Ken Ham

Today, I sit down with @ToddFriel to talk about the idea that quietly reshaped our culture and made its way into the church. You’ll hear how it connects to the biggest issues of our day and what Christians can actually do about it.

The supposed millions of years for the age of fossils (and the earth and universe) are simply not true.

What will your legacy be? At the @CreationMuseum, in the lobby of the Legacy Hall auditorium, there is an exhibit called the “Ham Family Legacy Exhibit.” This exhibit features my father and mother and tells of the phenomenal spiritual impact they had on their family. Inside a glass case is my father’s Bible, opened at Genesis, showing his many notes he had written beside the text. He would use such notes as he taught Bible studies not just on Genesis but through the whole Bible. There is also a wooden model of Noah’s ark that he built me many years ago, not knowing that one day we would build a life-size Noah’s Ark attraction. I’ve had the opportunity to speak to people who were at the exhibit contemplating what was being conveyed. I’ve asked them, “What does this exhibit mean to you?” The answers go something like this, “It’s challenging us about what legacy we are leaving in our children and what legacy we are leaving in this world.” I’ve told people that really the ministry of @AiG, the @ArkEncounter, and Creation Museum that impacts (conservatively estimated from our research) 30 million people directly and tens of millions more indirectly each year is a legacy of parents who taught their children to stand boldly and uncompromisingly on the authority of the Word of God. What legacy will you leave for your children?

“Unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1).

Americans still believe in the supernatural. For decades, the public education system, secular museums, and media have taught naturalistic atheism as fact to generations. Americans have been told that there is no God, that life evolved by naturalistic processes, and that, therefore, there is no supernatural. But a new survey of Americans’ beliefs shows most Americans don’t actually believe what they’ve been indoctrinated with. The American Bible Society recently released its State of the Bible report. According to reports, this study of US adults found that: •62% believe in the supernatural •53% believe Jesus rose from the dead •49% believe the virgin birth “is at least probably true” •44% believe the Red Sea was parted by God •Over 50% believe Satan, demons, and hell exist Now, of course, this doesn’t mean that the majority of people who believe Jesus rose from the dead or was born of a virgin are born-again Christians. Christianity is about both believing the truths of Scripture and giving your life to Christ—it’s not merely about intellectual assent to a few truths. What it does mean is that the majority of Americans still believe at least some of the Bible is true and that the supernatural does exist. Those are, of course, good things at face value. But consider a recent Gallup poll of US adults that found: •48% believe in “psychic or spiritual healing or the power of the human mind to heal the body” •39% believe in “ghosts, or that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places and situations” •29% believe in “telepathy, or communication between minds without using the traditional five senses” •27% believe “that people can hear from or communicate mentally with someone who has died” •25% believe in “astrology, or that the position of the stars and planets can affect people’s lives” •And 24% believe in “reincarnation, that is, the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death” In other words, Americans believe in the supernatural far beyond what the Bible teaches, including beliefs that directly contradict the Bible. It really comes back to what I’ve taught for decades: The real battle is between God’s Word and man’s word. The battle is not ultimately between atheistic naturalism and the Bible. Many Americans today do not subscribe to that worldview even though they’ve been indoctrinated with it their whole lives. They know there must be something beyond the here and now. Why? Because, as Ecclesiastes says, “He has also set eternity in their heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Also, Romans 2 tells us God wrote the law on our hearts, so we have a conscience. We are not mere physical bodies—we have a soul that will live forever—and something inside of us (the image of God) just “knows” there is something more, something supernatural, something unseen. But people look in all the wrong places. Americans who believe, for example, that Jesus rose from the dead and believe in reincarnation are not basing their worldview—their beliefs—on the Word of God. They are basing them on their own opinions. They like the idea of Jesus and some parts of the Bible, so they believe that. But reincarnation and a little astrology also make sense to them, so they add that on. Their worldview is determined by their own wisdom (and is therefore subjective and arbitrary), not by any objective standard for truth. The battle raging in our culture today, whether it takes the form of atheistic naturalism or vague, buffet-style spirituality, is man’s word vs. God’s Word. Who will be our authority? That’s always been the battle since the garden of Eden 6,000 years ago. “[The serpent] said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say . . . ?’” (Genesis 3:1 ESV). “And the serpent said to the woman . . . ‘You will be like God’” (Genesis 3:4–5). The first attack was on the authority of the Word of God, and that attack has not abated. Satan continues to use that same strategy down through the ages. “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3 ESV). Whenever people adopt part of Scripture but add on ideas from their culture, their own thinking, or other religions, they are succumbing to that Genesis 3 attack. They are doubting the authority of Scripture, making themselves the authority and being their own god. If we want to effectively share the gospel with and challenge the worldview of those who may have some common ground with us (e.g., they believe, at least intellectually, in the resurrection), we have to help them understand they have the wrong foundation for their worldview. They need to stop building their thinking on their own wisdom and instead start with God’s Word and build their thinking from there. (And that’s how we need to be teaching our kids and our grandkids to think!) As God’s Word says: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5 ESV). The battle is God’s Word vs. man’s word. It always has been and it always will be until Jesus returns. Are you equipped to deal with the real battle?

The Bible tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork (Psalm 19:1).

Can anti-aging fanatic Bryan Johnson actually escape death? He spends millions every year trying to accomplish just that, and today I respond to his controversial message from a biblical perspective.

What is the role of government? Well, the answer to that question—I don’t think you’ll be surprised by this—begins in Genesis! God instituted human government after the Flood (Genesis 9). Since God is the one who first instituted government, it is God who defines the role and purpose of government. If we want to think biblically about government, we must first start with Scripture. According to God’s Word, the purpose of human government is not to solve all of our problems! Rather, it is to restrain and punish evil and to promote order. This immediately raises a question: What is evil? Someone must define what evil is. And, again, God has done that for us in His Word. When we start with the Bible, we have an unchanging, eternal foundation for determining what is right and what is wrong. But, you might ask, isn’t that “Christian nationalism”? No. But whoever is in government has a worldview that determines how they define morality and vote on issues. Now, consider this: Every single law in the United States is based on someone’s morality. No law is morally neutral. So who gets to decide? Is morality determined by sinful, fallible human beings or by the perfect, authoritative Word of the Creator? Whenever we legislate, we are always legislating morality. The question is: Whose morality are we legislating?—is it based on human opinion or God’s Word? This is just another reminder that, in all areas, we need to start with God’s Word as our authority!

I thank God for my Bible-believing father, who told me, “Son, just because we don’t know the answers doesn’t mean there aren’t any. We just have to search for them and ask the Lord to reveal them to us.”

Romans 1 is proved right again! I rarely read of a study that confirms Romans 1 as perfectly as a recent story from ScienceDaily, titled “Scientists make stunning discovery that could help explain why life exists.” The summary of the article explains the new study this way: “Scientists have discovered that the universe’s fundamental physical constants may be finely balanced to make life possible. Even tiny changes to these constants could make liquids too thick or too thin for essential biological processes, potentially preventing life as we know it. Surprisingly, these life-friendly conditions existed billions of years before living cells appeared. The findings raise intriguing questions about why the laws of physics seem so well suited to life.” In other words, this new theoretical study adds another constraint to the long list of conditions that must be just right for the supposed origin of life. If the fundamental constants of physics were slightly different, liquids (water, blood, etc.) would be either too thin or too thick for life to exist. The article says, “Scientists have uncovered a remarkable connection between the fundamental laws of physics and the ability of life to exist. Their findings suggest that even relatively small changes to some of the universe’s most basic physical constants could dramatically alter how liquids flow, potentially preventing essential biological processes from taking place.” So even if the universe somehow managed (by dumb luck, as the late Dr. David Menton would say) to assemble all the ingredients necessary for life, without the ability for liquids to move as they do, life would be impossible. And for these researchers, that raises a question: “The work raises a profound question about the universe. Why do the fundamental laws of nature have values that appear so well suited to the existence of life?” When these researchers study the laws that allow life to exist, they are driven to ask why everything seems so suited for life! It’s Romans 1:19–21 on clear display: “Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.” The fine-tuning of the universe makes it abundantly obvious that earth was created for life. The complexity of life, and the way everything appears designed for life to flourish here on earth, is a giant fingerprint of the Creator. Those who fail to see God through what He has made are therefore without excuse—they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). The universe looks designed for life because it is! And not only does the universe look designed for life, but the very laws that allow everything to exist—the laws of nature and physics mentioned throughout the ScienceDaily article—are immaterial. How do immaterial laws of nature even evolve in a material universe? How do they come about and why do they remain constant and apply to everything, everywhere in a random, chance universe? Apart from the God of the Bible, it’s impossible to even explain the existence of these laws—let alone why they are so perfect for the flourishing of life! Whether they realize it or not, by doing this study these researchers are just confirming the truth of God’s Word. God has made it evident to all that He exists. The question is, are you suppressing that knowledge because of your sinful heart? To believe the universe and life came about by chance is a blind-faith belief that, to put it bluntly, is absurd!

The Bible makes it clear that man and all the animals were vegetarians before the Fall (Genesis 1:29–30).

Fossilized vomit confirms the truth of Scripture. Researchers working in the North Sea area discovered “more than 20 fossilized masses” that contain “shells and other hard remains from marine prey.” Based on the composition of the vomit and what other fossils are found in the region, the researchers believe the vomit came from plesiosaurs—extinct marine reptiles. They believe this new find shows that plesiosaurs found their prey in deep water and then the reptiles returned to a river delta near the shore to rest and rid themselves of the indigestible parts. But how could vomit be preserved in the fossil record? The researchers note that’s not normal: “Most pellets would have been destroyed by waves and tides. Some survived because they were rapidly buried by sediment or swept into crustacean burrows on the seafloor. “[The paleontologist] said: “This vomit survived partly because it was so compacted and covered in mucus. Even so, most pellets would have been completely broken up by the waves and tides. Some clusters were, however, quickly covered by sediment arriving from the rivers, and some ended up in burrows left by crustaceans on the seafloor, where they were partially preserved and fossilized.” In other words, the vomit had to be rapidly preserved—very rapidly preserved—before the waves could break them apart or scavengers could pick them apart or decomposers could break them down. In today’s world, we don’t observe river deltas turning vomit into a regurgitalite (a fossil)! It takes unique conditions to make a fossil. In fact, forming a fossil really requires a catastrophic event. What’s also fascinating is what was discovered right beside the regurgitated material—an ichthyosaur bone and fossilized feces (coprolites). Also discovered nearby were fossil fragments of dinosaur footprints! What could preserve bone, vomit, feces, and footprints all together? Well, you need a catastrophe! You need something that could bury a large area very, very quickly, before erosion and decomposition can take place. And the Bible gives us the history we need to understand what we observe! There really was a global Flood, as described in Genesis. The evidence is overwhelming, but because secular scientists have the wrong starting point (man’s word), they come to the wrong interpretations of the evidence. Fossilized vomit is just another reminder that there really was a global Flood!

The text of Genesis 1 clearly states that God supernaturally created all that is in six actual days.

Over 500 million Christians face restrictions to accessing God’s Word! Here in America, we are truly blessed. We have instant and immediate access to God’s Word anytime we want, either in print or for free through apps. But according to the Bible Access Initiative’s recent report, for many Christians around the world, that is not the case. This report looks at 106 countries around the world, “identifying both places where Bible access is explicitly restricted and countries where people face socioeconomic barriers that prevent them from obtaining Scripture.” And what they found was that over 500 million Christians—our brothers and sisters around the world—“face Bible access restrictions, as laws imposed by governments hostile to Christianity and socioeconomic barriers prevent many who would like a Bible from having one.” The nations with “maximum restrictions”—the strongest restriction label—include: • Afghanistan • Yemen • Somalia • North Korea • Eritrea • And Mauritania Of course, those are just the most extreme examples—sadly, the report listed many, many other nations that also have severe restrictions that keep them from accessing God’s Word. But it’s not just the government that keeps Christians from accessing the Bible. The study also found that many countries suffer from Bible shortages—there just aren’t enough Bibles available—most acutely in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and India, “each of which has a shortage of more than 10 million Bibles.” Many other nations also have Bible shortages, ranging from 500,000 to 10 million. And the report highlighted other restrictions to accessing God’s Word, including “socioeconomic barriers such as poverty, poor infrastructure, illiteracy, lack of electricity and limited internet access.” The Bible Access List co-creator Wybo Nicolai shared, “We often hear that the Bible is more accessible than ever, but we must not confuse availability with access. . . . Persecution-related Bible access restrictions can make accessing Scripture difficult or dangerous, while socioeconomic barriers can put a Bible beyond people’s reach. . . . Even where Scripture is available digitally, limited internet coverage or unsafe online environments can still prevent people from accessing it.” This report is a reminder that we need to continue to work as a church to ensure believers around the world have access to the precious Word of God—the only authoritative foundation for our thinking. I encourage you to find and financially support a trusted Christian ministry putting Bibles into the hands of believers. It’s also a reminder of how blessed we are here in the West—not only do we have unlimited access to the Word of God in our own language but we also have access to in-depth teaching on God’s Word in our local churches and at our fingertips. Sadly, even with such access readily available, many are not reading the Bible!

Genesis 1–11 is straightforward literal history.

Culture hasn’t made the truths of Scripture obsolete! A perplexing study that found a large majority (84%) of American churchgoers believe they are ready to defend the truth of Scripture—but 28% say that some of the truths of Scripture are now obsolete because of changes in our culture. So that prompts the question: What do they mean by saying they’re ready to make a defense? Much of what Scripture teaches is not popular in our culture today—marriage is for one man and one woman only, there are just two genders in humans, abortion is murder, the earth is young, mankind did not evolve, and so on—but that does not mean it is obsolete. God’s Word is eternal, and its truth will long outlast this generation and all the ones to come.

There are many biblical and contextual reasons for concluding (as almost the whole Church did for 1,800 years) that Genesis 1–11 is straightforward literal history.

Well, data from the James Webb Space Telescope has done it again! The JWST has allowed scientists to peer deeper into space than ever before. And what they find continues to overturn evolutionary and deep-time expectations. It’s happened yet again. In other words, here is your weekly installment of “Everything we thought we knew about evolution/the history of the universe is wrong”! According to popular science reports, “JWST has revealed that galaxies were spreading carbon, oxygen, and other heavy elements through space just 500 million years after the Big Bang. The surprising discovery suggests the young universe became chemically enriched much earlier than expected. . . .” According to the big bang model of the universe, “The earliest universe contained little besides hydrogen and helium, the two simplest elements at the top of the periodic table. As gravity gathered this material into dense clouds, stars began to form. Inside those stars, extreme heat and pressure enabled nuclear fusion and other reactions that created heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen. “When stars reached the ends of their lives, including some that exploded as supernovae, they released those elements into space. That material later became part of new generations of stars and planets and eventually contributed to the chemistry needed for life. The carbon in the human body and the oxygen people breathe were both produced inside earlier generations of stars.” Now, of course, this is nothing more than storytelling. No one has observed this supposed process of star formation. This is simply a model applied to the evidence. But it’s always had a big problem—where are these “pristine” early stars (called Population III stars) made only of hydrogen and helium? In this model, these Population III stars should exist, but they’ve never been observed. So where are they? Well, this new study, which used JWST data to supposedly peer at “galaxies as they appeared more than 13 billion years ago”—that’s very close to the alleged big bang—claims that these stars are elusive because “early galaxies were already sending heavier elements such as carbon and oxygen into surrounding space much sooner than expected” and “if galaxies were already enriching nearby space only 500 million years after the Big Bang, truly pristine gas may have disappeared quickly. As a result, Population III stars may not have remained common for long enough to be easily observed.” The article says, “Remarkably, the chemical signatures surrounding these infant galaxies looked similar to those found around far more mature galaxies billions of years later. The finding suggests that even at cosmic dawn, galaxies were already manufacturing heavy elements and spreading them into their surroundings.” But in reality, the finding does not suggest that “galaxies were already manufacturing heavy elements and spreading them” at cosmic dawn—the evidence is that galaxies look the same no matter how far away they are (remember, they are measuring distance, not time—the alleged time is also an interpretation based on assumptions). The idea that pressure in “early” stars created heavy elements and then supernovae spread those elements to be incorporated into newer stars and planets is an interpretation of the observational evidence. It’s storytelling! And it’s storytelling that is constantly changing. It doesn’t matter what evidence arises, even when that evidence contradicts earlier expectations—the evolutionary models are so plastic, they just mold them to fit the new evidence. There’s another explanation for why Population III stars have never been found and why the universe isn’t matching the expectations of those who start with the big bang: The big bang didn’t happen. The Bible gives us the true history of the universe, and it didn’t begin with a big bang and stars slowly forming. It began when God spoke and fashioned the earth, covered with water, and then He created light and darkness, and on day four of creation week, He created the stars fully functioning also. The evidence from the JWST will continue to defy secular scientists’ predictions because they have the wrong worldview based on the wrong starting point. Instead of trusting the interpretations and storytelling of men and women who weren’t there, don’t know everything, and often make mistakes, we should believe the eyewitness account of history given to us by the God who was there, knows everything, and has never made a mistake. “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And the expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1).

Many Christians will disagree with me on this, but it’s important to talk about. Today, I’m sharing some controversial opinions about this election and other elections to come.

The history in Genesis 1–11 is foundational to the rest of the Bible.