Can we trust the Bible’s account of a literal 6-day Creation? Find out with guests Dr. Jobe Martin and Eric Hovind along with hosts Tim Moore and Nathan Jones on the television program, Christ in Prophecy!
Air Date: May 1, 2022
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Transcript
Tim Moore: Greetings in the name of Jesus our Blessed Hope! On behalf of Nathan and myself, welcome to Christ in Prophecy.
Nathan Jones: Can the books of Genesis and Revelation really be taken literally? That’s the important question we’ve been addressing in this four-part Christ in Prophecy series titled Epic Battles of the Bible: Genesis versus Revelation. We’ve been showing you excerpts from our streaming conference which you can watch in its entirety on our Christ in Prophecy YouTube Channel.
We partnered with Eric Hovind of Creation Today Ministries and Dr. Jobe Martin of Biblical Discipleship Ministries to help us combat the abuse of God’s Word when one spiritualizes the interpretation of Scripture. To spiritualize means to argue that the plain sense meaning of Scripture is not its true meaning. People love to spiritualize the Scriptures because when they do, they can make the Bible say whatever they please, and in the process they get to play God. Spiritualizing one’s interpretation of the Bible inevitably results in diminishing one’s understanding of God and His plan of salvation. What a travesty!
Tim Moore: We here at Lamb & Lion Ministries instead firmly believe that the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, should be understood from a literal interpretation based on the Golden Rule of Interpretation: “If the plain sense makes sense, look for no other sense, lest you end up with nonsense.”
Nathan Jones: In our first episode, Eric Hovind addressed a controversial debate in Genesis: “A Literal Global Flood.” In our second episode, I addressed a controversial debate from the book of Revelation: “A Literal 1000-Year Kingdom.” If you missed these episodes, we invite you to watch them on our website at christinprophecy.org, our Christ in Prophecy Youtube channel, or download our Lamb & Lion App.
Tim Moore: In this episode, Dr. Jobe Martin swings back to the book of Genesis to address: “A Literal 6-Day Creation.” The Bible begins with these words in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” And, we believe that this biblical declaration is both literal and true, as Jobe will prove.
We’re going to pick up just after Jobe’s wonderful testimony about how he as an Evolutionist became a Creationist. Afterwards, we’ll come back and answer some of the more hotly debated objections skeptics have about the book of Genesis. And here now is Dr. Jobe Martin.
Jobe Martin: And so, let’s talk a little bit about those days in Genesis. Couldn’t those days in Genesis chapter 1 be indefinite long periods of time like a billion years each? That’s what I hear all the time in the churches where we go. And so, were they normal days, or were they long periods of time? Well, the Hebrew word that is used there is “yom,” that means day, and everywhere else in the Hebrew language that you have the word “yom” with a number, a numerical qualifier, day one, day two, day three, it always means normal day. That is how it reads in Genesis chapter 1.
Then also each of those days is half light and half dark. So, if you had a billion years, each day is a billion years, like Evolution demands, Evolution has to have billions of years, well then we’ve got a problem because each day is half light and half dark. So, you would have half a billion years of darkness, followed by half a billion years of unrelenting light. Well, we know that doesn’t work. And then you ask some questions like: How old was Adam when he died? Adam was 930 years old when he died. A Genesis 1 day is equal to a billion years. He lived through let’s say half of day six, all of day seven, so there is a billion and a half years, 930, so was Adam 1,500,930 years old when he died? No. No, we know that’s not true.
In Genesis 1:14, God tells us what He means by day, He said, “There were days, there were seasons, there were years.” Genesis chapter 1. Right in Genesis 1 He compares a day to a season and a year. Well, if a year is equal to a billion years, a day is equal to a billion years, how long then is a season? It is 90 days long, that is 90 billion years. If a day is equal to a billion years in Genesis 1, how long is a year? Well, you can’t do it. You absolutely can’t do it.
And then over here in Exodus right in the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:9 God says, to people, “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.” Okay, how long is a workday that we work? Is there any question about that? I mean does anybody go off and work for six billion years? No. We know what those words mean. It might seem like billions of years sometimes but those are normal days, right in the Ten Commandments. “For thou shalt labor, six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.” Well, then in verse 11 of Exodus 20 God says, “For in six days,” hey, the same kind of people, the same kind of days you work, God says, I worked and within a six day week, made up of the same kind of days you people work, I made the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that in them is. God says He worked normal days to do everything that He did, everything in the earth, the sea, the heavens, everything within a six day week of the same kind of days we work. That is as clear as it can be. Those days can’t be billions of years each.
And then in 2 Peter 3, God is going, He shows three judgments, He has Second Coming Judgment, the Flood Judgment of Noah’s day, the Fire Judgment that is yet in the future. And after he talks about those three judgment, which is scary if you don’t know Jesus as your savior. Well, maybe we ought to look at that, 2 Peter 3, and we’ll go down here to about verse 9, he says, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years…” Oh, oh, that means those days in Genesis could be any amount of time, right? He says right there, a day is like a thousand years. But they don’t finish the verse, people that use that argument, “…and a thousand years as one day.” God is not telling us the days in Genesis were like a thousand years each, he is telling us His heart. Now, how do we know? Because the next verse, look at what he says in verse 9 of 2 Peter 3, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Now, God is above time, but I think what He is saying here is, “Look here is my heart, as I wait for you to come to repentance. To put your faith and trust in Jesus, to be saved, to have your sins forgiven a day is like a thousand years.” But the day you come to repentance, if I waited a thousand years, it is like a day. I think that is all He is trying to tell us right there.
Alright so, the genealogies, people go, “Oh, yeah, but there could be millions of years missing in the genealogies, you know there is room to put your billions of years right there in the genealogies.” Well, let’s think about that for just a minute. If a genealogy, in the genealogies what do we have? Well, they are the tables of the generations of people. Now, what do Evolutionists say were the last things to evolve? People. Well, what does that mean? Well, that means people are already here because we have genealogical tables which is telling us the record of people. Everything else is already here because Evolution says the last things to evolve were people.
Well, if everything else is here then even if you had billions of years missing in the genealogical tables in the Bible, it wouldn’t help you with evolution because everything is here. And so, that argument doesn’t work. So, what can we do? We can just trust God that He has told us everything He wanted to tell us. And let me go here for a second. Okay, so what do we have in the genealogical tables? We know it was seven generations from Adam to Enoch, that is in Jude verse 14, so there is nothing missing there. And then we also know that Adam overlapped Lamech, Adam and Lamech, it was like Adam and Lamech hey, Lamech my great-great-great-great-great-grandson, I want to tell you something, “I shouldn’t have eaten of that fruit.” And Lamech then is Shem’s grandaddy, so Lamech comes and talks to Shem, “Hey, here is what your great-great-great-granddaddy Adam told me.” Then Shem comes through the Flood, out the other end, Shem overlaps Abraham by at least 50 years. Shem probably talked to Abraham, they all lived right around there. Well, what does that mean? There are no huge gaps in the genealogical tables. But it wouldn’t help you even if there were.
So, you have to decide what do I believe? Do I believe that God created everything about 6,000 years ago, just like He says in the Bible. That is all that we can get from the Bible. So, that means people at the very beginning. Mark 10:6, “God made male and female,” people “from the very beginning.” Well, when was the beginning? According to the Bible about 6,000 years ago. But if you say, “Oh, those days in Genesis they could be a billion years each,” well, then you are looking at the way Evolution looks at this whole thing, and what does that do? That puts man at the very end of about a 15 billion year period.
So, which one do you believe? Do you believe man at the beginning, like the Bible says, or do you believe man at the very end, the very last second geological speaking of a 15 billion year period? Which one? Which one do you believe? See down in your heart you have to decide, am I going to believe God’s Word, or Man’s word? And that’s the issue, who am I going to believe? We can believe the Bible and we can believe the Gospel.
Alright, now, I jumped ahead a little bit. So, I am going to go back and mention a couple other things here. Let’s keep this in mind first of all, Isaiah 48:11, God says, “I will not share my glory.” Evolution robs God of His glory; it steals His praise. What is the whole purpose of Evolution? I can be here without God. I will show you a quote in a minute on that. So, we don’t want to rob God of His glory.
Now, another thing, if the Laodicean church represents, it was a real church, but does it also represent the Church of the last days before Jesus comes? I believe it does, the lukewarm church. That is the church as we go around from church to church, mostly lukewarm. Well, look at what Jesus calls Himself in Revelation chapter 3, down there about verse 14, He says, and this is the Revelation of Jesus, and He is speaking through John, He says, “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith” who? Now He is going to name Himself, Jesus, “the Amen.” Well, if that is the church of the last days, that is a perfect name, the Amen. Okay. This one is it; I’m coming. Then He calls Himself, “the faithful and true witness.” Well, the church of the lukewarm church of the last days, they don’t believe the Word of God. We go to churches they don’t even have Bibles. They don’t believe the Word of God. So, He says, “I am that faithful and true witness.” My Word is true, it’s faithful. And then He calls Himself, “the beginning of the creation of God.” Another characteristic of the last days church, they don’t even believe in Creation. I mean they believe in all kinds of different words of man, various ways of thinking about Evolution, Day Age, Theistic Evolution, Progressive Creation, Framework Hypothesis, all those things. But it’s not what God says. So, they have compromised what God says. They are not believing exactly what God says.
So, what are some of the reasons why a Christian Worldview should be grounded in a Biblical Creation? Young Earth, Global Flood, that is what the Bible teaches. Well, if a big bang created the world, and that is what they believe. Back there some big bang went kaboom. What is that? That’s no one, plus nothing, equals everything because there is no God there. So, there is no explanation or source for things like logic, the ability to think, where did they come from? Explosions don’t create those kinds of things.
The first 11 chapters of Genesis hold all the major doctrines of the Bible, they are all there. If those chapters are not factual as written, they are allegory, they are poetry. And by the way they are not poetry, Genesis 1 that is not poetry. What is Hebrew poetry? Subject, verb, object. God created a fish. That’s poetry. That is how it reads in English, not how it reads in Hebrew. What is Hebrew narrative? Verb, subject, object. Created God the fish. Created God the plant. Etcetera. So, Genesis is written in straight forward historical Hebrew narrative, and there is no question about that. So, it is not poetry. It is not allegory. But if it was then Adam is not a real Adam, Adam was some kind of metaphor. Well, that means Jesus isn’t the real Jesus because the New Testament calls Jesus the second Adam. Is Jesus a metaphor? No, absolutely not.
Man has value and worth because he is created in the image of God. If he was just the result of a random accidental chance explosion his greater value to society would be to die after producing some new mutation of course. And that would bring in a higher life form, and that would take his place, so he needs to get out of there. No more worth than blue green algae or something. So, a big bang explosion couldn’t create beauty. How does an explosion create beauty, and regularity, and symmetry, and law and predictability, and things like love, and music, logic? Explosions don’t do that. Only God could do that. No observable science supports the idea that random chance, mindless processes brought everything into existence. Absolutely none.
Part 2- Q&A Epic Battles Segment
Tim Moore: Well, I tell you what Jobe, one of the things that I am curious about, I joked earlier about you being a wise guy, but really we have great respect for your wisdom. So, with your understanding how did these creations that God put on earth, from the animals, the plants, to mankind himself, appear old or did they have to grow up? In other words, did God try to fool the creation by having an appearance of age? Explain that thought to us.
Jobe Martin: Well, we just have to believe what God says. And what does He say? On day six He created Adam. Now, was Adam a little baby? Aww, look at this. No, he’s a full grown. Okay, I’ll make this up. Let’s say Adam is walking around in the garden and here comes Michael the Archangel. And Michael says, “Well, hello, my name is Michael.” Adam says, “Well, my name is Adam.” And Michael says, “Well, how old are you Adam?” Adam says, “I’m ten minutes old, God just made me like I am ten minutes ago.” He was created fully mature. God puts Adam to sleep, and He takes out a rib, Genesis 2:22 or so, He takes out a rib and He makes Eve. And Adam wakes up and there is Eve. And Adam says, “Whoa, Eve you are just beautiful how old are you Eve?” “Ten seconds.” “No, you’ve got to be 20 years old.” “No, I’m only ten seconds old.” Eve says, “I’m hungry, Adam.” Adam reaches up and picks a ripe peach and hands it to Eve. “Man, Adam what a farmer. How long does it take to grow a tree like that?” “Three days.” You can’t grow a tree with ripe fruit in three days. Yeah, if we are going to believe the Creation account as it is written we have to believe we have a God that doesn’t need time.
Tim Moore: Amen.
Jobe Martin: By the way His miracles prove it.
Tim Moore: They certainly do.
Jobe Martin: I mean you look at John chapter 2, the wedding at Cana, what does He do? He takes six water pots. How many days in the Creation week, where He worked? Six. Six water pots. Six days in the Creation week. He creates what tastes like fully mature wine. He created fully mature people, plants, everything, in six days. He does six water pots. Same thing. Actually, that is parallel to the Septuagint account, the Greek account of the Old Testament. What is Genesis 1? In the beginning. John 1, in the beginning. Genesis 2, man entered marriage. John 2 where we just were with the wedding, man entered marriage. Genesis 3 the fall, the curse. John 3 the answer to the fall, the curse. And it goes on. The first 11 chapters of Genesis are paralleling either the Greek or the thought to the first 11 chapters of John.
Nathan Jones: Fantastic.
Tim Moore: Beautifully said.
Nathan Jones: Now, I got this from an Atheist I debated twice on his podcast, and he told me, “Well, if God knows everything then why didn’t He just stop Adam from sinning? I mean after all why are we going through all this? Why didn’t God just say, Hey, I know that is going to happen and stop it?”
Tim Moore: You want to start on that one Eric?
Eric Hovind: Sure, I’ll be happy to. The big question we have to ask is: Is God the author, the creator of evil? Or is evil the result of man having the choice to choose to love God, or reject God? Obey God or disobey God? And the reality is God put the first two perfect humans in a perfect environment with only one restriction, don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, if you do you are going to physically die, and you are going to spiritually die. So, Adam and Eve were actually given the ability to choose God’s way, or the way of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Now we know that the tempter Satan did come and tempted them.
So, the only way God could keep them from sinning was to not give them the choice to sin. It is the same choice you have, and it’s the same choice I have. We’ve been put in the same circumstance and we have chosen willingly of our own volition to disobey God. We have chosen to reject God’s commandment and God’s teaching. The conscience that is written on our heart we have chosen to disobey.
So, I don’t think that we can be too hard on Adam and Eve, and we can’t blame God for a ruined and wrecked creation, that’s our fault, that is man’s fault. God is the one who created a perfect world and will restore a perfect world one day. And man, I hadn’t thought about the way you just phrased what you said, I wrote it down in my notes here, in fact I hope you guys are taking notes because you guys who are watching this conference and this Q&A are getting a lot of great information. That just proves nature versus nurture wrong. It is the state of the human heart. We are sinners by nature that need a savior.
So, Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God, satisfied the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And they wanted to pretend like they knew better than God. And if you guys that are watching, and if I’m honest with myself we would have to say, you know what, we fall for the same lie day after day. We think that money, or power, or fame, or sex, or something material possession is going to give us fulfillment and it doesn’t. Because God says, listen none of that is going to satisfy, only a true relationship with Christ is going to bring about true joy, true fulfillment, true happiness. You can have the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, all of that when you truly trust what God has said. God wants us to choose to love Him above all else.
Adam has flunked the test. God sent Jesus Christ as the redeemer. You and I have flunked but if we trust in Christ we can be restored. So, the reality is that is a great lesson that tells us and leads us right to the story of salvation is what the question leads us to.
Tim Moore: Which is where you ended Jobe, so anything you would want to add?
Nathan Jones: Because he switched into preacher mode, so preach it brother.
Tim Moore: Yeah. Anything you would add to this thought or question?
Jobe Martin: Oh, he really did a good job on that one. I like that.
Tim Moore: Well, I would say this. Even as you were talking, Eric I thought came to me and realized I have four grandchildren now, two of them are little boys, toddlers a four year old and a two-year-old and I can give them instruction and tell them don’t do this, do that, and I could literally constrain them to where they were unable to disobey. I could lock them in a cage or lock them in a padded room and they couldn’t do any harm. But that would not allow them to grow and to mature into the men of God that they are destined to be, I pray. And so, they have a choice, and sometimes they chose poorly, but they are growing and learning. And someday I pray that they will put their faith in Jesus Christ and be restored in a relationship with Him. I don’t think God created us to be automations. He created us to have a free will, but to be able to reflect His love and glory back to Him by choosing to embrace the salvation He offers. And that is the only analogy that I can offer.
Jobe Martin: Well, He wants a love relationship with us, with His creatures. And you don’t have that if we are robots. Yeah.
Eric Hovind: I just want to add one more thing here. When you think about the purpose of Creation, when you read the Bible you cannot come away, especially Isaiah which a lot of the prophecies there, Isaiah chapter 40, 41, 42, God keeps going over I am God, I’ve done this to glorify Myself. I am going to get all the glory for this creation. God cannot get more glory than when we chose to love Him. I mean like you said with your kids you could tie them up, you could make them say, “I love you.” But when they are forced to say it, it means nothing.
Now, when those grandkids are growing up and they chose to spend time with grandma and grandpa, wow, now that is of their own choice, they’ve said I want to love you.
My kids are 15, 17, and 19, and as they grow up, as they get out of the house, and then decide to come back and spend time with mom and dad, oh, it doesn’t get better than that because then we know this is of your own choice, you are choosing to spend time with me, rather than me forcing you to spend time with me. And in a probably a very poor analogy that is kind of how it is with God. When we choose to love Him, He doesn’t force us to, He can’t get more glory than that.
Tim Moore: Recently my four-year-old grandson had acted out and had been chastised, and I even told him I was disappointed. And he came over and laid his head on my shoulder and said, “I know Saba.” And then just in that moment of true confession, and for that moment at least, true repentance I was gladdened in my heart. They call me Saba because that is the Hebrew name for grandfather, or old man, my wife thinks. But it showed that his little tender heart is being turned in a direction. Now, it will take years of growth and maturing, and the Lord is patient with us because I’m still growing and maturing, all of us are, to become more Christlike. But I think that manifest, again, the glory of God in us if we put our roots down in Jesus Christ as the true vine.
Nathan Jones: Amen. And if you think about it too, all of human history is about getting us back into the Garden of Eden relationship with God again, where we walked and talked and had fellowship with Him. But He doesn’t want to populate, robots are the perfect thing, He wants us to choose Him. And who is going to be with Him on the New Earth forever? Those who choose Him. I mean wouldn’t you want to be with someone who wants to be with you, rather than people who are forced to be with you? That is beautiful. Boy, this question has kind of hit all our preacher modes here.
Tim Moore: It sure has.
Jobe Martin: Yeah, well he says, what is the greatest commandment? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your soul and your mind, your strength. And then what is the second greatest commandment? Love your neighbor as yourself. And who is your closes neighbor? Your wife. Love her like you love yourself. Your kids. Your grandkids. And then go out. So, yeah, that’s important to our Lord.
Tim Moore: But even Joshua points out, and other places that we have to choose, and sometimes not just a onetime choice. Well, I choose years ago. Really I couldn’t tell so. We must choose day by day, hour by hour, sometimes moment by moment whom we will serve, whom we will love. And as Joshua said, “As for me,” and I can’t always speak for my house, but I certainly try to set that tone, but I choose to serve in honor and love the Lord. And that I think is the greatest aspiration any of us could have.
Eric Hovind: Amen.
Nathan Jones: Amen.
Closing
Nathan Jones: Well, I wish we had the time to show the remainder of Dr. Martin’s presentation where he counters the Big Bang and Theistic Evolution. If you would like to watch this entire presentation, along with the other three in this series, you can get the Epic Battles Conference on a 3-DVD album for gift of $25 using the contact info below.
Tim Moore: In the last episode in this series, I will be addressing: “A Literal Rapture or Tribulation to Endure.” So, tune in next week! But, before we sign off, we want to let you know about our next exciting conference. Godspeed!
End of Program