Answering Hard Questions

Let's pray. Thank you God for today. Thank you for your goodness to us Lord.

Thank you for this beautiful blue sky and the sunshine, the white fluffy cows, the fog has rolled away and now you have allowed the sun to come out. And I just pray Lord as the clouds of our heart lift away today and the fog lifts away that the light of Jesus, the sunshine of Jesus could shine on our heart today and illuminate the darkness and make the light brighter Lord. And I just pray this morning for Brother Rogers and his shares this morning.

I pray Lord that you would anoint his heart, his mind, his tongue, and his thoughts Lord. And the message that you share Lord that it would have that your spirit would illuminate it today in our ears that we can hear what you really want to teach us today. And Father many times we have all this racket and chaos going in our hearts and our minds of the past week but I just pray Lord that we would just abandon all that and we would just put all that aside and just trust you for our future and that we can hear what you really want to teach us today.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you brother.

All right well good morning. Sometimes we hear a phrase life is good. You hear somebody you know giving thanks life is going pretty well for them and that's what they say life is good.

And for them it probably is. You know they're having things go well. But when you were singing that song We're Not Home Yet another word came to mind.

If you had to replace this word good because you know for some people they really wouldn't say that. Life well they're in the refugee camp. Their things aren't going well.

They're they're lonely. They're this they're that. So it's not always true for everybody that life is good.

But is there another word we could put in there? Life is... What other word would you put in there? If I had to just take a poll I wonder. Everybody put a word in there. Life is something.

Would it be good? Maybe for some of us. Maybe for all of us. But what about for everybody? Everybody in the whole world.

What could we put in that word instead of good? Does anybody have any thoughts? Short. What else? A blessing. That's good.

Well the word that came to me was almost what Bob said there. Short. I said temporary.

Life is temporary. Whether it's good. Whether it's bad.

Whether it's short. Whether it's long. It is still temporary.

It's temporary. That's what it is. There's a verse in Peter.

2nd Peter I believe it is. Seeing them. And I think there's a good verse that just ought to be the guiding light of everyone of us no matter what you're doing.

What your life's calling is. Let this verse guide you. Seeing them that all these things shall be dissolved.

What manner of persons ought we to be? That's a really good question. We ought to think about every day. Seeing them.

That all these things. Your own flesh and blood. Your body.

The building we're meeting in right now. Marriages. Children.

Those kind of earthly relationships. The car that you drive. The job that you have.

The house that you live in. Seeing them that all these things shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought we to be? And if that's true then it's those those relationships that will continue on into eternity.

Those are the things that are really valuable. The treasures in heaven that we can lay out. The souls that can be saved.

Those are the things that are valued. Life is temporary. We're not home yet.

We're not to a permanent place. We're still traveling. And if you travel much that's a thought that goes through your mind sometimes.

You're on your way home but we're not there yet. And so that's a good good message. Another verse or thought, a couple thoughts from Scripture.

This is not yet my message but something that had been going through my mind recently. I guess you can call this a pre-sermon. Was some of these out-of-the-blue statements we read in the Bible.

In Genesis 4 verse 26 it starts talking about all the just getting into the genealogy. Just talk about Adam and Adam had a son and Seth and then Seth had a son. And then at the very last verse of that chapter it says this, "...and then began men to call on the name of the Lord." What's that about? Weren't they not calling on the name of the Lord before that? What had happened? But no, something was going on.

They chose to do something different. Up in 2nd Chronicles 34 and I just recently am reading through the Old Testament right now and recently got to through 2nd Chronicles then Ezra, Nehemiah, Ammon, Esther. But in 2nd Chronicles this word that kept popping out at me, Josiah was a king.

And it says he was a good king. But it says about eight years into his ministry he began to do something. And I'm not sure what he had been doing before.

I mean he was a good boy I guess. His dad wasn't all that good so he must had somebody that raised him well. Maybe his mother.

Maybe some prophet. I'm not sure. He became a king at age eight.

But eight years later, he must have been around 16 years old, he began to do something that the Bible seems to think was worth mentioning. It says he began to seek the Lord. Wow! Seek the Lord.

So that word seek was going through my mind. And so I went to the blue letter Bible on my phone this morning and I just typed it in to see I wonder how often that word is mentioned in the Bible. And you know I found out that the idea of seeking the Lord is a really common thing in the book of 2nd Chronicles.

Maybe more than any other book of the Bible. I didn't go through and take a poll but it starts out by using that term in the you know that great revival verse that Solomon gave with the dedication of the temple I believe. If my people, this was God actually talking, if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.

You know we know what it means to pray. I think we kind of know what it means maybe to humble ourselves and you know turning from our wicked ways. That means you stop doing bad things.

But what does it mean there to seek my face? What's that all about? But then through the rest of 2nd Chronicles chapter 11 after them all out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the Lord. Chapter 12 and he did evil because he did not seek the Lord. He didn't prepare his heart to seek the Lord.

Chapter 14 and commanded Judah to seek the Lord. And so you have this up-and-down journey of the children of Israel based on the kind of king they had. One king would lead them to seek the Lord.

Another king would not lead them to seek the Lord. And on and on we go up and down and up and down. It seems so often when there was a godly king then his son wasn't godly.

But then often when the father wasn't godly the son decided hey this is enough I'm going to turn around. This was in the tribe of Judah not so much in Israel. There they had an ungodly father and the son just kept getting worse and worse and worse it seems like.

But in the country of Judah there was this up-and-down journey as one generation would seek the Lord and the next generation would not. And you have to wonder was it because of Solomon's prayer there or God's statement at the dedication of the temple. If you do seek my face then I'm going to bless you.

I'm going to heal the land. Chapter 15 they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord. Chapter 19 thou has prepared thine heart to seek God.

Chapter 20 and Jehoshaphat feared and set himself to seek the Lord. And on and on it goes until finally you get up to this chapter 34 and Josiah who had a very wicked father and a wicked let's see was it a grandfather. It was his grandfather Manasseh I think and then his father was Ammon or somebody like that.

Anyway he had a couple of generations there that they had totally abandoned the law of the Lord and then Josiah said I'm going to seek the Lord. So what happens you have this boy growing up good maybe he had good rules. I had to think maybe a lot of us have good rules.

I've heard of people you know fathers and I haven't been as diligent as maybe I should be in this but fathers who say let's let's say everybody gets up at a certain time every morning and you have your devotion time you know 30 minutes and the call goes and whether that's whatever 6 or 630 and everybody gets up and now it's 30 minutes and and everybody does it not they don't have a choice that's that's their that's their devotion time to pray and and read their Bibles. But you know there's something about seeking the Lord that can't be done through a rule. It's something that's always voluntary true seeking after God and I'll get that later.

The seeking the Lord is is a voluntary thing. It's and I just think of whatever rules we have here as a church as you children grow up as a young people grow up maybe you have good rules maybe one of the rules in your family is let's get up at a certain time and we're going to read the Bible for 30 minutes or we're going to pray for 30 minutes or maybe the rule is you join everybody the family we have family devotions in the morning or in the evening and we all are there nobody has a choice you there we're going to read the Bible and and and pray together and you have to be there whether it's your heart is there or not but that's not seeking the Lord that's a good thing to do if you're in a family like that I would highly value that and I would be I would encourage you to willingly take part in it but that's not seeking the Lord so what does seeking the Lord look like remember it's got to be voluntary so it's some other time than those set in place times you see a child or you see an older person you see a father or mother going off by themselves taking their Bible seeking the Lord spending time alone either on a walk in the in the woods or in the barn or in their bedroom or something are they told to have a devotions right then no but they said I have a need in my life I'm gonna seek the Lord and until and unless each one of us gets to the point where seeking the Lord is a part of our existence we're not where God wants us and I just want to encourage you wherever you're at in the journey of life to know that seeking the Lord has to be part whether that's seeking the Lord spending time in his word seeking the Lord in your Bible reading your prayer time maybe it's saying I'm gonna fast for a day again that'd be another rule that I suppose some homes could make we're gonna we're gonna fast once a month or maybe fast maybe more often that once a week whatever maybe one meal I know a Bible school they had one day that was for prayer and fasting I think it was just over lunch and that was kind of a new experience for a lot of us but okay well if we have to we will but you know seeking the Lord is a little different than that it's saying I'm gonna oh thank you and so I just want to that word seek the Lord it was uh it was uh something that that impressed me you know sometimes it could be fasting maybe it's something I want to choose to give up something in my life I see it's distraction I have something in my life that's a distraction to my walk with God and so I'm going to voluntarily give that up no one told me I had to the church didn't tell me I had to my dad didn't tell me I have to but I'm because I'm seeking the Lord and so I want to encourage y'all all of us to examine our hearts are we living a life of seeking God why don't we go ahead and pray and then we'll move into the the main message let's bow our heads Lord we come to you in the name of Jesus and we're here today thanking you God for gathering us here and we pray that you would make us a church of seekers like Josiah was a seeker he sought after you even though he had lived a good life up until that point and and Lord teach us what that means give it put a hunger in our hearts to know you father I pray that you would guide us through this message I pray God that you would equip us to be your people I pray for this church I pray for everyone in these four walls also pray for those outside these walls those who have gotten invitation a few weeks ago to church those that will get it next week Lord I just pray God that your spirit would move in this in this place in this geographic location but not stop your Lord we know we live in a world that lies in wickedness a world that needs the light of the gospel help us Lord to do what we can to spread your light wherever we go the Lord right now I pray that your light would fill this place and that you would dispel the darkness in Jesus name a number of weeks ago I started a series of question-and-answer messages taking some questions these questions that came into my life were a lot of them actually a result of the work I do with a cam and their billboards and this list of questions I started going through some of them not all of them came from that but this morning I would just like to touch on some more of those questions that are somewhat common we get them at least several times and after you hear the second or third or fourth time you you start to think I really need to come up with a good answer for that one because it seems to be something that's on people's heart so that's what we're gonna do this morning we're gonna talk about some more questions and I don't know if this will be the last one or not I think there are some questions I have on my list that I haven't got to yet but I gotta think about are they important enough to do another sermon on but some of these are common enough that you're likely to get them at some point likely if you interact with unbelievers and I hope you do I hope you you know it is part of seeking the Lord voluntary service you'd you do make it a point to interact with people about the gospel you will know some of these you'll likely come across at some point so let's just go down through some of these questions the first one is where did God come from I'll just put a few where God okay where did God come from now why don't you even get that question why do we get we get it quite often actually on the billboard line why would people even ask that question where did God come from well we have a billboard up there that says there is evidence for God and even before that we still obviously said that God exists after you die you will meet God that was another billboard we had earlier but people ask the question what's the evidence and you know we have different things I've shared different things from this pulpit as far as evidence for God one of my favorite is to take people to the resurrection of Jesus you know now Jesus predicted ahead of time his own resurrection and then came through on another one is the existence of life the fact that life exists is something that is powerful evidence for God there's absolutely nothing that we ever see in dead matter that would indicate that it has the ability to organize itself into life into the whatever is necessary for life has never been observed in any scientific class anywhere at any time and so somehow life does exist it clearly points toward God but there's one especially that even before life and before all these other things are something that we see around us it's called matter and energy even if life doesn't exist matter does and the universe exists and along with that as we study science we understand that there's a law of cause and effect wherever there's an effect there's a cause this morning went out to the chicken coop and gathered the eggs usually I get that privilege on Sunday morning because yeah it's just that that's my job on Sunday every other morning someone else does it but um I did it this morning well that egg came from something I knew exactly where that egg came from it came from one of these chickens down there and I knew where the chicken came from because we got him as chicks number years ago and that chick came out of an egg well that egg came out of another chicken that chicken came out of another egg and you keep going back until somewhere you got to get this thing going there first there had to be a free there a first egg or a first chicken and so so that's the law of cause and effect everything comes from something okay and everything that begins that egg began there was a time probably not very long ago that egg I gathered this morning did not exist it just simply was not but now it is it's sitting on our counter at home and so it came from something and so we talked to these atheists so that's the law of cause and effect this universe had to come from something and that's something had to be supernatural it had to be outside of nature if everything in nature begin to exist then nature itself had to come from something outside of nature and that thing is it has to be supernatural that's another definition for what is outside of nature is supernatural and so that doesn't necessarily tell us who God is but it points to a conclusion that has to be supernatural logically it has to be that way and okay then you get the question right up here okay all right fine but where did God come from you're saying everything came from something and you say this universe came from God okay but now you got a problem where did God come from what do you answer a question like that and there is an answer there's a there's there's a there's a we do have an answer because there's a logical problem with that I'm going to tell you what it is I'm not going to write the answer you can write it down if you want to but to the answer where did God come from it comes up all the time when we say look everything has to come from something else therefore the universe came from something we say it came from God then where did God come from well how would you answer that well here's the answer the answer is it's actually a question that is a bad question because it assumes something it assumes something about God that I never said about God God never says about himself the Bible never says about God and it assumes well first of all well it assumes that God had a beginning because you see the law of cause and effect specifically says not just that everything has a cause but it says two things everything that begins to exist has a cause and everything in nature has a cause because all the signs around us point to the conclusion that nature had a beginning therefore we could just boil it down to one thing everything that begins to exist has a cause as far as we've all observed every egg we've ever seen it begin to exist it must have had a cause the cause was the chicken every chicken that ever existed had a cause except maybe the very first chicken somewhere back in the Garden of Eden but they all had a cause if it begins to exist as a cause God never claimed to begin to exist therefore to ask what God's cause is doesn't it's an irrelevant question because he never began to exist he always was the God there was never a time when God did not exist and then God did exist if there had been that such a time then it'd be a reasonable question where did God come from but there was never such a time so that's the answer point out the law of cause and effect is a specific law it doesn't say that everything had a cause says everything that begins to exist have has a cause all right that's question that's the first question I want to talk about here's another one common one seems like a silly one but it comes up over and over again so let's talk about where did Cain get his wife I don't know if you ever heard that before where did Cain get his wife? Cain was the first child that was born in this world and it says he got married he went and he found himself a wife well that's not possible he was the first I mean Adam and Eve here they had Cain and he wanders throughout the world and finds a wife. Where did she come? Did she evolve? What happened? Is there a Bible verse that tells us where Cain got his wife? Yeah, there actually is.

I don't know if you're aware of it. Anybody know what Bible verse it is? Then I'll show it to you. Genesis.

You can open your Bibles and you can look this up and next time somebody asks you where did Cain get his wife you can say here I got it right here this is the chapter and verse in the Bible and Genesis chapter 5 and it says all the days verse 4 all that and the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were 800 years and he beget sons and daughters so the last half is what I'm looking at there and he beget sons and daughters so Adam did not just have sons I didn't say what any of his daughter's names were but he had daughters and Cain obviously had to marry one of Adam's daughters which was his own sister well that's gonna bring another question oh but isn't that incest you're not supposed to marry your sisters well who says well God said when did God say well at the time of Moses in the law God says don't marry your close relatives like why did God say oh well we don't know God doesn't say why he said he just says don't do it you know and if you look at the the timing that was the first prohibition when God says don't marry your sister as far as I know Abraham was I think he married his his half-sister and anyway so whatever it was in Cain obviously had to marry his his sister and so forth but you see God forbade incest as far as I can tell the reason God forbade incest is because of a genealogical a genetic thing a genetic issue that it happened God created Adam and Eve perfect they fell things started to deteriorate at that time genetic information has been lost every generation they originally lived to be 900 years old and then it came down to 500 and then 400 and then 200 that was an old man and now if we live to a hundred we're an old man but we're just simply not as healthy as they were back then that's maybe the earth was different that's what people but the fact is something's been changing we're not as healthy as Adam and Eve and his immediate descendants were we're deteriorating we're losing genetic information and that by forbidding incest God at least preserves that those genie those genetic weaknesses rather than you know if there's a weakness in in in me there's probably also that same weakness in my sister and so God says don't you know only marry outside the family I think that's why God forbade incest a few hundred years after the flood and so I believe that's why God did it but before that it was never prohibited and so is this a problem where did Cain get his wife well he married his sister is that a problem I don't see that as a problem at all so if you have a question I mean if you ever get asked that question turn just open up to Genesis 5 verse 4 there's the answer here's exactly where Cain got his wife all right next question by the way if anybody wants to interrupt me and say hey I have another question about that you just raise your hand you feel free to do that and we'll see how many questions we get through so like I say has this a long sermon well it depends on how much time I have available we'll see how many of these questions we get all right we have another billboard up it says in the beginning God created and it has a picture of the world on there but there's another picture on there that really gets people's attention and for some people that makes them angry it's a it's a picture of the monkeys to man evolution with a big X threat so it's basically saying in the beginning God created and not only that but evolution isn't true and so we get this question a lot are you saying that evolution how do we answer that question is that a blanket statement is a no absolutely not evolution is not real evolution is not true well we got to be a little careful here the reason we got to be a little careful and I tell people that is because the word evolution actually has several meanings some people and I see you need to tell me what you mean by evolution then I'll tell you is it true or not because sometimes you'll say people will say well what do you what is your people will respond to that question what is evolution they'll say that means change over time okay you mean one animal it'll have a child and the child won't be just like the parents yeah that's right and as time goes on they'll even adapt dark Charles Darwin he observed us down the Galapagos Islands he observed these finches that were had one shape of beak and because conditions around them change they change their you know when the stronger ones had a different shape of beak and so they they changed and he observed that as well change change over time or another word is adaptation it adapts to the environment around us to a certain extent God created in that way that they could do that or another word is natural selection that natural selection happens the stronger ones survive the weaker ones die off so that's one definition of evolution you know I say if that's your definition I have that's fine I agree with that things do change over time but you got to realize there's two definitions and until we realize that there's two definitions those two definitions don't mix you can't honestly answer this question is evolution real because the other definition of evolution says essentially that all living creatures in this world came from one common ancestor at one point there was no life and then life began to exist somehow how did that I don't know well we forget okay we'll ignore that we'll let you off the hook on them but suppose life began to exist how did it exist it was just a little single-celled organism of some sort and that little bacteria or amoeba or whatever it was is a great-great grandpa of everything else that's living today the people the animals the bananas the cucumbers the tomatoes the fruitcake well no that the fruit the fruit that's in the fruitcakes anyway all of that is comes from the that little single-celled however it started eventually everything came from that excuse me and so that's the second definition of evolution and until you determine whether you're talking about change over time or Darwinian evolution which is this Darwinian evolution is the idea that says everything came from a common ancestor over millions of years you've got to define the two but see in the college textbooks and in the classrooms they try to mix those two and say see we observe evidence for this therefore this well that's false advertising you tell me what you're defending we'll tell you whether it's true if you're talking about change over time fine some people use terms like micro evolution macro evolution that's fine it's kind of the same idea one of them clearly is science we can observe things changing you know one dog isn't going to be exactly like his parents they do a lot of in fact maybe all the dogs that we see today all came from two wolves initially I don't know there's certainly a lot of variety right now those of you who have dog breeding businesses that's you know all about that but there's there's quite a bit of variety but it's still a dog you can't just keep on changing this dog by selective breeding eventually get an elephant or a dinosaur or a cucumber that's impossible there's limits to what you can do through through these changes over time and that's what the second definition definition of evolution ignores it ignores those limits they're just simply not possible to cross those limits you can do a lot of creative things through selective breeding and so forth but you can't do some things and Darwinian evolution totally ignores that those limits are there so is evolution real first question you got to ask in response is well let's talk about the definitions of evolution there's two definitions you give me the definition you prefer and we'll talk about it or I'll tell you what to do down to definitions is but it's simply not simply not accurate to say because there's evidence for this definition therefore this definition must be true the two don't cross that line that's not a line that's reasonable to be crossed in any way shape or form all right once again if you have further questions raise your hand otherwise I'll go on to the next one another question and this comes up all the time what about the dinosaurs if there's anything that you want to believe in evolution and you want to hang your hat on one thing it's the existence of dinosaur after all we dig in the ground we find these bones these fossils of these huge animals that don't exist today surely that's proof that evolution this definition of evolution must be real why well because the textbooks tell us that these big animals that we find in the ground died out 65 million years before humans ever existed that's what the textbooks tell us that's what the college classroom professors will tell us these big animals the dinosaurs 65 million years and you know based on how they try to organize their rock layers and this and that they say oh science tells us that they died out 65 million years before man ever existed so surely this definition of millions of years and common answer it must be true because of the dinosaur do you not believe dinosaurs existed also how do we answer that and the answer is I'll give it to you in a big you know if you want to condense it you can condense it however but of course dinosaurs existed because we I mean number one we observed that they existed based on the fossils we know that they had to exist don't ever deny that dinosaurs existed so how did they get here and what happened to them well what happened to them is fairly simple many species many kinds of animals have become extinct down through the years dinosaurs are one of those kinds they became extinct that's nothing new everything you know lots of different kinds of animals have become extinct how did they get here very simple on day six of creation week God created the dinosaurs along with the rest of the animals and a few hours later he created man and then woman and so forth and so that's that's how the dinosaurs got here huh that's a new one so you're saying dinosaurs and humans exist at the same time for a lot of people that's a new thought to me it wasn't a new thought I grew up believing that but for a lot of people that's a new thought to think dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time went the dinosaurs have eaten all the humans well no they live different houses and the you know tigers and humans exist right now we keep them in zoos and out far away places so no that's not reasonable so here's what I asked a lot of times I say you know if you really believe that 65 million year idea dinosaurs died out 65 million years before humans just think about if it's a reasonable okay think about is it reasonable if that were true no one no human has ever seen a living dinosaur that's essentially what that theory says in fact they're millions of years apart from each other no human has ever seen a living dinosaur if that was true would it make sense that we have all these ancient legends in ancient civilizations of people fighting dragons why do we have those legends if dinosaurs and humans never existed in the same place in time just think about that question number two if dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago is it reasonable we would find soft tissue unfossilized organic tissue in the bones of dinosaurs today that's not very common but it has happened is that reasonable if they all died out 65 million years ago and question number three is it is it reasonable that the Bible would have such a complete description of a diner of dinosaurs in it the Bible talks extensively about dinosaurs is that reasonable that would be true if no human has ever seen a dinosaur at any point huh and almost every time well of course the first question where does the Bible talk about dying I didn't know the Bible mentioned dinosaurs well number one you got to realize the word dinosaur was not brought into our vocabulary until the 1800s means terrible lizard or something like that so the word dinosaur is not in the Bible but the animal is in the Bible in fact I tell them you know there's only one animal in the Bible that I know of that the Bible gives an entire chapter to talking about that animal and guess what channel it is it's a dinosaur Job chapter 41 the entire chapter is about one animal a dinosaur and so that's new I'm gonna have to look that up and so anyway I point people to that but those three questions are good ones why would there be ancient legends about dragons if dinosaurs and humans never existed at the same time why would there be soft tissue found in dinosaur bones and why would the Bible describe dinosaurs in such detail okay so what about the dinosaurs now that's an answer to that one again yes yes that could be I'm sure if one of these you know one of these science creation science I think I've heard that but I couldn't verify it could you tell by that like which one was inside the other one which one was chasing the other human footprint in a dinosaur yeah I wonder who was chasing who but um not that's interesting yeah that's I I think I had heard that before probably in answers in Genesis or something so that's good anybody else time there's a lot more fossils of mammals and I understand the layers and the blood and all that but it seems like just doesn't seem like the layers would match up to that there's more mammoth there's more mammal at one period yeah well first of all that's another common fallacy that people buy into because it's in the science textbooks and that is that these layers are millions of years different that's just an assumption if you believe in this definition of evolution you just have to assume that every layers like millions of years older than the one above it millions of years you know that's an assumption but that's I think as far as I can tell a false assumption now are they older obviously this one would have to lay down at least seconds before the one above it maybe even hundreds of years but why does it have to be millions of years so the fact that those divisions are even there I think is something you got to prove that before you even point out the dinosaurs are in here the mammals are up here therefore dinosaurs are way way older that's that's that's an unproven unsubstantiated claim by evolutionists is the whole idea of the is they call the geologic column okay regarding the interaction woolly mammoths you find tools beside them I think those aren't necessarily just fossils are they're actually frozen hunks of flesh so that that's you know that's a different I would say it's probably true that dinosaurs whenever they became extinct was before could have been earlier than the mammoths I don't think they're in existence they're all extinct I'm also elephant girl hair or something the the the dinosaurs are when they became extinct I don't know but I yeah I'm not sure if that answer I'm not sure how that enters in that question you know as far as proof or non-proof I mean when you have these different clues the ancient dinosaur legends could you explain it away I suppose you could say oh well we just like to create big animals they just happen to look like a dinosaur maybe but at the same time they do look like dinosaurs and so that should be at least a clue to point us toward the truth and in a courtroom they look at all these when you're trying to find the truth about who created the murder every clue by itself may not be conclusive but it's still a clue it's still a roadside pointing in this direction and if you get the defendant on the witness stand pretty soon you have this sign pointing to him and you come over here from a completely different angle and that one also points to him and come around behind him and you got another line point to him after a while it becomes pretty obvious he's the guy who did it and that's what we have with the dinosaurs we have first of all the testimony of Jesus saying Genesis is true Genesis saying all the animals are created on day six that's that's a completely different direction you could go to from this but just what are the atheists observe they don't believe in Jesus or his resurrection but you do know that the legends exist you can google it and find out that the soft tissue was found in these dinosaur bones and you can go ahead and read the description and it looks a lot like these you know in Job there and it it appears to be the same animals we're talking about that we find buried in the in the in the ground so are these clues yeah and I think that the conclusion is again beyond beyond a reasonable doubt or even the preponderance of evidence no question these animals didn't die out 65 millions years ago but if you believe in evolution you almost have to believe that so it's more of a worldview thing is that that makes sense somebody else questions you can turn my carbon dating things like that do this test and then have that without knowing of certainty that the world is 15 billion years old how can you come up with a number this is this age right isn't there in my point there's got to be a level of faith in the people that you're saying this is 15 million years old or whatever it is, thereby saying okay then you have faith, you've got to have faith in what somebody is saying, because if I do, well you can guess I didn't deny that, I'm saying what I'm saying, you see what I'm saying, I wonder about that, I don't know. Well and the whole thing of faith is it is so important faith is important what we bring evidence into for is to help people discern who have no faith at this point the beginning of the conversation they have no faith they have no belief in God okay oh I'll meet you on your terms then and we'll talk about things that you can find out without any faith I eventually want to lead you to faith but before I lead you to faith let's talk about things that you can verify what about the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus that's something that ought to appeal to you just by being a logical person just by being reasonable I mean you don't have to have faith to start this journey so let's go ahead and meet you where you're at we can talk about the evidence from the Bible from you know creation we can talk about the law of cause and effect these things aren't limited to people of faith these are things everybody can observe them even an atheist can observe them and eventually I want to lead you to faith that this is the Word of God and Jesus really did die on the cross and he is the Son of God and and the things that go with it so the thing about carbon dating incidentally you know it's if you look at what how it works I point this out with you I say carbon dating you know it's based on the half-life of carbon-14 which is a half-life of 5732 years or something like that and it's based on not the existence of something in a fossil but the non-existence so the non-existence tell us how much carbon-14 is in this little thing that you're testing and in order to come up with the age of it then you have to assume how much was in it originally and how fast it decayed which we do kind of know that based on current conditions we don't know what the conditions were back then but you got to assume a whole bunch of things that just simply you you can't prove and they're not even necessarily reasonable to assume everything's been the same all the way up through and that's even to come up with a hypothesis that carbon dating works but let's suppose it is a reasonable hypothesis let's suppose after you do all the examination that it's reasonable okay I see what you guy who came up with carbon dating yeah I see that makes kind of sense now let's test this hypothesis to see whether it works in the history of mankind we've never been able to test it it's an untested hypothesis because in order to test it now I'm talking about the older years you would need something that you know is say 5,000 years old and then run carbon dating on it and you should come up with the same date we've never had that test piece over here to run the past and say okay we think maybe carbon dating works so let's test it by something that we know and then we'll know whether it really works we've never had that other thing to test it with it's an untested hypothesis it might be a reasonable hypothesis but nobody's able and the only time we've been able to test it is when there are things that we know how old they are like a freshly killed seal well we know how old that thing was he was alive yesterday today he's dead let's test it by carbon dating and that's been done over and over again and guess what every time well not every time multiple multiple times carbon dating simply fails fails fails over and over again so the things that we do know how to test it it fails why would we think that the older lives somehow it's all inaccurate but that's a that's I think that's the the position of a lot of people who support it now well it doesn't work until you get past 200 years old which is another way of saying you got to accept it by faith you know same thing about evolution well it really doesn't happen you know in a few generations it's got to take multiple you know before these bacteria turn into dinosaurs and elephants and bananas oh it's gonna take millions of years which means what you got accepted by faith so one last question we want to address and this was a question I did not have on my list initially but then I got this newsletter billboard evangelism and inside was a caller question you know what the question is it's how can I know that I am born again I thought after Jeremy had his children's lessons okay we got at least touch on this one and so what they did was after getting this question they asked a number of us team members well how would you answer and after got all these things compiled they put it together in a little article and they greatly reduced it obviously but I thought I'll just share this with you and I'll just share with you what the the answer to this question is how can I know that I am born again one day a Pharisee named Nicodemus came to Jesus with a question Jesus told him that unless a person is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God this confused Nicodemus how could he is an adult be born a second time Jesus was speaking about a spiritual birth rather than a second physical birth the spirit is like the wind you can't see the wind blow but you can feel it and see the results so the wind blows in the tree branches move you can't see where the wind is coming from but you can see what it is doing that is one way to know if you are born again is the spirit moving and doing things in your life for instance something might tell you to give a $20 bill to a homeless person or to pick up a hitchhiker and speak to him about Jesus by default we do selfish things but when we're born of the Spirit our default changes we then want to please God rather than ourselves if you are born again other people can see it by the changes in your life and then there's some questions I'll read some of these questions about here's some questions to ask yourself about being born again but let me just mutton so just based on what I first read born again whoever wrote that last part there is the difference between being selfish which is the default before we're born again and unselfish now I know this just simply disappear whenever we're born again but remember the default here the default is I give in to the selfish before I'm born again but as I'm born again the unselfish is I just know I belong to Jesus and that that changes so these are some good questions so here are some questions I'll just do this in closing here are some questions to ask yourself have I truly humbled myself and do I continue to humble myself and we can look at Matthew chapter 18 verses 1 to 4 there's a number of scriptures here I thought about reading them here this morning I think we won't take the time to do that but this is this is where this comes from these are their scriptural basis for these questions number number one again have I truly humbled myself and do I continue to humble myself is that my way of life number two have I repented and turned from sin surrendered my life to Jesus or the word the Bible uses the word believe have I repented believed and been baptized as commanded by Jesus let me say that again have I repented and turned from sin surrendered my life to Jesus and been baptized as commanded by Jesus number three have I truly forgiven from my heart those who have wronged me number four do I have a hunger and thirst for righteousness number five do I have a hatred for sin number six do I continue to put to death the deeds of self my sinful nature and number seven am I continuing to abide in the vine the Lord Jesus through Bible reading prayer and obedience to his commands I think those are some really good really good questions we can ask ourselves you know we're challenged as believers were challenged in 2nd Corinthians 13 5 examine yourself whether you be in the faith of those questions were good questions that we can use to just examine ourselves when we bow for prayer and I'll give the time back to brother Glenn father we come to you in the name of Jesus and we thank you for this morning we thank you Lord for your word and the answers it has for us for life the answers it has for questions the the fact that it's quick and powerful and it's sharper than a two-edged sword sharper than a razor cutting between soul and spirit Lord I pray God that you would you would just let that word be sharp to us this morning and examine us and Lord lead us help us to examine ourselves and father if there's any here that have not been born again or have fallen away Lord in any way I pray God that you would call them to yourself and Lord I pray that your light would shine in our hearts and your light would shine in the community around us and your light would shine in the dark world in which we live thank you God for all you've done in Jesus name