 Yes Last Sunday after class I got an airplane and for Virginia Beach, and I got back late last night So that's why I missed the thing I literally spent between class time last week and today on the East Coast and yeah, when I arrived I was interviewed for the 700 Club and You know Pat Robertson is now 88 years of age And says he still puts in a full day's work every day And I said, you know you got seven minutes, so make sure you get what you need to get in in that seven minutes Pat interrupts you once in a while, but so try to get your soundbites in One that was 15 minutes We talked about the crater in the column lows and I've had actually remembered when I was on 25 years ago We talked about the first edition So I said, you know why do you keep bringing up these new additions and I said There's a biblical principle you see in Job and Psalms The more you learn about nature the more evidence you'll see for the supernaturality work of God Now the four editions this is the one that shows that more dramatically than any other edition So and thanks to Pat he basically said, you know, but I appreciate about this book It's a wonderful tool for Christians to get that are non-Christian friends and that went out and You know it actually went to number 38 on Amazon's best-selling list, so Yeah, incredible so Although I noticed a lot of people were buying the second edition and Third edition why does Amazon's business policy is they keep a minimum number of books So it's still not available from Amazon even though it's been You know between 38 and 100 all that time But we did ship out. I think it was 1400 books to them. So hopefully they'll Well, it just says in the Amazon site out of stock So they will they will fill it All right, notice is people were buying the old editions because they couldn't get the new edition And they've got the book has been doing very well too because people get that right away so And then right afterwards I did a couple more TV shows They wanted to be interviewed for two documentaries and the documentaries are actually targeting the Middle East So they did interview me in English But the host is someone who's fluent in Arabic. So she introduced something in Arabic But the good news is most Arabic speakers also know and understand English So I said it's fine, especially with the side stuff. They said often they prefer to be in English Because the English is incidentally English is become in the science language of the world. It's really the only language. It's got an adequate vocabulary To be able to communicate all these scientific complexities, you know, and I attend these scientific conferences I run into people who live in foreign countries and their English is actually better than their native tongue Because they basically say we speak English all the time. We write in English and most humorous things We were entertaining some astronomers From the Paris Observatory and I was amazed. I mean in American accents and everything They said yeah, well, we struggle order is something off of a restaurant in Paris. So Apparently speaking there's so much that they really have lost a lot of their ability to speak their own native language But yeah, it's different from when I was in grad school. I Had to learn two foreign languages to get my PhD because there's still a lot of journals that are publishing a foreign languages And the discipline of astronomy a hundred percent of it's known English. It's all English. So Which makes it easy as I travel around the world. I know people Who have advanced degrees are going to be fluent in English and even those that are what I've learned is you bring two projectors Projector number one is an English projector number two is in our native language And it's interesting how people will prefer to read one or the other. So that's something we do But the primary reason I was there was to teach at the Regent University So I gave seven lectures to the engineering and science students One lecture to the Bible students and five lectures to the Divinity students and the five lectures of the Divinity students were recorded Because basically Pat Robertson as a chancellor said I want all those lectures required for every Divinity student that goes through We're hoping also to be able to get them because Business is huge. It's got to be 30 minutes each. You want to write at 30? But sometimes it's really helpful to be able to take that material and condense it down for 30 minutes And I kept running into people who said, you know, I just I want to know Who I should give this book to so they're basically thinking about non-christians. They can give the book to that's really encouraging That's why I wrote this book. So it'd be a tool for Christians to give to their non-christian friends. Yes Yes, they're right here. We even run out of copies. It's only Amazon is running So Let's say this Amazon business model they keep low inventory. Yes There wasn't in any of my lectures, but I did run into a lot of students Background But what was interesting is those students basically wanted help. So this is how they've been raised And they know it's not really effective to share with non-christians and they just simply want the assurance that my older perspective wasn't Conceding ground to the biological evolution Naturalistic biological evolution. It really helped. It's just being explained to them. If you take a younger position You're actually forced to adopt or winning an evolution to a degree more than 10,000 times More rapid and efficient than what any atheist would ever dare suggest And a lot of it's no idea. I mean Well What I'm finding over the past 30 years 30 years ago people would think I was a tool of Satan And I was some kind of heretic and I was an evil guy And I was being spirited The fact that I've been in ministry for you know, 35 years People realize, you know, that's not my demeanor. I mean that's kind of out there now And also, I think I've learned that when you speak to younger creationists, you need to lead with the Bible So I basically would explain to these students. I says look at these texts. The laws of physics do not change God actually establishes his immutability see it in Jeremiah 33 You change I never change it's proof that I never change look at the laws that govern the heavens and the earth as they never change I don't change and basically tells us in Romans They will not change and though God has completed his redemptive work in this universe Then God will replace his universe with a brand of universe and there you get different laws of physics But the key there is every young earth creationist model Critically depends on radically altered laws of physics at the fall of Adam the flood or both and by radical mean by fact And the Bible says they don't change and Basically making a point to if you actually look at all 66 books of the Bible Not just the first book of the Bible, but all 66 read all 66 literally and consistently You realize it's not possible to interpret the days as only 20-hour periods They have to be six consecutive long periods of time I found two of these students that really helped to tell them look you don't have to know Hebrew Just look at the first page of the Bible You know this word day has at least three distinct little definitions because three are used right there in the first page I mean creation day one that contrasts days and nights. That's the word day for the daylight hours Creation day four seasons days and years. That's a day is 24 hours Then in Genesis 2 4 it uses the word day to refer to the entirety of creation history That's day as a long period of time And you won't see it in some of the more modern translations. I found most younger creation is really like King James Faithfully translates Genesis 2 4 it uses the word day And it is the Hebrew word going translated day. So right there the text, you know One of the literal definitions is a long period of time. So yeah And which one are your writings do you? make the case that that the speed of Play no speed speed of evolution If you don't if you adopt yeah, I have that in a chapter in a matter of days Basically pointing out the incredible irony. Here's this group of Christianity who's very anti evolution And yet they are forced to invoke a speed of evolution. That's beyond what anyone has ever Imagined that speed of evolution is what I was trying to get out of my mouth. Yeah, and I don't Really understand that as well as I need to well here. It isn't a nutshell The young earth model basically says nothing died until Adam sinned So they're not so basically they're looking at Romans 5 12 fact that came up when I was back there and the Virginia Beach This is what the Bible says death came through Adam sin and says well Here's the problem when younger creationist quote that verse. They quote just that phrase Let's actually read all of Romans 5 12 you read all of Romans 5 12 It says death through sin because of Adam's offense Was visited upon all people and so you got two qualifications death through sin Only one species of life experiences sin and says death to all people not death to all life So this is the fact that Paul qualifies of twice in one sentence is a clue that he's purposely excluding plant and animal death And if you have any doubts he repeats those exclusions in 1st Corinthians 15 20 to 22 And so everybody should relieve any possible doubt that and when I've talked to younger theologians They say yeah, I agree. No, we're in the Bible. Does it say? That Adams offense brought about plant and animal death. It's only human death that was brought about but I understood you to say that that That Darwinian evolution Okay, let me get to that. Okay. Here's where it shows up in the young earth model. Okay If Adam's offense is the first time That's a animals die Then that means that there's no carnivores before the flood or before Adam However, once Adam sins you got all these herbivores that must rapidly evolve to become carnivores and the real problem when you get to animals like sharks because the internal organs are only able to deal for example the The liver of a shark is one third of its body weight That's because the shark is predominantly feeding on fat And so it has this enormous and that's true of all like polar bears have a really huge liver and The carnivores today are not able to survive on vegetable matter For example, you can feed vegetable matter to a dog if you concentrate the calories But it's not going to work on a cat. A cat's digestive tract cannot handle a diet That's a pure vegetable. Even if you concentrate the calories the cat can't make it Because the digestive tract isn't designed. I like with a shark And not only for example, what you'll notice say with polar bears and sharks is that when they kill the creature they go for the fat and they leave the rest they leave that for other carnivores and So like with a seal they won't eat the meat eat the fat eat the skin because that's where the calories are and That's what their body is able to consume Which is why when you get bitten by a shark the shark quickly figures out using not enough fat in your body And this fits you out. But hey, you still bleed to death because You can tell them that ahead of time That's why I've been telling your people who manufacture these because I have to wear a wetsuit and I go Serpent and they're black Why don't we make a bright red Or green your fluorescent green would be good that way Yeah Yeah You know, I'm glad that God made his bipedal tall and skinny without a lot of fat I don't know Well, that was so encouraging what my teaching in region is that there are the whole Faculty is really emphasizing God gave us two books. We need to teach both books and we need to integrate the two books That's why they had me there for the week. Have you ever been invited up to Liberty? Never been invited to the baby. That would be a probably won't ever happen Well Liberty to teach there you have to sign a statement that you believe that the universe is less than 10,000 years old They're kind of a hard time persuading me to sign that statement, so So but interestingly I do get to talk to a lot of faculty and students from Liberty, and you know, they're aware that there's a very Biblical older physician. Well, what's so cool about you now versus what I first heard about you 15 years ago is Is people who even just get a glimpse of you on 700 or wherever at school can then go to YouTube I mean, there's just volumes of stuff out there Yeah, this is what's different I mean for example all these students who came to me with their young earth perspective None of them are hostile. They just want to know Whereas 30 years ago 20 years ago a lot of hostility, but you're right the fact that everything's up there on YouTube Incidentally, if you're not aware of this reasons to believe has a YouTube channel that we populate 24-7 It's root and hopefully monetize. No No, we don't get a dime off of it Got to work on that Well, I watched one years the other day, and I was amazed it had 900 It was approaching a million views. I forget which one it was exactly was like 900,000 plus Well the ones that have the greatest number of views are the pirated ones There's probably one reason why we're never going to be able to monetize it Most of stuff up there is already been pirated, but you know, we kind of let that go because It's reaching an audience And now YouTube's effective in the sense that all these people who claim that I'm a really mean-spirited guy They go to YouTube. They find it cheap. It doesn't look that way And so I met that since they tend to approach me with a lot less hostility There was a case 20 and the 30 years ago I'll tell you one thing was funny is You know, they know my age And so they were saying well, dr. Ross, it's a half mile walk to the next lecture. Are you okay walking? I said, well, I'll race you with my briefcase. How about that? Well that actually helped get reasons to believe off the ground In fact, I was interviewed by Jim Dobbs in 1983 and that was before we launched reasons to believe but You know, they like to collect all the names but what happened is they got 300 letters of really technical questions And so they said we can't answer these questions Will you answer it? I said sure But you know what that gave us a 300-name mailing list And that proved to be critical for launching reasons to believe reasons to believe would have never gotten off the ground Without that moving list We did help focus on the family and focus in the family helped us again when the first edition of the fingerprint of God came out Jim Dobbs and interviewed me and Within a week there was 22,000 copies it sold And that's again really helpful. I can tell you the first ten years of reasons to believe we weren't sure whether we were going to survive week to week just a lot of little Big things like that that kept us afloat. Yes Well most younger creationists had no idea that their Doctrine requires very aggressive evolution to survive and it's not just the carnivore issue You also got the problem with the flood Well, you know when I talk to the leaders and you actually look at what I said, you know what? We're a little disturbed that you're pointing out that we believe in all this aggressive evolution It's like I'm just citing the atheists the atheists have written books where they're pointing that this is this you know Isn't this ironic these Christians actually believe in evolution to a far greater degree than we do And I said that's all I did. I just cited that and they said well We prefer to ourselves as diversificationists not evolutionists And so we believe like diversifies it doesn't evolve. Well, I mean it's the same thing Well what they're claiming is death didn't happen until Adam sin and that's when these Herbivores rapidly evolved some of them to become carnivores So they're basically appealing to very aggressive evolution to explain how this population of animals that were all herbivores Were a whole bunch of them became carnivores And then they have the problem with the flood because they believe that you know All land life was wiped out by the flood of Noah And so they have to have millions of species evolving from the thousands that are on board knows art That happens again very quickly and what they claim is they've gone and doubt these Creatures with super genomes. They're able to diversify very quickly But if you actually look at the genetics of what they're proposing is simply not possible Have a creature with that kind of a genome actually be stable the creature would not be stable So fuzz has written some articles on the problem with their quote diversification law But the vast majority of younger creations have no idea that this is a core belief of You know their Their doctrinal system. I mean the students I address said no idea. Oh, yeah, I guess that that is a problem They use the claim you Right well anybody that's all Yeah Yeah, their whole thing is if you're older you must be an evolutionist and you're older You have to be a compromiser the label they put on me is by the semi-creation I would argue that most quote younger creationists haven't spent much time thinking about it It's just parroting what they've heard from the pulpit and they equate, you know anything that's science-related is Darwinian zone Well, so it's encouraging about the students that was engaging. It's like this is how they're raised This is all they heard and it's like, you know, we're interested. I mean what else is out there? I mean, they've really had never heard about the framework. I thought this is what I'm not framework Well, let me tell you what it is. I mean, it's a viable position within the Christian community So they kind of felt cheated that they were not allowed to understand the full scope of different interpretations So, yeah Okay, I'll tell you one more story before I jump into Isaiah Okay It was an atheist and basically said look to the Christian I'll give you a thousand dollars if you can tell me exactly where God is And the Christian's response was I'll give you two thousand dollars if you can tell me where God is not All right, yeah, okay, if you don't have the Isaiah my questions incidentally I was teaching there at that region and one of the Theology professors is telling me I just designed I'm going to watch next week a whole course on the book of Isaiah It's going to be a semester-long course in the book of Isaiah They said I've heard that you're teaching on the book of Isaiah. So I'm not doing what you're doing I'm not going to be going through chapter by chapter verse by verse All we're doing is looking at the creation and science parts of the book of Isaiah And he says well all said I'll take you just as long for you to finish as it takes me to And it says I think that's a bit conservative But hey, these are the study questions you have a book of Isaiah and yes If you think we're going through the whole book or not We're just picking up those pieces But yeah, we're talking a little bit before class of all the books of the Old Testament Isaiah is the one that's most forbidden for Jews to read. They're allowed to read parts of it But that is kind of the forbidden part Especially the texts that we're going to be studying In fact a friend of mine who ends up reasons to believe in South Africa the astronomer David Block was raised in Orthodox Jews And he says I became a Christian through reading all the Old Testament passages my rabbis forbade me to read and Was predominantly texts in the book of Isaiah And we're going to see there's some reasons why Jews look at this as quote forbidden scripture But here's the irony when they found the Dead Sea Scrolls The only Old Testament book that was there in its entirety was the book of Isaiah And it's actually on display in downtown Jerusalem And you can actually read the whole thing in Hebrew if you take enough time that they got the whole thing on display But yeah, what I noticed is Jews I've been there and the Jews they look at it and walk away It's like no you need to actually read what's there They get the whole thing spread out It's all unrolled and they took the time you can actually read the whole thing But I thought isn't that like an incredible irony that the most forbidden book of the Old Testament is the one that Actually exist in its entirety and the Dead Sea Scrolls and it's displayed in its entirety right there in downtown Jerusalem Recently we had some Work done to support our foundation and the gentleman that came were Israeli and We were having long religious talks and they were both in the army and they said they are required To work to read Isaiah and that they believe and a lot of people believe that Jesus is the Messiah But they don't publicly proclaim it because they would be disowned But is there actually required as part of their training to read Isaiah so that was very refreshing to Well there I've heard now that Messianic Christianity is growing exponentially in Israel today More Jews are becoming Christian than Arabs are becoming Christian And that was unheard of even just a few years ago. It was always the Arabs that were really open to now It's the Jews. So anyway, you don't have these questions Anybody doesn't have them can take them Most of you do because we already distributed 300 copies of them And I don't think there's that many people here in the class, but they didn't bring your copy and We're still in question number one Yeah, we're really blasting through this But you know we're doing it in a way to kind of demonstrate You know, this is how you go through a Subject matter in detail the Bible. So what we've done. There's a question. I'll just read it What Isaiah passages address the beginning of the universe? What did these passages say about the universe? How can we use these Isaiah texts to persuade people that God exists and the Bible is the Word of God and that God is? Indeed the creator universe so one exercise we had you all do here Remembering we broke up in the little small groups and in 15 minutes We collected all the passages in the book of Isaiah that are relevant to question number one And we got like 40 passages and we spent some time actually going through those passages and seeing which ones really are Relevant to question number one and we wound up with about 30 texts And then what I did last time we were I was here is we actually read through all 30 texts quickly Just to kind of get a flow of what it's all saying That's kind of a good thing to do when you collect the passages Then actually read through quickly to get a general sense of what it's saying then go back over and some detail and see what's going on in each text That's what we're going to do today But this is a principle you can apply to any biblical subject So for example, if you're with this class some 25 years ago, we did the same thing We went through the entire Bible and picked up every passage that pertains to God Predestining every word thought and action and we came up with about 1500 different scripture passages Then we read through those 1500 really quickly to see a kind of general sense of what it's saying and we went through it in detail One passage of a time and just to bring balance We also spent some time looking at all the passages to talk about how God has endowed every human being with free will Of freedom to choose because that's kind of the big paradox How do you resolve human free choice and divine predestination same exercise read through the whole Bible quickly Collect all the passages you know wind up with about 2000 and we throw away about 500 will be bigger pretty weren't relevant. We had about 1500 left Interestingly, we wanted about the same number of passages that are on the free will side as they're on the predestination side And then we went through those passages very quickly to see what they all had to say and went through it in depth So we're basically using the same principle and going through these 10 questions here concerning the book of Isaiah So we're beginning what I think is the easiest question And that's mainly what do these Isaiah texts say about God creating the universe the beginning of the universe Then we're going to apply that to the other nine questions that you see here Okay Isaiah 6 3 Holy holy holy as the Lord opposed as glory fills the whole earth now as it go through each of these texts I want you to address two questions. What does the text say? That's relevant to the universe and God and then how do we apply? So what does it say and how do you apply? We're gonna do that with each one of these passages. So we're gonna start with this one Holy holy holy as the Lord opposed as glory fills the whole earth What is it actually saying? about God creation and the universe You're gonna see his handiwork and what does his handiwork reveal? Glory it's glory. Got it No, that's a very good point Basically telling it no matter where you look in all the earth all the universe Looking at cockroaches looking at dirt Looking at viruses no matter where you look you're gonna see the glorious God Well, I mean, I think that's a challenge that this passage gives us Okay, there's lots of things we see in this universe of ours and all this life that doesn't seem very pleasant Basically this text is challenge. This is application now. Okay, we're getting at the application part If this passage is really saying what it says it says it means we should be able to discover God's glory reveal literally Well, yeah, yeah, I mean we can see the glory of God mosquitoes when you get fit a few times so No While on my colleague and Jeanette Roberts She wrote a really nice piece on mosquitoes Basically telling us number one. There's nearly 300 different species in mosquitoes and only six of them bite us But just get mad at the six They're only the females bite you And the only bite you and they need to reproduce so it's not as bad as what you think Okay How many of you enjoy fishing? Okay, what do you think fish those trout eat? Yeah, they leak the larva larvae of mosquitoes and eat mosquitoes so Fishermen love mosquitoes because that's what keeps the trout nice and healthy and makes it productive for us when we go fishing So hey, you can always wear one of those little net type things so and then the other part is We human beings sent those species of six mosquitoes to places that God never intended them to be We go back before humanity those six species existed in less than 10% of the land masses of the earth Guess how much bigger percent they live on right now? Not quite a hundred, but it is 99 There's still places in the world you can go where there are no biting mosquitoes We're talking 1% of the land masses and So when it says cursed as a ground because of you and Genesis 3 17 Part of that curse is we spread these nasty mosquitoes of fighters to parts of the world that God never intended them to exist So but there's still places you can go Yeah, my wife was telling me you I want to go on a vacation where there are no mosquitoes Well, there's a couple places we can go so There's other places where he said oh no mosquitoes, but there's horse flies That's actually a fulfillment of a promise Yes Even the astronomers the astrophysicists and the physicists to not stop themselves from being used by God for his glory Even the ones that don't believe in it because they're the ones that brought that have brought forth the anthropic principle and show the divine Design of the universe they don't even know it and they're being managed by God for his own glory Well, you know When I was at Caltech my specialty is quasars and galaxies And I've run into all these eight years astronomers there at Caltech and they'd be writing papers about what they call Grand design galaxies the very fact that they've called them grand design galaxies That tells you something right? And we happen to live in the galaxy that's got the grandest design of all so But I think that's one thing that strikes like peers is when you look at these nebulae and galaxies They're struck by the beauty of it all And you know, why are they so beautiful and why do we appreciate the beauty? I mean, there's something that God designed within us that makes us really relish the beauty of what we see Why are equations of mathematics and physics so beautiful and elegant? Remember, I was taking an advanced math class as undergraduate professor said one thing I want to share with all of you in this first lecture Nothing is more beautiful than the equations. You're gonna see in this class Nothing. He says I know run a campus with beaches all the way around a beautiful forest. There's a golf course here Forget about all that It pales in comparison of the beauty of what I'm going to be showing you in this next semester And you know when I was done with the class, I kind of believe them. This is these equations are really very elegant and beautiful Magnificent or you know when you study Maxwell's equations or little equations, but look what they describe. It's just incredible. So I'm the lock track, but this is the whole point This passage really is saying every part of God's creation reveals God's glory the application there is Look for Okay, if you see something that looks ugly Look for God's glory. If you see something that looks at a place Look for God's glory. There's nothing out of place. Everything is serving a purpose That applies to the universe applies to everything here Plies to all of parasites You know I frequently run into atheists who say look if there's a good God out there That's all powerful and loving there wouldn't be any parasites God's glory is revealed in the parasites And you'll see some articles I've written on a reasons daughter website the beauty and elegance of Parasites and how we need those parasites Given the laws of physics that God chose they fulfill a critical role There wouldn't be any balance of life that there weren't parasites One of the more dramatic examples of that is the gypsy law You know I talked about how we imported mosquitoes and put them in places where God never intended We did that with a gypsy laws the gypsy law was indigenous to Western Europe and what happened is there was a guy of Harvard an insect expert and He decided hey, I want to study these gypsy laws So he brought some gypsy moths over from Europe had them in his little lab and he's doing research on a couple of them escaped okay Those two escaped and they multiply And it was during the 19th century It was so bad that do we get these gypsy moths? Epidemics where they would literally strip every leaf off of every deciduous tree And when they stripped all those leaves off the whole ecosystem of collapse And eventually the gypsy moths had nothing to eat They would all die and then everything would come back But it was like a ten-year cycle every ten years you would get this complete collapse of the eastern US Ecosystem and so they said what are we going to do? well again, it was Harvard Anthemologists has said well in Western Europe these gypsy moths have a predator We need to bring the predator over here and so You know they found I forget what was some kind of bird or something that they're actually eat those things and actually one of the Training the other birds here in America that gypsy moths are good to eat so But that didn't bring them under control. They still have these ten-year cycles They're just complete destruction and the problem is when the forest would come back It would never come back like it did before so it's getting the degradation was getting worse and worse with each cycle And so they said we have to bring a parasite over from Europe And they did they brought a parasite of the gypsy moth over But things did not get into balance until they brought two different Over from here and finally things were brought back into balance So we actually do need parasites that play a good role and none of us like parasites when they attack us But they do play a critical role in the ecosystem. Yeah, Steve They're the same After the fall and only as a result of the fall or would they have been before the fall there before the fall I mean there's plenty of evidence of parasites existed before the fall But how this fits in is that there are passages in the Bible that tell us God began his works of redemption before he created anything. I think this is part of the glory of God Okay, God's glory is revealed in creation and everything he's created is for the purpose of redeeming Billions of us human beings unto himself and so he would know that sin was coming the rebellion was coming He is all part of this plan. He's going to use the sin that Adam introduces to achieve a greater good Then would have been achieved event had been never sinned in the first place and Parasites are part of that They play a crucial role, but they were all there And so the laws of physics are there because of sin and evil and so are the parasites so the carnivorous activity I think this is the thing our young earth friends are missing is that they think carnivorous activity is evil They think parasites are evil disease and cancer evil. Hey, all these are tools Manifesting God's glory and the context of his creating in order to bring about the redemption of billions of things A time will come when there'll be no parasites a time will come when nothing will decay and nothing will die But not until God's redemptive work is finished then that will happen and I think that's crucial. I mean, I got to share one of the documentaries That I did with the Christian broadcasting network unique to Christianity is two distinct creations The creation we're now in as a tool in God's hand to eliminate evil and suffering once and for all Well at the same time enhancing free will to me That's the great marvel of God's creation is that he's eliminating evil and suffering once and for all simultaneously enhancing our free will capability to experience relationships and love I mean the easy thing for God to do is make us all robots That would take care of the problem of evil. This is no I've got a higher goal in mind I want my creatures to experience love. I don't want them to experience love not just linearity but geometrically But that requires that first the conquest and removal of evil and all the creation reveals that So I think we miss the glory of God that we don't put it in the context That all this creation is for the purpose of redemption and also to put it in the context God's intent is that his work of redemption would be completed quickly Once we human beings show up on the cosmic scene So when people say well, why did God take 14 billion years to get everything ready? Because God's goal is he would complete his work of redemption quickly rather slowly Which means we only get exposed to the mosquitoes for a brief period of time Hey, we're only talking a few decades in your life and a few thousand years in the case of human beings Contrast that with all of eternity the new creation or no one will ever get bit by a mosquito or a horse flyer ever again What's the difference between a gypsy moth and a miller A gypsy moth and a miller moth. Hey, we used to have a couple of professional biologists in the class I'm not sure we do anymore. So I was always able to go to Richard Dean to answer questions like that. He could always pop off the answer I know what a gypsy moth is but i'm not too caring. I'm not too much up on the miller moths anybody You know anything about miller moths? Hey, if you don't get out your smartphone and google it, right? I don't have to be the expert google's the expert. Okay, steve having the comment I'm talking to younger and really many people but especially younger And the story of redemption I like a lot I put in the idea of separation of evil from good to have an account But younger it's Seem to not be able to sometimes go past the garden fall or so focus there And if you can pull and feel free to correct me if you disagree, of course I look at redemption as far before and god's knowledge and planning far before that there were third the angels that fell And there was a problem and he has this universe to take care of that problem That's the big picture redemption sometimes we get them focused Beyond the garden fall to see the big picture that helps the framework Well, you know god foreknows any predetermined before he created anything He knew that Satan would fall. He knew that adam would fall And so doesn't it make sense that he would create Knowing that that was going to happen and design the creation of all that in mind But I think you're making an excellent point adam was not the first one to fall Satan was the first one to fall and the bible is silent not exactly when he fell Now interestingly a lot of my younger friends think that satan fell 10 seconds before adam did But I think that's hard to sustain based on what else we read in scripture And they say well, how about one day and I said no no no I mean we really don't know. I mean it could be billions of years before adam fell We do know from jogue 38 verse 7 That the angels were there when god laid down the foundations of the earth So they've been around a whole lot longer than we have And it tells us the bible That god is basically having the angels watch His work of redemption unfold If you want to know why in a new creation will be elevated above the angels It's because we experience the grace of god the angels watch the grace of god And they're eager as paul writes in his books The angels are intently observing us in order to determine what is this grace They're trying to figure it out But we get to experience it and because we get to experience it We're going through training and education that the angels are not able to experience And yeah, god says take this life seriously I'm training you for a future career I got to share this with the students of regents say, you know Your whole 80 90 years of life here on planet earth It's analogous to this course you're taking right now And notice what your professor does in this one semester course He's actually paid by regent university to make you suffer throughout this semester Why because that professor is trying to equip and train you for a future career Because god's doing the same thing with us We want to know why there's suffering in this life. It's because god is preparing us for a future career And the thing i've noticed as a professor my best students want more suffering They're the ones who want more suffering because they're they have a very clear view of the career goal And this is what it tells us you see both peters letters and paul's right letters He says viewer a follower of jesus christ Then god has called you to suffer more than the non christians because god's going to use the suffering you go through To bring about his glory Holy holy holy is the lord of hosts his glory fills the whole earth Every time you suffer look for the glory that god's going to bring about and if you think of a passage that he draws it out explicitly romans romans chapter 8 Okay, now you know the passage All things work all the suffering you go through god's going to bring about his glory Which teaches me this when you're going through exceptional suffering Look for the glory of god that's going to come through that suffering That's correct john you've had your hand up for a while Introduction to eternity 101 very good Okay And then you get to take the advanced courses, right? Okay, yes Do you think that's a pattern for humans well, I hope not So all you women listening to this Live streaming and those of you are downloading this so That might work for the uh the spiders, but that's not a good analogy for us. Okay All right, let's see. We've got time to jump into the next text Hey, by the way, when am I supposed to end the class if we start at 4 o'clock in the afternoon? Just keep going until I'm out We'll let you know I like 1215 is what I'm going to end for Okay all right The lord of poses sworn as I have purpose so will be as I have planned it so it will happen Okay, what is the same? And then how do we apply it? Kind of like predestination Okay, that's a good comment You can trust the fact that god's got everything under control Everything's planned Kind of what we've been talking about God had adam's fall planned before he created anything He had Satan's fall plan before he created anything Yes, you know the question often comes on free will how much does god force manipulate and it's nice to know that he knows But doesn't necessarily force all the time, but I do think he forces his cards Uh examples from the bible would be uh, it's time for the nation of israel to become a fledgling nation and it's time to force feral And and strengthen and that word harden is better translated strengthen. He strengthens what is already there evil and feral's heart But there's plenty of room between the envelope for free choice Just a thought it is just a thought and uh I cover this and briefly in the book beyond the cosmos You'll see a chapter on free will and a chapter on predestination And jackie you can remember when we spent a whole year in this class Going through those 3000 passages of the bible on a free will and predestination And basically making a point human free will is undiminished But also undiminished is god's pre determination Seems like a contradiction. It's only a contradiction. You try to look at it from a human perspective If you allow god to be as big as what the new physics tells us he must be and god can simultaneously predetermine every thought we think every word we speak every action we perform and yet give us complete free will over words actions and thoughts And what i've done in beyond the cosmos simply show you three ways god can do that If you allow him to move and operate in the equivalent of three independent dimensions of time And maybe it's nine dimensions of time. Maybe it's dimensions of temporality that got nothing to do with time But realizing we're looking at a god that can create space time dimensions of will maybe other dimensions as well God's got an infinite number of ways of having both simultaneously true and For those of you who've taken physics classes There's plenty of things in physics that seem utterly contradictory But if you actually study them in some depth, you know both are true Famous one is light is simultaneously waves and particles Sounds like a contradiction Once you integrate quantum mechanics with statistical mechanics, no problem Get a bigger picture. You can see the resolution And this is actually one of the ways we know the bible is the word of god It's the only holy book of all the religions of humanity that came contains doctrines That can't be visually resolved in length with height and time That's why every other religion eliminates the trinity Every other religion either goes with free will human free will or divine predestination but not both You're not going to be able to visualize it and the dimensions we humans can experience You know what that told me as a young man This book the bible is different It contains doctrines and teachings that transcend the limits of human visualization These other books have the fingerprint of being written by mere humans The bible has a fingerprint of being A message that comes from a being That transcends the dimensions that we human beings experience and where we can visualize phenomenon That was kind of the first clue I had that the bible was different and it really could be The inspired inner word of the god that created everything because it transcended the limits of human visualization Okay, the lord of hoses sworn as I have purchased so it would be as I have planned it so it will happen Application What does that tell us about the universe in which we live? I mean think of what you've been talking your public education quite counter to this. This is not mainstream science What's different here? Pardon me, okay Yeah, it's got everything under control Uh, but you know kind of what you see in mainstream science Is that the world of nature is filled with random outcomes and accidents Okay, this is saying the exact opposite Yeah That uh and the contemporary audience was this I'm trying to remember if this was pre-exile or during the exile Okay, there were a lot of bad things going on that his audience was Was thinking yeah, this is this is pre-exile the entire book of isaac is pre-exile growing And so there were fears of all that there was fears of an exile coming. Oh, yeah, definitely I mean the assyrians were attacking at the time of isaac That's a world that well, I mean we're to go through the entire book of isaac God basically through isaac is communicating look Things look bad things look like they're out of control But this is a god where everything is under control And yeah, isaac was a prophesying that an exile would come But basically saying that's god's handiwork And yeah, your sin may have brought this on And then you've got Jeremiah and ezekiel making a point When they're in the exile, you know, this is not the end You're gonna be here a while So I have have children, uh, you know set up industry Established careers Because you're gonna be here a while But also god's gonna bring you back And Jeremiah prophesied you're gonna be there for 70 years so the people knew hey god's got all under control But likewise this is saying this is true of all creation Everything in creation has a purpose Every outcome an event has a plan a purpose Nothing happens by accident Nothing is a random outcome Whereas we're taught in mainstream science that mainstream science is filled with things that just happen randomly And it's true statistical mechanics quantum mechanics. It all looks random. It looks random to us It's not random the god We are struck with uncertainties And apparently random outcomes But you know god is not constrained by our physics. He knows What's going on in the quantum uncertainty and the statistical mechanics Okay Yeah, then you and then we're gonna close off the class go ahead We just went through Ecclesiastes before we started with Isaiah. Yes Ecclesiastes chapter three for everything There's a season a time for every matter under heaven goes on to say in verse Nine what has the worker what gain as a worker from his toy? I've seen the business that god has given to the children of man to be busy with He has made everything beautiful in its time Is that the word said a few of Solomon? Yeah So whenever things don't seem to fit or seem seem to be just accidents happening It's all under god's control So when a natural disaster happens, it's all under god's control However, it was the same jesus who said you know what don't build your house on the sand Natural disasters happen. It's all under god's control, but we can be wise in response to that. Yes Regarding the seemingly chaotic statistical when you look at it synergistically ecologically Well, where this is now coming to for and uh, NASA and a lot of you here work for NASA a lot of you are at JPL Is that they're beginning to recognize? Hey trying to put a colony in mars or on the moon Or building an artificial planet The problem is if you make it too small You can't take care of all these random outcomes and accidents from our perspective God made our planet just the right size So that way when we make mistakes Things can be balanced out But if you make the ecosystem too small You're gonna have problems And I remember that little Place they put in arizona Yeah, it was eight acres And they said we're gonna actually have people live there where everything's going to be nicely imbalanced Problem was it was too small Eight acres was not big enough to be able to avoid because what happens is you've got human beings in there Who do things that are stupid? and uh Fortunately god put us on a big enough planet when that we would do stupid things The ecosystems able to recover Because it's just big enough but to put us on the moon or on mars. It's going to be a whole different matter So is that place just a monument to the stupidity of man now nobody's living there? Yeah, no one's living there now Yeah Does it really make sense as oops Well, I mean the one thing they didn't take into account they had a thought plan You know we're going to have a balanced ecosystem here where the plants will produce oxygen the humans will breathe out carbon dioxide We're going to have a recycling of nutrients here the water is going to be refreshed But they didn't take into account was the human psychological state You know putting they had seven people in there And uh, you know putting seven people in an eight acre place where you can't get out They found within six months that they were so psychologically unbalanced that they started to really stupid things And the whole thing fell apart That that that may be a good thing to close the class off Maybe that didn't get out on the soundtrack. I don't know Okay Anyway, we're going to do this for the rest of the text But I think you got the idea hopefully go through a little more rapidly next time But that's the whole thing I want you to remember What does it say? And what's the application? And maybe next week what I'll do is kind of break up in the class have one side say what does it say? The other side did the application and we'll trade it back. How's that sound? Okay, that might make a little more balance Okay Walter in heaven We thank you for this amazing prophet that you raised up Isaiah And lord how you use them through his long life at different times in his life To be a source of your truth and wisdom not just to the people of israel, but to all of humanity And lord, we thank you that this book is so relevant today in the 21st century What it's got to say about creation It's got to say about science How we should apply what we're seeing here and lord how we can counteract as some of the naturalistic thinking that's going on in our world today So lord, thank you for giving this and father I pray that you would endow us with wisdom humility With joy with enthusiasm as we go through these passages as we go through these questions Lord that we've be equipped more effectively than ever before To be used by you to bring other people to know you as creator lord and savior in jesus name. Amen