Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Jay Seegert: Creation In Six Days... Really? (Part 1)

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Jay Seegert: Creation In Six Days... Really? (Part 1) · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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defending biblical Christianity.
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No topic, off limits.
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And now, here's your host, David Firazzo.
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Hey brothers and sisters in Christ, thank you so much for tuning in, God bless you,
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and we're going to talk about a very important doctrine today, and that would be creation.
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Going back to the book of Genesis, so important to get this right, friends, I've got Jay Seeger
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with us in just a minute.
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I want to thank a few people that have sent in some donations.
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We haven't even started our fundraiser yet.
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That's going to be next month, middle of next, middle of May, roughly.
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But anyway, I want to thank Michael from Bradford, Ohio, God bless you, brother, thank you so
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much for your ongoing support here in Belinda from Winterfell, North Carolina.
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Thank you sister, again, friends, we really appreciate every donation.
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It is tax deductible.
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We are a 501c3 here at Freedom Project, but you guys are keeping World View Matters going
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strong.
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So, thank you.
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So, Jay Seeger is with us that the website, right away, I want to get that out, make
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sure you go there and bookmark it is the starting point project.
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The startingpointproject.com and one of the things we want to point you to is Jay's
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recent book, Creation to Christ, and he talks about the Old Testament in a nutshell.
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So I'm sure that's a very condensed and very packed full of information that is important
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for us to know.
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So, check out Jay's website, the startingpointproject.com, let's bring him in right now and let's catch
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up with my brother, Jay, welcome, good to see you again.
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That's always great to be on the program, it's a privilege and an honor.
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So, yeah, so you're great.
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Always every time I really appreciate your ministry, I appreciate how you really help
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walk people through just the basics and what these important doctrines about creation
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and the biblical world view.
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But I want to say, I have to admit, I was a bit jealous.
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You were in Florida on my birthday.
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You were speaking at a church down there a few weeks ago.
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So, and I'm sure you're back and you're busy and you've got other speaking engagements
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coming up.
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Anything coming up very shortly or soon that you might want to tell people about?
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Well, actually, I'm usually somewhere across the country, but I've got something coming
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up that's local for Wisconsin anyway.
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At Living Waters Bible Camp, just south of LaCrosse and Westby, there's a creation conference.
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This Friday night Saturday and Sunday, it'd be mainly myself and Dr. Randy Galusa, who's
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the relatively new president for the Institute for Creation Research, a great organization
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down on, based out of Dallas, Texas.
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So he and I both be giving talks throughout the weekend and a few other speakers as well.
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So that's kind of local because it's Wisconsin.
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Yeah.
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We do have actually something tomorrow night.
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But anyway, coming up, it's this May.
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And then after that, I'm out of state again, all the way to the place.
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Out of state, how do you keep track?
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Hey, I also went to your Facebook page and you got a thing about the Grand Canyon tour
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and tell us a little bit about that and is there space for any trips coming up?
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Sure.
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Been doing tours since 2015.
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We have six this year, June, August, three in September, one in October, four of them
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still have space.
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Two or so old out.
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The others are getting filled up and we've got some space, June, August, one in September
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and then October.
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And basically in a nutshell, Thursday night through Sunday afternoon, family friendly trip.
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You get yourself to Phoenix.
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Everything is taken care of.
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You're walking on a flat paved path along the rim of the Grand Canyon, South Rim.
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Then the next day, we're on the Colorado River.
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We go on the famous horseshoe bend.
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It's very smooth sailing.
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It's not whitewater rafting.
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You're not getting fallen out of the raft.
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You're getting soaked or anything.
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We see petroglyphs.
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We go to the famous Antelope Canyon, gorgeous orange wavy canyon.
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People would recognize the picture.
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We hike through that and then we actually stop and see some dinosaur tracks on the way back
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to Phoenix.
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Again, family friendly trip Thursday night through Sunday afternoon so they can get more information
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on our website, thestartingpointproject.com, they can see a promo video which will really help
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them kind of visualize the whole tour.
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But if they're interested in going this year, they're going to want to contact us very
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soon to get on one of those tours.
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Oh, by the way, the podcast, the starting point podcast, where can people watch or hear
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that?
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They can go right to the website again, startingpointproject.com and click on buttons
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either for Apple podcast or Spotify.
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They can go right to Apple podcast or Spotify.
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That one a little over a year ago, I was interviewed on someone else's podcast.
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Those managers contacted me and said, you need to have your own podcast and I said, well,
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that would be great.
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But I have absolutely no time to do podcasts and now I'm going to podcast and we've actually
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reached the top 5% on the planet, which is kind of it's encouraging and humbling too
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because it's a god thing, not me.
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Well, those are available every Friday and new and comes out.
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We've got about maybe 60 or so released so far.
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Wow.
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Praise God for that.
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So the starting point project.com, now, Jay, before we jump into creation in six days,
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really, really?
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No.
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So this is what we're going to talk about today and by the way, we are doing two shows
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with J.C.
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That's so important.
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And he is cramming a lot of information friends into these two episodes.
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But before we get going, Jay, a disclaimer.
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Will the disagree with us in the church and the body of Christ on creation?
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They are still our brothers and sisters.
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Would you disagree with that and what else would you like to share before we jump in?
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Definitely.
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I agree.
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This isn't, we'll see.
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It's not necessarily a matter of South Asia.
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We don't question someone's salvation or their sincerity or their intelligence or anything.
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That's right.
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We're just really, truly wanting to focus on the authority scripture, which we'll get
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into that.
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Unfortunately, this issue can be a can of worms.
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And you just say, you know, we said creation in six days, really?
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It doesn't really show our hand like where are we headed with this?
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And it's kind of on purpose because the listeners, the viewers are going to find out this
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is related to the age of the earth.
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And as soon as you say age of the earth, boom, you got very strong opinions and even a lot
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of emotion.
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You haven't even said anything about it other than you named the topic, you know, age
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of the earth.
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And so a lot has to be discussed before we get into the nitty-gritty facts, you know, on
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either side because there's just a lot of emotional baggage that comes along, a lot of stereotypes
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and things that we need to work through before we actually start discussing a case for
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one side or the other.
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Okay.
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So one of the main reasons, I mean, Jay's been a frequent guest here on World View Matters
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in a previous radio program I was a part of, but we had a guest on a month ago who had
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a different view on the age of the earth.
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And he mentioned on the podcast, we did, that wasn't the topic, it was the Inherency of
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Scripture and reasons to believe.
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But we did talk about briefly and he mentioned, I think he said tens of thousands of years.
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And I write that, it wasn't the time to debate that or talk about that at that point.
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That we have allowed that view to be on this show.
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I want to say that I agree with Jay and what he is going to present with you and I did
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not agree with that view of the age of the earth being 10,000 or hundreds of thousands
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or whatever, millions of years or whatever.
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So Jay, what are the options regarding creation in six days?
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What do most people believe about the age of the earth?
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Sure.
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We really only have two major options out there when you're talking about the universe
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and the earth, one option would be, let's say 13.8 billion years for the universe
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and maybe 4.6 billion years for the earth.
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So summarizing billions of years, another option would be thousands of years,
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specifically about 6,000 for both the universe and the earth.
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Nothing in the middle really seems to cut it at all for anyone.
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If you say 200,000 years for the earth or the universe or 2.5 million years,
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nothing in the middle makes anyone happy on either side of the aisle.
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So our options are really those billions of years on one end or the other end.
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You talk roughly 6,000 years and we'll be getting into discussing which one
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seems to be best supported by scripture and by science.
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Are we jumping ahead too far, Jay?
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If I ask about, let me rephrase that, maybe years ago up until recently
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didn't most people who read the Bible, most believers in Christ,
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think that you could take Genesis literally and six days in creation or my wrong about that.
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No, that's correct when you look at the history of humanity up until more recent times,
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let's say maybe 1700s or so on.
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The majority of you was that God created in six solar days,
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very similar to what we experienced today.
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Today we have like 24 hours in our day.
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So six solar days and a relatively recent creation when they were just looking at the scriptures,
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Hebrew scriptures and Old Testament, that's what they were concluding.
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Were there any exceptions?
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Sure, but they certainly were exceptions.
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The majority of you was six solar days and a relatively recent creation.
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Sometimes people will quote certain early church fathers and take them out of context
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and sometimes you have to say, wait a minute, read the next sentence.
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It really just proves a point that you were making.
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So the majority of you really was this literal approach to a literal six solar day,
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recent creation that changed dramatically, again, just prior to Darwin's time,
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we can talk about that at any point of that leads into, okay, where are we today?
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That was, I think, where we were for most of history, where are we today,
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and then what change?
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Well, where are we today?
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Most people do accept billions of years, not just secular scientists.
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I mean, secular scientists don't have an option.
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They can only go with billions of years because they believe everything happened kind of
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naturalistically, and that would certainly take a long period of time.
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If you're talking about accumulating all the layers in the earth by natural processes
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that we observed today, which is called uniformitarianism, it's geology is based on that.
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Yeah, that would take millions or billions of years.
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So they don't really have another option.
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It's got to be long periods of time, especially if you're going to put evolution in there.
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On the other side, if you believe that God actually created everything,
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you could certainly believe in, in a sense, billions of years if you're just talking about
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an all-powerful being, yeah, you could do it over a long period of time if you wanted to.
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You could also do it under a short period of time.
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So if you're on the side of the aisle that's open to God being the creator,
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you could accept either of those views, a younger one or an older view on the surface.
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Once you start studying further in Scripture and to science, I think you're going to actually
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find out one of those options goes by the wayside, but just talking about an all-powerful God,
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you could accept an older universe.
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So today, all the secular scientists certainly talk about billions of years.
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That's not a surprise, but many vast majority of, I'll say religious people,
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not talking specific about Christians yet, but just people who are religious.
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Yeah, they believe there's a God.
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They may not be Christians, they may not take the Bible very seriously, but they certainly are
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religious. They would lean towards billions of years too, because in their mind, scientists
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are proven it, so why not accept it? And if there is a God, he could do whatever process that
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he wanted to do. Then you look at Christians, and when I say Christian, I mean those who
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really, truly claim to believe that the Bible, the inspired word of God, cover to cover,
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those group of people, they are split. I would say there are a lot of them also accept
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millions and billions of years, because they've been convinced that, well, I guess science has proven
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it. They don't typically know a lot of the details of any, but they've just been given that
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impression that it's been proven by science. Most Christians have grown up in a public school
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system, and so they've learned that from kindergarten on up. And so they just think, well,
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that's a science thing that's been proven. You can't really argue with that, because science is
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black and white. It proves things whereas the Bible is a religious document, and it can be interpreted
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in many different ways, and it really doesn't matter, you know, how God created or when he created.
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As long as we say he's a creator and believe in Jesus, we're good to go. And so it's very easy
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for them to just accept millions of billions of years. They don't see a conflict with it.
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But then there are other Christians who say, well, he just doesn't seem like it fits him when
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I'm actually studying scripture. There are so many reasons it doesn't fit in. That would be a
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smaller percentage. So where we are today, most people, even Christians, still buy into millions
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and billions of years, didn't use to be that way. So I could briefly address how that changed.
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And so, let's do that in a minute. But it's interesting. You said the phrase like science,
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people say science is proven it. I'm going, okay. Yeah, I mean, you could open up that kind of
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worm. Science has not proven it. But net geo and discovery channel, all these channels on,
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you know, cable and TV, they start off their programs when they're talking about the earth,
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they show the globe. And I've said this often, there's one program that we've watched. I don't
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remember what it's called, but the guy the narrator starts off and he says millions of years ago,
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and then he goes into this thing and I'm going, okay, it starts off with something that I don't
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believe. But anyway, we've got to continue with Jay Seeger in just a minute. We're talking about
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creation in six days and we'll be right back. Introducing Patriot Mobile, the wireless carrier
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sponsoring World View Matters, please send an email to worldviewmatters at fpeusa.org or go to our
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website worldviewmatters.tv. Our producer will get right back to you. Jay Seeger, the starting point
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project.com. He's our guest today. Jay, if this is not an issue of salvation, why is this such an
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important issue? Why does this matter? Well, it matters because it underpins the authority of
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scripture. We can ask ourselves as Christians, do we truly believe what it says or do we go
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somewhere else to some other sources and glean information from there and then just accept it
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as, well, it must be true. And then use that as a filter when we're studying God's word to decide
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what are we going to accept as rational and believable and what are we going to write off like,
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well, I know what says this, but I know better because I watched this documentary. I read this
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textbook. I had a professor who told me A B and C, you know, whatever, take that as truth,
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and then try to, in a sense, tell God what he actually meant. And then that harkens all the way
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back to Genesis chapter 3. God created everything. It was perfect. You got Adam and Eve there. And
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certain comes in and gets Eve to doubt God's word. You know, half God said, did God really say
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in the phrases, did God really say you can't eat of any tree in that garden while God didn't
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say that. He said, you can eat of any tree in that garden except for one. So Satan got Eve
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to doubt God's word. First, he misquoted him, got Eve to doubt it. And he took it out of context.
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And so even Adam thought they had a better idea. They know what God said, but they thought they
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knew better now. You and I can't imagine anyone else have or thinking they know better than God
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and having their own ideas other than you and me and everyone else on the planet. So we're doing
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the same thing today. We know what it says, but we think we know better because of something else.
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We're using our own rationalization to say, I'm pretty smart. I've heard this other stuff.
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That sounds true. So when I'm reading the Bible, I just, I can't buy this anymore. It can't
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mean what it says. It must mean something else. And then they explain it away how it really
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means something very different than what the text says. And I'm okay with that. And now I can
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fit in with the world around me because I'm accepting everything they're telling me.
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So you had me at authority. Do we believe the Bible is our final authority? Is it perfect?
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Is it in in errant? And I love that. You know, does God really mean that? Let me tell you what
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God means by that when it comes to creation. But Jay, you know, like you, we've all heard things like,
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well, what it says in the Bible being a day doesn't mean a 24 hour day. But yet there are so many
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verses that say then there was day then there was or then what does it say? It says a third day,
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a fourth day, a fifth day. So can you explain that? There shouldn't be much confusion on that.
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Because to me, it's I'm a simple person. I take it quite literally. So can you explain that for us?
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Sure. We need to look at everything in context. You know, what does a day mean? You know,
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in English, you could say something like, you know, in my day, we had to get up and work all day
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long so we could go on a five day vacation, something like that. One sentence. I just use the English
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word day three different ways in one sentence in each time it meant something different. And everyone
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understood what it meant each time because of the context in my day, which means it appeared in the
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past. I had to work all day long. That would be the light portion of the day. So we could go on a
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five day vacation. Well, five day vacation would be the solar day day and night, five of those days.
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So one word meant three different things in one sentence, but the context defines it. Same thing
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with the Old Testament and Hebrew. The word day in Hebrew is Yom, Y, O, M. And it could have four or
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five different meanings. And right there are people say, see, it doesn't mean a regular 24 hour day,
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it means you know, millions of years, like wait a minute, just because it can have multiple meanings,
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doesn't mean that instance, doesn't mean a regular solar day. We have to look at it in context.
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And every time outside of Genesis one, we're going to focus on Genesis one, but every time outside
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of Genesis one in the Old Testament, you see the word Yom with a number. It has always translated as
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a regular day. Nobody questions that. That's what we have in Genesis one. There's an evening
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of morning, day one, day two, day three to four. It's right. Every time outside of Genesis one,
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we see the word Yom with the word evening or morning or evening and morning. It's always
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translated as a regular day. No one questions that very clear. That's what we have in Genesis.
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There was an evening and morning, day one, evening and morning, day two, kind of strange. Why
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doesn't it say there was a morning and an evening? Because you and I know a day is a morning,
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and then an evening, why does it say evening and morning? Because Moses is writing to the Jews
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and their day started in the evening six p.m. They had an evening and then a morning. So a
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day to them was an evening and a morning. That's what we have evening and morning, evening and
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morning. Every time outside of that, that's what we also have in Genesis one. And then anytime you
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see the plural form of day, days, which in Hebrew is Yamim, it's always a regular 24-hour day.
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That's what we have in Exodus 20 verse 11. It's part of the Ten Commandments written by the
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finger of God himself. For in six days, Lord created the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that
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in them is arrested on the seventh. And he did that to set a pattern for us. And so God says he
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created everything in six days. If those weren't regular days, when a lot of people try to stretch
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them out so you can get billions of years for the earth, then our work week means nothing and
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our Sabbath means nothing. But God defined it. In fact, the first time God uses us word Yom,
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Genesis 1, 5, he defines a God called the late day and the darkness he called night. It sounds
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just like a day. You really have to do a lot of hermeneutical gymnastics to try to mean something
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else. Yes. And thank you for the very important point of Moses writing it and who was he writing to?
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Thank you for that, Jay. Now I'm going to put God in a box because a lot of people do and say,
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well, how could God possibly create everything in six days? Sure. And people ask the question,
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they just they can't wrap their heads around that. Yeah. It's a good thing because if everything we saw,
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we could understand that's not an impressive God. There would be no evidence that God did something
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if everything made sense to us and we could perfectly understand it and even explain it. And the
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question isn't how in the world could God possibly create everything in six days? A better
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question might be why did he take so long? He's all powerful. Snap your fingers and just be done.
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That's God could have created everything in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth
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of a second. He could have done it over trillions of trillions of trillions of years or anywhere in
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between. It's not about what he could have done. He's all powerful. It's about what he said he did.
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And he said he did it at six days. Not because he had so much to do and it took that much time.
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He was setting up a pattern so that we would work six days and rest on a seventh. If those days
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aren't regular days, that pattern of working six days and resting a seventh the Sabbath and all
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that makes no sense. You had me at what he it's not what he could have done. It's what he said he
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did. Oh my goodness. Christians, let's get this into our heads. The word of God, what God said. And by
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the way, that expression, God said it. I believe it and that settles it. That's wrong. God said it.
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That settles it. Whether we believe it or not. We're with J. Seger at the starting point project. So
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J, one more thing I've got to ask. Sorry to be so tedious on this point. But there's scriptures.
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Like, for example, Peter writes about a day being a thousand years to God and a thousand years
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being a day. How do you respond to that? I always say I wish I had a million dollars for every
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time someone said that. I know I'm supposed to say I wish I had a nickel, but I did the math on it
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and the million dollars works out better for me. When people bring that up and they do very often
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and they're always very sincere. I always treat their ideas with respect. So when they say,
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well, you know, those days in creation, you know, Genesis count, they're not regular days because
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a day with the Lord is a thousand years. I was asked them said, Oh, where does the Bible say that?
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And none of them actually know they're like, um, not sure. I said, well, it doesn't actually say
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exactly that something close. You're getting a little bit off. It doesn't say a day is a thousand
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years. Since a day has a thousand years, but do you know where that's found? No. Okay. Do you know
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who the author is? Who wrote that? No. Do you know the context of that particular passage? No.
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Okay. Then how do you know some passage you miss quoted? You don't know where it's found. You
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don't know who the author is and you don't know the context. But somehow that means the days in
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Genesis aren't regular days. And then I give them the context. Second Peter chapter three written by
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Peter, almost 2000 years ago, Peter is talking about the end times and you and I and mostly your
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viewers probably believe we're living in the end time. So Peter 2000 years ago was talking about
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our time right now. And he's specifically referring to the skeptics who are doubting the return
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of Christ. And Peter says there are two reasons why the skeptics are doubting the return of Christ.
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You would expect those to be spiritual things. It's not what Peter says. The reason they're doubting
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the return of Christ is that they're rejecting the Genesis creation account and they're rejecting
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the Genesis flood. When I first read that, I thought that's cool. I love talking about
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the creation account and the flood. I never asked myself why those two things, it doesn't make
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sense. I looked at it further. It makes perfect sense. By rejecting the Genesis creation account,
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the skeptics are rejecting God's authority. God created everything. He's the ultimate authority.
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They don't like that. So the reject him as creator. By rejecting the flood, what was that? That
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was God's judgment on sin. They're not sinners. These skeptics, they're good people. They reject
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God's judgment. Okay. What's the return of Christ? It's another judgment by God. But this time,
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Peter says, not by water, by fire. So because they don't recognize God's ultimate authority and his
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judgment on sin, they're rejecting the return of Christ, which is another judgment in that context.
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These skeptics are saying, where is the return of Christ? He's not here yet. He's not coming back
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now. He's never coming back. Everything continues on the way it always has from the beginning of
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creation. No major changes. Peter says these skeptics who want to see the return of Christ immediately,
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God can take a thousand years. And what they would think would take thousands or millions of
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years of creation of everything, God can do in a day. That's the context. Excellent explanation,
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Jay. Wow. Guys, you're going to have to rewind that and listen to that again or watch and share
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this because that was so good. I'm thankful for that. And thankful we get to do another episode
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with you, Jay, because we did a little bit more than scratch the surface. We're into the
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discussion now. We'll continue on for the scientific analysis and a whole lot more in tomorrow's
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podcast. So Jay, God bless your brother. We'll talk in a little bit. Thank you. We'll see you then.
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Thank you. All right. So guys, part two with Jay Seger coming up. Actually, we're going to do
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it on Monday. So anyway, we will continue this very important discussion. I hope you understood
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some of these points because these are really good things to discuss with people when this debate
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comes up and he emphasized something that's important, very respectful because these are still
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our brothers and sisters in Christ. Some people get really upset about it, but let's let that not be
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us that get impatient with other people or disrespectful. Well, we'll talk to you again in a little
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while with Jay Seger. God bless you and as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.