Why is it necessary to study evidence for the Bible?

• Do you really believe the Bible?

• A survey of 10,000 ministers in various denominations in the US in 1987 showed that most did not!

How can we prove the Bible is literally the word of God?

• Internal evidence

  • Acts 18:28

  • Prophecies of the Messiah

    • At least 16 were fulfilled in a 24-hour period, many by Jesus’ enemies.

    • Zechariah 9:9; 11:12-13; 13:7; Isaiah 53:7; Psalms 22:16, …

• External evidence

  • Psalm 8:8 – “paths of the seas” (written ca. 1000 B.C.)

    • Admiral Maury, “Pathfinder of the Sea” discovered fixed paths in the sea in 1855 A.D.

  • Isaiah 40:22 – “circle of the earth” (written ca. 700 B.C.)

    • 1492 A.D. – Christopher Columbus

    • 1520 A.D. – Man discovers the world is round. Ferdinand Magellan’s crew circumnavigates the globe.

  • Leviticus 17:11 – “life of the flesh is in the blood” (“life” used in the sense of “breath”) (written ca. 1450 B.C.)

    • 19th century – Still practicing blood letting.

    • George Washington killed by blood letting.

  • Job 38:1-6, 12-14 – “changed like clay under the seal”, i.e., the earth rotates like clay under a seal (written ca. 2000 B.C.)

    • 1851 – Foucault’s Pendulum demonstrated the rotation of the earth.

  • Jeremiah 33:22 – “the host of heaven cannot be numbered”

    • Hebrews 11:12

    • 150 B.C. – Hipparchus: < 3000 stars

    • 150 A.D. – Ptolemy: 1020 stars listed

    • 1608 A.D. – Galileo: Stars uncountable

    • Current estimates: More than 2 trillion galaxies, more than 7x1022 total stars

  • Genesis 17:11-12 – circumcision on the 8th day (written ca. 1450 B.C.)

    • There is a cascade of reactions involved in the clotting of blood, which results in production of fibrin.

    • Fibrin clot acts like a stringy fishnet to hold red blood cells together.

    • Vitamin K is required by the liver for the formation of prothrombin and Facts XII, IX, and X. Vitamin K is generated by bacteria in the body.

    • Prothrombin peaks at 110% of normal on day 8, making it the best day for surgery.

Faith is a must! Hebrews 11:6

There are those who claim to believe in the God of the Bible, but actually do not.

• Jews?
  • Do not accept Jesus as God.
• Muslims?
  • Accept Jesus as a prophet, but not as God.
• Jehovah’s Witnesses?
  • Teach Jesus as a created being.
• Mormons?
  • Believe humans can become gods, that there is a hierarchy.
• United Pentecostals?
  • Do not believe in the three persons of God.
• Some preachers say Jesus had doubts about who He was or that He was divested of divinity.

Who is the God of creation?

• Genesis 1:26-27

• Immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, sinless

• Father (John 3:16), Son (Hebrews 1:8), and Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3-4)

  • One God, three separate individuals.

  • Paganism/polytheism is belief in multiple deities. God is one!

• Exodus 5:1-2 – Pharaoh asked this question.

• Exodus 3:13-14; 6:2-3 – Jehovah is the personal name for God, for the Godhead. The name means, “I am” or “the existing one.”

• Matthew 3:3 – Jesus is Jehovah! (quoting Isaiah 40:3)

  • John 8:57-59, 24

• Jehovah is one God. Three persons with the same attributes.

  • Immutable

  • Omniscient

    • Psalms 139:1-6; Matthew 12:25

    • I Kings 8:39 – Only God knows the hearts of men.

    • Matthew 12:25; Luke 6:8-11 – Jesus had this ability.

  • Omnipotent

    • Genesis 17:1; 1:26-27

    • John 1:1-3, 14

    • Colossians 1:16-17

    • John 10:17-18

    • John 2:19

    • Jesus retained his power and raised Himself from the dead.

  • Omnipresent

    • Psalms 139:7-12; Colossians 2:9; John 1:48-50 – The all-seeing eye of God!

    • John 3:13

  • Sinlessly perfect

    • Hebrews 6:18

    • Hebrews 4:15 – Jesus was tempted but was sinlessly perfect.

    • Jesus never wanted to commit sin. We should learn from His example.

Hebrews 10:31; Isaiah 45:9; II Thessalonians 1:7-9

The gospel – the good news.

• Obeying the gospel: II Thessalonians 1:3-9

• Romans 14:11

Since the 1800s, the social gospel has become more prevalent as people stop searching for truth.

Darwin started as a theology student but ended up as an atheist.

If there is no God, there is no basis for morality. I Corinthians 15:19, 32

The consequences of atheism and evolution

• Jeffrey Dahmer said he committed his crimes because he was an atheist.

Hebrews 11:6 – We must have faith!

• Hebrews 11:1

• Some do not engage more in personal evangelism because of a lack of faith.

• Biblical faith: something you know, not because you’ve seen it, but because you’ve examined the evidence.

• Romans 10:17

• Faith is the strong conviction that causes you to stop doing what you want to do and start doing what God wants you to do.

  • Examples: Noah and Abraham

• I Peter 3:15

• Jude 1:3

• Acts 18:28; Philippians 1:16

Does God exist?

• Does something exist?

• Has something always existed or has something come from nothing?

  • Something cannot come from nothing; therefore, something has always existed.

• Is this always existent something material (physical) or non-material (spiritual)?

  • The two basic laws of all science:

    • 1st Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can be converted from one form to another but cannot be created or destroyed.

    • 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: The total amount of entropy is always increasing. Isaiah 51:6

  • Material things run down, thus they cannot exist forever. Thus the always existent something is spiritual – God!

• Yes, God does exist!

Atheists do not approve of their concept of God; therefore, they do not think He exists.

• Atheists say pain proves there is no God.

  • The opposite is true.

  • What kind of world would it be without the protective mechanism of pain receptors?

  • There are additional reasons for pain.

    • Free will allows us to suffer from personal wrong choices.

    • Free will allows us to suffer from the wrong choices of others.

There are other ways to prove the existence of God.

• Law of teleology – where there is design, there is a designer.

• Psalms 19:1; 139:14

• The cell membrane shows intelligent design!

• Romans 1:20

Why not theistic evolution?

• Because evolution is scientifically wrong!

  • The Bible indicates that man and dinosaurs lived side by side.

    • An iron hammer was found embedded in rock containing fossils.

    • A trilobite fossil was found inside a human footprint

  • The “horse series” of evolution

    • “never happened in nature” – George G. Simpson

  • What about evolution’s “Biogenetic Law?”

    • “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.” – Coined by Ernst Haeckel

    • The idea that embryo development goes through adult forms of ancestors as they develop.

    • Haeckel redesigned the middle stages to support his idea. It was a fraud discovered in 1921.

    • The fraud continues to be taught because it gives comfort to those who approve of abortion.

• Because evolution is Biblically wrong

  • The Bible’s order of creation totally contradicts theistic evolution.

  • There are no bad mutations or trillions of dead ends in Genesis. God said His creation was good!

  • The Bible does not allow for vast periods of time, only six literal days.

    • Genesis 1:5 defines one, 24-hour day!

    • Exodus 20:8-11

The impact of evolution on society

• “Survival of the fittest” = “Might makes right”

• “If it feels good, do it.” – Darwin, paraphrased

• How has indoctrination with evolution affected our society?

  • It has not helped us spiritually!

    • Hebrews 13:4; Matthew 5:28; 18:6

  • It has not helped us academically.

  • It has not helped crime or suicide rates.

John 8:32

Museums of natural history all over the world proclaim Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 – Is this fact or fiction?

Evolution – fact or fiction?

What is evolution?

• The general theory of organic evolution.

• It is a theory – not a fact.

• All living things have arisen from a single source (molecules to man, “Atom to Adam”)

• This should not be confused with the “special theory” of evolution. This is breeding genetically compatible living things together. This kind of evolution is a fact!

• Evolutionists’ “bait and switch”

  • Variation in a kind vs. change from one kind to another.

  • Peppered moth – “Darwin’s missing link”

    • Proof of evolution?

      • Falls far short of a mechanism for evolution.

      • This is just a change of demographics.

      • Also, the moths fly at night and do not rest on tree trunks!

      • Later experiments showed that moth colors did not change to match the tree trunk colors as expected.

Evolution is not a scientific theory

• Evolution is unproven and not subject to the experimental method.

• Evolution is a philosophy which relies on time for its miracles. That makes it a religion!

• The only proof for evolution is not wanting to believe in creation.

• Evolution is a religion that:

  • Is atheism

  • Contradicts the 2nd law of thermodynamics

  • Contradicts the law of biogenesis

  • Preaches the false concept of spontaneous generation

  • Evangelizes by “academic peer pressure”

Science against evolution

• Is evolution even mathematically possible?

  • What are the odds that unthinking molecules could eventually become a thinking human being?

  • The “simple cell” contains 1012 bits of information, equivalent to a hundred million printed pages.

• Evolutionary trees did not “evolve” from fossil data.

  • There are no transitional fossils at all!

  • The actual content of the geologic column

    • All kinds of creatures present in full complexity at the bottom of the column.

  • The process of fossilization itself indicates a massive catastrophe, not slow deposition.

  • The abundance of polystrate fossils causes problems for the slow deposition theory.

    • What is the age of the fossil strata?

    • What is the method of formation?

• What about dinosaurs?

  • The Bible says man coexisted with all the animals, which would include dinosaurs.
    • Job 40:15-24

• Bombardier beetle

  • How would the prototype beetle evolve without blowing himself up?

John 8:32; Romans 1:16