Can the Bible Stand the Test - Part 2 - Darwin vs. The Bible

Well, good evening, good evening. Hey, I don't know if you've ever had this happen to you, but have you ever been like walking along or something and all of a sudden kind of like the most unbelievably overwhelming thought kind of hits you? I mean, it hits you so hard that you kind of just ended up standing back and going, wow, that's awesome. You ever have one of those? Well, I had one back in 1965.

I've had a couple since, but I had one back in 1965. 1965, I was a 16-year-old Jewish high school student, and I'll save you the trouble that makes me 54 today. And I was, I'd made up my mind I wanted to be a scientist and I had the opportunity to go to a six-week summer science program run by the National Science Foundation at Virginia Tech. And so we were there, and in the afternoons we worked on individual research projects with professors, and in the morning we all studied a subject. And it just so happened that that summer the subject we all studied was enzymes. Now, I know a lot about enzymes after studying them for six weeks, and here's what I learned, a little bit of it. Enzymes are small protein molecules inside of your body that run around helping chemical reactions go faster. You say, well, how important are these enzymes? Well, they're pretty important.

I mean, you remember that hamburger you had last Thursday? You would be trying tonight, you'd still be trying to digest it if it wasn't for enzymes in your body. Friends, without enzymes, not only could we not digest food, we could not walk, we couldn't breathe, we couldn't talk, we couldn't see. Every chemical reaction in your body is made possible by these enzymes, and there are thousands of them.

And the interesting thing about them is that they are code specific. And what we mean by that is that every enzyme is coded to do only one job. And if that enzyme's missing, every other enzyme in your body doesn't pick up for it. You know, if they say, well, George enzyme isn't here today, so we're just going to do his job. No, no, no, it doesn't work that way.

You know, if George is missing, nobody picks up and does his job. I mean, enzymes have a union contract, if you understand what I'm saying. And nobody does anybody else's work, and there are some awful sick people in our world today who are missing one enzyme out of thousands.

There are some dead people in our world today who didn't have one enzyme out of thousands, and it's an amazing system that God has set up in your body and my body. Now I remember learning all of this, and one day walking across the campus at noontime back to my dorm for lunch, and I remember it was a bright sunny day, and I walked up to the steps of my dorm, and I stood there, and I remember saying out loud, there has got to be a God. There has got to be a God. Now friends, I'd never read the Bible in my life. I'd never been to church in my life. I'd never had anybody tell me about this God in my life. What convinced me that there had to be a God was not that I'd read the Bible or gone to church or heard a sermon or listened to Billy Graham or anything like that. As a scientist, I became convinced there was a God simply by looking at the incredible complexity of human life, looking at the incredible complexity of the human body, and saying from a mathematical, scientific point of view, I've got to be honest, what they taught me in biology class about all of this happening by chance just doesn't make sense.

There is no way all of this could happen by chance. There has got to be a God. Now if you brought a Bible, I want you to open it together with me to Genesis chapter one. Guess what page that's on? Page one. That's right.

Okay, that's easy. And let's look and see what God has to say in the Bible about how all of this stuff, all of this living stuff on earth, how did it get here? What is the Bible's take? What is the Bible's explanation on how we got here? It's not that we got here through evolution or mutation or natural selection or random chance or any of those other processes, but rather that an almighty, life-possessing, life-giving Creator God directly and personally created all of the life forms we see on this planet, and that that same God personally and directly created the human race as we see it today.

Now that being the case, I'd say we have a fairly significant difference of opinion between evolutionary theory and the Bible. So let's find out what's the evidence look like? You say, well, yeah, Lon, because I got like some what about questions, like I did last week. All right, well ask them.

Well, here's my first one. What about the fossil record? I mean, what about all of these animals that aren't here anymore that we see in the fossil record? Well, you're right, there's a whole bunch of animals that aren't around anymore. Woolly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, all of our friends in Jurassic Park, they're not here anymore. But you see, friends, that's not the issue.

That is not at all germane to the discussion. The real issue is, can we find any evidence of transitional animals in the fossil record? Meaning can we find any animals that were somewhere in between birds and reptiles? Can we find any animals that were somewhere in between amphibians and fish or in between monkeys and man?

Can we find any of these things? Because if Darwin is right, there had to be these kinds of animals. There had to be animals that were half something and half something else. They had to exist or otherwise there's no way the transition between the species could have happened.

So what's the evidence? Well, Dr. Luther D. Sutherland wrote a book called Darwin's Enigma. He went to the five greatest fossil museums in the world looking for these transitional forms and here's what he said, and I quote. He said none of the museum officials from these five greatest fossil museums could offer a single example of a transitional series of fossilized organisms that would document a transformation of even one different type of animal to another.

What did he say? What he said is he went looking for one of these transitional creatures and couldn't find even one in the entire fossil record. Now, also Dr. Colin Patterson, who's the senior paleontologist at the British Museum and an evolutionist, he's not a believer, but here's what he says, and I quote. He says no one has ever produced a species by the mechanisms of evolution or natural selection. What Darwin says was the way it happened.

No one has ever gotten near it. You say, well, Lon, wait a minute. I read this article a couple years ago about this dinosaur that was a bird. You remember that creature that was like half dinosaur, half bird and everything?

Oh, I sure do. Let me show you a picture of him. Here he is. His name is Archaeoraptor whoever.

That's his scientific name. And anyway, let me tell you what Nancy Pierce in an article called The Missing Link That Wasn't said about this character, and I quote. When National Geographic published the first pictures of a fossil creature that looked like a bird dinosaur, it was hailed as a stunning coup for Darwinian evolution. National Geographic convened a press conference in October 1999 heralding the fossil as a crucial missing link between dinosaurs and birds, the first truly transitional creature ever substantiated by the fossil record. Now, stop there for a minute.

You hear what they're saying? National Geographic is saying that there never has been a transitional creature found before this one. They're admitting this is the very first one ever discovered. Okay, now, it turns out, Nancy goes on the right, that the dinosaur tail was attached by a local Chinese farmer to a bird fossil. Chinese farmers have grown adept at gluing fossils together in ways that increase their black market value, which is what happened in this case. That's why Jeff Hecht of New Scientist Magazine said, this missing link was forged by glue, not evolution. In fact, the Smithsonian Institution, Mr. Store Olson, was a lot tougher. He said, and I quote, National Geographic has reached an all-time low for engaging in sensationalistic, unsubstantiated tabloid journalism.

Ouch. Nancy went on to write, in the months that the fake dino bird was proudly on display at National Geographic's Explorer Hall right here in Washington, D.C., some nine million school children filed by to see it, leaving with their imaginations filled with images of feathered dinosaurs that never existed. This is a disgrace and a powerful reminder that scientists often see what they want to see, especially when it supports a theory like evolution that they cherish, end of quote. In fact, Dr. Philip Johnson of Berkeley University said in the Wall Street Journal, and I quote, when our leading scientists have to resort to the sort of distortion that would land a stock promoter in jail, you know they are in trouble, end of quote. Now friends, Dr. Michael Denton wrote a book called Evolution, a Theory in Crisis. This man is an agnostic. He's not a believer.

He's a molecular biologist. Here's what he said. He said evolution by natural selection would be established today beyond any reasonable doubt.

Stop there a second. Hear what he's saying. He's saying there is a way that we could prove to everybody in the universe that evolution, the way Darwin described it, is right.

Well, how is that? Well, listen, Dr. Denton goes on to tell us how we could do that. If, he said, if it had been shown that divisions between species could at least theoretically be crossed even by inventing a really convincing series of hypothetical and fully functional transitional form.

He said, what, what did he say? What he said was if we could find a single transitional species anywhere, a single transitional animal anywhere, even if we had to make them up, if we could make them up and they made sense, we could say evolution is proved. Look what he concludes by saying, however, this has never been achieved.

End of quote. Friends, when we look at the fossil record, the fossil record is devoid of any transitional animals, half bird, half dinosaur, half and half anything. And you know, if Darwin was right, over the billions and billions of years of mutations, we ought to find the fossil record teeming with these things. We ought to find thousands of these things. We have never found one.

You know who was really bothered by this? A guy named Charles Darwin. He wrote in his book, The Origin of the Species, and I quote, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, why do we not everywhere see innumerable transition forms?

Why is not all nature in confusion with all these transitional forms instead of the species being, as we see them, so well defined? Well, Charles, I can answer your question. Charles, why don't we see any of these things? Because your theory is wrong, Charles.

That's why you don't find any of these things. It didn't happen the way you said it happened. You say, okay, Lon, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Well, I got another what about before you jump that far. I mean, what about DNA and all that stuff? I mean, you know, since we've discovered DNA, there's got to be something in all this DNA stuff that speaks to whether evolution really happened.

Oh, there is. You know, we've learned a lot about DNA ever since Crick and Watson broke the DNA code. What we've learned is that the genetic makeup of human life is so complex that it defies all mathematical odds of happening by chance. Geneticists Miroslav Radman and Robert Wagner wrote an article in Scientific American entitled The High Fidelity of DNA Duplication. Here's what they said, and I quote, the set of genetic instructions for humans is roughly three billion letters long. What they're saying is, if you wanted to take letters, amino acids, and turn them into letters, and then you wanted to use amino acid letters and spell the word human being, it would take you three billion amino acids to do it. That's why Dr. George Howe said the chance that a useful DNA molecule would develop without a designer is approximately zero.

Well, I'd say that's pretty much zero, wouldn't you? And I love the way Sir Fred Hoyle put it. Now, Sir Fred Hoyle teaches at Cambridge University in England.

He is a professor of astronomy and mathematics. He is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a believer. Here's what he said, and I quote, to suppose that the first cell originated by chance is like believing that a tornado could sweep through a junkyard filled with airplane parts and form a Boeing 747. End of quote.

That's how impossible it is. In fact, mathematician Dr. I.L. Cohen, Cohen, Cohen, not a follower of Christ, Dr. Cohen, you understand what I'm saying? All right, wrote a book entitled Darwin Was Wrong, a Study on Probabilities. He's a mathematician, so he ought to know. Here's what he said in his book. At the moment when the DNA RNA mechanism became understood, the debate between evolutionists and creationists should have come to a screeching halt. Mathematically speaking, and he ought to know, based on probability concepts, there is no possibility, may I repeat, there is no possibility that evolution was the mechanism that created the approximately 6 million species of plants and animals that we recognize today.

End of quote. In fact, you know the guy Francis Crick, I told you one of the two guys that discovered, you know, DNA, the chain? You know, the guy won a Nobel Prize for breaking the DNA chain.

You know this guy? Okay. Well, he wrote a book entitled Life Itself, and in this book Dr. Crick agrees that there is no chance, no chance that life on earth and DNA came from natural selection and evolution. Now, he's not interested in God.

He will not give God even the option to do this, so he suggests in this book, Life Itself, that the first living cells were brought here to earth by a spaceship from outside the solar system. I'm not kidding you. You say, this guy won a Nobel Prize? Yeah. You say, well is he on drugs now or something?

No. He admits as a scientist there's no way it could happen here. He doesn't want to let God into the picture, so he says it's got to be the Klingons that did it.

Well, alright. So that's our choice, God or Klingons. But it definitely was not evolution, he says.

Now gang, listen, it takes faith to believe either one of these models. But I've got mathematicians telling me it can't happen. I've got DNA experts telling me it can't happen.

I've got physicists telling me it can't happen. I've got people looking at the fossil record saying without transitional creatures it can't happen. You know what, when you went to biology in high school and they told you that everybody that had their brains screwed in right believed evolution and only a bunch of nuts and idiots even questioned it? I'm telling you something, they lied to you. They sold you a bill of goods, friends. When you went to college and your professor told you that it was almost established fact that the world, life came into being through Darwinian evolution, friends, they didn't tell you the truth. We've heard some people here today make some incredible statements, and by the way, these people don't teach Jerry Falwell's place. You understand what I'm saying? We're talking about Cambridge University, the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institution. You know, I didn't go get D2 and D3 players here, guys.

I went and got D1 guys to share with you. And what they're saying is this makes no sense. It doesn't make sense mathematically, it doesn't make sense biochemically, it doesn't make sense microbiotically, it doesn't make sense from a mathematician's point of view, and it doesn't make sense in terms of the fossil record. In fact, you know, Charles Darwin himself had serious doubts about this. Listen to what he said, origin of the species. He said, to suppose that the eye, with its ability to adjust its focus, admit different amounts of light, and correct for chromatic aberrations, to suppose that it could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest. That's Charles Darwin, end of quote.

Well, let me close with just a couple of other people. Some of you have read the book, Darwin's Black Box. It was written by Dr. Michael Behe, Lehigh University. He's a biochemist, he's not a creationist, and he looked at the cell, the human cell, strictly as a biochemist. Here's what he said in his book, and I quote, life on earth is the product of intelligent activity. This conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself, not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs.

The result of investigating the cell is a loud, clear, piercing cry of design. This result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science rivaling those of Newton and Einstein. And finally, Sir Fred Hoyle, our good mathematician friend and astronomer at Cambridge University, here's what he said, and I quote, once we see that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics on which life depends are deliberate. Somebody did this deliberately, he says, and that our measure of intelligence must reflect a higher intelligence that's involved in this thing. Okay, what he says is it might be Klingons or it might be God, but it definitely is not Darwin's evolutionary theory. There is some intelligent design behind this whole thing. And as I said, these are not insignificant scientific minds.

So friends, where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us saying this, that you know what, maybe the Bible's account of how this thing all happened isn't as nutty and crazy as you were led to believe. I mean, if I've got mathematicians saying it can happen, if I've got biochemists saying it can happen, if I've got microbiologists saying it can happen, if I've got people looking at the fossil record saying it can't happen, then you know what, I'm going to believe it did. I've got physicists saying it can't happen, it violates the second law of thermodynamics. You know what, I think to be honest with you, that the stupid people are the ones who believe it did happen, when you've got all these other people saying it can happen.

It can't. Now, have I proved to you the Bible's account's right? No. Can I prove to you the Bible's account's right?

No. But I don't have to prove the Bible's account is right. All I have to prove is that the other account does not make as much sense as everybody thinks, and that really, we've got a lot of very creditable scientists saying there's got to be a designer behind this.

There has got to be intelligence behind this. Well, they think it's the Klingons, and I say it's God. But one way or the other, this is where it's coming out, folks. And you know what, I believe that if we have a God who's as great as he says he is in the Bible, shoot, is it a problem to believe that he could create all these species and do it the way the Bible says?

Not for me. In fact, I think that makes a whole lot more sense than believing all these crazy odds that the evolutionary theory demands, I believe. Now, you have to do with it what you want, but at least I hope if nothing else, you're going to walk out of here tonight and say, you know what?

Somebody sold me a bill of goods. This thing is not all sewed up tight like everybody led me to believe. There are some awful fine scientific minds who say this thing is a stupid theory. Darwin himself had some real problems with his own theory. Let's pray together. Lord, thanks for talking to us tonight. And you know, God, science can be pretty intimidating sometime and we get people throwing all this stuff at us about how wrong we are and how stupid we are and how antiquated and prehistoric the Bible is. But I hope tonight that we've been able to demonstrate to people the Bible is not as prehistoric and unscientific as we've been led to believe.

As a matter of fact, the account of the Bible makes a lot more sense than the account of the evolutionary theory is what we've heard tonight. And so, Father, my prayer tonight is that you might remove an obstacle that perhaps for some people here has had them hung up for years in terms of coming to Christ. And remind us that if we really are created in the image of God, there's a piece of us we will never be able to put in that hole in our heart till we come into relationship with you. So, God, for people here tonight who've never done that, I pray you would really challenge them to think about that. Really challenge them, Lord, to step out and let you have a part in their life so that they could reach the pinnacle of everything you created them to be in relationship to you. Now, continue to encourage our faith in the Word of God even next week. And thanks, Lord, I pray you change our life because we were here tonight and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.