David Reagan - The Truth About Creation with Mike Riddle
Most Evolutionists today claim that Evolution is no longer a theory because it has become a proven fact. Is that true? For the answer to this and other questions about the origin of this universe and life, stay tuned.
David Reagan: Greetings in the name of Jesus our Blessed Hope, and welcome to Christ in Prophecy. My colleague, Tim Moore, and I have a very special guest with us today who I know is going to be a special blessing to all of you. His name is Mike Riddle, and he is the founder and director of a wonderful ministry called, the Creation Training Initiative. Mike, welcome to Christ in Prophecy.
Mike Riddle: Well, thank you, Dr. Reagan.
David Reagan: And Mike your ministry has a rather unusual name. What is it all about?
Mike Riddle: Well, it is called Creation Training Initiative. And we called it that because one we deal with Creation, we deal with training, that is a big part of our ministry, and it is an initiative to get something done.
David Reagan: So, you are training people to be able to teach it, and defend it?
Mike Riddle: That is exactly right. In other words, our ministry is based off of 2 Timothy 2:2 where he trained others to speak and teach about God’s Word.
Tim Moore: That is a fantastic plan. Mike, tell us what kind of background and qualifications you have to be presenting teaching on Evolution and Creation, this particular topic.
Mike Riddle: My first and most important qualification is that I’m a Born Again Believer, I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
David Reagan: Amen. Hallelujah.
Mike Riddle: That is number one, everything else is secondary. Well, God has given me a good gift of being able to do a lot of things. One I was a captain in the United States Marine Corp. I worked in computers with Microsoft for many years, some may see that as a detriment, I don’t know. And I’ve also been an athlete. I’ve competed at the worldwide in track and field. So, He has given me the desire to win and be a champion. Not that I was always a champion, you take your share of losing too. But I’ve been working in this field of Creation-Evolution Apologetics for over 35 years.
Tim Moore: Wow, well, I would say that you are definitely qualified.
David Reagan: Let me just say something too. And that is, of all the Creation speakers I have ever heard in my life, he is the best in terms of getting it down to the level of his audience, whatever level that is he knows how to adjust it and communicate with them.
Tim Moore: I could make a comment on a Marine having that ability to talk at any level. But Mike we want to talk about some of the most frequently asked questions that come to us here at Lamb & Lion. And one of the things people talk about is that in schools children are taught today that Evolution is a fact, and it’s not even a theory anymore. What do you say about that regarding the teaching that is being promulgated in schools across America?
Mike Riddle: Well, before I get to whether it is a fact or theory thing, let me give some background information. There are things called proof and persuasion. Now, persuasion is when you give evidence for an argument even if the idea is false, you give persuading evidence for that. We see that on TV commercials all the time, the people are persuading, my product is the best. We see it in cults, all the time, persuading well, our cult, we are the only way.
David Reagan: Political advertising.
Mike Riddle: We all see it in politics, yes, sir.
Tim Moore: We’ve seen many of those lately, yes.
Mike Riddle: Yes, sir, that is very relevant, politics. Now, proof is when we give an explanation for something that is absolutely true, there is no missing gaps or any missing information in there. Now, where does Evolution fit in all of this? First of all, we don’t know where the matter came from, they can’t prove that at all. They don’t know how stars or galaxies formed, they have ideas, but they are only ideas. No one has ever seen a star and galaxy formed. They don’t know how life originated, our best scientist can’t even produce a protein, let alone a living cell.
The fossil record does not support that because we know fossilization happens rapidly. So, when we look at this, the evolution model, they have holes everywhere. So, what is it? Well, it is not a fact, it can’t be proven. It actually does not qualify for a scientific theory. Many different deviations of a theory, but a scientific theory must be observable, and repeatable. Where in evolution have we repeated any of this?
David Reagan: I was going to say, you know I’m not a scientist, but I always was taught that if something is scientific you can reproduce it in the laboratory.
Mike Riddle: Yes, and many people have to be able to reproduce that.
David Reagan: Yes.
Mike Riddle: So, evolution really fits as not a fact, not a theory, but an unverified hypothesis, or a model, or a philosophy.
David Reagan: Well, it seems to me like every time I pick up something these days, or see an article on the Internet, somebody is backing off, who is an evolutionists, is back off and saying, “Well, we’ve got a new explanation. A new explanation.” What’s going on there?
Mike Riddle: Well, they do abandon some of their ideas. So, the answer is, are they giving up on some of their ideas? And the answer to that is yes, and no. You like those? Yes, because some, like you were talking Dr. Reagan, some of their ideas have been shown to be completely false, or they are dangerous to the idea. Such as racism. You used to look at these biology text books back in 70’s and 80’s and even in the 60’s, you see this progression going from ape like creatures, to dark humans, and then to light humans, and that promoted racism. They don’t do that anymore. Now, they just put pictures of skeletons in there.
Tim Moore: Well, obviously even Adolph Hitler, and some of the Nazi philosophy borrowed from Evolution to say that there was a master race, and it was very grounded in Darwin’s teachings from that day and age.
Mike Riddle: Yes, exactly.
David Reagan: You mentioned drawings. It seems to me that Evolutionists, that is what they base their whole thing on is drawings.
Mike Riddle: Right because we don’t find too many complete fossils.
David Reagan: They find one tooth.
Mike Riddle: Yes.
David Reagan: And draw a whole human being from that one tooth.
Mike Riddle: Called Nebraska Man. Guess where we find Nebraska Man? That is a trick question. But they do give up on things like they used to have the idea that over a 100 of our organs were left over from our days of evolving, they were useless called vestigial organs. Well, they had to back off of that because we found all of them are useful.
Tim Moore: Well, they also had drawings of a series of embryos that made it look like we went through stages of developed that were very animalistic. And those were just fantasized drawings. They were not even based in reality whatsoever. And yet, they found there way into many textbooks until recent years.
Mike Riddle: And actually, they still have that suggestion in the textbooks today, even though it has been proven false for well over 100 years.
David Reagan: Isn’t one of the world’s leading Evolutionists named Dawkins.
Mike Riddle: Richard Dawkins, yes.
David Reagan: Well, in an interview that I saw of him he had backed so far off evolutionary theory that he was saying, “Well, I believe life came to this planet as crystals floating out in space.”
Mike Riddle: I’ve seen that interview. Yes.
Tim Moore: Wow, talk about fantasy.
Mike Riddle: Yes, he has missed that. But some of the things they will not back on. Even though the Big Bang has scientific problems they won’t back off of it. The reason why is they don’t have anything to replace it.
Tim Moore: Well, speaking of the Big Bang, one of the things that we talk about is that the earth is young. That is what we believe based on the creation account, and they account through scripture of the generations. So, here’s a question for you. If the earth is so young, why does it look old?
Mike Riddle: Well, here is my answer to that question. I like to use biblical tactics, that is where I get all my information from, science is the secondary, but the Bible is my first thing. So, I am going to answer that kind of question with a question. What do you mean by old? And what is your tool for measuring old? Because a lot of people look at me and say, “You’re old.”
Tim Moore: Well, I said you were 70 some years young earlier.
David Reagan: You are young compared to me.
Tim Moore: Yeah.
Mike Riddle: So, I am going to ask them that question. And they may come up with something like, oh, this thing called radiometric dating. Radiometric dating. How they date rocks and fossils. We don’t need to go into that right now. But they use a tool for measuring and counting atoms in there. Well, what they’re not teaching here in the schools is this whole idea of radiometric dating is based on assumptions, it’s not a fact. You can date one rock, three differing methods, come up with three completely different ages. So, that has been shown. Now, the other one of these is called carbon-14. Now carbon-14 is an atom. That is what we mean by that. And they are floating around in the upper space there, we get it in, all living things eat it and breath it, so we all have carbon-14 in us. All living things have it. Interesting thing, carbon-14 is a great testimony to a young earth, because when something dies all the carbon-14 decays out. You are not eating and breathing anymore so no more gets in, but when you die it just kind of decays out. We estimate after about 100,000 years it all should be gone. Guess where we are finding carbon-14? Dinosaurs, and all these creatures who are supposed to be dead for millions of year.
Tim Moore: They still have it.
David Reagan: Soft tissue is found in them.
Mike Riddle: They still have soft tissue.
David Reagan: How can that be if they’ve been dead for hundreds of millions of years?
Mike Riddle: There is no explanation, other than contamination. But if that’s contamination then everything they measure with carbon-14 has it.
Tim Moore: I like to point out that God created Adam and Eve, and if they were created as adult human beings, if you and I had looked at them we’d estimate, ah, I’d figure he’s about 25 maybe 30 years old. But they were brand new.
Mike Riddle: That’s right.
Tim Moore: And by the same token trees, if we cut them down they would have rings just to provide support, but they were brand new. So, there was a semblance of age just according to our way of looking at things that didn’t mean that they were any older than brand new.
David Reagan: Special creation always carries with it the appearance of age. But you add to that the Fall, and the corruption of the earth as a result of the Fall.
Tim Moore: And Jesus demonstrated that in His very first miracle. He converted water into wine, and they said this is the best, most excellent wine, this must be very aged. Well, actually it is five minutes old. So, it had the appearance of age, but it was brand new.
David Reagan: Good illustration.
Mike Riddle: Yes.
David Reagan: Yeah.
Mike Riddle: I always like to say that He created a mature creation.
Tim Moore: There you go.
David Reagan: Well, Darwin said that the fossil record would ultimately prove his thesis. Has it?
Mike Riddle: That is an easy answer here. No.
David Reagan: With an explanation point!
Mike Riddle: Yes. Here’s what happened.
David Reagan: Most people think it has.
Mike Riddle: The fossil record and all this evolution is really staying alive because of one main, well there are several reasons, but the most important one is the education system. Public education system is more interested, and I’m not talking about teachers now directly, it is the system. To them it is more important to teach Evolution then true observable science. But Darwin, does the fossil record support Charles Darwin, what He had to say? No. Reason why is we know fossilization can happen rapidly. It can happen rapidly, we’ve seen that. But when we look at the fossil record what do we see? Almost all fossils are found in sediments laid down by water. This is all over the earth. What might that bring up as a clue?
David Reagan: Noah’s flood.
Mike Riddle: Right. See it matches what the Bible teaches. Then we find dinosaurs out there. We find dinosaurs buried with other creatures. We find what is called fossil graveyards, all over the earth, with sometimes hundreds to thousands of different creatures from different ecological zones like fish buried with mammals and land creatures. Dinosaurs buried with other creatures. These are fossil graveyards. Guess what kind of sediments we find them in? Sediments laid down by water. These land animals did not walk over to the sea and say, “Would you fish come up here? We all want to die together.”
Tim Moore: And as a matter of fact, Darwin predicted that we would find all these transitional forms, and he essentially admitted if we never find that we have grave problems with the theory I’m proposing. And many Evolutionists today have recognized, we’ve got some problems because we are not finding all these transitional forms. A fossil found of a creature that lives today was the same supposedly millions of years ago, in other words there was no change.
Mike Riddle: It is called living fossils.
Tim Moore: Living fossils.
Mike Riddle: I’ve been called that too.
Tim Moore: Well. So, they don’t prove that there has been any transition over time.
Mike Riddle: Well, let me make one correction there. They have found missing links, missing links in that respect, they are pictures drawn by artist in textbooks.
Tim Moore: Yes.
Mike Riddle: We find fossils of apes. We find fossils of humans, but we don’t find any factual fossils of anything in between, only in textbooks.
David Reagan: We don’t find any dats, between a dog and a cat.
Mike Riddle: No, we don’t.
David Reagan: No dats.
Tim Moore: No dats.
Mike Riddle: What’s interesting about dinosaurs, they don’t know where dinosaurs came from. What we find in the fossil record are dinosaurs. Where they came from, look at all the textbooks, they say, “Oh, here’s a transitional creature.” You look at it and it looks like a dinosaur.
Tim Moore: It certainly does.
Mike Riddle: So, where did they all come from? They don’t know.
David Reagan: Well, folks, we are going to take a brief pause here and in a moment we will come back with more questions that people frequently ask about Evolution and Creation.
Part 2
Tim Moore: Welcome back to Christ in Prophecy and our interview with Mike Riddle about the validity of Evolution versus the Creation story of the Bible. So, Mike I am going to hit you with a very challenging question. I’m a young earth advocate, but many young earth advocates have a hard time explaining how in the world the millions of light years of distant that separates us from stars, supposedly, can be explained. In other words, how did that light get here over millions, and millions of light year separation. What would you say?
Mike Riddle: Well, if I say just flip the switch. But, no, no, we won’t make it that easy. Well, first of all if it is a non-believer asking me that question I’m going to come right out and say, “That is a very good challenge. That is a very good question.” Because it is a good question. Then I’m going to say this there are two ways to answer that question. There is one answer you give to a believer, and then there is another way to answer it to a non-believer.
Tim Moore: Okay.
Mike Riddle: To a believer I’m going to ask them this question: Do you believe that the Bible is God’s Word? Do you believe that God is the Creator of all things? Now, I’m going to ask them these questions: Do you believe God created everything out of nothing? Do you believe Jesus walked on water? Do you believe He turned water into wine? Do you believe that He fed 5,000 from 5 loaves of bread, and 2 fish.
David Reagan: Do you believe His resurrection?
Mike Riddle: Do you believe His resurrection? And do you believe that Jesus defied gravity when He went up to Heaven in front of all of those eyewitnesses? Well, yes, a believer is going to say yes. Then what is the problem with God getting that light here?
Tim Moore: That is a good answer.
Mike Riddle: Are we looking for signs and scientific answers to everything?
David Reagan: No.
Mike Riddle: No, if we are then we are putting that above, we are making that our authority, and not the Bible anymore.
Tim Moore: That is a good point.
David Reagan: It is special revelation.
Mike Riddle: Now, to an unbeliever I’m going to have a different way to approach it. I’m going to say, that is a good question again, but you know there are only two ways to answer that. Again, it is a belief in a creative God who created everything in six days as the Bible teaches. Or the other possible way is through naturalistic sciences, naturalistic processes.
My choice is I believe in a Creator God who created everything out of nothing, created all the stars, the galaxies. And He did this all in six days, and He created the stars on day four. Now, what is your answer to all this?
Well, there answer might be something like this, “Well, Mike, that’s just a faith answer. I believe in science.” Now, here is my answer to that one, they may go on and try to explain it, how light travels 5.8 trillion miles in a year, and it would take so many years to reach us. And if a galaxy is millions of light years away it would take millions of years, therefore it can’t be 6,000 years old. My question to him would be, “What do you mean by science? What do mean by science?” Because according to all the dictionaries I read and the science textbooks science means observable, and repeatable. So, could you supply me some evidence for how that light got here? And it’s got to be empirical science meaning observable, and repeatable, because it seems you have some assumptions in what you told me.
First of all, you said the light travels so far, it can travel so far in a year. But the question I have you can’t get a correct measurement unless you know when that star was actually formed, and how it was formed, where the matter came from to form that star. And the problem is they can’t do that using empirical science, all they can do is use assumptions.
Tim Moore: Well, so they build those cases on theoretical science, which you already used the word, that blends right over into philosophy. And I like what you said even about a believer it comes down to a belief whether it is Richard Dawkins, or anyone else, they are putting their faith in something that they really can’t fully comprehend or understand. And so, even we, as we talk about Revelation, I love what was said one time, Revelation isn’t so hard to understand, it is hard to believe, if you believe it as a Christian then the Lord will give you understanding. So, really it is the same kind of thing in Creation.
Mike Riddle: Right. Ultimately based on, they have assumptions, it goes back to they have a faith, we have a faith. Now, which faith has the best thing to offer.
Tim Moore: Amen.
David Reagan: I find that most Christian, most professing Christians today have surrendered to science.
Mike Riddle: Yes.
David Reagan: They believe science is more reliable than God’s Word. And I can prove that because most professing Christians today take the position, that well, yes, God was the one who created, but He did so through evolution, through millions of years, and therefore Genesis chapter 1, each of those days represents a billion years, or a 100 million years, but certainly not one day.
Mike Riddle: I think this has been one of Satan’s greatest tools in getting it into the Christian education system, which they really don’t even teach much about any of this, and that is a bigger problem then the Evolutionist teaching Evolution. The Christian schools have not responded. Many of our Christian universities have surrendered, and compromised the issue, and the churches kind of back off of it. But the thing here is when we look at this Theistic Evolution which it is commonly called, God used some form of evolution or billions of years, there are some major biblical problems that come out.
Tim Moore: Sure.
Mike Riddle: The first one is if the earth is billions of years old, what was going on for those billions of years before Adam and Eve? And that would be death, and decay, disease, so that means that there was death before sin, that undermines the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ.
David Reagan: Absolutely.
Mike Riddle: The whole reason Jesus had to come and conquer death has not been compromised. It also effects the character of God, because when God looked back on His entire creation after day six, He called it, very good or exceedingly good, that is what that Hebrew means. Did He really call millions, and billions of years of death, decay and disease very good? If that’s His very good then why would we want to go to Heaven?
Tim Moore: Well, Dave is exactly right so many people have bought into this lie. I was teaching young people one time about the chronological episodes of what happened throughout scripture, God’s plan revealed over time. And of course, I began with Creation, and I had some very seasoned saints of the church come to me afterwards, and say, “Do you mean to tell me you think there were dinosaurs on the earth at the same time as human beings?” And I said, “Of course.” They said, “Where did you get that idea?” I said, “Scripture.” They said, “Well, I thought that was billions of years ago.” I said, “Where did you get that idea?” “Well, Evolution in school that is what were taught from a young age.” And these were older ladies. And I said, “Well, ladies, you all have been reading all the wrong books.”
And that’s exactly what I’ve said to other young people when they start embracing this false theology, and philosophy of Evolution. And I say, “You’ve read all the wrong books. Where do you put your faith? And where do you ground your understanding? Is it in the Word of God, or is it in all these other things?”
Mike Riddle: You brought up a great point there. Our youth are not being fed. They are not getting God’s Word, nor are they getting the true science. That’s why we need to get into the Christian schools and churches and start teaching it.
David Reagan: You know people are always saying, well, Genesis chapter 1 is poetry, and poetry you can’t interpret literally. And when they tell me that I always say, “Well, go over to Exodus chapter 20 and look where it lists the Ten Commandments, and when it gets to the Sabbath Day it says, ‘For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh.'” That’s a day.
Mike Riddle: That is a great argument there, because the reason people want to make it poetry, same reason they want to bring in billions of years. They want to open up to the idea, oh, everything would be old. And again, that is another thing, if commandment number four, Exodus 20:11 doesn’t mean what it says, six days, then why would we trust the other nine commandments?
Tim Moore: Well, I think it goes back to Genesis chapter 3 when Satan tried to blend in a little falsehood, and he said, “Did God really say?” And so, today what Satan is doing is saying, “Did God really create in six days?” And he is trying to blend deception because he is trying to turn people away from the true and living God.
David Reagan: You know, I think the integrity of God’s Word is at stake here because if you can’t believe what the first chapter of Genesis says, literally, how can you believe in the resurrection?
Mike Riddle: Right. And you lose that. And you also lose the last book.
David Reagan: Yes.
Tim Moore: Yes, you do.
Mike Riddle: Now, listen to this carefully, there are eleven things, at least eleven things that we lose because of the Fall in Genesis. Guess where we get them back? In the book of Revelation. So, those two are connected.
David Reagan: I always talk about the fact that the beginning of the Bible and the end of the Bible are the two parts that are most abused because they are spiritualized to death, they don’t mean what they say.
Mike Riddle: Yes. And we’re teaching our Christians to go around and live with inconsistencies in what they believe. For example, if they are using science, and when I ask people, why do you want to believe in millions of years? Almost 100% of the time it is because of what the scientists have supposedly proven. Well, if you are using science to interpret Genesis chapter 1, 2, and 3, then to be consistent you have to use science to interpret the rest of the Bible. Which means no miracles. And now we are starting to see Christians are going around, well, I can believe that, but I don’t have to believe that.
Tim Moore: Yeah, they might as well of rip pages of their Bible out, and then you’ve got a H-O-L-E Bible, not a Holy Bible.
David Reagan: W.A. Criswell who served as First Baptist Church for 50 years called that leopard theology. He said, “Leopard theology is where people say, ‘Well, the Bible is inspired only in spots, and I know which spots.”
Mike Riddle: Yes.
Tim Moore: Well, Mike, I have a question for you. Obviously, the name of our program is Christ in Prophecy, so let’s talk about Christ as it pertains to the Creation. Where was Christ in the creative moment?
Mike Riddle: I love that answer because people come up to me and say, “Let’s just preach Jesus.” And I say, “Amen. Amen.”
Tim Moore: Amen.
Mike Riddle: Guess what, in the beginning God created, guess who is the Creator of all things? Who spoke it into existence? Jesus Christ.
Tim Moore: Jesus Christ.
Mike Riddle: Then we have the first reference to a Gospel in Genesis 3:15.
Tim Moore: Yes.
David Reagan: That’s right.
Mike Riddle: Where He talks about we are going to have victory, and we are going to have a Savior.
Tim Moore: Yes, we are.
David Reagan: Amen.
Mike Riddle: Right there. So, Genesis is important for understanding the Gospel, and it is important for understanding the last book.
David Reagan: Yes. Yes.
Tim Moore: Well, not only did Paul write to the Colossians, in Colossians 1:15 that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation. He also goes on to say, “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.” To this very day.
Mike Riddle: Correct. So, if you are going to talk about Jesus, first book starts, “In the beginning God.” How does the last book start? “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Tim Moore: Jesus Christ.
Mike Riddle: Yes. Yes. So, the whole book is about Him.
Tim Moore: Yes, it is.
Mike Riddle: From beginning to end. So, if we are going to preach Jesus, let’s teach the whole Bible. Even the book of Numbers.
David Reagan: There you go. Well, you know you talked earlier about how Evolutionists have always depended on drawings, fanciful drawings; from one tooth they draw a whole person. They also believe in time; their faith is in time. If you have enough time anything can develop. Right?
Mike Riddle: That’s right. It’s called the Holy Grail of Evolution.
David Reagan: Yes.
Mike Riddle: They cannot give that up. But what they don’t teach in the schools are all the evidences that support a very young earth.
Tim Moore: Yes.
Mike Riddle: Like we know large canyons don’t take a long time. I would say that would show the facts.
David Reagan: When I was growing up I heard over and over, if you just had a bunch of monkeys, sitting at typewriters and gave them enough time they could accidently type Shakespeare.
Mike Riddle: That won’t happen.
Tim Moore: I point out that fact that the moon is regressing from the earth. In other words, it is moving away, very slowly. Millions or billions of years ago, at the rate it is moving away, it would have been touching the earth. That is impossible. And there are many other evidences of a young earth today.
Mike Riddle: Yes. Many, many evidences. Like soft tissue in dinosaurs. Carbon-14, we are finding Carbon-14 in bones.
David Reagan: Well, another Creation teacher that is a friend of mine, Russ Miller, always says, “The evidence is there, it just depends on how you interpret it. Evolutionists interpret it one way. Creationists another way. But they are all interpreting the same evidence.”
Mike Riddle: Right. We need to get people to understand: What is a biblical worldview?
David Reagan: Yes.
Closing
Tim Moore: Well, Mike I want to thank you for being our guest today on Christ in Prophecy. You’ve challenged us and our viewers to think more about the origin of the universe. So, why don’t you tell our audience how they can get in touch with your ministry.
Mike Riddle: Well, they can go to our website called: creationtraining.org, all one word, creationtraining.org.
Tim Moore: Very good.
David Reagan: Well, I also want to thank you for being with us, Mike, you are one of my favorite people. I just love you and your ministry. And I pray that God that will continue to bless it. Well, folks that is our program for this week. I pray the Lord willing that you will be back with us again next week. And until then, this is Dave Reagan speaking for Lamb & Lion Ministries saying, “Look up, be watchful, for our redemption is drawing near.”