David Reagan - Russ Miller on Creation, Part 1
Does the opening chapter of the book of Genesis really mean what it says? Did God really create the heavens and the earth and mankind in six literal 24 hour days? Does it make any difference if we spiritualize this passage of Scripture to mean millions, or billions of years? Stay tuned for an interview with one of Christendom’s most effective speakers in behalf of Creationism.
Dr. Reagan: Greetings in the name of Jesus, our Blessed Hope, and welcome to Christ in Prophecy. My co-host, Nathan Jones and I have a very special guest with us today. His name is Russ Miller. Russ is the founder of a Creation ministry located in Arizona. He and I have ministered together several times at the Steeling of the Mind Conferences. And after hearing him speak several times I came to the conclusion that he is one of the most effective speakers in behalf of Creationism on the scene today. Russ, welcome to Christ in Prophecy.
Russ Miller: Thank you, Dave, it is a pleasure to be here.
Nathan Jones: Good to have you on, sir.
Russ Miller: Nice to be here. Thank you.
Nathan Jones: I was reading up on your bio and I found you have quite an interesting background in business and home construction, but in 2000 you decided to just walk away and start a ministry. Can you tell us how did God lead you in that direction?
Russ Miller: Well, at that time I was about 40 years old at the time. Actually I’ve been 40 years old for about 20 birthdays in a row now.
Nathan Jones: It shows.
Russ Miller: Thank you. I think. I was a Theistic Evolutionist at the time. Now, that’s a Christian who thinks God used millions of years of death and suffering, and evolution to get us here. I wasn’t a die hard. I wasn’t selling other people on it, but I had about 174 college credits, in fact exactly 174 and all you’re taught is millions of years leading to Darwinism.
Nathan Jones: Oh, yes.
Russ Miller: So, I was trying to figure out how does this fit into God’s Word? And when I finally figured out it doesn’t, and God showed me the information that I now share with others, it just lit a fire under me. I studied it intently for four years. And then one day, it was almost like God just said, “Russ, here’s what I want you to do.” My plan was to retire at the age of 49, spend the rest of my life playing golf, hunting buffalo in Zimbabwe, you know the important things in life. God had a whole different plan for me all along. And I ended up giving my business to a fella who worked for me for 13 years. I went to my wife Joanna, I said, “You know I think this is what God wants me to do.” And she’s a real godly woman. She said, “If you feel God wants us to do this, this is what we need to do.”
Dr. Reagan: Well, that was a confirmation.
Nathan Jones: Yeah.
Russ Miller: Yes, it absolutely is. And also I can hold it against her when things get rough.
Dr. Reagan: Well, I always get excited when I meet somebody who has the faith to do what you did, give it all up, and step out in faith.
Russ Miller: And my wife right along with me, Dave. And so, we went into the ministry cold turkey 20 years ago, walked away from our business. And that’s what we’ve done now for about 20 years.
Nathan Jones: What do you call the ministry?
Russ Miller: Well, Creation, Evolution & Science Ministries is the official name, creationministries.org is the website. And a lot of people call us that.
Nathan Jones: Okay.
Dr. Reagan: Well, Russ your website features your motto, and I’ve written it down here quoting you, “You don’t have to believe anything I tell you. All I ask is that you look at what I show, and weigh it against anything that has you believing in anything other than what the Bible says. And for anyone who does that,” you say, “they will find the answer to be a ‘no brainer.'” Explain.
Russ Miller: Absolutely. There is a reason the secularist own the system, and they only allow kids to see their side, their interpretation of the evidence. You know, Dave people ask me all the time, “Hey, Russ what evidence do you have the Bible’s true?” I always give them the same answer, “I have the exact same evidence that Atheists use to say it’s not true.” You see it’s never been about the evidence because we all live in the same world, and the same universe. We all have the exact same evidence. It is about who gets to interpret the evidence. Secularists own the system and they interpret the world through their belief which is millions of years leading to Darwinism. Based on their being no global flood, and their interpretation is taught as science today. When it’s not science, it’s their biased interpretation. So, I just show people that actually the biblical interpretation fits the evidence like a hand in a glove, and that real science is a believer’s best friend. But like 1 Timothy 6:20-21 tell us we have to be aware of science falsely so called, which many professing of error concerning the faith. I’m there to help folks see the truth of God and His Word through the world that we live in.
Dr. Reagan: Well, you just said something that I’ve heard you say a hundred times at these conferences where we’ve spoken together it’s like a broken record over and over, and that is science is Creationism’s best friend.
Russ Miller: It is. You know most folks today, Dave, don’t realize it. They think they’re opposed. That’s–
Dr. Reagan: Just like we say here.
Russ Miller: That is secular indoctrination. That’s all propaganda. Most folks don’t realize it today because it’s not taught but over 80% of the branches of modern science were started by Bible believing Christians in order to study God’s creation. There wouldn’t even be science today if weren’t for Christianity. We thought there was an Intelligent Creator, He probably put some laws and principles in place to govern His creation. And if we would study the creation we could discover some of those things and put them into our own lives and improve our lifespans, and standards of living. And that is what lead to modern science. It pulled us out of the Dark Ages. But that’s been undermined, science has been undermined over the last 150 years by secularists.
Dr. Reagan: I have actually heard scientists says more than once that you cannot be a scientist if you believe in Creationism. I’ve heard them say that. And yet the greatest scientists who ever lived was a person who believed in Creationism and that’s, Sir Isaac Newton.
Nathan Jones: Sir Isaac Newton, yeah.
Russ Miller: Newton, Pascal, Kepler, Bacon, on and on you can go the father of the scientific technique was a biblical Creationist.
Dr. Reagan: One of the trustees of our ministry is a man by the name Dr. James Hugg. And James is an incredible scientist. He is sort of genius I guess. He went to Stanford University when he was in his teens, and he was their star student. And when he got ready to get his PhD in Nuclear Physics, was what he was going to do it, they were questioning him and he, and they found out that he believed in God. They were astonished. Now, this was a long time ago, this was not recently, this is back probably the 50’s, 60’s. I’d say the 60’s. And they said, “How could you go through our program and end up believing in God? Why didn’t you tell us before you came that you believed in God?” They were offended. He said, “I didn’t.” He said, “I became a believer by studying your science.” And they said, “What do you mean?” He said, “It was geology that convinced me.” He said, “I looked at the geological record,” and he said, “it just suddenly dawned on me that the best scientific explanation of it is a worldwide flood.”
Russ Miller: Absolutely.
Dr. Reagan: And he said, “That led me to the Bible and to God.”
Russ Miller: Yes. Yes. And see he’s a real scientist. He looked at the evidence and he made the best interpretation. That’s what real science does. But false science is what they were trying to force him to cowtell to their religious interpretation; their faith based interpretation. Which is what all scientist have to do today.
Dr. Reagan: One of the things you mentioned that I wanted to talk about is that you mentioned how our kids are being brainwashed in schools today by only one view point. You know back in the 20’s when they had the Scopes Trial the Evolutionists said over and over, “All we want is just the opportunity to present our side of the question.” And once they were given the opportunity it was suddenly, “We don’t want you giving your side at all.”
Russ Miller: Exactly.
Dr. Reagan: We’re shut out.
Russ Miller: Exactly.
Dr. Reagan: And now only one side is presented.
Russ Miller: And it is kept afloat by lawsuits, coercions, blackmail, etcetera. They cannot stand up to the real facts. I can go onto a college campus and destroy Darwinism in just a matter of minutes. It’s easy to do. Age of the earth takes a little bit more time, but it’s the foundational issues. But there’s just more things to cover. You have to explain how the global flood wipes out the old earth beliefs. And that takes a little bit of time to go over. Well, Russ, then why when you talk to evolutionists they always call it the Theory of Evolution. And then you’ll say, “Well, you just said theory.” And they’ll laugh, “Ha-ha, no, it is a proven science.”
Dr. Reagan: Right.
Nathan Jones: Why is it the Theory of Evolution but they are not ready to say it’s a fact, but they’ll say it is a proven science? Blows my mind.
Russ Miller: Well, you know actually it confuses me why they call it a theory, when they’re talking about Darwin’s Theory. I mean in real science, and they do call it a theory today, I’ll give them that. But in real science you start out with evidence. And then you make a story, they call it a hypothesis that fits the evidence. And if that hypothesis stands up to years and years of scientific scrutiny and testing, and new evidence is found that supports that theory, eventually it becomes a law. Well, Darwin’s Theory actually started out with evidence that the Bible was true, he misinterpreted it. They’ve spent 155 years trying to find proof of Darwinian change, none has ever been found. If it were a real scientific theory it would have been discarded 100 years ago. Even toward the end of Darwin’s life he realized he’d found no evidence that supported his theory, which is a weak hypothesis at best. And however, the secular world latched onto it. You know, Dave, one thing I tell folks, and Nathan, is Satan is really good at what he does. And when we scoff and we underestimate him we need to realize he is an expert at misleading people, and lying. And he was able to use this lie, and he is still using it today to mislead not millions, but billions of people.
Dr. Reagan: You know Darwin actually said in his writing that it was going to be difficult for people to believe in what he was saying considering the complexity of the eye. What about the complexity of DNA?
Russ Miller: Oh, it’s, when the RNA DNA system became even slightly understood it should have brought any debate about Darwinism having taken place to a screeching halt. It is so complex–
Nathan Jones: Just so people who don’t know, DNA is the building blocks, it is the code that tells us what we are, right?
Russ Miller: It codes. In fact in each of our cells, not our red blood cells, but each of our cells, and we are made of an estimated 75 trillion cells. Can I just talk about those numbers for just a moment? We don’t understand those big numbers, they are beyond human comprehension. But let’s just take a minute of time, 60 seconds. Well, a million seconds ago was 11 days ago. A billion seconds ago is back in 1988, that is the differences between a million and a billion. And a trillion seconds would have been 30,000 years ago. Well, we’re made up of 75 trillion cells. And each of our cells contain two billion base pairs of genetic information per cell. And it is so complex it reads forwards and backwards, our best technology only reads in one direction. And it so compactly designed that the genetic information to code all 7 billion people on earth could fit into a container the size of an aspirin.
Nathan Jones: No, way.
Dr. Reagan: We are supposed to believe all that happened by accident?
Russ Miller: That’s what we’re told.
Dr. Reagan: To me it is like standing in front of Mount Rushmore and saying, “Wow, isn’t it amazing what can happen accidently through erosion!”
Russ Miller: Exactly. It would make more sense to believe that Mount Rushmore came about by wind and rain erosion then DNA came about by random chance and accident. It’s just really mind boggling. But it’s really Satan versus God. This is a war we’re in.
Dr. Reagan: Well, we’re going to take a break here and be back in just a moment, and pick up where we left off.
Part 2
Nathan Jones: Welcome back to Christ in Prophecy and our interview with Russ Miller, the founder and director of Creation, Evolution & Science Ministries, located in Arizona. Russ, well it seemed as the Theory of Evolution became more and more popular Christians started getting defensive; and they tried then to reconcile evolution with the Bible, and they created things like the Day Age Theory, and the Gap Theory. Could you tell us about the Gap Theory and why the Gap Theory isn’t correct?
Russ Miller: Well, the Gap Theory was the first manmade attempt to fit the secular belief of millions of years of time into the Word of God. The secular belief is based on there never having been a global flood, this is actually foretold would take place in 2 Peter 3:3-6, in the last days scoffers would deny Jesus’ return, and deny there was ever a global flood. And you have to ask yourself, “Why would they deny a global flood?” Well, because the old earth beliefs that are worshipped today, that are now the foundation for Darwinism, Secularism, Humanism, etcetera are all based on there never having been a global flood. They are based on the earth’s crust forming slowly. Global flood explains how it formed quickly, wiping out the old earth beliefs. So, the Gap Theory. The Gap Theory was the first attempt by mankind to alter God’s Word and fit those secular beliefs into Gods’ Word. So, they say between Genesis 1 verse 1, and 1 verse 2, you can’t come much more quickly than that.
Nathan Jones: Right after the first verse.
Russ Miller: There was a gap, could have been billions of years. And that’s when all these strata layers formed.
Dr. Reagan: They claim there was a worldwide flood then, don’t they?
Russ Miller: They do. They say the earth crust is from this, I call it the non-biblical creation, they teach there was a different creation. It’s not found in the Bible. It is a non-biblical creation and that Satan and his minions were banned to the non-biblical earth and they messed it up so bad. Now, follow me on this one, they messed it up so bad that God destroyed it, and that’s when you pick up with Genesis 1 verse 2, and now God makes the biblical creation. Follow me on this, leaves it full of Satan and his minions, who He just destroyed the other creation because of, and calls it very good. There’s a problem there.
Nathan Jones: That just disproves it pretty much right there, doesn’t it?
Russ Miller: Yeah. And then it goes–there is a lot more problems with it. But even right there that should end the compromise.
Dr. Reagan: This puts also puts death before sin, doesn’t it? Explain that.
Russ Miller: And Dave, that’s the key. And most Christians today they’ll say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter if God used a day or a million years.” Well, first of all there’s several issues. First God’s Word if you can’t believe in the beginning God created why read any further than that? Secondly you’re handing the enemy the victory because millions of years is the foundation of Darwinism, Naturalism, Humanism, etcetera. But even more from a Christian’s stand point Christians today can’t ask the simply question, I’d say 98% of Christians can’t answer this question: How could we have a loving God that allows a world full of death and suffering? The reason we’ve lost that answer because of old earth beliefs inundating the Church. The Gap Theory puts death before Adam. The biblical message found in Genesis 1 and 3, which is why Creation is under relentless assault from the enemy is that God gave us a perfect creation. Adam’s original sin corrupted it bringing in death. So, let me go back to that question: How could there be a loving God in a world full of death and suffering? The biblical answer is well, God didn’t give us the world the way it is today full of death and suffering. God gave us a perfect creation. What happened to it? Adam original sin. This brought on the curse allowing death to enter. And that is why we live in a world full of death and suffering, and yet we have a loving God. How loving is that God? Despite our sin, which is rebellion against Him, He sent His only begotten Son to suffer and die on a cross because there is nothing you and I can do to redeem ourselves. We can’t be righteous in the eyes of the heavenly Father who is perfect. So, He sent His only begotten Son to suffer and die in our place. You can’t get more loving than that.
Nathan Jones: No.
Russ Miller: You cannot have a more loving God. But because we as Christians have put death with all these Old Earth beliefs before Adam. Think about this, once you’ve accepted or taught that death existed before Adam, you can’t teach Adam’s sin brought in death, separating us from God requiring our redemption. The foundations have been destroyed.
Nathan Jones: So, where science and the Bible actually work together. The idea of the Gap Theory in the Bible doesn’t work together. It sounds like it actually disproves the biblical account.
Russ Miller: It absolutely undermines the foundation of the Gospel message. And it was actually the Old Earth beliefs were deliberately designed about 210 years ago to get people to trust that death existed before man. Well, then we immediately start putting it into the Bible.
Dr. Reagan: You know when people talk, also start talking to me about how those days in Genesis are really millions of years, or billions of years, or whatever, I always turn them over to Exodus 20 where it says, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and the sea that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.”
Russ Miller: Etched into stone by God’s very own finger on the Ten Commandments. And you know Dave, sometimes I ask myself why would God take the time in those brief Ten Commandments to reiterate He created in six days, resting on the seventh? I think He knew this would be Satan’s major attack on His Word in the last day.
Dr. Reagan: Yeah.
Russ Miller: And God’s Word is true, word for word, and cover to cover.
Dr. Reagan: Russ, you live in Arizona very near the Grand Canyon. And the Grand Canyon is a very important part of your life because I know that you in the summer time lead groups to the Grand Canyon and you lecture from the rim, and then you take them down to the bottom, and they go through on the river.
Russ Miller: Yes.
Dr. Reagan: And you lecture from there.
Russ Miller: Yes.
Dr. Reagan: And tell us a little bit about that and what is your point in doing that?
Russ Miller: Well, Dave I used to lead raft trips, seven day, and four day trips that went through the entire canyon, but those turn into raft trips. And really the purpose of our trips are to show people the truth of Gods’ Word and bring glory to God, and bring people to a stronger, or even saving faith in our Lord Jesus. So, we do rim tours on the south rim. From the south rim, and most folks have either been to Grand Canyon or they’ve seen pictures of Grand Canyon, from the rim I can point out the original Creation Rock. And it blows people away.
Dr. Reagan: What do you mean by Creation Rock?
Russ Miller: The rock that we assume was there in this form at the end of the six day Creation when God called His creation good. Now, at that time it would have been covered by about two miles of sediments. The global flood when it erupted, the fountains of the deep erupted and for 150 days the water increased, and they were eroding about the top two miles of sediments. Then over the second 150 day period the waters began to abate, now they started laying down those sediments. Have you ever seen a miner with a pan? He scoops up some sediments, sloshes it back and forth. Well, that moving water stratifies out the sediments in his pan by grain size, weight, and density. Well, on a global scale the global flood sifted out those sediments over that 150 plus day period by grain size, weight, and density, and started laying them down on the second half of the flood. That’s why the earth’s crust are stratified layers, laid down by water separated by grain size, weight, and density. So, we have all shale, all sandstone, all mudstone, and that’s just great proof of the global flood.
Nathan Jones: Not millions of years of laying down one layer after another?
Russ Miller: Exactly.
Dr. Reagan: Are you saying it didn’t take millions of years for that little stream to carve that in there?
Russ Miller: You know, Dave, I know that’s what’s taught. And I know you’re being facetious.
Nathan Jones: How can you tell?
Russ Miller: But, actually the Old Earth believers they’ve lost Grand Canyon. They don’t even know how it could have formed slowly. They’re coming up with all sorts of wild, crazy things.
Dr. Reagan: What about the evidence of Mount St. Helen’s? The recent evidence?
Russ Miller: Well, God used Mount St. Helens. He showed us how canyon systems form quickly.
Dr. Reagan: Just like that.
Russ Miller: How strata layers form very quickly. Three separate events showed us how finely stratified layers hundreds of feet thick can be laid down in matter of moments. And at Grand Canyon, so you’ve got the water eroded the two miles, and then laid them down. Well, in the gorge it cuts down deep enough to get into the non-stratified rock. The non-stratified rock we consider to be original creation rock. At the canyon they call it foundation rock. And the first of the Flood layers, the lowest of the horizontal flood layers at the canyon is the Tapeats Sandstone. And I can show you where the Tapeats lays right on top of the Creation Rock, literally and physically; where Creation and Judgment met. I can show you where you can put your thumb on Creation Rock and your fingers on the first of the Flood layers, literally, where Creation and Judgment physically met. And at the Grand Canyon that’s not even the biggest thing I show at the canyon. The biggest thing we show is when you’re on the rim looking down it’s a mile, okay, it is a mile from the rim to the river. Ten primary strata layers laid down by water. But they will not tell you at Grand Canyon, because remember secularist own the system and their whole foundation is that there was never a global flood and the layers formed over millions of years of time. Putting death before Adam by the way. But at the Grand Canyon what they won’t tell you is that mile from the rim to the river is nothing, there used to be a mile and a half of layers above the rim.
Nathan Jones: Wow! On top of that?
Russ Miller: That have been removed from southern Utah, all the way to the sea, leaving behind what geological called the Grand Staircase. So, from the rim I can point north, you can see the first 2,000 foot tall cliffs 6,500 miles north as those layers are picked up, that’s the Vermilion Cliffs. On our raft trip we raft through the Vermilion Cliffs, you’ve got these up to 2,000 foot cliffs on both sides of the river. And when you come out at Lee’s Ferry and land, all of a sudden boom you emerge from the cliffs and they’re gone. And I can show people that hey, there’s no way to explain this but flooding on a global scale.
Nathan Jones: Yeah, the Colorado River couldn’t have done it. Didn’t the Colorado River actually flows the wrong way to have carved the Grand Canyon?
Russ Miller: Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say that. It entered though the already formed canyon. So, there is the if you’re looking at a satellite map of the canyon, you have Marble Canyon channels in from the north, the Little Colorado River channels in from the east. The Grand Canyon doesn’t cut into the plain. Grand Canyon cuts through the upwarp. So toward the end of the flood the mountains arose, the valleys sank down, late flood waters, I’m going to give you the thirty-second version here. Late flood waters running across the continent. Any Pangaea, continental drift happened late in the Flood, the continents split apart where the fountains of the deep had been erupting. Late Flood waters remove that mile and a half of strata, leaving behind the Grand Staircase which are the 2,500 foot Pink Cliffs of Bryce. You drop 40 miles to 2,500 foot White and Gray cliffs of Zion. Drop 45 miles the 2,000 foot Vermilion Cliffs. And remove those layers all the way to the sea. In Arizona you also have the Mogollon Rim that was cut in this event, another 2,000 foot cliff. The mountains arose, the Rockies and the Sierra Madres arose in a north-south trending direction, diverting late flood waters south where they eroded the Scablands of southern Utah and northern Arizona. And there’s different there’s the Breach-Dam Theory and the channeling event theories on how the canyon formed. I’ll just give you the channeling one really quickly, they’re fairly similar except one has a delay. But these two events the Marble Canyon is a channeling event that comes in from the north, it meets up with the Little Colorado River that channels in from the east. The area was uplifted forming the Kiabab Upwarp and they channeled right through that upwarp cutting Grand Canyon. Yeah, when you’re on the edge of the canyon you’re on top of the upwarp looking down into the canyon that cuts through the upwarp, not into the plain through the upwarp.
Nathan Jones: Water never flows uphill does it?
Russ Miller: Yeah, that’s a big problem for the Old Earth beliefs, yes. They’ve got things coming up and dropping in 12,000 foot drops over millions of years. And they’ve got things twisting and turning. We could talk about Occam’s razor but I think we’re probably out of time.
Part 3
Nathan Jones: Welcome back to Christ in Prophecy and our interview with Creation-Evolution expert, Russ Miller. Hey, Russ tell folks how they can get in touch with your ministry.
Russ Miller: Nathan, the best way to catch me is through our website at creationministries.org.
Dr. Reagan: Thank you, Russ, and we appreciate you being with us today. Well, folks, Nathan and I have so many additional questions that we want to ask Russ, so I have decided to invite him to be back with us again next week. Nathan, and I are going to keep him in the hot seat. And we’re going to ask him to respond to questions like these: Is it true that the fossil record proves evolution? How do Evolutionists get around the fact that the complexity of DNA requires a designer? Shouldn’t the discovery of DNA have been the nail in the coffin for the Theory of Evolution? Evolutionists argue that Creationism cannot be taught in the public schools because it is religion, whereas Evolution is science. Is this claim true? How can you justify Creationism when the earth appears to be so old? Evolutionists say that starlight is absolute proof of an ancient universe since it took hundreds of millions of years to reach the earth. Is this true? Well, folks, personally I can hardly wait to hear Russ’ answers to these questions. I hope you’ll be back with us next week to hear his responses. Until then this is Dave Reagan speaking for Lamb & Lion Ministries saying, “Look up, be watchful, for our redemption is drawing near.”