This sermon by Ken Ham addresses the declining church and culture, emphasizing the importance of standing on the authority of the Word of God, particularly focusing on the Genesis connection. He highlights the need to equip believers with apologetics to defend their faith, pointing out the Genesis 3 attack on the authority of Scripture in our era. The sermon calls for a reformation in the church and culture by returning to the foundational truths of Genesis 1 to 11 and standing firm on the Word of God.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Ken Ham with the message Our Declining Church and Culture, The Genesis Connection and How to Continue a Godly Heritage. Well, good evening. Well, you sound really excited. Well, maybe I'm not loud enough. We'll try it again. Good evening. Ah, okay, you are out there. That's great. Well, thank you, Doug. And it's a thrill to work with Doug and his ministry. There's so much going on in the world today, and we just need so many more people out there doing these sorts of things. How many of you have had the opportunity to be at the Creation Museum, by the way? I know, wow, that is fantastic. How many of you have not gone yet? Okay, when are you going to repent of that sin and do something about that? Well, for those of you that were there, I know that yesterday, today, a lot of you are out there at the Creation Museum. You'll notice that it's not just about creation evolution. It's really a walk through the Bible. That's what it is. In fact, one of the things that we've tried to do with our ministry is to position ourselves as not as a creation evolution, age of the earth ministry, but as a biblical authority ministry, because that's what the real issue is all about. And so we walk you through those seven Cs, the first four Cs, Genesis 1 to 11, really, the history that's foundational to the whole of the gospel message. And we use all sorts of different means to do that. As you know, if you've been there with the theaters and the planetarium and the various exhibits that you walk through, and even a section of Noah's Ark, all the videos, the signage that we have there. Actually, the vision for the Creation Museum goes back 30 years in Australia. When I and one of our board members there knelt down and prayed for a Creation Museum, we didn't know that the Lord would answer it 30 years later in Kentucky. But that's what happened. God's ways are far higher than our ways, and his thoughts far higher than our thoughts, as we all know. Also, I'd like you to, if you remember to do this with your children, to be praying for a special outreach. We're expecting up to 20,000 people, and we know that tomorrow's going to be a little cold at night and on Saturday night, but it's the opening of what we call Bethlehem's Blessings. It's our 2009 live nativity. And we have all sorts of costumes and people dressed up as Roman soldiers, and the same sort of quality you see in the museum we'll have there at the live nativity. It's really quite something, a whole marketplace. The people who designed our exhibits at the Creation Museum, our on-staff sculptors and designers and so on, have put this together. I don't think there's anything like it, really, across the nation. I know there's lots of different live nativities, but this is very unique. It's quite spectacular. And a lot of people bring their non-Christian friends. So we would ask you to be in prayer about that particular outreach. Tonight, I've entitled what I want to present to you as the Genesis 3 attack. And in fact, that verse of Scripture I'm going to mention in a little while has already been mentioned by the other two speakers tonight. But the Genesis 3 attack in our era of history. And there are a few Bible verses I want to bring to your attention tonight. And then we'll go through each one of them in a little bit more detail. First of all, 1 Chronicles 12 and verse 32, of the sons of Ishaqar who had understanding of the times. They had understanding it was time for David to be king. But do we have understanding of our times? And then the book of Judges, when there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And then 2 Corinthians 11 3, but I fear less by any means as a serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Paul has a warning for us. Satan is going to use the same method on us as he did on Eve to get us to a position of not believing the things of God. And then Psalm 11 3, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? We live in interesting times. We live in very perilous times. I'm not just talking about economically, but spiritually. In fact, a lot of people are looking, you see on the news, at the economic problems in America, but the economic problems pale into insignificance compared to the spiritual problems in this nation. And that's what we really need to be looking at. In fact, I don't know whether you realize what's happening in this nation, but it's also happening right across our Western world as we see where Christianity was much more prevalent in the past, the Christian worldview that permeated our Western culture, we see it collapsing before our very eyes. And we see the atheists becoming much more aggressive. One of the things that we've noticed, the atheists of the past, well, for them, Christianity, they would shrug their shoulders, and we don't believe that stuff, and we don't believe what these Christians are doing, and it's nonsense. But the atheists of today, such as Dr. Richard Dawkins that Doug quoted in the last lecture, they're much more aggressive, and what they're out to do is to attack Christianity and to make out that Christians are people who are very bad, that they're child abusers, that they're terrorists, and we have to do something about them. That's how it's coming across. It's a much more aggressive culture in that regard. And one of the things that we're seeing, we're seeing the atheists being much more aggressive across the whole nation. Since 2007, there have been atheist advertising campaigns in 56 cities and 29 states, and advertisements have been placed on billboards, buses, bus stops, subways, subway stations, and you can see just a sample of some of them there, such as you can be good without God, and are you good without God? Millions are. Don't believe in God. You're not alone. Praise Darwin. Evolve beyond belief. And so it goes on. In fact, let me just show you some of those. And this is not just happening in America. It's also happening across the world. For instance, in the Cincinnati billboard that went up just recently, a couple of them now, don't believe in God. You are not alone. How about a Chicago billboard? Or what about this one from Cleveland? This one from Columbus? How about Dallas-Fort Worth? How about Iowa? And an Iowa bus. Then the Boston bus and subway. Portland bus. New York City subway. Philadelphia bus and subway. Washington, D.C. bus. Why believe in God? And this one here from a Seattle billboard. Yes, Virginia, there is no God. In fact, just recently, the New York Times, just over a week ago, an article, an unusual holiday message began appearing this week in the nation's capital on the sides of buses and trains. No God, no problem, reads the advertisement featuring smiling faces of people wearing Santa Claus hats. Be good for goodness sakes. And it went on to say in this article that over the next two weeks, 270 of the ads will go up on city buses and trains in the Washington, D.C. area as part of the holiday kickoff. These campaigns that are sponsored by secular groups in cities around the country and abroad. These are the sorts of things that are going on in the era of history that we live in. They have become very aggressive. And in fact, at the same time, what do we see happening in our world? You know, Europe is basically spiritually dead. The United Kingdom is basically spiritually dead. What has happened over there? Let me show you some photographs. Some of you have seen these already in the book Already Gone. That has really had quite an impact in recent times. But we see here, what I want to show you, this is not the exception. This is the rule. And this is from primarily England. This church that was turned into a Sikh temple. And this church that was turned into a rock climbing center. And this one that was turned into a museum. And this one that was turned into a theater. And this one that was turned into an information center. And this one into a clothing store. And this one into a habitat shop. This one here into a music store. This one a liquor store. This one into a nightclub. This one into a tattoo and piercing studio. What is happening in England? In fact, Penguin Books released a book about killing God not long ago. And they did their own survey in England. And they found that nearly two-thirds of teenagers don't believe in God. And that religion has a negative influence on the world, say 60% of these teenagers. I mean, before the last war in England, 50% or more people attended church. Now it's down to much, much less than that. With nearly two-thirds of teenagers saying they don't believe in God. In fact, just a few years ago, 2003, a news article in England said only 7.5% of the population went to church on Sundays. And in the past 10 years, billed by the churches as a decade of evangelism. For all the evangelism that was going on, church attendance in England dropped by an alarming 22%. The article went on to say the Christian church in this country will be dead and buried within 40 years. It will vanish from the mainstream of British life with only 0.5% of the population attending Sunday services. What is happening in England? In fact, another news article in 2004 said attendance at Britain's mosque has outstripped the number of regular worshippers in the Church of England for the first time. Some have predicted that England could become a Muslim nation in 5 years, 10 years. And in fact, when my wife and I were over in England in March, I was speaking over there, we bought a newspaper the night before we left to fly back to the States, and this was the headline in the newspaper. It was a Muslim cleric stating, I want to see the flag of Allah flying over Downing Street. Downing Street is where the Prime Minister, the leader of England, lives. And in fact, in that article, this cleric actually said this, through jihad, we'll fly the flag of Allah above Downing Street. They're blatant about it. What is happening to our world? Even in Australia, in 2002, a professor at a university was quoted as saying, within the next 10 to 20 years, most of the mainline churches will be appropriately down on their knees, praying for their own survival. And then a quote from a newspaper, the Melbourne Age, in Australia this year, in February this year, the number of churchgoers in Australia is about 9% and dwindling, the diversity of spiritual belief is flourishing, and atheism is going off like a frog in a sock. What is happening in our Western world? Let's take America. Here you have the largest number of churches and seminaries and Christian colleges, Christian bookstores, Christian resources, Christian radio, Christian TV. You have more Christian resources right now at this time in history than you've ever had. But let me ask you a question. As a culture, is America becoming more Christian or less Christian every day? It's becoming less Christian, and not only less Christian, but the atheists are becoming much more aggressive, and for a small group, and they really are only a minority, they're imposing their views on this culture. Why is that? And you know, what we see happening in England is happening in America. If you look up real estate listings, you see more and more churches on those listings, not because churches are getting bigger and moving out necessarily, but because they're closing down. For instance, in the New England states, a church that was turned into a museum, and this one into a town hall, this one into a martial arts center, this one into a music store. Yes, the same sorts of things are happening here. And then earlier this year, Newsweek, the front page of Newsweek, the front cover, actually said the decline and fall of Christian America, and inside there was an article on the end of Christian America. They did a survey, and they found that the percentage of self-identified Christians had fallen. They also found that the number of people willing to describe themselves as atheists or agnostic has increased. People, what is happening in this nation? For all the Christian resources that we have, and all the megachurches, and all the praise and worship programs, and all that goes on, all the literature, we're losing this culture. We have to ask ourselves, why do we understand the times? Even the President of the United States, President Obama, in his autobiography published just before the election, he made a similar statement in his inauguration address. He said, whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, a nation of non-believers. And by the way, he's not saying we're a nation that has freedom of religion. What he's really saying, and I'll substantiate that in a moment, what he's really saying is we're not a nation that any longer builds our thinking on the Bible. How do I know he means that? Oh, you're going to have to look at many of his other statements. For instance, in 2009, he proclaimed June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Month and called upon the people of America to support that. At a human rights campaign dinner not that long ago, which is really a gay rights activist dinner, the President said he urged Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. And he went on to say this, and here's the President of the United States actually speaking, My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you'll see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman, when the President of the United States of America is saying that you know this nation is in trouble. Do we understand the times? We see moral relativism pervading this nation. We see the abortion issue, the gay marriage issue, Christ and Christmas issue, nativity scene issue, Ten Commandment issue, creation, prayer, Bible thrown out of public schools. And in fact, I think what really to me summarizes what's happening in this nation was illustrated in an advertisement from the Gap clothing stores. Many of you probably heard about this, but they had an advertisement on television. And here are the words here, 2468 is the time to liberate and so on. But I want you to look at the last three lines. You 86 the rules, you do what just feels right. I mean, do what ever you want to do and to all a cheery night. I want to show you how this has been played on television as a commercial across this nation. Makes you want to go out and buy that clothing right now, doesn't it? You 86 the rules, you do whatever is right. You know what that sounds like to me? When they had no king to tell them what to do, they all do what was right in their own eyes. It's moral relativism. It's pervading this nation. Why? Because by and large this nation has rejected God, has thrown out the Bible and has said we're going to decide truth. We can decide truth for whatever we want it to be. And that ad really sums up where this nation is at. And people, not only the nation as a whole, but the church in this nation is in trouble. You know, back in 2002, George Barnard did some research, did some statistics and he found that two thirds of young people are going to leave the church. He verified that again in 2006. Lifeway has done similar statistics. In fact, one of the leaders in the Southern Baptist denomination recently made the comment if we keep losing young people, the next generation, at the rate at which they're leaving the church, are we going to have a church? What's the church going to look like in a couple of generations? People, this nation is in trouble. And if the church keeps going the way it is, it is in trouble. And we have to say to ourselves, why? And that's one of the questions we ask, why? In fact, a lot of statistical research has been done on how many go to church, how many not go to church, how many call themselves atheist, Christian. And we can look at some of the trends. The number calling themselves Christian is decreasing. The number calling themselves atheist is increasing. Two thirds of young people leaving the church. But we have to ask ourselves, but why? Why is this occurring, and when has this been occurring? And there's some of the questions that we ask. Why are these young people leaving the church, and when does this really start to happen? I mean, what is causing it? And when in their minds do they decide they're going to leave the church? And so, in recent times, we contracted with a respectable researcher, Britt Beamer from America's Research Group, highly respected in the secular world as well as the Christian world, and we contracted with them to find out why. We said, look, two thirds of young people are leaving the church, and we want to find out why. And so, here's what Britt Beamer did. He did some incredible research for us. Now, he's one that you'll often hear quoted on television about shopping trends and things like that. He's done research for the secular world, for the Christian world, in all sorts of different areas. And he's a behavioralist, and he's a market researcher, and he knows how to find out what people are thinking. And so, he formulated the questions to ask them, and by and large, in most instances, he doesn't give them alternatives. He lets them speak to him so that he can find out the real reasons. He interviewed a thousand people. To identify these thousand people, they made 23,000 phone calls. These were people aged 20 to 29, half male, half female, who went to church regularly as children but no longer go to church. And, what made it a little harder to identify these, they had to go to a conservative church. And the reason we asked for that is because we wanted people to know, this is the best the results could be. These people went to conservative churches. And we published the results in the book called Already Gone. How many of you have already read that book, by the way? There's a number of you. If you haven't, I encourage you to do so. I believe it's a book for this time, to understand the times. Basically, what we found out was this. The revealing aspect. When are we losing these kids? Many people in the church, many church leaders think, oh, we've got to prepare them for college. When they go to college, that's when their faith is going to come under attack and so on, so we've got to prepare them for college. We found out from this research, we're losing these kids way before college. We're losing them in elementary school, middle school, high school. Only a small percentage in college. We'll come back to that in a moment. You know what the main reason given was? The main reason was hypocrisy. But when Britt delved into what they meant by hypocrisy, you know what it basically comes down to? Going to a church, being told to believe the Bible, by people who are authority figures in the church, who compromise the Bible in some way, particularly in Genesis, and they see it as hypocrisy because the church authority figure is saying, you believe the Bible, trust in Jesus, but at the same time, in the areas of Scripture, they're saying, but you don't have to believe these bits. And people, as Britt delved further into it, it really comes down to, they weren't being taught the Bible was history, weren't being taught how it connects to the real world, and weren't being taught to defend their faith and answer the sceptical questions of this age. 90% of people from church homes and 90% of these people went to the equivalent of public schools. In public schools, they've shown God, the Bible, prayer out. And by the way, when they did that, they did not throw religion out. You know, we've been duped in this nation. Many people have been duped. Many Christians have been duped into thinking this separation of church and state means that if you mention God, you're religious. If you don't mention God, then that's a neutral position. People, there is no neutral position. You're either for Christ or what? Against. You either walk in light or you walk in what? Darkness. You either gather or you scatter. There is no neutral position. We've been lulled into thinking that. And many people I see in this nation, there are many people in the church that are almost, it seems to me, that they're almost ashamed to get out there publicly and stand on the authority of the Word of God because I think for many of them, they don't know how to answer the sceptical questions of the age. And for many of them, too, they think, well, that means I'll come across as biased or religious or something like that. People, when they threw God, the Bible, prayer out of the public schools, they didn't throw religion out. Instead, they threw Christianity out and replaced it with the religion of naturalism or atheism. And it's about time we started to understand that. You know, when I was interviewed by the secular media when the Creation Museum was open, we had about 80 media there on one day. It was quite an interesting time. We even had Al Jazeera there. They interviewed me on three different occasions, by the way. They'd been more fair about reporting on the Creation Museum than some of the secular media. But what's interesting is, I think it was a reporter from CNN who was standing in the main hall, for those that have been there, where the waterfall is and the two little animatronic dinosaurs and children there. And he was looking at that and he looked at me and he said, sort of looked at me with those beady little reporter eyes, and he looked at me and he said, so what is your ultimate motivation? What are you really trying to do here? So I looked back at him with my beady little creationist eyes and I said to him, what do you mean? He said, what are you really trying to do? What's your ultimate motivation and purpose here? And I said, well, to stand on the authority of the word of God, to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, to see people saved, one to the Lord, to be in heaven with us. And then he looked at me and he said, so you admit it then. And I said, admit what? He said, you admit that you're really trying to get people saved. I said, absolutely. Print it. Do whatever. Tell people. But then he looked at me and here's a secular reporter who obviously from other things he said didn't seem at all to be a Christian to me. He looked at me and he said, you know, that's refreshing. And I said, why do you say that's refreshing? And he said, because we interview many people in America maybe associated with the Ten Commandment issue, the creation issue in schools, could be the Christ and Christmas issue, the abortion issue, the gay marriage issue, nativity scene issue, whatever it is. And a lot of the people we interview we know go to church or claim to be Christian. And when we ask them, what are you really on about? What's your ultimate motivation? He said, their usual answer is we're on about what's good for the culture. We're on about traditional family values. We're on about what we really should believe. We're on about what this nation was built on or whatever. He said, why don't they come out and say we're on about the Bible? People, it's a problem in this culture. It's a major problem. And you know, here we have this research that shows these young people weren't taught how to defend their faith. They weren't taught the Bible is real history. Weren't taught to stand on the authority of the Word of God. They saw compromise in regard to the Word of God. That's hypocrisy. And they walked away from the church. And in fact, one of the questions asked, at what age did you really begin to question contents in the Bible? Notice something. By the end of middle school, 40% of them are questioning the Bible. By the end of high school, another 45%. People, we've lost them way before college. Not only that, if you don't believe the Bible, when did you first start to have doubts? They didn't start to have doubts in college. 40% of them were having doubts by the end of middle school. Another 44% or so by the end of high school. And people, think about it. Because we asked the question, or a researcher did, would you say questioning was the beginning of your doubt in the Bible? Oh, questioning. And you see, we live in a world where the Bible is being questioned in a particular way. You know, it doesn't matter what culture I go to around the world, what country I go to, I'm asked the same basic questions, whether I'm in the secular world or the Christian world. How do you know the Bible's true? Where did God come from? Who made God anyway? How do you know those 66 books are the right books? Why shouldn't there be other books in the Bible? Why is Christianity better than Buddhism? And if you believe the Bible, how do you explain the races of people if we go back to Adam and Eve? And where did Cain get his wife? And what about carbon dating? And what about the millions of years? And what about dinosaurs? They disproved the Bible. Noah's Ark couldn't be true. He couldn't fit all the animals on the Ark. Put your hand up if you've heard some of those questions. Oh, that's a shock. No, it's not a shock. Why? It's the year of history we live in. And people, you know what happens? Kids today have those questions. There's those accusations. How many of you heard the accusation, Noah couldn't fit the animals on the Ark? Put your hand up. Oh, yes. And you know what we do in our churches, in our homes, in our Sunday schools? You might teach a story about Noah's Ark, but are we teaching them to defend their faith? Are we preparing them for the world they live in to give them those answers so they'll be able to defend the Christian faith? You know what we do by and large? We teach stories. And you know what we tell them? Trust in Jesus. And they have all these questions. But what about carbon dating? What about the millions of years? How do you know the Bible's true? Where did God come from? Oh, don't worry about those, Johnny. They're just red herring questions. Trust in Jesus. But the message of Jesus comes from this book. And if I can't trust the authority of this book in the beginning and in its words, how can I trust the gospel that comes from this book? 2 Corinthians 11 3, Paul has a warning for us. You know what Paul is saying to us? I want to warn you. Satan is going to use the same method on you as he did on Eve to get you in a position of not believing the word of God. And I call that the Genesis 3 attack for our era of history. It's the Genesis 3 attack that Paul is referring to in 2 Corinthians 11 3. It's already been referred to by the previous two speakers. In Genesis 3, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Did God really say? Did God really say? What was happening here? There was a question to create doubt in regard to the word of God. Remember, you can become as gods. You can decide truth for yourself. You don't have to listen to the word of God. You'll surely not die. Oh, by the way, that's not much different to you'll surely die. Just a little change. Did God really say? Here's what I want us to understand. People, God's word has been under attack since Genesis 3. And that has never changed. But do you know what does change? And this is where I believe we've missed it in this era of history. What does change is the way in which that attack manifests itself. See, let me explain to you. At the time of Peter and Paul, they're preaching the gospel. Do you think anyone came up to Peter and Paul and said, Oh, it's all very well to talk about the resurrection, but I've got a question for you. What about carbon dating? Well, they didn't get that question. Why not? Because carbon dating is a 20th century invention. That wasn't an issue in their day. Do you think somebody came up to Martin Luther as he nailed those theses on the door of the church and said, All right, Dr. Luther, it's all very well to nail those theses on the door of the church, but I want to know, what are you going to do with dinosaurs? The word dinosaur wasn't even invented until 1841. It wasn't an issue in those days. Do you think anyone came up to John Wesley and said, Wesley, it's all very well for you to preach this stuff, but Darwinian evolution shows you can't trust the Bible. Wesley died before the origin of the species was published. It wasn't an issue in his day. It wasn't the same sort of issue. And people, here's what I want us to understand. God's word has been under attack since Genesis 3. It's the same attack. We have a Genesis 3 attack today, but it manifests itself in different ways in different eras of history, and in this era of history, it's manifested itself in a particular way that the church, by and large, has missed and has accommodated to. No different than what the Israelites did when they took the pagan religion of the age and mixed it in with their own beliefs and so on and came under judgment in destroying the word of God. Psalm 113 says, If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? Here is a barn that had a foundation that was collapsing, and when that foundation finally collapsed, the barn came down. When you look at that structure of the collapse there, to me, that represents the Christian worldview in our Western world, across Europe, across the United Kingdom, what's happening in America. When you look at that collapsing structure there, we think of the increasing abortion and gay marriage, the gay marriage issue, the increasing anti-Christian sentiment in this nation, throwing Christ out of Christmas, the nativity scenes, 10 Commandments, out of public places, creation, prayer, Bible, out of the public schools. People, we see the collapse of the structure. Why does a structure collapse when the foundation is taken out? What foundation has been affected in this nation? The foundation of the authority of the word of God. There's been a particular Genesis attack, Genesis 3 attack, on the authority of God's word in this era of history, and it's particularly manifested itself in an attack on the history in Genesis 1 to 11. When Jesus was asked about marriage, what did he say? Matthew 19. And he answered and said, Have you not read... I like to put that in a common vernacular for people. What is wrong with you people? Don't you read your Bibles? Have you not read, He which made them at the beginning made them male and what? All male and female. You know what? We need to tell the President of the United States about that verse. And Congress. And Senate. He made them male and female. That's a quote from Genesis 1, verse 27. And said, For this cause, or this is the reason, that a man is his father and mother, cleaves unto his wife, and they will be one flesh. Which is a quote from Genesis 2, verse 24. Jesus quoting from the history in Genesis 1 and 2 concerning the creation of male and female, a woman from the man. You become one because you're one flesh as the foundation for the doctrine of marriage. By the way, you believe in evolution and the woman came from an ape woman and you destroyed the doctrine of marriage. You see, the point is the Genesis history is foundational to the doctrine of marriage. When you've got a Congress and Senate today and the President of the United States being told by many leaders in the church that they don't believe Genesis is true, no wonder they don't believe marriage is to be for a male and female, a man and woman. And people, it's not just marriage. Do you realize that ultimately every single biblical doctrine of theology directly or indirectly is founded in Genesis 1 to 11? Why did Jesus die on a cross? Genesis 1 to 11. Why is there sin in the world? Genesis 1 to 11. Why did we die? Genesis 1 to 11. Why do you wear clothes? Genesis 1 to 11. I notice you're all wearing clothes. That's great. I might say, why? You might say, it's cold out there tonight. It's going to get down to nine, by the way, tonight. It would be refreshing walking out there tonight if you were back at your hotel. By the way, if you wear clothes because it's cold, what do you do when it's hot? You wear clothes because God gave clothes because of sin. Why is Jesus called the last Adam? Genesis 1 to 11. Why do you need a new heaven and a new earth? Genesis 1 to 11. I was at a church recently in Florida and I said, can you name one biblical doctrine that directly or indirectly is not founded in Genesis 1 to 11? Come on, name one. One guy, one smart guy, jumps up in the congregation and says, what about the doctrine of election? I thought I better have an answer for him real quick. I said, you wouldn't need such a doctrine if man hadn't sinned. Genesis 1 to 11. So that kept him quiet. By the way, here's what I want you to understand. You know the seven C's that we have there at the Creation Museum? Just so you understand why we have those seven C's. The first four C's, creation, corruption, catastrophe, confusion, that's the geological, biological, astronomical, anthropological history of the universe as foundational to the rest of the Bible. All of our doctrines, everything is founded in that history. And see, here's the point. That history that's foundational to the rest of the Bible is under attack in today's world because what's happening is we have whole generations in our public education system. Ninety percent of kids from our church homes go to public schools where they're being taught by and large, I know there are some missionaries in that system, but by and large they're being taught a geological, biological, astronomical, anthropological, archaeological history that totally undermines what the Bible teaches. And they're coming along to church and they're asking questions. Can the Bible really be trusted in this scientific age? Because for them, the world, what I taught at school, TV, Discovery Channel, Learning Channel, whatever it is, NOVA programs, they've bombed out the Bible, evolution, millions of years, ape men and so on. And they're saying, what's the church going to do about this? You know what much of the church says? Well, don't worry about that but trust in Jesus. As long as God did it, that's the most important thing. It's like I've had people say to me over the years, I tell my kids they could believe in the Big Bang as long as God did it or they could believe in millions of years and evolution as long as God did it. What's wrong with that? And I said, you know what's wrong with that? It's not what God said He did. The Big Bang has the sun coming before the earth. The Bible has the earth coming before the sun. Evolution has man and woman coming from ape man and ape woman. The Bible has man from dust, woman from his side. Millions of years has death, thorns, disease, bloodshed, animals eating each other, millions of years before sin. The Bible says originally they're all vegetarian. Thorns came after the curse. What God said doesn't fit with what man is saying. And here's the problem. We have brought whole generations up in our churches and I can tell you the majority of Christian leaders in this nation, the majority of Bible colleges, Christian colleges, seminaries, Christian schools, the majority will not take a stand on Genesis, will tell students you can believe in millions of years, doesn't matter as long as you trust in Jesus. People, they see it as hypocrisy. They understand the inconsistency. You put man in authority over the Word of God, reinterpreted the Word of God, given up that history in the first part of the Bible, eventually they give up the rest. The Genesis 3 attack on the Word of God. And in this era of history it really began in the late 18th century, early 19th century when deists and materialists, people who were against the Word of God in England wanted a justification for not believing in the Word of God and so they popularized the idea of millions of years to explain the fossil record. See, at that time most people believed the earth was rather young and that God created and Noah's flood really happened and most of your fossil record came from the flood. But what happened was these deists and materialists started to popularize the idea of millions of years. That's where the idea of millions of years came from. The belief that the layers with the fossils took a long time to get there. And you know what happened at that time in England? There were church leaders who said, well we can take the millions of years and add it into the Bible. And they reinterpreted the days and thus tried to popularize the day age theory. I'm sure you've all heard of that. There was another great man of God actually, Thomas Chalmers, the founder of the Free Church of Scotland who said, we can fit millions of years in between Genesis 1, 1 and 1, 2 and in came the gap theory. Then there are others and you'll see them in some of the commentaries in the 1800s. They said, wait a minute, we've got a problem if all those layers of the fossils came from millions of years then you can't have a global flood. It would've ripped up all those layers and redeposited them so they started popularizing the idea of a local flood, which doesn't make any sense. I've actually read a commentary from the 1800s where the theologian was actually saying God supernaturally upheld the waters like this for the time of the flood. Now God could do that but that's not what the word of God says. And then along came Darwin who popularized his ideas of one kind of animal into another, ape-like creatures into people. You know what the church said? Oh, we can add that to the Bible and we'll say God used evolution. And then along came the idea of the Big Bang. Sir Fred Hoyle coined that idea and much of the church said, oh, we can believe in the Big Bang and say God used the Big Bang. And people, you'll be familiar with these. These positions arose in history particularly since the 1800s, early 1800s. And I go to churches today and they'll say, oh, our pastor is a theistic evolutionist. Oh, one of our deacons believes in the day-age theory. Oh, we've tended to teach the gap theory here. Oh, we have people in our church who are progressive creationists. Oh, we believe in the framework hypothesis. Oh, I know some of our people believe in the local flood. And they say to me, what's your position? And I say, oh, that's the biblical one. Because do you realize not one of those positions comes from Scripture. They're all imposed on Scripture and they have one common factor and it's the millions of years. And I want you to understand something here. See, as a Christian, if you accept millions of years and you're going to add it into the Bible, where are you going to fit it? You can't put it in those genealogies. That wouldn't make sense. It would destroy the history. There's really only one place you can try to do it and it has to be before the genealogy start, before Adam, which means the six days of creation. And that's exactly what you see. People, the main reason most people in the church today will not take a stand on a young earth, not take a stand on the six literal days of creation, has nothing to do with what the Bible clearly says, but everything to do with adding millions of years into the Bible. And I've seen this common factor, you know, since the 1800s in particular, early, late 1700s. Theologians, Christian leaders, seminary professors, ministers, Christian college professors, who will admit that if you take the word day on its own in Genesis 1, it means an ordinary day, but then they'll go on to say, but it can't because of millions of years. I believe this has been the Genesis 3 attack of our era. In fact, the millions of years, I believe, the millions of years and its accommodation to Scripture by church leaders has been the Genesis 3 attack in this era of history that has undermined the authority of Scripture in a massive way to cause this massive problem in the church today. Really, I believe it's this Genesis 3 attack that has been integral in undoing what the Reformation did. Let me give you some examples real quickly. Paddle Pong from Wheaton College. I debated him on Moody Radio once. He said, if you take the most straightforward understanding of the Genesis record, God created in six solar days, he doesn't bother believe that. He believes in millions of years, believes in Big Bang, believes in a local flood, but look what he said, without regard to all of the hermeneutical considerations suggested by science, what he means by science, if you read his paper, is Big Bang and billions of years. He's admitting that if you take the word day in Genesis on its own, it means an ordinary day, but it can't because of the millions of years. By the way, if that is true, that the word day in the literature means an ordinary day, but it can't mean that because of man's ideas of millions of years, then you've just said the Bible is fallible. You've just undermined the authority of the word. Dr. James Montgomery Boyce, the late Dr. Boyce, a great reform preacher from the East. He was a great man of God, but when it came to Genesis, he didn't believe in six literal days. You know what he said? The exegetical basis of the creationists is strong. Their arguments for scripture are strong for six days. Why didn't he believe in six literal days? Data from various disciplines points to an old earth, an older universe. The late Gleason Archer has some great stuff in regard to material that he's published. But when it comes to Genesis, he didn't believe in six 24-hour days. He said a superficial reading of Genesis 1, the impression would seem to be six 24-hour days. He didn't believe that. Why not? It seems to run counter to modern scientific research, which indicates the planet Earth was created several billion years ago. A great website in Texas that deals with ethical issues like cloning and stem cell research and so on, but they make a comment about Genesis. The question concerning the age of the earth comes down to a matter of interpretation both of science and the Bible. Biblically, we find the young earth approach of six consecutive 24-hour days and a catastrophic flood to make the most sense. Wow, great. However, oh, here's the but, we find the evidence from science for a great age for the universe and earth to be nearly overwhelming. The great systematic theologian, Charles Hodge, of Princeton fame, he said that this, if you take the account of Genesis by itself, that's what he's talking about, it would be most natural to understand the word day, he's talking about here, in its ordinary sense, which means an ordinary day. And then he goes on to say, but, here's the but, if that sense brings a mosaic account into conflict with facts and another sense avoids a conflict, it's obligatory to adopt the other. He went on to say this, the church has been forced more than once to alter her interpretation of the Bible to accommodate the discoveries of science, but this has been done without doing any violence to the scripture in any degree impairing their authority. People, Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield, of Princeton fame, I'm not just blaming them, but I believe, wittingly or unwittingly, I believe they're great men of God, I believe they're in heaven today, but you know what's happened? They unlocked a door, look at Princeton today, look at those Ivy League schools, how many were once Christian? How many are Christian today? People, what's happened to them is what's happening to the nation, you unlock a door, you don't have to take God's word as written. You can accommodate man's ideas into God's word, it's a Genesis 3 attack, you'll lose biblical authority. In fact, people have often said to me, they said, but do you agree that it's faith in Christ that saves you, not whether you believe in a young earth, that's true, it's faith in Christ. You can be an old earth Christian, that's true. There are Christians who believe in evolution, and if you're truly born again, you're a Christian. They say, see, so it doesn't matter. Really? It might be true, but it doesn't affect your salvation in that sense, but you know what it does affect? How the next generation views scripture. And then how the next generation views scripture. And when you unlock that door, and that's what happened in England, when the theologians unlocked that door, what happened? The next generation, they saw the inconsistencies, they pushed that door open further, and then further, and then further. Look at England today, it is spiritually dead basically. People, it's happening in America. I could go on and quote many others, Meredith Klein, who popularized the framework hypothesis, very well known in reformed circles, but I always look for the motivation. In this article, I've advocated an interpretation of biblical cosmogony according to which scripture is open to the current scientific view of a very old universe, and that respect does not discount the theory of the evolutionary origin of man. And people, people even like Bruce Waltke. I mean, there are many of these great conservative people and theologians, Christian scholars, that produced the textbooks for the seminaries today, but as soon as it comes to Genesis, the days of creation may also pose difficulties for a strict historical account. Contemporary scientists almost unanimously discount the possibility of creation in one week. And we cannot discount the evidence of the earth sciences. People, we're putting man in authority over God's word. It is a Genesis 3 attack of this age. It has undermined the authority of scripture. And you know the sad thing? When we take God's perfect word and man's fallible opinion, when we try to make them agree, which one usually gets modified? It's usually scripture, isn't it? What did Martin Luther say? In his day, he had people who were trying to say it was one day, not six days. He had the opposite problem we had. And you know what he said? We must understand that these days were actual days, contrary to the opinion of the holy fathers. Whenever we observe that the opinions of the fathers disagree with scripture, we reverently bear with them and acknowledge them to be our elders. Nevertheless, we do not depart from the authority of scripture for their sake. And people all go on record as saying this. You can have great Christian men of God, great Christian scholars, whether it's the Bruce Walkies or the Meredith Clines, whoever we've talked about that I've referenced here tonight. There have been many great men of God who write the textbooks for the seminaries and influence them. But if they're not taking a stand on the authority of the word of God, right at Genesis 1 to 11, as we have to, as we need to, as we should be doing, and they're letting man's ideas undermine the authority of scripture, regardless of all the rest of the great stuff they do, look what's happening. We're losing this culture because we are undermining the authority of the word and weakened the church. By the way, when it comes to the word day, really, why should there be any debate? I mean, it's interesting, the word day is used 2,301 times in the Old Testament in the singular or plural form, and I know the word day can be different meanings. It can mean time, it can mean daylight portion of a day, you know, in English, in my father's day, for instance. A Hebrew word for day has a number of different meanings. But here's the interesting thing. We know what the word day means everywhere it's used in the Old Testament except Genesis 1. Why is that? You know why it is? Because it's in Genesis 1 where we have this problem of adding millions of years into the Bible. I mean, if you take the leading Hebrew lexicons in the world, for instance, Brown Diver Briggs, the first example of day being an ordinary day is Genesis 1.5, the first day of creation. A very modern Hebrew lexicon, Kohler Baumgartner, the second major meaning of the word day, it says in bold type, it says in the lexicon, day of 24 hours. The first example is Genesis 1.5. And you know why? Because whenever the word day is used with a number, whenever you have the phrase evening and morning, whenever the word day is used with evening or morning, it's or whenever the word night is used with the word day, it always means an ordinary day. And look how it's written in Genesis chapter 1. It's almost as if God was saying, these people in the 21st century are going to be so thick, I'm going to qualify the word day over and over again to make sure they get it. And they still don't get it. Oh, and then you have those people that say, doesn't the Bible say a day is like a thousand years? Well, read the rest of the verse. It says a thousand years are like a day. That just cancels that one right out. And by the way, it doesn't say a day is like a thousand years. It says one day with the Lord. That's got nothing to do with defining the word day. The word day depends upon the Hebrew language in Genesis. That's saying God is outside of time. He's not limited by natural processes and time. By the way, if you're going to say that, oh, we've got to interpret the days meaning thousands of years, well, what are you going to do with Jonah and the great fish? Oh, he had to be in the whale three thousand years. A day is like a thousand years, you know. See how ridiculous. You know what's interesting? We always use that Peter quote to attack the days of creation. What about all the other times the word day is used? We'll do anything but believe in six days. Because in this era of history, if you say to people, I don't believe in millions of years, you are so radical. You're so against what the establishment believes. You've got to believe in millions of years. And by the way, you know why it's such an emotional issue for the evolutionists, for the secularists? If you don't have millions of years, you can't even try to postulate the idea of evolution. I love what Martin Luther said. He said this. How long did the work of creation take when Moses writes that God created heaven and earth and whatever is in them in six days? Let this period continue to have been six days and do not venture to devise any comment according to which six days were one day. But if you cannot understand how this could have been done in six days, grant the Holy Spirit the honor of being more learned than you are. And people, I want to show you something. With the research we did with Already Gone, we found out something else. When we divide them into subgroups, those that often attended Sunday school versus those that didn't go to Sunday school, we found that those that attended Sunday school regularly in these conservative churches were worse off than those that didn't and you were better off if you didn't send your kids to Sunday school. And what did we find? You can't deny the statistics. Those that went to Sunday school, more likely not to believe the accounts in the Bible are true and accurate. More likely to doubt the Bible because it was written by men. More likely to doubt the Bible because it was not translated correctly. By the way, you know what that's telling me? They weren't taught general Bible apologetics. More likely to defend abortion, premarital sex and gay marriage. How's that for a shock? Much more likely to believe God used evolution. And notice this. More likely to believe the earth is less. More likely not to believe the earth is young. Much more likely to question the Bible because of the age of the earth. Much more likely to doubt the Bible because of the age of the earth. More likely to question the Bible as young. More likely to believe dinosaurs died out before people. That's an age of earth issue. More likely to view the church as hypocritical. Believe the Bible, trust in Jesus. You don't have to believe the days of creation. Much more likely to become anti-church. More likely to believe good people don't go to church. And notice this. More likely to have heard a pastor or Sunday school teacher teach Christians could believe in millions and billions of years. And you see, then Britt asked them this question. Which of these makes you question the Bible the most? Those that often attended Sunday school, the age of the earth was the big issue. Wasn't as big an issue with those that didn't go to Sunday school. Certainly was with those that did. You know what's happening? We teach stories. And by the way, we should stop using the word story. In our day and age, it means fairy tale. We're not teaching them Bible stories. We're teaching them history. We're teaching them a real record, a written record. And we tend to teach them stories. And they see what we do at school is real what you do at church is stories. What we do at church, at school, we learn about dinosaurs and fossils and real stuff. What do you do at church? Spiritual things, moral things, doctrinal things, relationships. People, we've got the idea you wouldn't put dinosaur bones in a glass case in a church lobby or something like that. That's for school. We've got the idea, oh, at Sunday school and church, you don't teach geology, biology, astronomy, anthropology. That's for school. Do you know what happened? Because of what happened in England, the church gave up that history to the world. We clung to the spiritual things, the moral things, the relationships, the heavenly things, if you like. We gave the earthly things up to the world. They captured generations, hearts and minds of generations of our kids, gave them a different foundation, a different world view. That changed the culture and now we wonder why we've got a problem. It's interesting to note that one of the 300 atheists that came through the museum recently, we had a group of 300 atheists come through. It's fascinating who God brings to hear the gospel. But one of them wrote this afterwards. For me, the most frightening part was the children's section in the Creation Museum. It was at this moment that I learned the deepest lesson of my visit to the museum. It is in the minds and hearts of our children that the battle will be fought. The atheists know. You capture their hearts and minds and we'll win the battle. And you know why they're angry at the Creation Museum? These people, they're bringing kids in and they're converting them and they're influencing their hearts and minds. People, do you know what the church by and large did? We handed generations over to the world and let them capture their hearts and minds. We tried to impose the structure of Christianity on a culture without a foundation and now we wonder why the structure is collapsing. 1 Peter 3.15 says, Always be prepared to give an answer. Do you realize that everything we teach in Christianity, everything we teach in Christianity is anchored in the word of God. It's anchored in those seven C's. That's Genesis to Revelation. And what we need to be doing is teaching everything anchored to that history and then we need to be saying, what is the world doing to stop people believing that part of the Bible right now? We need to understand what the Genesis 3 attacks are in our day and we need to be equipping them, teaching them with answers so they can defend their faith and stand on the authority of the word. See, here's the bottom line. If God's word's true, who's the absolute authority? God. Who sets the rules? God. But if we bring generations up to say it's man who's the authority, who decides right and wrong? Man. Then all is relative. See, we've got a conflict of two world views. The absolutes of Christianity versus moral relativism, but it's really a foundational battle, God's word versus man's word. And what we see in America is the collapse of Christian morality increasing moral relativism. You know why? Because foundationally we've changed in this nation. It's changed in the government. It's changed in the courts. It's changed in the public school. We've changed from God's word to man's word. And people, it's changed in the church because when much of the church takes man's ideas of millions of years, evolutionary ideas, add them to the Bible, reinterpret God's word, you have made man the authority. It's the Genesis 3 attack on our day. You know in England, when the church of England saw that Penguin Books survey, the majority of teenagers don't believe in God, what was their response? Many of these results said a church of England spokesperson pointed to the great spirituality of young people today and the church is seeking to respond through new forms of worship alongside traditional ones. As I travel across America and around the world, you know what I see the church doing? Watering down the teaching of the word, increasing entertainment, making music the focus, not the teaching of the word, to try to attract people in and it's not working because they're not giving the answers the world needs. And I sum it up for you this way. With these two diagrams, here we have the foundation of God's word, the castle of Christianity, those doctrines, the foundation of man's word, moral relativism and you see those issues up here. The Genesis 3 attack of our day has particularly been on the history in Genesis 1 to 11. What has much of the church done? We don't need that. It doesn't matter. We can accommodate to the world. We'll keep the rest of this book, we'll keep the rest of this and keep this structure because it's the doctrines, people, that structure needs a whole foundation to stand or it'll collapse. And then we look up here and say, look at all the problems in the culture. People, don't get me wrong, we need to stand against gay marriage, abortion and so on, but they are not the problems. They are the symptoms. For all the millions of dollars we've spent in Christian organizations in the church in America fighting the social issues, for all the millions of dollars spent fighting these issues, has it really worked? From a big picture perspective, has it worked? No. And you know why? Because the Bible does not say go into all the world and change the culture. The Bible says go into all the world and what? Preach the gospel. People, here's the problem. The atheists know, the secularists know. Hitler knew it. Give me the kids for a generation, I'll have the culture. The secularists know, give me the kids, I'll have the culture. We handed them over to them. We didn't give them answers, we accommodated to what they taught. The church did that. The church has done that in America. You can believe in what the world teaches. You can believe what you're learning at school. That's fine. Trust in Jesus. This part of the book doesn't matter. How many times have I heard in conservative churches? Well, Genesis is not that important. This doesn't really matter. I thought we've already heard tonight. All of it is the word of God. All of Scripture is inspired by God. And if we're guilty of saying to our kids, well, this part doesn't really matter, Genesis is not that important. What we're really saying before a holy God is, God, I don't care about that part of your word. And I just told my kids that. We wonder why we've got a problem. You know what? We need to call God's people back to the authority of God's word. We need to call the church in America back to the authority of God's word. And people, regardless of who the scholar is, and how great a Christian man they are. I like what Martin Luther said. You can be one of the most famous Christian scholars in the world, but we need to depart from the authority of Scripture for their sake. That should be one of our battle cries out there. And if it's not going to come from the leaders, it needs to come from the people. Revolutions come from the people. Then we need to call the leaders to account in this nation. Now, I want to close with just a brief statement here in a moment. And my time is nearly done, but then again, a day is like a thousand years. But I just want to mention to you, and I'm not going to mind me doing this, but people, one of the most important parts of our ministry today, I believe, is one thing to come and help us understand issues. It's another thing to say, how do I get the answers? How do I inform myself? I just want to run through a few of our apologetic materials and then make a statement and hand back to your leadership here. If you haven't read the book already gone, I encourage you to do so. There's a DVD that goes with it, and you can even get that as a pack. People often say, what one book can I get to help me with answers? I tell people, these eight. Eight basic books. You get a free plastic bag, and there they are. By the way, in there you'll find our biggest selling creation apologetic book, Answers Book 1. We also have an Answers Book 2. At the very minimum, get the Answers Books. We also have Answers DVDs that you can get in a pack. Kids Answers Books. They cover a whole range of apologetic issues, general Bible apologetics and creation apologetics. And we even have what's called our Answers Pack that puts all those answers materials together for you. People often say, I just need the best of everything. There it is. The cream of the crop for teens and adults. A free collector box, and you can sell it on eBay afterwards. And then for children, we have basic children's packs. These books connect the Bible to the real world and teach them how to defend their faith. And then we put them together with others so that these are for elementary, these are for elementary, middle school and through to junior high. Our Museum Pack. The Christian DVD Collection. The videos you saw at the Creation Museum. You can get all those in a set. Incredible witnessing opportunities. And if you get the two library packs, we'll give you that free. One of my, I think, important DVDs I did recently, The State of the Nation. And then we teach you apologetics, ultimate proof, how to teach logic, how to understand Christian logic. And you can get various packs with that book in. Jason Lyle also did a series of DVDs recently called Ultimate Apologetics. Brand new book on dinosaurs to teach moms and dads called Dinosaurs for Kids. The Truth About Dinosaurs. If you want to see a debate between myself, Jason Lyle, and Walt Kaiser, theologian, and Hugh Ross, and also John Ankerberg. It was three against two. Dealing with the whole Genesis issue and see how theologians think and the compromise in the church. Man, that'll blow your mind. But we have positive materials. Creation apologetics materials for teenagers and adults. A big book on apologetics one for next year. Egypt file. All sorts of issues that we have available to you like global warming. Coming to grips with Genesis. Teaching Bible apologetics. One of the best books today dealing with how do we know the Bible is true. And a series that goes with it from one of my favorite speakers from England. And then apologetics materials like our answers magazine. I encourage you to get that. It even has a little section for children. And if you get that, we give you a free series of DVDs as well. People, apologetics is missing from our churches. That's why I want to emphasize that. I want to show you. Isn't it great? I never had any of those materials when I grew up. Isn't it great we have them today? We have no excuse. And then I want to finish with this. I want to let you in on a little secret here. What we've really got to do, we've really got to get God's people in the church back to the authority of the word of God. We have a campaign. We're starting in January. So I'm giving you a little just forewarning here. And what we've decided to do with this, we've often done campaigns using billboards, TV advertisements. We're going to do this right across the nation. And we're going to have T-shirts and all sorts of things. And our campaign is entitled, I am not ashamed. And we have the website, Iamnotashamed.org. And what we're going to do, can you imagine a billboard that says, I am not ashamed. And then the topic will be marriage. And all we're going to do is quote scripture. He made them at the beginning, made them male and female. Abortion. He nipped me together in my mother's womb. The nation. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Because scripture is sharper than a two-edged sword. It's scripture that will not return unto him void. And we're going to encourage people across this nation to stand up and say, I'm not ashamed to stand on the authority of the word of God. I think that could have a big effect on this nation. And it could embolden people. And as we do that, let's also, let's also go out there. Watch me. Let's watch for that campaign starting in January. As we do that, if we understand the Genesis 3 attack on our day, maybe we all need to be Martin Luther's tonight. And maybe symbolically, maybe not so literally. But let's start nailing Genesis 1 to 11 on the doors of churches across this nation. And call church and nation back to the authority of the word of God. Let's start a new reformation in our culture today. And I'll hand back to you. ♪♪♪