all right? Some of you guys have heard of the flat earth. Matthew, was that Matthew laughing? Look, look, let's see my brother in Christ, all right? If you don't believe this, but anyway, look, one of the things I say is, look at this. What was the firmament? It was the sky, right? It was the sky. And they'll say, well, look at this. These two lights that God's about to make, verse 16, and God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, he made the stars also, and God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. Because the flat earth, I think, I don't know if this is right, because I haven't really looked into it that much, but I think the flat earth is believed that the sun and the moon are actually in the sky, like up high, not in outer space, what we would call outer space, not very far away, but in the sky. And so they'll say, well, look, you just said that there's a division of waters, and that division in that sky, that's the firmament, and then it says here that God put those lights in the firmament, right? Do you see that? I'll talk about that in a minute. Let's keep reading. Yeah, sorry, verse 17, and God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness, and God saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the fourth day. So not that God created the light on day one, but now he created these heavenly objects, these celestial bodies, to actually produce this light, okay, upon the earth. But the sun's the greater light, the moon's the lesser light, and then he mentions the stars. Now, I don't believe the sun is a star. I know that's a scientific teaching, that the sun is just another star. I don't believe that. I don't believe the sun is unique for the earth, and that stars are a separate thing. But what did God do? Why did he give them to us? For the light, but also so we would have, in verse 14, let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years, and so we could then tell time. We could use the sun, the sunset. We could know what days are. We could, you know, the seasons. We would be able to determine what the seasons are. He's like, that's the whole reason for these objects to be on the earth, well, for us, for the earth, so we can tell time. But people say, well, hold on, Kevin, you remember I talked about flat earth and these objects being in the firmament. The thing is, we already know God created a heaven. That's where he resides, and then we know that was day one, and then he created a heaven again, right, when he divided the waters. So we know there's at least two heavens at this point, right? But if we go to the scriptures, you don't need to turn there. Second Corinthians chapter 12 verse 2, Paul writes, says, I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth, such and one caught up to the third heaven. The third heaven. Paul is explaining that there are three heavens, right? Three firmaments, if you will, okay? There's the heaven where God is, that's the third heaven where a man is caught up to when they pass away, when they die. You've got the first heaven, which we know is the sky, the atmosphere. That would mean there's a second heaven, that's what we call outer space, okay? So there is a second firmament that's outer space, that's where the sun and the moon and the stars are. Just because God put them in the firmament doesn't mean He put it in this atmosphere, He didn't put it in this first heaven, He put it in the second heaven, and He is, God resides in the third heaven, okay? So there are three, not three levels of heaven, you know, based on how saved you are or how good you are, I know, you know, the third heaven is the ultimate heaven that we talk about. When we say, when we go door knocking, are you sure you're going to heaven? We mean the third heaven, right? We're not talking about the atmosphere, right? Playing harps like an angel or something like that. Day number five, verse 20, and God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and fail that they may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. So God uses the waters and creates creatures, animals, out of that water on day five. And God created great whales and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind. So the birds, and God saw that it was good. So what are the marine animals made of? What are the fish and the whales made out of? The waters. What were the birds made out of? The waters, okay? And God blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth, and the evening and the morning were the fifth day. So animals in the water and the fowls, the birds that fly in the air. Now I think this is interesting, because God then creates more animals from the earth on day six. But what I find interesting, if you think about this, because I love birds, and I love especially the colourful ones, and I was thinking about animals, and I realised many birds have a lot of colours. Like you can have variation of colours with birds, and then with fish, lots of fish are very colourful. And I just wonder, is this because they were created out of the water? And then when you have creatures that were made out of the earth, they're very like, they're brown, they're black, they're very earthly coloured, there's not a lot of variation of colours. I know that's just something I thought about, but let's look at day six, day six verse 24, chapter one verse 24. And God said, let the earth, so now he's creating things out of the earth, not out of the water. Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, the beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good. So all the animals of the earth are created on day number five. That would include the dinosaurs, right? Now I don't know if all these fossils and all these dinosaurs, I don't know if they're all legitimate, right? I don't know. I mean there's all these creatures that look like Tyrannosaurus Rexes, but maybe they were just the one, and then they just, as they matured and got older, they changed slightly, just like animals generally do. You know? I don't know. But, you know, I believe dinosaurs existed. I'm not saying they didn't exist, but I'm just saying I don't know if all these variations that they talk about, because a lot of it, they just have one or two bones and then they create like a whole dinosaur out of a few bones, right? And then they name it as some new discovery. But this would mean the dinosaurs lived on the earth on day number six, every creature. And then verse 26, and God said, let us make man in our image. So now man is created on day six, after the image of God, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth. I want you to point to, man is in charge, God's plan for this earth is that man would have dominion over all the animals and over all the earth. God said, hey, I want man to be in charge of the earth. That was God's plan. And over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, verse 27, and God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he him. And God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat and to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat and it was so. And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good. And heaven, sorry, and the evening and the morning were the sixth day. That's the end of the creation. Then chapter two, Genesis chapter two, verse one, thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made and he rested the seventh day from all his work which he had made. Now did God have to rest? I don't believe he had to rest, but God gave us that example. This is why we have seven days in a week. God set the example that man ought to work for six days and rest on the seventh day. The seventh day also had further implications about salvation, where salvation is not of works, it's of resting on Christ. We won't go into that today. But God saw that everything was good on day six. So do you believe there was this rebellion in heaven that took place, that Satan rebelled against God, took a third of the angels with him? Do you mean that took place during these six days? No, because God says everything he made, the heaven and the earth, and behold it was very good. Okay? I mean it doesn't sound like it'd be very good if there was this massive rebellion in heaven, Satan, before this time. Satan rebelled after the creation of all things. But on day six, I just want to point out that animals were created from the earth, man and woman were created, you know, all kinds of animals, and you might say, Kevin, it's crazy to think of dinosaurs. Well, if the earth is only some 6,000 years old, that would mean man lived with dinosaurs. If the Bible's true, that would mean man lived with dinosaurs. And of course, we have the evidence for that, you know, we have the evidence that man lived with dinosaurs. You know, there are fossilized dinosaur footprints crossing with fossilized human footprints. Those are found in some limestone beds of the Paluxy River near Glen Rose, Texas. Dinosaur footprints fossilized, man's footprints next to him, not only are they walking side by side, but then they cross paths, and they both got fossilized in the same period. There were these ica stones or ica stones from Peru, these ancient stones, these ancient engraved stones that depict dinosaurs on them. Like you see something that looks like a Tyrannosaurus rex, something that looks like a kid's – what's the dinosaur with the long neck? Brontosaurus. What is it? Brontosaurus. Brontosaurus? Well, the Brontosaurus was a hoax. Yeah, so, do you guys know a name for it? Apatosaurus? Huh? Apatosaurus? Maybe an Apatosaurus. Brachiosaurus. Yeah. Huh? Brachiosaurus, that's it. But I remember the Brontosaurus. It was a dinosaur, and then I found out it was a hoax. I don't know. Anyway, they have these dinosaurs engraved on these stones. They have other animals. It's like they just drew whatever they could see, different kinds of animals, dinosaurs. To them, it wasn't a big deal. They just engraved them. What's the big deal? They're just animals. We have dragon stories throughout all the world, you know, in Asia, in Europe, even in America, there are these dragon legends. You know, I think even some Aboriginal paintings depict, like, dragon-like, dinosaur-like creatures in their stories. There are dragon stories throughout the whole world, dragon stories of men fighting against dragons. And that's all they were called because the name of dinosaurs only came in, like, in the 1800s or something like that, right? When they first discovered these fossilised bones, they called them dinosaurs, which means great lizard or something like that. But before that, people just called them dragons. What's the big deal? You know, not all dinosaurs were massive. Many of them, most of them were little. Most of them were small creatures that ran around. They just died out. They became extinct, like many other creatures have become extinct throughout the world. You know, our Tasmanian tigers become extinct, you know, in Australia. What's that? The dodo, was that an Australian one? The dodo birds extinct. I mean, animals go extinct all the time. That's why there's all these endangered creatures, if you look that up. They're close to being extinct. There are numerous soft tissue discoveries in dinosaur bones. So dinosaur bones that are meant to be fossilised for billions, or maybe not billions, millions of years, I don't know, two billion years ago, they find soft tissue, numerous discoveries of soft tissue within those bones. They haven't fossilised. It means it's quite relatively new. And of course we have Job chapter 40 in our Bibles talks about the behemoth, and Job chapter 41 talks about the leviathan. These creatures don't seem like creatures we know today. They seem to be depicting animals that are like dinosaurs, you know. So here's the thing about it, whenever you look up these discoveries, there's always a scientist saying, well, here's the reason, here's why, you know, this is how things happen and this is why that soft tissue is still preserved. They're still billions of years old, but, you know, they try to come up with reasons rather than accept the fact that, hey, man, they're dinosaurs. That's the big deal, you know. Man lived with dinosaurs. Now let me talk to you about evolution. What does evolution teach? They basically teach that 14 billion years ago that all the matter of the universe, time, space and matter, everything, was compressed so tightly in a dot that was smaller than an atom. You can't even see it. Some people say it was just, there was nothing anyway. They call it a singularity, nothing. And then for some random reason, unknown accident, it all exploded. It expanded. The big bang, they call it, exploded and that's when time started. That's where space existed. That's when matter came into existence. All this dust in the universe was flying in the universe. And then eventually gravity, because gravity is their god, the big bang is their god, eventually gravity decided to pull all these pieces together, all these, let me make sure I've got this right, all these hydrogen, Rob will correct me anyway, because Rob was an atheist, right? You'll correct me if I'm wrong on this one. All these hydrogen atoms were pulled together by gravity, they were compressed really tightly and then because they were compressed so tightly, helium came, those helium atoms, right, they developed. And when hydrogen becomes helium, then there's a flash of light and then all these pieces came together and that's how the first stars became formed, because all this light, all this compression, all this helium and then we have our first stars. So all these stars are forming in the space, just gravity did it, you know, did it all for us. And then later on, these stars exploded. And when they explode, they explode with other, you know, atoms and other elements and then through those explosions, new stars are created and they grab parts of those explosions and new stars are created from these explosions. But the bits that didn't become stars, but they became dust, they became the planets. They became the dust that started to revolve around the stars, they became the planets. Earth was one of these things, right? Earth was just dust gathered together, you know, rock clumps coming together and then they start, it starts to go around the earth. You guys seem more interested about evolution than creation. The kids are more intense. Maybe I'm being more descriptive about evolution. Anyway, the earth was this hot, molten, lava, you know, volcanoes, it was, you know, just really hot and eventually like, I mean the whole thing was like lava and was extremely hot. And then eventually comets, I don't know where these comets come from, but eventually comets carrying ice and water, they start hitting the earth, you know, they start bringing water onto this earth and then the earth cools down after billions of years or whatever, millions of years, I don't know, I don't know how, how old is the earth Rob? I'm just going to say, it's out of your mind now, isn't it? The earth cooled down and with the ice of the comets, they created the oceans and then in these oceans, new atoms and, you know, elements were created and within this broth of complex chemicals came out the first life forms. You know, the first life forms came in the water, they were able to self-replicate these single cell organisms, now single cell organisms are very, very complicated but, you know, they try to tell you that single cell organisms were really simple life forms, they started to self-replicate, eventually they could marry and they could replicate, you know, get married male and female and then, you know, this is where you get, you know, your jellyfish and your first sort of, your first marine life coming from these, from these self-replicating single cell organisms. So they started to become more and more complicated over time, just by accident by the way, this is all accident, no one put this in, this just happened, right? And then these sea creatures started to crawl on the earth bit by bit and then somehow their gills became lungs and then, you know, they became the first beast, you know, on the earth, right? They came out of the water, eventually these beasts got big enough and then, you know, cow-like creatures or big creatures, they decided, you know what, we don't like the earth, let's go back into the water. So they went back into the water and they became the great whales, right? The whales, this is what they teach, this is science, apparently, science falsely so called the Bible calls it, right? But this is what they teach and, oh yeah, the dinosaurs, eventually the dinosaurs became birds and the apes became us, you know? So all the birds, you know, so humans do live with dinosaurs, I can see some birds back there, you know, they're the dinosaurs, the dinosaurs became birds and apes, you know, we became human beings, that's what evolution teaches. Now the reason I wanted to tell you that is just to show you how contradictive it is to the Bible, how contradictive it is to the Word of God, because when was the sun created? Which day? Does anyone remember? Day number four. So what was created before the sun? The earth, the plants, the trees, the vegetation, right? But evolution places the sun first before the earth, right? So it's contradictive, it's the opposite of what the Bible teaches. And then when were birds created? Which day? Birds were created on day, out of the water, created on day five, right? Before the land animals on day six, but what does evolution teach? The land animals, the dinosaurs, became the birds. So the land animals are there before the birds, right, opposite. What else does evolution teach? Well what does the Bible say on day one? The earth was covered by what? What? It was covered by water, right, upon the face of the waters. But what does evolution teach? That the earth was this burning molten lava place, right? I mean totally opposite, and then water came later on with comets, that's what they teach. They also teach that it took millions of years of death, of the survival of the fittest, for eventually man to evolve, right? There had to be death and, you know, the strongest species would survive, and these eventually became the strongest apes became human beings, I suppose that's what they teach. And yet the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15, 21, for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. So by man came death. Adam and Eve, when they partook of that forbidden fruit, that's when they brought death into the world. Man brought death into the world, not death brought Adam into the world. Now I reckon, I mean I obviously believe Satan's behind evolution and atheism, but I reckon Satan just went to the Bible and said, alright, we've got to make this theory of evolution and atheism, we've just got to make it completely opposite to what the Bible says, right? I mean, it just seems awkward to me that there is so much contradiction within these two ideas. And there was, once upon a time I believed that, well, these scientists, they're trying their best to work out how the earth came, eventually they'll come to realise God created all these things. But I didn't realise, no, they're actually doing it against, they don't want to even think about God, they want nothing to do with God, that's why they come out with these crazy ideas, right? These crazy ideas. Alright, when you go soul winning and you preach to an atheist, I learnt this from Victor, the analogy that I like to use, because it's hard to get into the gospel when they claim they do not believe in God, right, the analogy I like to use is, I often say to them, well, if you were walking along a footpath, it doesn't have to be exactly the same, if you came walking along a footpath and you saw like five leaves just sitting there in a single line, just five leaves perfectly aligned in five, do you think it's more probable that those leaves accidentally fell off the tree that way, or do you think it's more probable a child came and put those leaves in a line, a perfect line? And quite often they'll say it's more probable that a child did it, okay? Now, that's a good segue, because immediately they're acknowledging it takes intelligent life to put some order into place, but I've had the case where they've said, well, it's possible that they fell off a tree that way, I guess it's possible, you know, five leaves perfectly lined up, fell off a tree that way, I guess that's possible, but then the next question is, what if those leaves, you came walking along and you found those leaves but now they spelt out your name, the leaves exactly spelt out your name exactly perfectly, what's more probable, that they fell like that from the tree, or that some little child or someone came and put those leaves together in that way? At that point they know it's ridiculous to say it's more probable, or it still likely came off a tree that way, and they'll be saying, well, I guess it's more probable that somebody did that, and that's your perfect segue, because at that point you say, well, that seems complicated for that to happen accidentally, how much more complicated and how much more unrealistic is it that life exists by accident, that your DNA, which is a much more complex programming language than those leaves, you're going to tell me that came by accident, or someone came and created those, what is more probable, somebody did those things, and quite often they'll acknowledge and say, yeah, I guess it is more probable that that was put together by intelligence. So that's what I like to use when I'm talking to an atheist. The other thing I like to point out to them, because they think they're all that, they think they've got all this knowledge, they think they're very scientific, they think they've got all the facts on their side, they believe in evolution or what have you, and quite often they think you're going to try to convince them of God, that is essentially what you're trying to do, but they think you're going to try to prove God to them, and the thing is you can't prove God who's invisible, you cannot make Him appear in front of them and show them, hey, here is God, that's why it's called faith, we believe with faith, we have faith on Christ, we have faith on our Lord, God, and so what I like to do then is turn it on their heads a little bit and show them that their theory of evolution is also based on faith, because I'll ask them, have you ever seen, I'll tell them that, has life ever been created in a laboratory? And they'll have to say, no. Has life ever come from non-living organisms? They'll say, no. Can you show me the Big Bang, can you prove me the Big Bang? They'll say, no. Another point, that's where I like to show them, well, then you also have faith, because they're often like, we're not religious, I'm not religious, I don't have, well, I just point them saying, you are religious, you do have great faith, in fact, you have faith on something that's more unlikely to happen than what I have, right, because if I use that leave analogy, and that makes them really uncomfortable, because they kind of have to acknowledge at that point, they cannot prove, they thought I was going to try to prove God to them, but I'm just showing them that, hey, they can't prove evolution to me, they can't prove the Big Bang to me. And so we're on the same page, we're both religious, we both have faith, except you believe nothing happened, and it exploded, and I believe God created all things, what's more probable? So that's how I like to talk to these atheists, these evolution believers. Now the second part of the sermon, Isabel and Nicholas, I'll get you to come here. Let's work out how old this earth really is. Let's work out how old this earth really is. Now I'm not saying that this is perfect, but I went through it a few times, I did this all by myself, I went through this a few times, I think it's about right, but I want to challenge you guys, when you have time, a lot of you guys have time off work during Christmas, go through these references, see if I've done a mistake, see if I've missed something, because I want to be corrected. If this is slightly wrong, I would like to be corrected. But let me show you how we can work out the age of the earth using the Bible. So I want you to have a sheet and a pen, hopefully there's enough, there's 14 sheets and 14 pens. So I'm hoping all the pens work. Turn to Genesis chapter 5, Genesis chapter 5. Now I spoke to you about these genealogies, why they exist in the Bible, right, they give us time, they give us something to reference. Genesis chapter 5. Now you'll notice here on this sheet that I've given you, I've got on the left hand side period, so a period of time. So the first period of time there is creation to Adam, that was six days, that doesn't even count as a year, so it's zero there. Years and then accumulation of years is zero, the reference there is Genesis 1, 27 and 31. But now we want to know, we're going to get this in Genesis, so turn to Genesis chapter 5 if you haven't already, I want you to fill in the gaps. So you see that first gap there from Adam to Seth? We want to know how old was Adam when he gave birth to Seth. Genesis chapter 5 verse 3. And Adam lived an 130 years and begat the son in his own likeness after his image and called his name Seth. So Adam lived 130 years. So put in that gap 130. And then you see next to that accumulation of years, so now we start to accumulate all these years next to where it says accumulation of years and the reference there. Now let's see how old Seth was when Enos was born. Verse number 6. And Seth lived an 105 years and begat Enos. So put in the next one, 105. Now how old was Enos when Canaan was born? Verse number 9. If I'm going too fast, let me know. And Enos lived 90 years and begat Canaan. So how old was Enos? 90. Fill it in there. Right, you should be up to your fourth one to fill in. So how old was Canaan when Mahalalel was born? I forgot that right. Look at verse number 12. And Canaan lived 70 years and begat Mahalalel. 70 years. Right? This is easy, right? I thought this was always going to be this easy. And then look at verse number 15. How old was Mahalalel when Jared was born? Verse 15. And Mahalalel lived 65 years and begat Jared. 65. Now let's see how old Jared was when Enoch was born. Verse number 18. And Jared lived and 160 and 2 years and begat Enoch. So Jared was 162 years when Enoch was born. You've got that? Okay. How old was Enoch when Methuselah was born? Verse number 21. And Enoch lived 60 and 5 years and begat Methuselah. 65 years. Okay. Now let's see how old Methuselah was when Lamech was born. Verse 25. And Methuselah lived and 180 and 7 years and begat Lamech. So 187. Now how old was Lamech? If you don't know who Lamech was, that was the father of Noah, right? The Noah we're familiar with. So how old was Lamech when Noah was born? Look at verse 28. And Lamech lived and 180 and 2 years and begat a son and he called his name Noah. So 182 was Lamech when Noah was born. Okay. So I just want to show you how easy it is to start putting some of this together. Some bits are easy, some bits are a bit more complicated. Now I won't go through every reference obviously, otherwise we'll be here for a long time. But Noah was 600 years old when the flood came. Okay. You can read that in your reference there in Genesis chapter 7 verse 11. The next thing we learn is that his grandson Arphaxad was 2 years old after the flood. Arphaxad was 2 years old after the flood. And again, do your homework, take this home, do your homework, check me out, please check me out. I actually want you to find errors. I want you to try to find a mistake. If you can, I'm not saying there is one, I think I've done pretty good, but I'm not sure. I just want to make sure this is as accurate as possible. And then, so we know Arphaxad was 2 years old after the flood. And then how old was Salah, sorry, how old was Arphaxad when Salah was born, 35. How old was Salah when Eba was born, 30. How old was Eba when Peleg was born, 34. How old was Peleg when Ryu was born, he was 30. How old was Ryu when Serag was born, 32. How old was Serag when Nahor was born, 30. How old was Nahor when Terah was born. Terah is the father of Abram or Abraham. And Nahor was 29 years old when Terah was born. Again, the references are there for you to go and check it out later. Now, it gets a little bit complicated here because it doesn't tell us how old Terah or Terah was born, how old Terah was when Abram was born. We don't get that exact reference, but we can work around it. We can figure it out. And this is why I've left two gaps for you to figure out. So turn to Genesis chapter 11 verse 32, Genesis chapter 11 verse 32. It says here, and the days of Terah were 205 years and Terah died in Haran. So how old was Terah when he died, 205. So fill in 205 there, okay. Now we want to know, what we really want to get to is how old was he when Abraham was born, when Abram was born. So go to Genesis chapter 12 verse 4, Genesis chapter 12 verse 4. It says, so Abram departed as the Lord had spoken unto him, and Lot went with him, and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. So Abraham was seventy-five years old when he departed. Why did he depart at this time? It's because that's when his father died. You can read it all and you get that reference. Okay, so if Abraham or Abram was seventy-five years old when his father died, his father was two hundred and five years old, then we can minus seventy-five. So in that next gap there, underneath 205, put in minus seventy-five. Put in minus seventy-five, okay. So two hundred and five take away seventy-five is, anybody can work that out? A hundred and thirty. So we can work out that Terah was a hundred and thirty when Abraham was born, okay. Now Abram was one hundred years old when Isaac was born, Isaac was sixty years old when Jacob was born, and then we read about Jacob migrating to Egypt. Remember when he and his sons moved to Egypt because there was a great famine in the land, and Joseph was second in command in Egypt and there was plenty of food there, so they all migrated to Egypt and they lived there. Well Jacob was a hundred and thirty years old when he migrated to Egypt. Then how long were the children of Israel, they were there for many, many generations, how long were they in Egypt before they left Egypt? They were there, the Bible says, for four hundred and thirty years, four hundred and thirty years. So you can see how with all these dates, all this time, we're accumulating the time, we're working out how old this earth is. And by the time they left Egypt, the earth has been in existence for about two thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight years, if you look at the accumulation, okay. Now let me just stop here for a minute. When it says, let's say, how old was I when, Isabel was born when I was twenty-four, okay. Now does that mean I was exactly, was it my birthday? Was she born on my twenty-fourth birthday, no. But I was living my twenty-fourth year when she was born, okay. So there's always an element of error in all these ages, okay, because someone was a hundred and thirty when someone was born, I mean he could have been a hundred and thirty in one day, or he could have been a hundred and thirty in three hundred days, okay. So there's an element of error, right. But we're not talking about too much error, we're talking about a few years here and there, okay. It's not going to be thousands of years of difference, let's put it that way. It's not going to be millions of years of difference, it's just going to be a few years here and there of error in all these references. Now turn to First Kings chapter six, First Kings chapter six. Oh wait, sorry, one thing I didn't, did I mention it? Yeah, so they were there for four hundred and thirty years when they left Egypt, when the children of Israel left Egypt, the exodus out of Egypt, I was looking for. So now we need to figure out further dates from this. Now the Bible helps us out a lot in First Kings chapter six verse one. First Kings chapter six verse one, I know this is a bit like school work, but I really want you guys not to just say I believe that it's six, I want you to know why, okay. Verse one, First Kings chapter six verse one, and it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Egypt would come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the Mount Ziph, which is the second month that he began to build the house of the Lord, that's the temple. So from the time that Israel left Egypt to the time that Solomon built the temple, how long, how many years passed? In the four hundred and eightieth year, four hundred and eighty years, so put that in there, four hundred and eighty years. Now we're going to start to work out the time based on how long these kings reigned. And you guys know after Solomon, the nation of Israel was split into two, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. We're going to be focusing on the southern kingdom, we're going to be focusing on Judah, on the Jews, where the capital was Jerusalem. Now one thing we need to do before we move on is we need to figure out, well look at verse number one again, when was the temple built? It says in the fourth year of Solomon's reign. So Solomon had been reigning in Israel for four years. So what I want you to do there in the next point is put minus four, because Solomon's already reigned for four years. And we want to work out how long did Solomon reign for? Let's get back to, you know, year zero of Solomon's reign. So we need to minus four, where it says first temple built, the fourth year of Solomon's reign, put minus four there so we can get an accurate number. Now you're still in First Kings, turn to First Kings chapter 11, First Kings 11 chapter 42, First Kings 11 42. The Bible says, And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. So put forty in there. Solomon's reign was forty years. I hope you guys, hopefully you're following me, right? So we minus four to get back to year zero of Solomon's reign, but now we're putting forty years because that's how long he reigned. So Saul reigned for forty years, David reigned for forty years, and Solomon reigned for forty years over Israel. Turn over the page. So now just looking at different reigns of kings, so Solomon's son Rehoboam reigned for seventeen years, Abijah's reign was for three years, Asa's reign was for forty-one years, Jehoshaphat's reign was twenty-five years, Jehoram's reign was eight years, Ahaziah's reign was one year, and Attar, Liar's reign, that was a woman by the way, reigned for seven years. Seven years. Now turn to Second Chronicles 24. Let's get a few more dates here. Second Chronicles 24. Second Chronicles 24. We want to know how long did Joash reign for? Second Chronicles 24 verse 1. Joash was seven years old when he began to reign. Seven years old. Anyway, that's not my point. Seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. So write in forty there. Joash's reign was forty. Now turn to the next chapter, we want to see the next king, chapter 25 verse 1. How long did Amaziah reign for? Amaziah in verse 1, chapter 25 verse 1, Amaziah was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. So twenty-nine. Put that in there. Amaziah's reign was twenty-nine years. Now turn to the next chapter, chapter 26. Next king, verse number 3, Jotham's reign, sixteen years old was Uzziah when he began to reign. Hold on, did I get this right? So I missed Uzziah, did I? Yeah, Uzziah, Uzziah, sorry. Verse 3, sixteen years old was Uzziah when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and two years in Jerusalem. Fifty and two years. Fifty-two. Right in 52, now we want to look at Jotham's reign. Next chapter, chapter 27, chapter 27 verse 1, Jotham was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. Sixteen. So put in sixteen there for Jotham. Now we want to know Ahaz's reign. Look at the next chapter, chapter 28 verse 1, Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. So he also reigned sixteen years. Ahaz and his father Jotham reigned for sixteen years, both each. Now we get to Hezekiah, hold on, yeah, Hezekiah chapter 29, Hezekiah chapter 29 verse 1. Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years, nine and twenty, twenty-nine in Jerusalem, so twenty-nine. Write that in there. Okay, so again I just want to show you not just by the genealogies but also just by reading your Bible, God gives us how long these kings reign for, and we can work that out, put that all together. Moving on, Manasseh's reign was fifty-five years, Ammon's reign was two years, Josiah's reign thirty-one years, Jehoahaz's reign, 0.25 years, that's three months they reigned, Jehoakim's reign was eleven years, and then Jehoachim's reign was 0.25 years, three months. Why was it so short, especially his reign, is because that's when Judah was taken into Babylonian captivity. He only reigned for three months, and then they were taken into captivity by the Babylonians. Now I think most of you guys would know this, but Judah was under Babylonian captivity for seventy years, that's why it's there, you can look at the reference later on yourself. Now this is where it starts to get complicated, because after I put some of this together I looked at on the internet, like how do other people work this out, because it gets really complicated here, and this is where most, leading up to this point, most people follow the same path. I've seen some different paths, but generally they all come to roughly the same number of years at this point. This is where it starts to deviate. Now I was thinking, what other references do we have, okay, so we know after Judah was taken in captivity to Babylon, they returned back to Jerusalem, they were given the command to go back, go rebuild Jerusalem, go rebuild the temple of God, the second temple, a thought of Daniel's seventy weeks prophecy, remember that prophecy? If you guys know the end times, we know about that. And turn to Daniel chapter 9, Daniel chapter 9, verse 25 and 26, the Bible says, this is a prophecy that was given to Daniel, know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, so from the time that they went back to rebuild Jerusalem, okay, unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and free score and two weeks. So seven plus three, that's thirty-two, plus seven, that's thirty-nine weeks. The street shall be built again and the wall even in troubled times and after three score and two weeks, so another thirty-two weeks, shall Messiah be cut off. That's when Jesus Christ was crucified, when he was put to death. So thirty-two plus thirty-seven, that's sixty-nine weeks, right? Now what these sixty-nine weeks represented are not your average week, but every day in the week represented one year. So every year, every week represents seven years. So we know from the time they went back to rebuild Jerusalem to the time that Jesus Christ would be crucified, that would be sixty-nine weeks of seven years. So it's sixty-nine times seven, which comes to four hundred and eighty-three. So it's right in there, four hundred and eighty-three years in that gap you've got there. Do you have a gap there? Yeah, four hundred and eighty-three, next to that sixty-nine weeks in brackets. Four hundred and eighty-three years. So we know, and some people have apparently worked it out, that that's the point where Jesus Christ came riding on a donkey into Jerusalem, that final week leading up to his crucifixion. I don't know if you can get exact to that day, maybe you can, but I think they do this outside of the Scripture, I think they go with historical writings. Now do you guys know how old Jesus was when he began his ministry? The Bible says about thirty years old, right? Now the reason why we believe he died when he was thirty-three is because when you read the Scriptures, and I've got the references there, there are free Passovers, there are Passovers a yearly holiday, there were free Passovers in the ministry of Christ. Okay, so that's thirty, when he started, plus the three, thirty-three years. Now so we know he was thirty-three years old when he was crucified. The thing is here, this is where we need to go to secular history to help us out, because Jesus wasn't born in 180. Okay, I mean I know that's where we sort of count, you know, our Gregorian calendar starts from there. The idea is that's when Jesus was born, but he wasn't actually, like, every historian, everyone knows that's not when Jesus was born. This is where I need to go outside of the Bible, sorry, but I have to do this, right? So who was the king that was trying to kill Jesus Christ when he was born? It was Herod, remember? Herod the Great, they call him, Herod the Great. Now Herod the Great died, according to history, before B.C., before B.C. So if he was persecuting Christ, he was obviously alive, Jesus Christ must have been born before B.C. Does that make sense? Now when Jesus, when he sent his army to go and kill all the babies, remember it was from two years and under? So I'm being a little bit loose here, but look, again, we're only like a couple of years, you know, it's not like thousands or millions of years here, but I would put Christ's birth at 6 B.C., okay, because Jesus Christ must have been close to two years old when that happened, and that's when they had to flee and go to Egypt, okay? So I'm putting down 6 B.C. there for me, you can see that on the paperwork. So we're on the Gregorian calendar, it's 2017 where we are right now. So if Christ was born 6 B.C., we need to basically, do you see how I subtracted the, I put minus thirty, minus one, minus one, minus one, minus thirty-three, so, because we know the point where Christ was crucified, we know how many years that was, but now we need to go backwards and minus thirty-three years to the time of his birth, get that, and then from the time of his birth, let's say 6 B.C., to 1 A.D., which is what we're used to, that was six years. So that's where the six is. When it says Christ's birth, 6 B.C., that's where we add the six years back to get back to 1 A.D., and then from 1 A.D. to 2017, that's 2017 years, when you put it all together, that works out to be 6,171 years old, this earth, 6,171, now if you look at the reference before that, that would mean the earth was created 4,154 B.C., you see that reference before that. Now I don't know guys, it was very, I looked at different references online, some of them came around that same mark, some of them were a bit further off, some of them were close to 6,000 years. Now I went through this a few times, I don't think there's any real, I mean besides just the error of maybe a few months here and there, with all these breakdowns of years, I don't see much error as far as this is concerned. So even if it's a few hundred years off, let's put it that way, we're still around the 6,000 year mark, right? That's how old our earth is. Now was that a useless exercise? I don't know, but I just want to show you why we believe that, what the Bible teaches, and I want you guys to go back, and maybe as a family, maybe an activity in your down time during Christmas, hey guys, let's look at these references, let's find any mistakes that Kevin made, and let's fix him up, let's do that alright, yeah let's pray.