Animals and Man

Announcements:

May we will start our random acts of kindness back. We’ll pick some act to do, go do it, and we’ll follow up with something fun.

Bats Game June 4

Need your help with VBS. Let me know if you can and are willing to help.

Camp is at Camp Shaffer cost 160. There may be a chance we have to do something else. If that’s the case, we’ll have something else planned. We’re doing some kind of camp this year.

Also side note, there is a meteor shower tonight if you’re able to or want to see it.

Prayer Request:

We’re continuing our series on Science and the Bible. Last week we looked at how the Bible says God created everything and we looked at just one of the ways that science says everything was created. We looked at the different days and we stopped at God putting the stars in the sky. We looked at a couple of different theories on how old the earth is: on one hand some Christians agree with scientist that the earth is billions of years old, and some Christians believe the earth is only 5800ish years old. And honestly, we can conclude on this part, it doesn’t really matter how old the earth really is when you look at the overall picture. Why because God created everything good, then sin was introduced into the world and it messed everything up. So when it comes to the need of being saved from our sins, it really doesn’t matter how old the earth is.

We also looked at some areas where the Bible and science completely agree on. We looked at the stars and how the Bible says in Jeremiah 33:22 that the stars and sand can’t be numbered and we looked at 1 Corinthians 15:41 that says the sun, moon, and stars all have their own glory and different from each other. I talked about how that’s actually proven by scientist that we really don’t know how many stars there are and it’s physically impossible to determine how much sand is in the ocean. Speaking of ocean we also talked about what would happen if there was no moon, and how Jeremiah 31:35-36 explains the precision of movement in the universe. So we have some points where science and the Bible both agree on things.

No we’re going to look a little more into creation and start to focus on the animal aspect, a little bit of human aspect, and we’ll start to dabble in the idea of a giant flood. So go on and open up to Job 40:15-24 that’s where we will start today.

While you’re flipping, I want to remind you that I am NOT a scientist. I don’t know everything, nor do I pretend to. My goal for this series is not convince you of anything, but simply make you think for yourself and look at things from a Biblical perspective. Also like last week, if you have questions in regards to science and the Bible, write them down, and I’ll address them later.

Now on to our first bit of text tonight, Job 40:15-24 says:

So after what I read, what’s the first thought that came to your mind? To me the first thing that comes to mind is a dinosaur. So yes, science and the Bible agrees that dinosaurs existed. As always I can’t just stop there, let’s get into some more details and look at a few more things surrounding the dinos.

Some people read this account and say well this could be an elephant or a rhino that the writer is talking about. It’s not really a dinosaur.

The writers of the time, and honestly any writer up until mid 1800’s wouldn’t have used the word dinosaur because it wasn’t invented until the mid 1800’s.

The term “dragon” is a word that some Christians believed to have been used to describe dinosaurs.

Side question, what about dragons? Did they exist? The Bible talks about two specific dragons. One is the devil. We’re not really focused on him at the moment. But the other dragon, let’s talk about it for a moment.

His name is Leviathan

In Isaiah 27 it’s called a twisting serpent

Psalms 104 describes something great that lives in the sea

In Job 41 we see an interesting description of a twisted serpent. Says it has tough skin, it’s strong, has scales, glowing eyes, one made without fear and a long neck.

To me that sounds like what we picture when we hear the word dragon. There are a few scientist that believe it’s a dinosaur, and they believe we have the fossil to prove it. plesiosaurus, or if you believe it may have been seen in Scotland, it’s known as Nessy. But all of those words int he Bible describe this dragon or dinosaur.

As another side note, there are tons of ancient literature that describes dragon like creatures that have had encounters with humans over the last thousands of years. So it’s not just in the Bible.

So if you didn’t have a name for something, how would you say what it is? By giving a description of it right? Think about yourself for a moment. How many times have you described something to someone that you didn’t know or remember what the name of it was?

The writers here were doing the same thing. They didn’t have a name for the big creature, so they described it.

So now we have what seems to be like an account of a dinosaur in Job, so now where did it come from?

This one is a simple answer, God created them on the sixth day with the other animals and man.

I bet that just raised a lot more questions. Don’t worry we’ll try to get to it soon.

But what about science? Where does science say that dinosaurs come from?

Well the biggest and most popular theory is evolution. That over time, dinosaurs evolved from one thing into what we think of when we hear the word dinosaur.

Of course, there is a problem with that theory. Now I’m not going to go into full discussion on evolution. I’ve asked Mr. Lewis Priddy to come in within the next few weeks and discuss evolution and Christianity with you from an actual science teacher perspective.

However, I will give you one problem with this theory of evolution when it comes to dinosaurs. That problem is, there is absolutely no fossil evidence of an evolving dinosaur.

What I mean by that is there is no fossils found of an animal that is 50% dino and 50% something else. Although a complete skeleton is hard to come by, not a single evolution skeleton has been found. If dinosaurs did evolve over millions of years, there should be some proof of that through fossil records.

Again, we’re saving the evolution discussion for another time, so if you have a question in regards to that, write it down. We’ll get it answered.

So speaking of fossils, Why do we have dinosaur fossils?

Simple answer, the flood. But of course I don’t like simple answers

Taking a step back, what do you think of when you hear the word fossil? A set of bones right, that have been turned into a rock because it’s been in the ground. So how did it turn into that rock?

Well guess what there is three basic ways that something becomes a fossil, and two other ways we see records of animals

First one comes from tree sap. an organism like a bug becomes trapped in tree resin that hardens into amber after the tree gets buried underground. Makes sense right? Like the first Jurassic Park they’re looking for the mosquitoes to get the dino DNA out of it

Second is through perminerlaization. This occurs when dissolved minerals carried by water fill the celluar spaces of plants and animals. The minerals crystalise and produce rocks in the sape of the animal or plant. It’s the most common type of fossil and takes the form of teeth, bones, shells and wood.

The third is with a natural casts. This is when water removes all of the original bone or tissue leaving just an impression in sediment. Minerals fill in the mold recreating the original shape of the organism. This is mostly with fish.

Now the other two ways comes from things like a mammoth being frozen in a glacier and scientist discovering it. The other way is an imprint of something, like a footprint in a rock.

Now the first three ways, what do they all have in common? Water! What major water event occured in the Bible? The flood and Noah’s Ark. But wait the first one I didn’t say water. Your right, I didn’t say water, but the fossil comes when a tree is buried. What causes massive mud slides that can bury a tree? Flooding.

The flood that is in Genesis would explain a few different things as well.

One it explains the “death pose” that almost all complete dinosaurs have been found it.

This pose is where the tail and head are arched towards the center. (Show picture)

Scientist have said one reason this occured was because of decomposition. The body would break down before some of the ligaments and it would pull the head and tail towards each other.

In 2007 this theory was tested and scientist couldn’t recreate this pose on an already dead quail. Side note, some scientist believe dinosaurs evolved into chickens and other birds but again, that’s evolution and we’ll discuss another day.

Back on the death pose, the only way scientist can recreate this exact pose is through drowning. So if a majority of these full skeletons are found in this pose, would that not mean there was a huge flood at one point?

The flood also explains why sea life is found in places that are no where near the sea.

Kentucky is far away from the sea on all sides, but yet, the state fossil is a Brachiopod, which is like a clam shell. Now the only way to explain this type of sea life being in this part of the US would be through the earth being covered by water at one point, in other words, a flood.

Okay, well now the question is, if God created dinosaurs and man on the same day, then why don’t we have fossils of humans?

Good question, first, let’s reestablish why God flooded the earth to begin with.

Genesis 6:5 says The LORD say how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

So the people that were here on earth were wicked and evil. They were no where near what God had intended for His creation.

Almost like today. People are wicked. They only think about themselves, we have a sin problem.

So God flooded the world, except for Noah and his family who God found favor with. And we know the short version, God pulled 2 of every kind in the ark and saved them as well. Which we’ll go over it more in detail down the road.

So if the dinos died in the flood like I just described, wouldn’t that mean the people would have died and been fossils too/

In theory yes, HOWEVER, I can give you an explanation for why there isn’t any.

First comes from Genesis 6:7 God says that because people were so evil, he was going to wipe them from the face of the earth.

So in other words there wouldn’t be any record of these evil and wicked humans.

This same verse can be explained a bit more scientifically, nature taking it’s course. What do i mean by that?

The bodies of those people were in the water, fish and other sea creatures looked and said hey a snack, ate until their bellies were full and then released them in the form of poo. and I’m not talking about Winnie either.

This can actually be seen in a more modern setting with the Titanic wreckage.

in 1912 the Titanic sunk after it hit an iceberg. roughly 15000 people were killed and their final resting place became the bottom of the ocean.

When you go and see the titanic you won’t see any skeletons, but you will see shoes. Look at this picture. You can see that there is a left and right shoe, along with some other personal affects, so a body should be there but it’s not. The sea creatures ate everything.

Now of course there are some other theories as to why we don’t see human fossils with dinosaur fossils

One being they didn’t live together. Humans were afraid of the dinosaurs so they lived in areas away from them in smaller pockets. These humans may not have been discovered yet.

closing out though, I want to go back to probably the most important part of the discussion and that’s the fact that we are all still just as wicked as the people were when God flooded the Earth. You know God saved Noah from destruction. Likewise, God has given us the opportunity to be saved and that’s through placing your faith and trust in Christ. We’re all sinners, no one is perfect and we won’t ever be. Jesus is the only one who came to earth lived a perfect life, became a sacrifice for our sins, and rose from the dead. When we place our faith and our trust in Jesus, ask for God’s forgiveness, we’ll be saved. Because next time God cleans the earth, and He will spoiler alert, it’s in the Bible, it won’t be temporary and it won’t be from a flood. All things will be made new and His people will live in the presence of the Lord forever

Let’s pray.