Answers In Genesis - Sunday School - Week 18

Let's go ahead and pray. And we'll jump into our material. Lord, we thank you so much for your goodness and just for being our Father. We know, Lord, as, you as our Father that you look at us and that you have strong feelings of love and pride as it were, and as you look at your children.

And you wanna see us grow and succeed and to, and to honor you and just, and, and we thank you for all the many ways that you express your love for us, even the ways that you've put hints of yourself in our own hearts and, and image, in the hearts of fathers and mothers and children as they relate to one another. We thank you, Lord, for your word. We ask God that you would guide us this morning as we continue to gaze at your word, help us to hold it in high esteem. And this we pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen. All righty. we're gonna Do a little bit of a review and then the, the big idea this morning is we're gonna be talking about an interesting topic called dinosaurs. And raise, raise, are you guys getting the emails from CCC?

Raise your hand if you're getting the emails. OK, raise your hand if you're not getting an email from me about this class. Hey. All right.

That's pretty good, pretty good. All right, that's excellent. so I sent a couple of articles, maybe if you had a chance to take a look at those just as a preview, give you guys a little bit of a, a warm up. let me just first of all, talk about why I think this is such an important topic while on one side you can call it a minor issue.

On another side, it's, it's pretty important. It's why it's part of our curriculum. I may have told this story before, but I'm Of studying as I often do. I have many different offices around the Inland Empire.

Many of them are taco shops, but the qualification is they have to have a place where I can plug in my laptop, free Wi Fi. And they'll let me sit there for a long time eating chips and salsa, drinking coffee. And, and then another little bonus is if they have a TV in the background where I can reward myself for my diligent studies by looking up at the score of the respective football game or baseball game. And so I'll study at these locations and it's not uncommon to just be in one of these places and I'm trying to get something done and lo and behold, the Lord brings somebody and says, hey, what are you doing?

I'm just like, Lord, I don't have time for this. I'm studying. No, you, what are you, what are you gonna do? I'm studying the Bible.

I'm talk, I'm getting ready to teach a Sunday school class or a doctrine class. Oh, what's that? Before it, I'm in a conversation with somebody. And I'm in, I get into one of these conversations with a guy, several, several months ago and, trying to turn things to the gospel.

And as soon as I try to move towards the gospel, what do you think he asked me? I can't believe all that nonsense. I believe in dinosaurs. The Bible doesn't say anything about dinosaurs.

And if it does say anything, it's wrong. And so we, so, and this is not uncommon. I, I, I love just getting into conversations with just people out there who just have not had much contact with the church and just gauge their thinking, love to, to ask questions. If you guys remember a couple of years ago, we, we did the apologetics course on tactics where you just kinda ask questions to kinda see what people are thinking and I've really enjoyed using that method.

And it's surprising how many times people bring up the topic of dinosaurs, or they'll bring up the topic of the flood, how, how, how, how it's just a bunch of nonsense that the Bible talks about this flood and Noah, and then how did Noah get all the dinosaurs on the ark and that thing. And then just in pop culture in general, we just had, I think it was it Jurassic Park 4 came out, really cool movie. And I like the Jurassic Park movies, but of course, you watch them and what do you learn from those movies that dinosaurs existed long before man, millions of years ago, then they were, they died out.

We know from those movies because Jeff Goldblum, we know he's a wonderful scientist, he has all kinds of knowledge.

That he looks, gazes at the end of one of the movies and he sees a bird, and by the reflection in his eye, he's just looking at, isn't it so amazing that all the designs, the synosaur, the dinosaurs evolved into our birds today. And and Jeff Goldblum is, he's a scientist, so it must be true. and, and that's, and, and then the kids, they. if you watch any of the kid movies, although there is one new dinosaur movie, what's that called?

The Good Dinosaur? Have you guys seen the previews for The Good Dinosaur? what's unique about that movie? It has humans and dinosaurs living at the exact same time.

I don't know why they do that. But we'll talk about that. It's interesting that there's a, at least a, a Neanderthal type of kid. or maybe a more advanced Neanderthal kid that's running around with a dinosaur.

So it's very interesting. Say it again. And Hey, to me, that's one of the ultimate proofs that dinosaurs did live with human beings is Land of the Lost. Chaka is one of my favorite actors of all time.

Chaka's just amazing. Anybody remember Chaka? OK, yeah, I love him. Ron Howard's son or brother?

so, and so dinosaurs in our, in pop culture, the whole topic of dinosaurs is used by some people to just dismiss the gospel. If somehow we can say that we know that dinosaurs existed 65 or were destroyed 65 million years ago. We know that man never lived alongside dinosaurs and the Bible doesn't ever mention the word dinosaur anywhere in the Bible. In fact, let me ask you guys this question.

I, I've let the cat out of the bag, but how many times does the word dinosaur show up in the Bible? 0 times. So that proves it right there. If, if the Bible doesn't mention dinosaur anywhere in the Bible, and yet we have fossil evidence, we know that dinosaurs exist, then clearly the Bible is an ancient book that can't be trusted.

Let's, let's start with a couple, questions and we're gonna do a little bit of review here. How does the purple polka-dotted unicorn display the glory of God? How do you guys feel? How do you guys think the purple polka dotted unicorn displays the glory of God?

Yeah, if there's no such thing, it'd be difficult for a purple polka-dotted unicorn to display the glory of God, right? let me read. Just a little section here. Imagine this, imagine somebody writing this tribute.

To the Lord and His creative powers and His glory. This is not from the scripture, it's make-believe, kinda somebody's writing a song or writing a poem. And it goes like this. When I consider how creative God is, I think about hummingbirds with their shimmering iridescent feathers.

I think of majestic birds like the peacock or the vibrant color of the Amazon parrots or the brilliant patterns on tiny poison dart frogs and the amazing tongue of the chameleon. He has made creatures that can fly using all kinds of wings, bats, birds, butterflies. Even people can fly in an airplane. God's created people.

The magnitude of graceful antelope roam the plains of Africa alongside the gallant lion and the imposing elephants. In the oceans, we find miniature creatures that produce their own glass houses, fish with striking patterns of color and texture, lobsters with probing claws, the great whales that travel the globe in search of food, and many other amazing creations. Oh. And don't forget about the amazing strength and beauty of the purple polka dotted unicorn with its long horn and flowing mane, the purple polka dotted unicorn alone demonstrates God's power and creativity.

Don't you agree? How does this read to you? How does this strike you, this, this narrative? Yeah, that seems strange?

Talking about all of these wonderful creatures, God's creation. And then, and, and, and we're ascribing glory to the Lord, albeit in somewhat of a poetic form. But then we get to the purple polka dotted unicorn and everybody goes, that just, it's like the Sesame Street, one of these things does not belong. And it's the purple polka dotted unicorn, right?

Well, we're gonna be looking in a, in a little bit here at Job chapter 4 or 40 in Job 41, where we see a very similar script. Where many different animals that everybody would agree are literal animals are listed as a, as, as, as putting on display the glory of the Lord. And then there's gonna be the description of what is called the Leviathan and Behemoth. And many modern interpreters would look through this poetic section of scripture and say that all the animals leading up to Leviathan and Behemoth are literal, but Behemoth and Leviathan are mythical creatures.

And we're just gonna see, we're just gonna ask the question hermeneutically, does that fit? Can we really make a good argument for Leviathan and Behemoth being mythical creatures? And if not, what were the Leviathan and the Behemoth? And I believe it does.

touch upon our topic. Today. So, let's do, actually, this is not review, this is a little more of a setup. back to the whole dinosaur thing.

I didn't realize how popular this campaign is, but, This whole, we have the fossils, we win. Did anybody take a look at that, on the, I don't know if you've ever Googled this. This is all over the place. There's t-shirts, bumper stickers, there's a whole website here.

This FSM, does anybody know what that means? The Flying Spaghetti Monster. This is a mock religion that says it's so ridiculous to believe in the God of the Bible. They've made up their own religion called the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

And they, and they say, we're gonna, we worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and they, they're trying to enter their Flying Spaghetti Monster into parades. They're putting up their Flying Spaghetti Monster next to nativity scenes and so on and so forth. But part of notice that the Flying Spaghetti Monster, part of the rationale is we have the fossils. You don't.

And so we win. recently, Answers in Genesis, to the chagrin of many scientists, modern scientists, bought, an amazing, dinosaur fossil for the, museum in, in Kentucky, and, one of their cartoonists drew this cartoon, everybody wearing their, we have the fossils, we win. well, they've, they've got this incredible fossil that anybody would love to have, and really, what does that mean? What does it mean that if you go to various museums, they've got fossils, I took, we took our family on this vacation a couple of years ago and it seemed like every single place we went, people were telling you how, how all these fossils were and how many millions of years this canyon was and so on and so forth.

It was interesting. I, I, I wouldn't ask these questions and you gotta be careful. Try to just ask these questions, ask questions just very politely and just say, well, things like, how do that? And it was interesting how people would speak so authoritatively when they were giving the dates, but then you would ask a very simple question.

In fact, my son, he, he would just say, how do that? And people just, it'd be interesting the answers you would get. They would just say, well, everybody knows that. And then, I've been teaching my children logic and how do you, how to respond to questions and to just say everybody knows that is not a very good argument.

Right? You've got to make an argument. and, but it's amazing how many people just don't have the argument. OK.

So let's, let's do just a real, real quick review. we've talked in the past, Hebrews 11:3, from what did God make the universe? What does Hebrews 11:3 say? Nothing.

You made the universe from nothing. and Hebrews 11:3 indicates that is the concept or the subject of origins, according to Hebrews 11:3, a matter of faith or a matter of science. It's a matter of faith, right? the debate of origins is a matter of faith because we're talking about things, that cannot be seen.

Right? So we're not talking about the scientific method. Do you guys want to go back and read it? It seems like I'm getting a lot of blank stares.

Let's go back and read it real quick. Hebrews 11:3. Maybe you're just not drinking the coffee I am. Hebrews, James, Peter, John Revelation.

OK, so Hebrews 3 with my 6 font Bible. By faith, we understand that the universe was created by what? The word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. So the writer of Hebrews is making some pretty amazing statements.

He's saying that we know that the things that are seen were made by things that are not visible. So, stuff comes from non-stuff. And we know this not because of the scientific method, but because of what? Faith.

So this is primarily a faith venture, at least we're talking about matters of origins. Where did the universe come from? we've talked in the past that it seems that even some pretty heavy hitters in science would agree with this. We've looked at this quote in the past.

Paul Davies, a, a physicist and evolutionist, says the Big Bang represents the instantaneous suspension of physical laws, the sudden abrupt flash of lawlessness that allowed something to come out of nothing, it represents a true miracle. He says something came out of nothing. He's just basically reciting Hebrews 11:3 for us. He's also saying that it's a true miracle, that it's an instantaneous suspension of the physical laws, a sudden flash of lawlessness.

What is that? Faith, right? This guy has faith, we have faith, we have different starting points, but I can really appreciate the fact that at least he's being, saying that this is a faith matter. So why is this more scientific than in the beginning God created?

It just isn't. We're talking about metaphysics, you're talking about a faith venture. Right? is the creation order of Genesis compatible with evolutionary view of origins of the universe?

We've demonstrated in this class. No, the order of events in the creation is inconsistent with the evolutionary model. On the left, you have evolution. The theory, sun's, stars existed before the Earth, sun is the Earth's first light, so on and so forth.

You compare to the right, completely different order. So, secular scientists that look at the Bible conclude rightly that Genesis one is incompatible with the order of evolution. So what do Christians do? You have to, you have to abandon the order in evolution and come up with a different interpretation of Genesis 1, that it's not historical, it's not, we're not, we can't follow the historical literal grammatical method that seems to be on display in Genesis 1 and 2.

We have, it has to be either poetic or something else because it clearly violates the order that we see in the evolutionary theory. We've, as we go to the Bible and we try to look at it following a literal historical grammatical method, we do believe that we're looking at historical narrative and so we come up against a word like day which in the past we've said is similar to a word like run. What does run mean? So, yeah, it depends on the context.

It could be a run in your pantyhose. You could run to the store. I could have a runny nose. we looked at a number of different things, right?

What does they mean? Depends on the context, right? We could talk about the great terrible day of the Lord, which is clearly referring to a longer period of time at the end of history. We can talk about, back in the day when I used to have a mullet and dress like Bono, we can, there's all kinds of things, so it depends on the context.

It could be a literal 24 hour day, it could mean a lot of different things. what does they mean in Genesis 1:5, 8, 1319, 23, 31? We've argued in this class that if you're following the literal historical method, that there's really only one way to take this word based upon if we're gonna say what would the original audience have understood this word to mean. That is the Israelites that are sitting on the other side of Canaan, about ready to cross the Jordan to go in and take the land and Moses is reminding them of their history, and would they read this and come to the natural conclusion that this does not mean a day.

Just a normal day. No, there's no way that the original audience would ever come up with any other interpretation of Yom other than this is the day. And we know this partially from the text and all the different textual indicators, but we also know it as we look at the broader context, we can compare scripture to scripture, that's called the analogy of scripture. We go to something like X's 20.

Is it, is this all like just old hat and you guys are just like, Mike, move on. I'm trying to, I, I, I, I've been gone so long and I, I can't remember where, what we've covered and what you guys have forgotten. This helps me. So if it helps me, we'll do it, OK?

All right, let's, let's, let's, this one, let's look at excess 20 again because I, I just want to make sure that we have this foundation. Exodus 28 chapter 20 verse 8. So, OK, so here's one of the hermeneutical principles that we've talked about in the class and that is this, that when a word has a certain definition in a context, you can't suddenly completely change the understanding of that word in the same context unless there's clear contextual indicators to make you change the meaning of that word.

So for instance, like in Matthew 20 something, when the sheep and the goats section When Jesus says, these will go away into eternal life.

But the goats will go away into eternal punishment. Whatever eternal means when it's connected to life in that context, it must also mean the same thing when it's connected to punishment. You can't say eternal life means forever and ever and ever and then, and then just a, a phrase later, say, well, eternal punishment here doesn't mean forever and ever, it just means for a short time. Does that make sense?

It's, it's one of our arguments for the eternality of hell is from the passage where you have the exact same word being used right next to each other and so whatever it means for eternal life, we know what eternal life is, so it must be eternal death, ever and ever and ever. So that's an argument for eternal nature of hell. We see a similar concept here in Exos 20:8 to 11. Let's remind ourselves of what's going on here.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 6 days you shall labor and do all your work, but the 7th day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Is there any confusion about what yo means in that part of our context? Yeah, it, it's not necessarily saying 24 hours, like, but the idea is there is a day of rest, right?

6 days, you're gonna work. One day you're gonna rest. That's a pretty clear concept. When my kids complain about having to do homework on Saturdays, I quote this verse.

I say, 6 days shall you work. One day shall you rest, right? and so we, and my kids don't say, Dad, day doesn't mean day there, OK? Day, no, no, we all understand what this means.

It's very, very clear. Just a natural, straightforward reading, makes it abundantly clear. And so if I can read my font. but the 7th day is the Sabbath to the Lord.

On it, you shall not work and so on and so forth. And here's the rationale in verse 11. For in 6 days, the Lord made the heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them and rested on the 7th day. Therefore, the Lord has blessed the Sabbath day.

Whatever day means in the first part of the context, it must mean in the second part of the context unless there's some clear contextual indicator to say, no, no, we clearly can't take it the same way because here's what Moses, or here's what God has said through Moses that makes us take that, that, that term differently. Does that make sense? And so it would be really, really odd for God to say through Moses, work on 6 days, rest on the 7th, for God created the world in over eons and eons and eons, 6 big eons that overlap, by the way.

And so, therefore, you should work on 6 literal days when God created on 6 figurative days that overlap these big huge eons.

We have no idea how long they are. The original audience would never in a million years, pun intended, come up with that interpretation. This wouldn't happen. OK, so that, so then that leads us to our, our philos and then we I'm sorry We also have the context.

Of, of Romans 5:10 that we've looked at in the past. We've tried to establish several different principles in this class that got developed in the first half in bibliology. One is hermeneutics, we've just talked about. And then the other thing is analogy of faith compared scripture with scripture.

The other thing is sufficiency of scripture, and we, we've tried to argue against, we've, we've denied what's called the two book theory. The idea that the Bible is authoritative, but the book of nature is equally as authoritative. And they both rest with the same amount of authority. when I was just a freshman, I don't know if you call it freshman, but a brand new seminary student at the master's seminary, one of the first classes I took was on bibliology.

One of the first lessons I ever heard from any of my professors was on the authority of scripture where he, he argued and denied the two-book theory and argued for the absolute authority of the Bible as the ultimate interp interpretation of reality. And whether we interpret the Bible rightly or wrongly, the Bible still is authoritative in and of itself, regardless of whether the human being has interpreted it right or wrong, because God is truth. He has truth in his mind, he has communicated truth to us.

He has made us in his image.

He's given us His word and as Christians, he's given us His Holy Spirit to help guide us in truth, not to guide us in all truth. He guided the apostles in all truth. But he's given us enough of the Holy Spirit and enough of his word to guide us generally in truth, though depravity does remain in our hearts. This is somewhat complicated.

Our, our philosophy of epistemology. But the basic idea is, is we come to the Bible and we say the Bible is God knows more than I do. And so my first starting point is gonna be the Bible. I'm gonna try to interpret all of reality through the glasses of the Bible.

Let me put them on. And then, and then I let the chips fall where they may. Now it could be that I've got the Bible interpretation wrong and then I go back and I reinterpret the Bible. But we don't look to the sixty-seventh book of the Bible as some people argue.

We start with the Bible. So starting with the Bible, can Romans 5:12 be synthesized with death and disease before the fall? OK, if we just start with the Bible. We're not looking out at what various people believe about.

their philosophy. Of what's happened in the past. We just start with the authority of Scripture. God knows more than we do.

He's the only one that was there. And we come to Romans 5:12. Therefore, just as sin came into the world. Through one man and death through sin.

So death spread to all men because all sin. So just as sin came into the world, when did sin come into the world? Through one man. And who is that one man?

Adam. So what this is arguing and, and if we had time, we could go and review all the different passages through the analogy of scripture. Sin came into the world through one man, that is Adam. Before Adam sinned, there was no Deaf OK, so we're gonna, I'm not gonna, let's, let's keep that in mind.

Starting with the Bible before sin came into the world, there was no what? Death. Death, the wages of sin is Death. Death occurs because God activated death.

God told Adam and Eve, on the day that you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, if, if you eat that tree, you shall surely what? die. They ate They died That's right, yeah. All have sinned fall short of the glory of God, the wages of sin is death.

Let's keep that in mind. And let's go to. All right, let's, let's go to a, a video that we haven't had a chance to show quite yet. Oh my gosh, we are at 9:37.

I am waxing too eloquent. let's, yeah, no, let's go ahead and show this video. This is still part of our review. Life was spoken into existence.

It's a product of the mind of God. There's tremendous diversity in life. And so what we're gonna do is take a look at an important concept that we see in the pages of Genesis. in the first opening phrases, we see the word kinds, kinds, kinds.

What does that mean? let's take a look at a short video to get a gauge. On what that means The universe displays incredible variety. Consider snowflakes.

Everyone is different. Every cloud is different. Every planet, every galaxy is different. This variety is just as visible among organisms.

Every individual is different from every other individual. Every giraffe has a unique pattern. Every zebra has distinct stripes. Every dog has a distinct personality, and every human is different from every other.

Despite all this variety, it's easy to see which of these belong in the same group. As different as deer are from each other, we still recognize them as deer. As different as finches are from each other, we still recognize them as finches. The same is true of plants.

There are thousands of species of orchids and thousands of species of grass, but we still call them orchids and grass. Modern scientists call each of these groups family. The Bible gives a clue about the origin of such variety. Genesis 1 says that God created distinct organisms after their kind.

In fact, he uses this phrase after its kind or after their kind 10 times in the creation account. What does the biblical term kind refer to? It is possible that in most instances these kinds are the groups of similar species that scientists recognize today as families. If so, God made an orchid kind, a grass kind, a deer kind, a finch kind, and many others.

Within these kinds, he placed potential for amazing. The creation of similar things with differences demonstrates that God loves variety and God loves unity. The best explanation for this is God's very nature. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, three persons in one loves both diversity and unity.

OK, cool. So we're actually gonna be coming back to that concept when we hit the arc and the flood. It, so that's all, a throwback review we talked about Genesis one, and the various states. Any questions on that?

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get a whole lot into that. Unless you guys have questions. Comments, criticisms. Or concerns?

All right then. Let's open up to Genesis chapter one. And let's take a look at some passages of scripture. Genesis chapter one, starting in verse 20.

I'm reading from a revised standard version. It's not my favorite version, but the font is bigger. And God said, Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of heaven. So God created the great sea monsters in every living creature that moves.

With which the waters swarm according to their kinds. And every winged bird according to its kind, and God saw that it was good, and God blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning and the 5th day. God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, cattle.

And creeping things, beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and it was so, and God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. In this section of scripture, we see the creation of things that are in the seas, things, things that are in the air, and animals that are on the earth. You'll notice, A very interesting term in verse 21.

In my version, it says sea monsters. What do you guys have there in verse 21 for your translations? Creatures, monsters, who else? Great creatures, yes.

So the idea of great and actually the idea, even though like monsters probably wouldn't be a good term for junior hires, especially if they've watched too many movies, if you're a little kid reading this and you see sea monsters, you're probably thinking, maybe Godzilla, Godzilla does come out of the sea when he appears. but you might be thinking of something a little more fanciful. But the idea is this is, this is something that the text is describing as a very large creature.

And then the same thing, the same type of idea would be had in, the term beasts.

Whatever we have here, this is, in these two days, there is the indication that all animals, birds, everything that's in the sea and the air and the land has been created on these days. OK. So that's our, our first starting point is, If we're taking the, the Bible at face value, it seems like our theory would be at this point is that whatever we find on the earth after the creation days, they were created here. you'll, so you'll notice in some of the, the pictures that like say Answers in Genesis puts together when they're showing like the days of creation, they'll show several different animals on these days, but they will show dinosaurs as one of the animals that are created on these days.

And I don't know about you, but me being raised in public school and being raised, going to a secular university, even to this day when I see dinosaurs in the backdrop of creation, like I, I haven't, I didn't grow up in very many Sunday school classes. They had the days of creation and one of the pictures has a dinosaur. I just didn't grow up seeing that. And so it is a little, it gives me a little bit of a double take.

To look up at a picture and see a dinosaur, and, and so they're clearly making a statement when they put dinosaurs on these days. and, and it's clearly, it clearly rubs against what I've been taught. No, nobody ever told me verbally. Dinosaurs were never created by God.

Nobody told me that verbally. Nobody ever verbally told me in public school, dinosaurs that I can remember dinosaurs never walked alongside of mankind. But I got that message loud and clear because even to this day when I see those pictures, I, I have to do a double take. Why are dinosaurs standing right there next to Adam and Eve?

That's, I, I should have paid attention to the land of the lost. If I'd have paid better attention, then I would understand. But when we come to the text and we look at the creation account, All animals, birds and sea monsters, sea creatures, things in the ocean are created on these days. And so that's, that's our starting point.

Now it could be that theoretically, maybe we're just totally wrong. Maybe. Maybe God had separate creations. Maybe there were certain things that were created hundreds of thousands, millions of years ago.

And we'll talk about some of these theories and future lessons. And then everything got wiped out by a big asteroid like we see in some of those little pre-movies, the little squirrel that's always running around with the acorn in those animated movies. And every one of those, there's some, he's messing up the evolutionary tale with running around for his acorn. And the most recent one, he's, he's, he's running around for the acorn that puts the whole solar system.

Into its arrangement and then he accidentally sends one of the asteroids from the asteroid belt flying towards the earth and the dinosaurs are looking up like, hey, what's going on? And the implication is they're about ready to get wiped out because of the squirrel, that the, the asteroids are coming to destroy the, and so, you're watching that little kid movie and, it's cute, it's fun. But the idea is, is you have these dinosaurs millions and millions of years ago that got wiped out somehow.

And it was maybe a squirrel trying to find its acorn in space that caused the asteroid to destroy the Earth, tongue in cheek.

Maybe so, maybe it was an asteroid that destroyed all the dinosaurs. there's various theories, but let's see if there's, is there any other evidence in the Bible other than the fact that the early parts of Genesis does speak of large creatures, does speak of God creating all things? Do we have any other evidence of, large creatures? Well, let's go take a look at the purple polka dotted unicorn passage.

Let's look at Job. And I, I say this, somewhat facetiously, but But I have, if you look at the various interpretations, Job Psalms, Ecclesiastes Song of Solomon. Job is There we go. Job 40.

some of my favorite interpreters will go through Job. And, and readily admit that you have real animal, real animal, real animal, real animal, real animal, mythical creature. And so let's, let's take a look at, at this context. actually, let's start with chapter 39.

And looking at chapter 39. in verse one, do when the mountain goats bring forth, do you observe the calving of the hinds? Now, do you guys remember the context? Who's talking here in 39 and 40?

God, who's he talking to? Job, right? So he's answering Job. Job has, you've had, you've got this whole drama that's been developed and finally now God is talking to Job and he's asking all these questions that basically amount to Who do you think you are?

Right? I've done, let me show you, let me show you my resume. Here's what I've done. I've created all these things and I know all these things, but everything I've created, who are you?

That's the basic thesis of chapter 39 and 40. Now, it's clearly poetry. We're, we're looking at, remember we've talked about couplets? Does Hebrew poetry have a rhyming scheme?

No. What's one of the key features of Hebrew poetry? Couple. Say it again.

Parallelism through couplets, right? Yeah, parallelism. Sometimes it's contrasting parallelism, sometimes it's not as parallelism, but Hebrew poetry, that's what it is. It's parallelism, parallelism, 22 ideas that keep flowing.

Sometimes you will have acrostics in the Hebrew, those are a lot of fun, right? They track down the Hebrew alphabet. Every line might start with the, the next letter or so on and so forth. so, we clearly have poetry here, so we'd expect to see, some metaphors and things like that.

But remember, even metaphors are meant to communicate literal ideas, right? So we need to determine how, how are these metaphors being used. So, God's talking, who are you type of thing. Verse 5, who has let the, the donkey go free?

Who has loosed the bonds of the swift, donkey? I'm changing the terminology here. Verse 9, for the sake of junior high school students. In the wild, is the wild ox willing to serve you?

Will he spend the night at your crib? So we're talking about a real ox. You could look down at verse 13, ostrich, stork, verse 19, horse, locust, hawk. Let's take a look at chapter 40, starting at verse 15 and let's make some observations.

So here we've got mountain goats, wild donkey, wild ox, ostrich, stork. horse, locusts, etc. And so, Let's look at 40, starting at verse 15 and see how this continues to develop. God says, starting in verse 15, behold, Behemoth Which I made as I made you, he.

Eats grass like an ox. Can somebody read their version out there of that verse? Who's got? Behemoth which I you like in OK.

OK, so we've seen all these literal animals. Now, God is going to make a really big argument here to Job, and he starts by saying, the behemoth which I made as I made you. OK, if he literally made me. It seems logical to me that he literally made the behemoth.

Does that follow? Does that seem to follow in the text? OK. And this behemoth eats grass like an ox.

What it does, it's like a vegetarian animal, right? Behold, his strength is in his loins and his power in the muscles of his belly. He makes his tail stiff like a cedar. We're gonna come back to that.

The tail is equivalent to a cedar. The sinews of his thighs are knit together. His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. Now we're clearly using a lot of similes and metaphors to describe this creature, which seems to be on the straightforward reading, a real creature because he, God made the behemoth just like he made.

Job, right? But then we're using figures of speech to describe how huge this thing is. Verse 19, he is the first work, first of the works of God. Let him who made him bring near his sword.

for the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play. Under the lotus plants, he lies in the covert of the reeds and in the marsh. For his shade, the lotus trees cover him, the willows of the brooks surround him. Behold, if the river is turbulent, he is not frightened.

He is confident, though Jordan rush rushes against his mouth. can one take him with hooks or pierce his nose with a snare? OK, so these are some of the descriptions. And so let's go back and just review.

Let me ask you guys some questions. What's the creature that's being described here? It's behemoth. What does the behemoth eat?

Grass. how is the size of the behemoth described? Yeah, it seems like, God describes him as chief or first. This doesn't mean he was created first, but there's some idea that the that the imposition of the size would rank him first, or it first.

His food comes from, a vast area. it takes many trees to give him shade. a raging river does not disturb him. how is the strength of the behemoth described?

His strength is in his hips with his powerful muscles and sinews. His bones are like bronze. he can face a raging river, cannot be snared. how is the tale described?

Huge tree. Yeah, we're talking about a cedar. So this is not, we've got some. little, little tiny trees have just been planted in our neighborhood.

this, this is a large tree. Where does the behemoth live? the description sounds like maybe he goes back, swampy lands or he's comfortable going into rivers. We're not really sure.

Who is able to subdue a behemoth according to Job, God's dialogue with Job? Who can Who can subdue this creature? Yeah. So the idea here is that this is, this is a very large animal.

God's basically saying, I created this thing and he's underneath my control, but who are you, Job?, do you think you can control the behemoth like I can? And so what is the main point of the passage? Jobba understand that there is a limit of his power in light of God's absolute power over creation. What does the pastor tell us about God?

That God has made both Job and Behemoth, and he has power over both of them. Would you guys agree with that? That if we're just taking a straightforward reading of this poetic passage that God is trying to demonstrate, I've created you. I've created the behemoth.

I have power over both of you. Job, who are you? That's the basic idea. Now what creature might God be describing to Job?

Some commentators have suggested that the behemoth is a hippo. Honestly, some people have suggested that the behemoth is an elephant since those are the largest creatures living today. at least on land. If any students have, Bible study notes, you can look, if you look at your Bible study notes, you probably see in your margin, it might say hippo, it might say elephant.

I doubt, unless you're, unless you've got like the Henry Morris commentary or something like that. Almost nobody's gonna say this is largely, probably referring to some type of dinosaur. Does anybody have dinosaur in your margin notes? Regiana, in your margin notes it says hippo.

OK, raise your hand if it says elephant. OK. this, I just wanna let, this doesn't have anything to do with the Hebrew word. Behemoth does not mean hippo, does not mean elephant.

This is just, grasping at what we see today on land and trying to make some association. the Bible Knowledge commentary identifies the hippo as the best explanation, though it says it may have been a dinosaur. so, we wanna argue that, that really there is, and I gotta do this in a short time, there is no doubt that God is describing a massive creature to Job. And it's a creature that Job is familiar with, right?

as, as God is developing his argument, it really wouldn't work if God brings up a creature that Job has never seen before, right? if he, and this is his big coup de grace. So it's something that Job's familiar with. One of the key characteristics is the tail of the behemoth, which is described as moving like a cedar tree.

Knowing that God is not describing a mythical creature like a purple polka dotted unicorn, this would just make absolutely no sense in the context. This must be a real creature. So, we're gonna make some conclusions here and you can decide whether you agree with these conclusions or not. I'm gonna conclude that it's a creature that God made, just like he made Job.

I'm gonna conclude that Job knows what this creature is, that he's seen it. And I'm going to conclude that this is a real creature, not a mythical creature, and I think those are logical deductions from the text. Right? You can agree or disagree, but that's what I'm gonna conclude.

The Bible describes the majestic cedars of Lebanon that were used as beams to construct the temple that Solomon built. Does an elephant or a hippo have a tail like a cedar tree? OK, let's take a look. Does a hippo or elephant have a tail that you would look where God would look at these tails and say, it's like a cedar.

I would say it's, it's, it's borderline ridiculous. And there's a reason why people favor this interpretation. It's not because of the text. It's because they're trying to get around the obvious embarrassment that this seems to be describing something that's very similar to what we would call today a dinosaur.

And since the common viewpoint is that dinosaurs could not have existed alongside of man, and that this passage seems to clearly be arguing that a dinosaur did exist alongside of man, this is an embarrassment, so we need to find some other idea. This tail looks like the tail of a cedar. Do the rest of the descriptions of the behemoth fit a sauropod dinosaur? Yes, it is the largest creature we know of and it has a tail like a cedar.

Now again, we have to, we have to say, It could be. There could be some other creature that we've never even discovered. We have no fossil record of. It could be something that's long died.

Whatever it is, it's huge. but this interpretation is rejected by most modern scholars because they reject the idea that dinosaurs ever lived alongside of mankind. To accommodate this view, they suggest the behemoth is a hippo, elephant, water buffalo. None of them have a tail like a cedar or could forge a river, a raging river with no concern.

DA Carson suggests this in the new Bible commentary that the behemoth is a hippo and explains the tale conflict by saying this. Here's what, and I love DA Carson. I, I, I don't want you guys to get the wrong impression. DA Carson is one of my theological heroes.

I love this guy. But here's what he has to say about this passage. Even his tail, though short and small, has the strength of a cedar. That's what he says about the hippo and the elephant to explain how the, the hippo and elephant could actually be what's being described here.

It's not the size, but the strength. the tail of the hippo is very small and it is quite a stretch of imagination to compare it to a cedar. From a biblical perspective, is there any reason that a dinosaur could not have been alive at the same time as Job? From a biblical perspective, we've established from Genesis 1 that God created all creatures on day 5 and 6.

Sea, land, and air. Even uses the term sea monsters, right? Great creatures, beasts. As we consider the seven seas of history, it appears, we would argue that Job perhaps and many, many Bible scholars would agree with this, even if they differ on the point of what this behemoth is.

That Job in all likelihood lift after the flood. shortly after the flood. Since the behemoth is a land animal, it would have been created on day 6. would have been alive alongside of man.

Some might suggest that the dinosaurs all died in the flood, but, the Bible tells us Pastor Milton did a good job developing this in the text that Noah took representatives of every land animal on the ark, so that, that would include, dinosaurs of various kinds. that would have been preserved after the flood. There's no reason from a biblical perspective that this could not be a description of a dinosaur, a creature Job was familiar with. Now, we're pretty much out of time.

we'll see if we can pick this up next week, but you can go, you can read through your own notes that were handed out. Take a look at chapter 41 where, we, we talk about Leviathan. And so the argument that we're making is basically this. That If we start with the Bible first, According to our epistemology that God's the only one that was there.

God is the one that has given us true, perfect information. The Bible, we're not saying that God hasn't revealed, God's clearly revealed truth in nature, but the only way to properly interpret that truth is through His absolute truth in the Bible. And so that's how we argue for the authority of Scripture. We start with the Bible.

The Bible tells us God created all creatures on 5 and 6, all land animals on day 6. God, in a context where he's talking to Job says, I created Behemoth just like I created you. If God didn't create Behemoth, according to that the logic, then God didn't create Job. God clearly did create Job, and so he did create Behemoth.

Behemoth is described as an animal that has a cedar-like tail that can stand in a raging river with no concern whatsoever. And it's so huge, Job knew who it was. It makes this point to Job that God is amazingly big because he can control probably the largest animal that Job's ever seen in his whole life. And that Job would be afraid to come anywhere close to it, right?

If this is just a purple polka dotted unicorn that just, that it just doesn't make any sense. God's argument would fall flat. and so, We would argue if starting with the Bible, there seems to be very good indication that dinosaurs lived alongside of human beings. And so in future lessons that, that begs the question.

If science knows, if it is an absolute fact that dinosaurs did not live alongside of human beings, then what are we to say to the scientific evidences out there that dinosaurs were destroyed 65 million years ago and never ever came alongside of human beings. We either have complete contradiction of the Bible. Or we've got to change our hermeneutical approach to the Bible. Which is what some do.

Or it could be that what we've been told are scientific facts are more worldview issues, that they're facts that are being filtered through a worldview. Man, I'm over time. Can I take like 4 more minutes? And then you guys can.

Take it out of my hide later. Let me, let me just give you this. So there's the biblical argument. Next week, we're gonna talk about the historical argument.

Is there any historical data that would suggest that just like the Bible, the Bible argues that dinosaurs lived alongside of human beings? Is there anything in history that would argue the exact same thing? By the way, the word dinosaur was invented in what year? 1841.

So, is, is it surprising that dinosaur never shows up in the Bible? No. Is it surprising that people never called dinosaurs dinosaurs before 1841? No.

What did people call dinosaurs before 1841? Dragons. Big creatures, things like that. And so, in the Sumerian story of Gilgamesh 2000 BC we see this, this huge creature, the, the hero Gilgamesh, he went to, to, take down cedars in remote forests.

He encounters huge and vicious dragons. That could just be a mythical tale. When Alexander the Great in 330 BC when his soldiers marched into India, they found the local people worshiped huge hissing reptiles that they kept in caves. Could be that that's just a mythical tale.

China, China is renowned for its dragon stories and dragons are a prominent part of, of Chinese pottery and so on, but it could be just myth. Who can overlook the story of Saint George, popular in England, which tells of the hero who slew the dragon that lived in a cave. Again, it could be just tales, you never know. In the 1500s, European scientific book Historia Animalium listed several living animals that we would today call dinosaurs.

This is in the 1,500s. In their list of animals, they have these huge animals that they didn't call dinosaurs, but they call them monsters. Ulysses Androvandas, a well-known naturalist in the 16th century, recorded an encounter in 1572, in Italy between a peasant named Baptista and a dragon whose description fits, that that is similar to, a particular type of dinosaur that I cannot pronounce because I'm not good with Latin. the peasant killed the dragon.

so we have many different accounts and history of large animals living alongside of human beings. Let's cut to the chase and talk about why this matters. What is the importance of our world today of having an explanation for the existence of dinosaurs on the earth? I think, I think actually it is important.

Because it is, everybody knows that dinosaurs existed. The fossil evidence is there. and we're being told a particular story about the existence of dinosaurs that completely contradicts a plain, straightforward reading of the Bible. And, and scientists know that.

They look at, they look, people that study the Bible and say science, look at the Bible and say this contradicts the accepted theories that are out there today that have been put forward in popular media. Knowing that the vast majority of books, movies, television programs teach that dinosaurs lived and died about 65 million years ago, how can we help children and others understand the issue from a biblical perspective? We'll sit down and just show them the Bible. Show them, show them Genesis.

I wonder how many people have really read Genesis, days 5 and 6 and been explained that this talks about sea monsters, this talks about beasts. This says that God created everything on these days. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about Behemoth and Leviathan that are in I described in Job.

Have you ever given that any consideration? how can dinosaurs be used as an opportunity to share the gospel? Well, many people are interested in dinosaurs today, so it presents many opportunities to begin a conversation with a lot of people. take them back to the perfect creation where dinosaurs lived alongside of men peacefully.

And then, the entrance of sin and how, how that, how we get to the gospel. how do we balance the scientific study of the fossils of dinosaurs and extinct creatures with what the Bible tells us about such creatures? We must make sure that we start with the Bible first. And if there's a conflict, it could be that our interpretation of the Bible is wrong, but if our interpretation of the Bible is right, we start and we end with the Bible.

Now, no doubt that's gonna lead to persecution or people laughing at us. What do we say about that? The reproach, the people have always been laughed at, who will take what the Bible says at face value. Before anybody knew that Nineveh was a real place, people laughed at people that believed in Nineveh.

Before people believed in the Hittites because there was no evidence of the Hittites, people laughed at people who believed in the Hittites. And then we found Nineveh, we found the Hittites. And if we have the right interpretation of scripture, we will find all these other evidences too. By the way, more and more creation scientists are jazzed about dinosaur research today because the way things are coming out.

what's, what's being discovered about dinosaurs today is really throwing the traditional views topsy-turvy because you're finding, here's some of the things we're finding is, is dinosaur bones that still have flesh on them. What we have, so flesh that's existed for 65 million years. that's not very logical. so you're finding dinosaurs that have flesh on them, you're finding, from a biblical perspective, the thing that we need to watch out for is it's very clear from the fossil record that the, that dinosaurs, are eating meat.

That they had things like cancer and disease, that they died of these diseases, that it was a very brutal existence based upon, you, you find evidences of various dinosaurs where clearly they were killed by another predator. And so it is absolutely obvious that whenever dinosaurs existed, they lived in brutal times with lots of death, cancer and disease. Does that sound like what was going on before the fall of Adam? And that's another, that's another huge issue is if you're going to accept the the present view of dinosaurs, then you have to reinterpret what Paul says in Romans 5:12, because Paul's very clear that before Adam's sinned, there was no death.

The wages of sin is Death. In the fossil record, we have clear cancer, sin, and death, millions of years before the evolution that led to Adam. According to modern theory. Yeah.

So, the dinosaur problem leads directly to the problem of a historical Adam and sin connected to death. So, we have, this, this is not necessarily a minor issue. With all that, I'll take questions up here, let me go ahead and pray. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. I think that is very helpful that we, that we help people see that the word dinosaur didn't come out until 1841.

And that's similar to, let me look back at my notes here. it's by way of analogy, The Bible doesn't say anything about schizophrenia or bipolarism. Does that mean that the Bible has nothing to say about those issues? Because the Bible doesn't use the term schizophrenia.

Of course not. the Bible is, is has been built to help man in, in his, in his issues, his or her issues. so just because we come up with brand new terms doesn't mean that now the Bible can't speak. But let's go ahead and pray and then we'll Come back together next week.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word. as John Calvin once said, we are just little children. being spoken to by a loving father, and we just repeat back to you what you tell us. you tell us things in your word that we don't always understand, and we just repeat it back to you and we say, yes, Lord.

Yeah, but we thank you that we can do so in great hope because you are Omniscient. Omnipresent, you were there, we were not, all things we don't. And yet you have given us your word, you've given us your spirit. And you're a kind, loving father to your children.

So we pray, Lord, that we would. Just trust your word and, and understand that as we look at your word, we can look out confidently at nature all around us and like Christians and believing scientists before us, we can confidently gaze and see a a comporting of your word with our natural world as we look at it rightly. Knowing that it has been created by you, spoken into existence, and yet there's been a fall, and so we see, we see order, we see chaos, and that order and chaos is explained very clearly through, philosophy given to us in your word.

We pray, Father, that Lord, you'd help us to speak, lovingly and gently to friends and family that may not know you as these issues come up.

Help us to point to the Bible, just trusting that you will open up, minds and hearts. Also help us to walk in humility knowing that we still have remaining sin and we can misinterpret your holy word. And so help us to be careful as we look at the Bible and as we make interpretations of our world. In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.