WEBVTT 00:00:07.519 --> 00:00:12.080 Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, before the radio ministry of Pastor James W. 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:14.800 Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of Florida. 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:25.039 Our prayer is that these have our Bible study programs to bring the law to a scraving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the slaves to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior. 00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:27.359 Now here's your host, Pastor James W. 00:00:27.519 --> 00:00:28.079 Knox. 00:00:34.799 --> 00:00:37.200 And a very, very pleasant good day to each and every one of you. 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:44.000 I'm Brother James, and I greet you once again in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. 00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:47.359 And I welcome you once again to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast. 00:00:47.520 --> 00:01:02.320 I want to say a special thank you to those of you who listen to this program faithfully over our home base station here in Deland, Florida. 00:01:02.479 --> 00:01:07.359 And I know that many of you do not attend the Bible Baptist Church. 00:01:07.519 --> 00:01:12.719 I know that many of you attend uh all well, all different churches throughout our community. 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:14.719 And I'm happy about that. 00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:35.040 I am I am thrilled to know that you are comfortable listening to this Bible teaching program while remaining a help and a blessing in the church that you attend on Sunday and through the week. 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:37.439 That's really exciting to us. 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:40.239 We don't think we're the only people going to heaven. 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:42.159 We're not part of that crowd. 00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:44.719 We don't believe that we're right and everybody else is wrong. 00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:46.400 We're not part of that crowd. 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:54.159 We believe Jesus Christ is the way to heaven and everybody washed in his blood will make it by the grace of God. 00:01:54.480 --> 00:02:05.120 We're just happy to be able to be an encouragement and provide some instruction and blessing to all of God's people throughout our community, and we're really happy to have you on board. 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:05.840 I mean that. 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:15.840 And we thank you so much for listening and for praying for us and for telling others about the program and passing the word along that people can listen in. 00:02:15.919 --> 00:02:18.240 And we trust, learn, and be helped. 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:28.000 We started on the last broadcast to look together at the material that is found in a very, very uh old booklet. 00:02:28.240 --> 00:02:29.599 I don't even know where I got it. 00:02:29.759 --> 00:02:38.960 I've I've had it in my library for uh for a couple of decades now, and just pulled it out the other day and began to read over it and look at it again. 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:43.520 Uh it's a little booklet called Mistakes God Did Not Make. 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:49.199 And it was such a blessing to my heart that I wanted to pass the material on to you. 00:02:49.360 --> 00:03:05.520 And what's the what's contained in this booklet are just a common sense, factual arguments, and reasons for belief in a creator, and of course for rejecting the silly theory of evolution. 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:12.159 For example, when God made mountains, he did more than make scenery for us. 00:03:12.400 --> 00:03:19.120 Without elevated lands there can be no drainage, and earth would be largely swamp and shallow sea. 00:03:19.439 --> 00:03:23.919 Water supply, wind, rain, and temperature depend on mountains. 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:30.000 Without them, most of our minerals and metals would never have been utilized. 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:33.759 The radius of the earth is nearly four thousand miles. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:50.240 If any considerable area of the earth's surface were heaved up, one tenth of one percent of that radius, snow and ice would collect through the ages until the earth crust collapsed or the earth became lopsided. 00:03:50.400 --> 00:04:01.199 Of course we have mountains more than four miles high, but they are cone shaped, and glaciers carry snow and ice down to melting level. 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:19.040 The Bible says in Isaiah chapter forty and verse number twelve, Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains and scales, and the hills in a balance. 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:20.399 I know who to you? 00:04:20.720 --> 00:04:21.680 That's God. 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:23.040 That's his work. 00:04:23.360 --> 00:04:33.920 We have great table lands, but God who weighed and measured them, and fixed the melting point of snow, kept them below the danger line. 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:38.399 Just a little mistake of a thousandth part of the Earth's radius. 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:45.040 And this planet would be interesting to look at through a telescope, but that would be about all you couldn't live here. 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:54.879 Scientists say that far above us is a layer of ozone that screens out certain rays from the sun which would otherwise destroy all earthly life. 00:04:55.120 --> 00:04:57.279 It seems that God overlooked nothing. 00:04:57.519 --> 00:05:09.680 I'm glad this matter of a filter of ozone between sixty and two hundred and fifty miles above us was not left for some cosmic urge or fortuitous coalition of forces to attend to. 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:18.560 You can hardly trust spontaneous eruption of primordal unrest to shield and protect us from destruction. 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:25.680 Now it's well known that the depth and density of the atmosphere modifies our temperature just as altitude does. 00:05:25.920 --> 00:05:34.639 It must be clear then that any mistake that gave us deeper or shallower atmosphere would make most of the Earth an oven or a refrigerator. 00:05:35.199 --> 00:05:41.680 Death Valley is below sea level, has a record temperature of one hundred and thirty four degrees in the shade. 00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:50.560 It is obvious then that a high plateau would be excessively hot if it had the depth of atmosphere that Death Valley has. 00:05:51.120 --> 00:05:54.480 No one knows for certain how deep our atmosphere is. 00:05:55.040 --> 00:06:07.120 NASA has given us some information and made some guesses, but it's pretty tough to believe much of what comes from any government agency, but the gases range from fifty to two hundred and fifty miles. 00:06:07.439 --> 00:06:14.480 Judging from the flight of meteors that burn up while passing through the air, the atmosphere must be at least one hundred miles deep. 00:06:14.959 --> 00:06:24.560 Assuming this is correct, it must be apparent that a mistake that made it one percent deeper would make life as we know it impossible. 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:30.800 A mistake that made it one percent shallower would certainly leave much of the earth covered with snow and ice. 00:06:30.959 --> 00:06:34.399 It would mean snow in the equatorial highlands. 00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:37.839 God did not make that mistake. 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:43.360 The axis of the earth in relation to the plane of its orbit. 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:45.199 Now try and picture that in your mind. 00:06:45.360 --> 00:06:49.040 The axis of the earth, that's the line running running directly through it. 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:52.480 Imagine that in your mind from North Pole to South Pole, just draw a line. 00:06:52.720 --> 00:07:05.360 The axis of the Earth in relation to the plane of its orbit, that's the equator, the equatorial line, is tilted at an angle of twenty three point five degrees. 00:07:05.680 --> 00:07:07.360 Now what does that mean? 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:14.399 Well that makes the sun appear to come north in summer and appear to go south in winter. 00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:18.160 This is what gives us four seasons in the temperate zones. 00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:33.600 If that axis had been tilted forty five degrees instead of twenty three point five degrees, the temperate zones would have a torrid zone heat in summer and frigid zone cold in winter. 00:07:34.319 --> 00:07:47.920 If the axis were vertical to the plane of the orbit, January and July would have the same climate, and ice would accumulate until the seas would be either dry salt beds or too salty for marine life. 00:07:48.160 --> 00:08:06.639 If the axis of the Earth were horizontal to the planes of its orbit, the Earth would be a crazy jumble of fierce heat followed by deadly cold, followed by fierce heat, followed by deadly cold, with prolonged night on one half of the planet and prolonged day on the other. 00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:10.720 It is doubtful if any life could withstand the extremes. 00:08:11.680 --> 00:08:18.319 The Moon goes around the Earth, always presenting the same side to the Earth. 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:26.800 If the Earth did not spin on its axis but always presented the same hemisphere to the sun, the Earth would be as dead as the Moon. 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:38.559 The planet Mercury doesn't spin, and astronomers calculate that on one side it's hot enough to melt lead, while on the other side it is severely cold. 00:08:38.879 --> 00:08:45.120 From this we may reason that if the Earth did not revolve, no life would be possible on either side. 00:08:45.759 --> 00:08:48.080 Then there's the speed of the Earth. 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:53.679 Now the speed with which the Earth moves around the sun could be slower or it could be faster. 00:08:54.240 --> 00:09:00.639 Astronomers say if it went slower, it would be drawn nearer the sun, and all life would eventually be destroyed. 00:09:00.879 --> 00:09:06.799 By the same reasoning, if it went faster, it would go farther from the sun, and we all freeze to death. 00:09:07.679 --> 00:09:12.720 You know the conclusion to these matters in my mind is found in Psalm 14, verse 1. 00:09:12.879 --> 00:09:17.120 The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:28.240 How can you believe in a theory of evolutionary chance when one failure in all of the chances would result in the destruction of life on the planet? 00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:41.759 Our sun is one of the smallest stars in the universe, but it is exactly big enough and exactly far enough away to support rather than destroy life. 00:09:42.080 --> 00:09:44.399 Now, I don't think that's a chance. 00:09:44.559 --> 00:09:46.320 I don't believe that's an accident. 00:09:47.519 --> 00:09:55.759 No one knows exactly how much heat comes to the Earth from the sun because we don't know how cold the Earth would be without the sun. 00:09:56.320 --> 00:10:03.600 From absolute zero up to the heat under the direct rays of the sun would be over six hundred degrees. 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:11.200 If we take that as a basis, five percent more or less heat would ruin the world. 00:10:11.440 --> 00:10:17.279 Thirty degrees more heat would roast meat under a glass cover under direct rays of the sun. 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:22.080 Thirty degrees less heat would usher in a glacial age. 00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:28.480 If the sun were smaller, cooler, or farther away, a five percent mistake. 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:35.360 That'd not be too much for scientists to make, but it would be too much for God to make, and he didn't make it. 00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:40.799 Moons are somewhat commonplace in our solar system. 00:10:41.039 --> 00:10:42.639 Saturn has nine. 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:45.919 Jupiter has thirteen or more. 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:55.919 Romantic people may feel that Earth has been discriminated against, but a mistake in the number of moons or the size and distance of the one we have might be disastrous. 00:10:56.159 --> 00:11:11.519 For example, if the moon were half as far away, or twice its present diameter, great tides would wreck most of our harbors, submerge low lying islands and coastal plains, and drive inland a hundred miles on some rivers. 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:23.120 Some who love darkness rather than light would prefer to have no moon, or one much smaller farther away, but such a moon would not raise sufficient tides to cleanse our harbors and shorelines. 00:11:24.480 --> 00:11:50.559 That all the adjustments of distance, size, altitude, temperature, revolutions, poise, and behavior of the elements happened by chance is as unlikely as to suppose that a blind printer, not understanding our language, standing before cases of type would set up by chance the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. 00:11:51.840 --> 00:12:01.759 It's impossible for thoughtful people to observe the cruelty in nature and believe that a god of love and pity planned it that way. 00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:13.519 A careless creator might have left man to wonder why he designed such carnival slaughter as nature read in tooth and claw, one poet termed it. 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:15.919 God didn't make that mistake. 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:23.039 He saved our faith in his goodness by disavowing all responsibility. 00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:27.039 He said that the flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. 00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:33.679 In fact, without a sixth chapter of Genesis, it would be difficult to reconcile the pity of God with the cruelty of nature. 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:45.840 After earth life went wrong because of sin, the destroyers would have destroyed other living things, and then they would have starved to death. 00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:54.159 But God set destroyers destroying destroyers to keep life from ceasing on the earth long ago. 00:12:54.639 --> 00:13:00.080 Vegetation could not long survive if no enemies held worms and insects in check. 00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:07.039 It is a wise god who set the blood temperature of birds higher than mammals, thus making more food fuel necessary. 00:13:07.679 --> 00:13:16.480 In the case of insect eating toads, frogs, and bats, because of hibernation they must eat enough in six months to sustain them for a year. 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:24.240 Some birds destroy their own weight in insect pests and larvae in one day. 00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:33.279 A pair of wrens will destroy more foes of man in a day than a man could kill with a club in a month. 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:36.799 Less hungry insect eaters would be a disaster. 00:13:37.120 --> 00:13:51.519 It would be quite impossible for man to provide winter quarters for these fiends and friends, and so God sends the birds south, the bats, frogs, and lizards and toads into hibernation. 00:13:52.720 --> 00:14:06.080 Men who are willing to relieve God from the overwork, as they imagine, in the past have adopted in lieu of a creator, an abstraction called evolution. 00:14:06.559 --> 00:14:18.720 And I don't keep up with all the frequent revisions of this hypothesis, but its sponsors credit it with having given diversity of form and equipment to a million kinds of animals. 00:14:19.759 --> 00:14:28.480 If it has done all that, if it's done half of what's claimed for it, then it has manifested a wisdom that rivals deity. 00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:38.240 If evolution originated the pitiless horrors of nature, then it has manifested a cruelty that rivals the prince of demons. 00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:41.360 That's how one writer termed it. 00:14:42.159 --> 00:14:48.320 For example, destructive forms of life must be held in check. 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:55.759 Evolution is assumed to have worked very leisurely, taking thousands of years to make noticeable changes. 00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:07.120 Yet if insect destroyers of vegetation had arrived ten years before their destroyers, that's all, just ten years, Earth would have been a desert. 00:15:07.519 --> 00:15:17.120 If creatures evolved haphazard, some creature would have evolved an equipment, enabling it to kill or starve all others. 00:15:17.679 --> 00:15:32.320 The skunk has an equipment that makes it immune from the attack of all informed neighbors, but it has a colossal stupidity, and is so restricted in diet and speed that its multiplication beyond narrow limits would mean starvation. 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:43.759 Evolutionists have talked more or less convincingly about the survival of the fittest, but they've been strangely silent about the handicapping of the fittest. 00:15:44.399 --> 00:15:45.039 Why? 00:15:46.000 --> 00:15:49.759 The most charitable assumption would be that they have never noticed it. 00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:56.480 It would be a bold teacher who said that evolution would handicap the fittest. 00:15:57.600 --> 00:16:07.679 For every item of equipment that enables any animal to threaten the existence of its neighbors, there is some hazard or handicap that prevents it from doing so. 00:16:08.799 --> 00:16:14.399 I've never known a buzzard to be killed intentionally by any other creature. 00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:19.440 Yet buzzards are so restricted in their diet that they are comparatively scarce. 00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:28.879 On the other hand, quail outnumber buzzards a thousand to one, though they are hunted by many killers. 00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:41.120 If the animal birth rate of any group of animals exceeded the death rate by only one percent for 1,500 years, okay, now think with me. 00:16:41.759 --> 00:17:05.200 If the birth rate, the animal birth rate of any group of animals, exceeded the death rate by only 1% for 1,500 years, that group would be multiplied by more than a million, not a million more, but a million times more, and their competitors would be crowded out. 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:12.559 Would any blind force or unseeing law preserve such a delicate balance? 00:17:13.039 --> 00:17:13.920 I say no. 00:17:14.079 --> 00:17:14.799 I don't believe it. 00:17:14.960 --> 00:17:16.079 I believe in God. 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:34.079 Suppose the rabbit, in addition to its present equipment, its great speed and quickness and agility, evolved the quills of a porcupine, the artillery of a pole cat, or the fangs of a viper. 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:47.759 Potentially, ten rabbits in ten years might multiply to fifty billion and not be more prolific than some that that I've owned, I've raised rabbits, they multiply like rabbits. 00:17:48.799 --> 00:18:09.759 If unchecked by destroyers, these rabbits, with their fangs or quills, or odor, if unchecked, they would multiply until every edible plant was eaten, and then litter the land with their bones. 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:12.400 Ask the people of Australia. 00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:19.680 Years ago a few rabbits were left on an island in the South Sea, an island where they had no natural enemies. 00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:26.240 In a few years there was left on the island neither plant nor rabbit, only their bones. 00:18:27.599 --> 00:18:39.759 If crows had the speed and talons of a falcon, or progeny as numerous and easily cared for as pheasants, most other bird neighbors would speedily disappear. 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:43.279 Did you know the gannet lays but one egg? 00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:51.440 Hawks lay two, quail as many as fifteen, some sea turtles two hundred, some fish several millions. 00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:59.680 It would have been most inconvenient if the evolutionary Santa Claus had been careless with his gifts. 00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:08.799 If the birth of human quintuplets had been the rule, rather than the rarity, well you figure out where we'd be today. 00:19:09.839 --> 00:19:24.079 Grasshoppers sometimes darken the sky with uncounted millions, and by any law of mathematics that multiplies insects by eggs there should be ten times that many next year. 00:19:24.400 --> 00:19:26.960 But there are not a tenth as many. 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:42.880 You see, God has set this creation up so all the destroyers have hazards and handicaps that enable them to be destroyed, for which we may give thanks. 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:53.200 Blind force never hung a handicap on any creature to preserve a balance, and without such handicaps, evolution would destroy itself. 00:19:54.720 --> 00:19:59.759 Now there are so called gospels that would defeat themselves in their realization. 00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:04.319 Some missions have been more concerned with health than holiness. 00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:09.519 As a result of their benevolent ministrations, more pagans are born than saved. 00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:12.240 Think about that. 00:20:12.799 --> 00:20:18.720 Thoughtful people are beginning to suspect that scientific paganism may destroy the peace of the world. 00:20:19.519 --> 00:20:22.160 There is a charity that breeds loafers. 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:25.119 Have you looked around lately? 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:29.359 There is a mercy that fosters crime. 00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:32.640 Have you picked up a newspaper recently? 00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:40.480 There is a pacifism that invites pirate piracy and assault. 00:20:41.440 --> 00:20:46.000 Have you considered what has happened to American interests around the world in recent years? 00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:56.880 There is a social program that penalizes the frugal and puts a bonus on the profligate. 00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:04.400 Have you pondered the results of the great society and the welfare state? 00:21:05.680 --> 00:21:09.279 God made no such mistake. 00:21:09.839 --> 00:21:17.680 He never planned that health, peace, or prosperity would be the heritage of families or nations that defy him. 00:21:19.200 --> 00:21:35.599 Many kind-hearted people, with a pitying concern for the underprivileged, as they call them, have been misled by movements that undertake to save people with soap, soup, salve, social security, and scholarship. 00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:55.680 No Christian can be indifferent to poverty and hardship or sickness, but God's plan is that ministering to the physical needs of the unsaved shall be an incentive to repentance, not a removal of the heartache that brings one to repentance. 00:21:56.799 --> 00:21:59.759 The Bible says in the book of Romans the goodness of God leadeth the good. 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:01.279 Repentance. 00:22:01.759 --> 00:22:10.319 Any ministration or mission work that convinces the sinner that sin is not so bad after all is the devil's work. 00:22:11.279 --> 00:22:19.039 Any preaching that urges sinners to cheer up rather than repent is not God's gospel. 00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:37.440 I'm afraid there are many who would usher in utopia by giving more pay for less work, by having more spending and less earning, by having more culture and less restraint, by having more revelry and fewer headaches. 00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:49.519 That sort of gospel is more concerned with a man's dinner than with his deliverance from sin, and it will not get the job done. 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:58.640 It is called successful if its joiners respect themselves, even if they do not respect God. 00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:04.000 It's a devil's substitute for the real thing. 00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:12.240 God never sent anyone on a mission of appeasement to coax recalcitrant sinners to be respectable. 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:18.640 God told us to go into the all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:24.960 That Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures. 00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:29.119 Not just his death, but his death for our sins. 00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:35.200 Not just his crucifixion on the cross, but the reason for that crucifixion, our sins. 00:23:36.079 --> 00:23:43.759 Christ died for our sins because of our sins, to pay for our sins, Christ died and was buried. 00:23:44.319 --> 00:23:51.279 And the third day, Jesus Christ the Lord rose from the dead according to the scriptures. 00:23:51.519 --> 00:24:02.640 Now feed a man who is hungry, if you will, and clothe a man that is naked, if you will, and give a man a helping hand who's down and out, if you will. 00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:14.880 But if you do all that and do not demand that he repent of his sin and trust the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal savior, you have not done God's work. 00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:17.759 In fact, you've hindered it. 00:24:19.519 --> 00:24:21.119 God is the creator. 00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:27.759 I believe not only in him as creator, but in the creator as savior. 00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:29.359 How about you? 00:24:29.680 --> 00:24:35.519 Have you ever trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? 00:24:35.759 --> 00:24:37.440 There's no other way to heaven. 00:24:37.599 --> 00:24:39.200 There's no other savior. 00:24:39.759 --> 00:24:45.200 And that savior Jesus Christ said, Ye must be born again. 00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:52.079 Thanks for tuning in today. 00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:56.799 Join us every weekday for another episode of the Preaching of the Cross Radio Podcast. 00:24:56.960 --> 00:25:02.559 For hundreds of hours of in-depth expository Bible teaching, please visit our YouTube channel, James W. 00:25:02.720 --> 00:25:09.839 Knox Sermons, our sermon audio page, Bible Baptist Land, or our website, Bible Baptistteland.com. 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.640 Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.