Dragons & Dinosaurs: Are They Biblically Compatible?

Sam Rohrer:       Well throughout human folklore, children’s stories, Greek mythology and Greek Roman art, there’s a consistent reference to well, dragons, flying reptiles and what we generally refer to as dinosaurs. Then when modern Hollywood movies magnify such creatures in movies like Jurassic Park and others, what is often viewed as myth seems to come alive. Now here’s the question. Did such creatures actually exist ever? If so, when And if so, why don’t they exist today? Or perhaps even more intriguingly the question, do they in fact still exist today or at least some of them? Well, in the end, the most relevant question regarding the reality of creatures generally referred to as dinosaurs doesn’t make any difference to us today whether dinosaurs actually existed or didn’t when they lived or when they died. And I’d suggest that actually it does make a difference and that how we view this is far more than a matter of ancient history, but a matter of fact and science and biblical truth. So the title I’ve chosen for today’s program is Dragons and a Dinosaurs. Are they Biblically compatible? And with that introduction, I welcome you to Stand in the Gap today and our monthly Creation, science and Apologetics update. My returning guest today is Bryan  Osborne. Been with me many times on this program. He’s an author, conference speaker and Christian apologist for answers in Genesis. And with that, Bryan , thank you for being with me today on a topic you love.

Bryan Osborne:  Absolutely, Sam, I may quote Chick-fil-A. It is my privilege and pleasure to be here with you and I’m excited to talk about dinosaurs for sure.

Sam Rohrer:       Well, I am too, and this is probably a reprieve for a lot of our listeners today, Bryan , because rather than headline news, which who knows what that may be, this is an old theme, but it’s actually a very current theme and a little bit of a different thing. But I’m looking forward to this as well. And so really glad that you are with me because there are a few subjects as intriguing and speculative too, and I’m going to say it that way as this matter of dragons and dinosaurs, but few have impacted dramatically more the views of science, origin of man, and even shaped theology of the church more than these creatures refer to as dinosaurs. Now you’ve done a great deal of writing, Bryan . People can find it on the website, they’re aig.org I believe. So I’d like to have a conversation with you about, let’s just start here to get the program started. Do this, if you don’t mind, define the term dinosaurs dragon. And could you also just answer the simple question of did they truly exist or is it just a myth? And then if it truly existed, just give general areas where history and proof would actually more greatly exist.

Bryan Osborne:  Yeah, there’s a lot in that, Sam, I’m glad to dive into it. So first, the word dinosaur just means kind of like a big lizard, more or less or something like that. And terrible lizard is what it actually means. It’s coin box to Richard Owen back in 1841 used to really describe some bones he had found. And indeed, we have found actual dinosaur bones. We have found bones all over the world. We have found lots of fragments, but also in some cases close to whole skeletons. And so you find enough of the pieces put ’em together in light of the bigger skeletons we found. And yes, we’ve definitely found real creatures called dinosaurs that were really big. Some of them were at least, and so they’re definitely were real creatures. I’ve had people ask me many times if they were real and they absolutely were, that’s no reason for Christians.

Bryan Osborne:  That should not scare us. It will line up with a biblical worldview as we see. But the word dinosaur, as we understand today, technically it’s a land animal by definition with legs that are underneath the body. So technically Sam, things like those OSAs or flying reptiles or things like the plesiosaurs, those big old swimming reptiles, they aren’t technically dinosaurs, although we tend to associate them with them. But dinosaurs by definition are land animals. And the Bible says that land animals made on day six of creation week, therefore dinosaurs are made on day six of creation week. And then we see lots of just corroborating evidence to really confirm this. And as you kind allude to are there references in history of man with dinosaurs? And indeed there are a lot of them, but bear in mind the word dinosaurs a new word, not been 1841 before then by and large Sam, they were called dragons.

Bryan Osborne:  And we see dragon legends literally all around the globe. Now, some of those legends have been embellished over time. That is true. But many of them accurately describe various known types of dinosaurs. You see these literally all over the place. You see the word dragons actually in the Bible in older English translations, another word dragon can be more flexible in its definitional possibilities, but it can refer possibly to dinosaurs in some cases. And you have a couple of instances. We will I think, come back to more detail about where God may be describing a dinosaur. If you look out through human history, we got tons of references. Ko polo said the emperor back in 1200 or so, pull used dragons to pull his chariots in his parades. You have Alexander De Great who said he actually ran into some preachers, large reptiles that the people worshiped ways out of an India area, I do believe.

Bryan Osborne:  And then you find these petro glyph or picto pictographs or drawings or carvings picture show man with dinosaurs all around the world. You have the Australian aboriginal people having a painting what appears to be a ple sword. They called it a real creature. You find these carvings oil seems to be a sta of source over in different places around the globe. I mean, it’s literally all over the place. It makes sense within a biblical worldview. That’s a huge problem for the evolutions because according to secular thinking, dinosaurs lived made years ago and it could not have lived with people. So how do you find all these remnants that appears to show man with dinosaurs? And Sam, just very quickly as we’ll see as we get to this, want the listeners to hold on that dinosaurs are so relevant because as you hint to that, but we’ll clarify as we go through, it gets to the issue of biblical authority. Can we trust what God’s word clearly says in context from one cover to the other? And if you can’t trust the Bible’s history, why trust what it says about morality or salvation?

Sam Rohrer:       Okay, and that’s great. And ladies and gentlemen, what Bryan  and I just kind of talked back forth about here, we’re going to cover in the program, in the next segment we’re going to deal with and actually go to scripture, I’m going to ask Ryan to go to scripture and give indications and citations from the Bible itself about what it says about these large creatures we’re calling dinosaurs. Then I’m going to ask him to talk about what science today says about in how it compares contrast with what the Bible says. We’re going to start with truth and then we’re going to compare to what man says. We will bring some of that together. The third segment we’re going to deal with the most frequently, ask questions that people have for years. Ask about dinosaurs for instance, when did they die? How did they die? Were they on the ark?

Sam Rohrer:       Those kinds of things. And then we’re going to conclude with this whole matter of in the end, does it really make any difference what we think about these things? What primarily don’t exist anymore and how does it relate to our understanding of scripture and therefore how we address other issues of life. So we’ll talk about how does it appeal a direct and what are the implications all of these and more here today on Stand in the Gap today. Well if you’re just joining us today, my special guest is Bryan  Osborne. He’s author, conference speaker and Christian apologist for answers in Genesis, their website@answersingenesis.org. And our theme is not, I’m going to say headline news per se, but it’s something that’s frequently in the news and I’ve entitled this Dragons and Dinosaurs are they biblically compatible? And in the last segment, Bryan , you cited some biblical references.

Sam Rohrer:       We talked about that briefly to what we could conclude, speaks only of this creature called dinosaurs. In this segment, I’d like to consider what we can conclude from passages such as in the Book of Job and others that you might cite that give us knowledge. I’m going to say the profile of this creature, presumably living at the same time when job lived is from my opinion anyways, because God posed to that individual, have you considered this character, this creature? So it must have been living at the same time would be one of my conclusions. Here’s where I’d like you to go with this. What can we conclude as a scientist and all as we deal with this? I mean build the evidence, present the evidence that come from scripture that we can ascertain true that refer to this thing called dinosaurs, sores.

Bryan Osborne:  Yeah, that’s a great way to start. Going back to God’s word is always our foundation in everything. And as I mentioned last segment, we go to God’s word and it says, land animals were made on day six. Dinosaurs are land animals, therefore dinosaurs were made on day six. Now flying creatures and sea creatures were made on day five, but creation week, so your OSAs and things like plesiosaurs or OSAs, those would be made on day five of creation week. But we know from scripture that they are made and we find in the possible record remnants of these creatures. Actually Sam, I just in Montana a couple weeks ago digging up dinosaur bombs and we found some incredible remnants from a T-Rex. We found some from atop de definitely out there. And that’s not surprising biblical worldview. And in particular as we look at Job chapter 40, what you’re referencing there is an amazing description.

Bryan Osborne:  And as our audience thinks about what we’re talking about, really in Job 40, God is putting job in his place in a real sense. He’s telling job, look up at Heath a real creature. See my creative power job and know that I’m God. And trust me, I’ve got you in all the craziness in your life right now. Look at behemoth. And so the word behemoth just means a monstrous beast. But then you go through job 40 verses 15 going forward, it gives you a description of behemoth to give us a better understanding what behemoth actually was. And so it tells us that behemoth in verse 16 has strengthened his loin, his power in the muscles of his belly, in words, behemoth had a big belly. And it’s interesting, if you look at some of the biblical commentaries on behemoth, some will suggest, well, maybe behemoth was an elephant or a hippo, but does the Bible actually describe that?

Bryan Osborne:  Do the features fit a hippo or an elephant? And so verse 16, the behemoth had a big belly. Yes, hippo’s, elephants had big bellies, but verse 17 becomes very distinctive about behemoth. It says that his tail sways like a cedar, like a cedar tree, like the cedars of Lebanon, like a big tree that sways in the wind. That is what the tail behemoth looked like. I challenge anyone listening to go find a picture of a hippo or an elephant and look at their tail and even try to imagine that being a tree and you just can’t do it. Hippos have a short, stubby tail, looks like a flap, maybe a leaf, definitely not a tree. Elephants have a skinny tail not that long compared to other animals, definitely not a tree like tail. It might be a twig but not a tree. But you look at the tails, the bone record from the fossil record of soar pot dinosaurs, long neck dinosaurs, those tails were absolutely huge. And the way they set on the body, they’d be held above the ground. They would sway back and forth to balance the creature out. And that would be like a tree swaying in the wind. And so definitely from the description, given that about behemoth, this was a huge creature of features that we don’t see today very different than what we’d see in elephant or hippo.

Sam Rohrer:       Okay, that’s great. And in what you’re doing is just building off of that verse and others just the description that God gives us, and it’s just a logical application of what you’re saying. It couldn’t have been an elephant, couldn’t have been a hippo, so therefore it was something else simply because of those descriptions. What do we know from scripture, Bryan , about what these animals ate as an example? Were they meat eaters? Were they grass eaters, vegetarians? What do we know?

Bryan Osborne:  Well, from scripture, we would start with this. So we know the Bible tells us that God made originally a perfect creation. And originally in the perfect creation there was no death, no suffering, no bloodshed or disease. So before mans send, there is no death, which means that there is no death, there is no meat eating because when you meat, you’re eating a dead thing. So precent, no death, all things have to be vegetarian to begin with. And so we look at the world today, of course that seems kind of weird to us today, but it makes really good biblical sense because there’s no death before sin. So everything was vegetarian to begin with. Yeah, but look at the teeth of somewhat the dinosaurs, things like tres and stuff like that. I mean, could that be a plant eating creature at all? And bear in mind, Sammy, if you find the fossil of a creature’s got big long teeth, all for sure about the creature is that it had big, long, sharp teeth.

Bryan Osborne:  And even today there are many examples of creatures that have big teeth that are primarily are only vegetarian. And so biblically, we know before the fall all things were vegetarian. And then after the fall, creation was corrupted, things changed. Death and blood sugar comes into the world, meat eating comes into the world. Post-fall, diets of animals start to change post flood. And so either those teeth are repurposed or you have just different features or rise because of God’s intervention or genetic variation. Post-fall of man, and we see changes in diets. But before the fall it wasn’t like that. But things have changed since the fall of man.

Sam Rohrer:       Alright, lemme just go and ask you another thing here. Now compare contrast again, you could give a whole lot more. You’re just giving some highlights coming from scripture itself that references the existence of these large land creatures we call dinosaurs. And you pulled some, they’re from the Book of job. Compare contrast if you would a little bit with what you just said from the pages of scripture with what is taught by modern evolutionary designed science. What do they say?

Bryan Osborne:  Oh my goodness, nothing further from nothing could be more different. In the biblical worldview, there’s a supernatural creation from an all powerful God who spoke the universe into existence by the power of his word. And so we get these six days of creation, supernatural events, all of them. Day seven is the rest of that creation week. But God made them supernaturally roughly 6,000 years ago based on the biblical family, trees and genealogies. And then you contrast that to the evolutionary worldview. Well, evolution says no, there is no supernatural creator. You got to explain all things the really natural processes. And for them, time is their big hero. So give it enough time, anything can happen. So in the secular worldview around 14 billion years ago, nothing explodes and makes everything. And from the chaos of an explosion, it gives the orderliness of the universe and galaxies and solar systems the way Sam, that all goes against known loss of science.

Bryan Osborne:  By the way, somehow the earth formed roughly 5 billion years ago as a hot molten mass and it ran all the rocks for many years. The rocks can block. Three and a half billion years ago, life evolved to what we see today. Dinosaurs eventually evolved somewhere in that sequence. They died around 65 million years ago, never lived with man. That’s a quick short summary. But you see this could not be more different. And the evolutionary fairy tale is man’s best attempt to explain life without God. It’s basically the atheist origin story. It’s what they want to use to rationalize their rejection of biblical truth. And dinosaurs have become the poster child for the evolutionary worldview because they fascinate people because of some of the size of some of them and the unknown factors about them in some cases. And so we’re fascinated by them. You say dinosaurs of millions of years ago that directly contradicts the clear teaching of scripture. And then here’s the key. These two things aren’t compatible. They’re very different. The biblical worldview, biblical history is totally contradictory to the evolutionary fairytale. You can’t put them together consistently. So if you embrace evolution where you’re rejecting the Bible’s history, and Sam, if you cannot believe the Bible’s clear history, why trust is about morality, sexuality, gender or salvation. And so it comes down to the issue of authority. Can we trust all of God’s word? If you cannot trust all of it, why trust any

Sam Rohrer:       Of it? Absolutely Bryan . And that’s what it comes back to, ladies and gentlemen. And we’re going to conclude in the last segment, we’re talking more about the implications of this. It’s profound what Bryan  just said, but it really does make a difference. The Bible’s either true or it’s not. And then you go from there. Lemme ask you just one other question here as we complete this segment. And that is, and you kind of refer to it I believe a little bit on the first segment, but that is this prior to the evolutionary concept, Darwinism in the explaining away creation as the Bible records it. What did humankind and science prior to Darwin in the advent of evolution, teach and believe in regard to dinosaurs?

Bryan Osborne:  Yeah, and so remember the word dinosaurs in new word invented in 1841 before then by and large they’re called dragons. And Sam, they’re dragon legends literally all around the world. In pretty much every single culture you get a story like Aristotle and ISTs preferring to dragons. And so rat is referring to these flying creatures that looked like a huge bass. It’s big leathery wings, not feather wings, probably OSA and variation. You got the Astoria and Amalia. This is a very well known old secular science book that said dragons were still around in the 15 hundreds and you see just all these references to these dragon creatures as real creatures throughout human history. But that stops with the advent of evolutionary ideology taking over because with evolution taking over, man can’t be with dinosaurs. You got to separate them out by millions of years and so forth. And so you got to reinterpret everything. And you see all those old things that are known to be true are just dismissed or forgotten. And there’s a new history that becomes a dominant narrative to explain these creatures.

Sam Rohrer:       So here again, Bryan , the science of today, the truth rejecting culture of today, first has to get rid of truth before they can embrace what they have. And that’s basically what you’re talking about, the evolutionary, the 1841 group after that had to take all of what was written and all that science at that point believed and throw it out so as not to have to confront themselves with what the word of God says. Ladies and gentlemen, everything comes back to the word of God and biblical authority. We’ll come back, I’m going to talk to Bryan . We’re going to go through as many as we can of the most frequently asked questions that they encountered answers in Genesis regarding these things called dinosaurs. Well, if you’re just joining us, we’re midway through the program today and the theme is this, dragons and dinosaurs, are they biblically compatible.

Sam Rohrer:       And we’ve established my guest today, Bryan  Osborne, author, conference speaker and Christian apologist for answers and genesis, their website. You can find it answers and genesis.org. And I have that site up right now by the way. And right there is a picture of a dinosaur on there. Bryan , you’ve got a lot of things on that site as well as information I know about you. But because you speak so much on this issue, if you’ve already laid down a good foundation here demonstrating from history, demonstrating from Bible references itself that these large land animals existed, they were walking around throughout the past history of this world, God brought it up to Job himself and said, have you considered this to prove, to demonstrate to job that God was great and to focus job’s attention on who God was and as you said, as a land animal, they were created, had to be on the sixth day. And so all of that’s there. Now, there are a lot of questions that have come out that surround these creatures and let’s just go as far as we can if we can here. What would you say would be the most frequently asked question that you hear or receive? An audience settings or that type of thing from people regarding creatures called dinosaurs.

Bryan Osborne:  You get a lot where dinosaurs real, we kind of thought about that already and if they were, how do they fit in the Bible? And then probably after that, the next biggest question is going to be how does what about dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark? And that’s a really big question. Of course at the arcing county, we do that quite a bit as well, but I’d say they couldn’t fit, right? And so if you think about answering how to dinosaurs yield the arc where war dinosaurs on the ark, the Bible says this, that during the flood, before the flood, God about to know appears all the land dwelling, air breathing creatures, dinosaurs are land dwelling and air breathing. Therefore dinosaurs would’ve been on the arc. And of course our first thought, Sam, we hear that we think no way, the dinosaurs were too big. I mean the ARC’s big, but it wasn’t that big, right?

Bryan Osborne:  And so how do we deal with that? A couple of things. Number one, bear in mind that the arc is a lot bigger than most people give it credit for over 500 feet long, 85 feet wide, 51 feet tall with three levels. It’s like capacity equaled almost 500 semi-trailer trucks. It’s a massive ship. And I so encouraged our listeners, if you’re not yet bent to the arc encounter go, you’ll be so encouraged and edified and challenged by that equipped to defend your faith. The ark was a huge structure. And then also bear in mind that God brought the animals to know according to their kind, not each species but according to their kind. And the word kind in the Bible is equal to about the family level of modern day classification. And so practically what that means is Noah did not take 400 pairs of dogs on the yard.

Bryan Osborne:  He most likely never saw chihuahua or poodle in his life. Damn, he was a blessed man. He just took two of the dog kind and two of the elephant kind and two of the major kinds. And someone would say, okay, but there are hundreds or thousands of variations of dinosaurs, right? Well, just like there are lots of variations of the dog kind, but just the one kind I got similar thing with dinosaurs. There are lots of variations of the trust, ceratops kind, but likely the one major kind. Same thing with soar pods and T-Rex and so forth. And so in the worst case scenario, there’s roughly 80 something dinosaur kinds. So multiplied by two, not that many needed on the arc. And some would say, okay Bryan , not that many, but still they’re just way too big, right? That’s a very common misconception. You see the average size of a dinosaur is equal to a bison like a big cow.

Bryan Osborne:  Some dinosaurs were small as chickens, but actually we know that all dinosaurs started small because they hatched from eggs. And the biggest thing they can get for numerous reasons is about the size of a football. So your T-Rex eggs are about the size of a football, so pot, dinosaur eggs, size of a football. So they started small hatch from the eggs, grew from there, similar like with crocodiles and alligators today. And so they start small bringing adults onto the yard for many good practical reasons. Yes, style will definitely own Noah’s arc. Not a problem at all. When you understand these things from that biblical perspective.

Sam Rohrer:       And one of the things, and I agree with you relat gentlemen, if you’ve not been to the arc, you really ought to go. I’ve been there, been through it, it changes your perspective when you read the scripture and it talks about Noah and the ark and the animals came into the ark and all that Bryan ‘s talking about, you think about is it possible when you get inside and you actually walk around? Yeah, it’s possible. There’s a lot of space. And one of the things Bryan , I know when I was there, he talked about not just even in the egg form, but it would make sense that the Lord would bring young of the species. Maybe they weren’t even full grown. So that’s a possibility too. So definitely space was not a problem for dinosaurs in the arc, right?

Bryan Osborne:  Well also think about, exactly, think about Sam too. If you’re bringing animals onto the arc, what is the purpose of bringing them on the arc? Well, you bring ’em on the arc to reproduce, to produce offspring, post flood, to refill the earth. So you don’t bring the oldest variation of the animals. You bring younger variations, younger ones because they live longer post load to produce more offspring and refill the earth. So it makes a lot of good sense for God to break to know a young adult of pretty much all the creatures, but especially the bigger ones like dinosaurs.

Sam Rohrer:       Alright, so that’s great. Alright, so that’s the second one. And I want to ask about where they all went in this segment here too, but lemme just ask this question. I don’t know where it is in the lineup, but alright, so they were here at one time and we’ve already talked about it, they co-existed with mankind, science evolution, not a pseudoscience. Evolution says that there’s no possibility of separated mankind and dinosaurs separated by millions and millions and millions of years. Okay, here’s the question. How do we know, given just a little bit of evidence that we know in addition to that passage in job, that dinosaurs and humankind traveled this earth at the same time?

Bryan Osborne:  Yeah, I’ll reframe the question a bit just to still cover the same answer. And that is what is the evidence that dinosaur was living not that long ago, which means they would’ve live with man? And we can validate those dragon legends we talked about earlier. And I would say number one, Sam, we find hundred items in the fossil record. And bear in mind from a biblical perspective, we need to explain the fossil record. All these rock layers full of death things after Adam’s sin, you can have millions of years of death things before sin if you got death before sin, that itemize atonement of being saved by the blood of Christ, death being the pavement before sin. So biblically it explained all the dead things in the rock layers after Adam sin. How you do that, most of those will laid down by nose, flood makes perfect sense.

Bryan Osborne:  And Sam, in that rock record, we find tons of dinosaur bones. Now here’s what we find that really confirms in living not that long ago. Sometimes we have found dinosaur bones that are fossilized over in Alaska for example. They’re like someone described ’em as old cow bones, they’re un fossilized unmineralized, which means they cannot be that old. We find literally all the time we find carbon 14 inside of dinosaur bones. And Sam, anything over a hundred thousand years of age should have no detectable carbon 14. Yet we find it all the time in dinosaur vaults, but weight, it gets better. We’re finding literally all around the world, dinosaur balls repetitively. We’re finding soft tissue from dinosaurs still intact in the bones, the tissue is still the original tissue, it’s still pliable. You can pull it, it’ll spring back in place and there are blood vessels and red blood cells still intact in that tissue. And those organic remnants like our flesh are made of mostly water and they really can’t last hundreds of years after the creature’s death, possibly thousands, but no way, millions. It’s a great confirmation of the biblical timescale that these creatures lived and many died not that long ago. And so we find that sort of stuff just ad nauseum that really just confirms that biblical timeframe and the dinosaurs, yes, lived with man not that long ago.

Sam Rohrer:       Okay, let me ask you this question then. When did most dinosaurs die? Obviously you’re talking about even Marco Polo you said referred to one, pulling something in a parade. Is that possible? I mean, so when did they die? And this question, are there any perhaps still alive?

Bryan Osborne:  Yeah, so the dragon legends are a great confirmation that dinosaurs lived with man post flood as we talked about earlier. And then what happened to them? Why did they die out? Well, Sam, in a fallen world, as you well know, extinction is the rule of thumb, not the exception. And so post flood dinosaurs likely ran into two big probable problems. First one’s going to be climate change. Now don’t get scared, don’t listeners don’t get scared. We’re not talking about the idea of man caused climate change. We’re talking about God caused climate change. God told Noah that the purpose of the flood was to destroy both the people and the earth. The flood wrecked this world. It’s intriguing, Sam, before the flood people live on average over 900 years after the flood. They’re not living near as long. Why? Well, genetic bottleneck is m likely a big reason, but also it’s a wreck world, a wreck climate, a wreck environment.

Bryan Osborne:  Things don’t live as long nor grow as big. And so that’s where it’s probably run into those things pretty hard post flood, it’s going to be a big problem for them. Also, secondarily, post flood. God told Noah, I’m putting the fear of man into the beast of the earth. So post flood animals are scared of people. If animals are scared of you, either they run away from people or they attack people. That means post flood animals can become a threat to people. So if people begin to mingle with animals, post flood, post tower Babel, the threatening animals, people will kill off to protect their families, their crops and their communities. You’re going to hunt down for lots of reasons, for trophies to show your superior competition for land. And really Sam, those are the same reasons animals go extinct today. Nothing my stewards. We’ll just start with a biblical worldview.

Sam Rohrer:       Okay, Bryan ? So could theoretically any qualifying dinosaur be alive today in a jungle somewhere that we just don’t know of?

Bryan Osborne:  It is possible. Yeah, I think it’d be hard, but it is possible definitely because there are some places that are really just hard to get to on this planet and it could be feasible. We have reports going up until the 18 hundreds of what seemed to be dinosaurs in different remote places around the globe. Could it happen? Yes. Would it be awesome? Absolutely. But Sam would say this, would it change the evolutionist mind? The answer is no. They would simply most likely say, is it amazing how it lasted for this long? Because they’ve done that sort of stuff in the past.

Sam Rohrer:       I think it’s great. We’re at the end of the segment, Bryan , but you are correct evidence, ladies and gentlemen. If you do not want to believe God’s account for the truth, you can explain it away almost any way you want. And that is what modern day science has done with creation, with all that is in the word of God, including these creatures we’re talking about today called dinosaurs. But ultimately it comes down to an eternal soul of mankind and whether or not we believe God about what he says about sin and redemption. When we come back, we’re going to talk about what difference does all this make? Well, as we enter our final segment here now today on the program, just a reminder for all of you who are listening, thank you for being a part of the program. We’d have no program if you weren’t there.

Sam Rohrer:       And thank you to all who sit down and take a few minutes to drop us a note. Very helpful to hear from you and we do from people all over the country and how God is using this program. Like today, you would say, who cares about dinosaurs? Well, in reality there’s a connection and there’s a connection actually to everything in life, to the word of God. And that’s what we try to do and we’re going to do here as we complete this program. But if you’ve never written to us, take just a few moments and do it. Let us know where you listen, how you listen the station perhaps that you are listening to and then consider partnering with us, not just in prayer, very, very important, but financial as well because that is an essential element, takes money to run things and therefore perhaps being a part you can actually be a part.

Sam Rohrer:       And I’m going to say lay up treasure in heaven by helping us as we communicate truth to accomplish God’s mission that he’s laid before us in helping people to understand biblical world of view and to be aware of the headline issues of the day, but what the Bible says about how to address and respond to those things that are impacting us. So that’s that. So consider that. And Bryan , let’s get back into it here right now, I want to have you conclude with this. We’ve made a number of references. I have, I’ve talked about it, you’ve talked about it. Everything links back to the word of God. You at answers genus take everything back to creation right at the beginning of Genesis because that’s where it all begins. And so if you don’t get the first part right of the book, you’re not going to get the end part of the book right in this matter that we’re talking about here today. Dinosaurs, it brings us right face-to-face with science what the Bible says, what modern science says, the truth of God’s word versus what God rejecting people reinterpret truth to be and a whole lot more. But I’m just going to throw this general question at end of the day, why does it matter if at all what a person believes about the reality of dinosaurs?

Bryan Osborne:  Yeah, in short, Sam’s a great question. It’s the most practical one. It makes a lot of sense to ask it in short, the answer is biblical authority. Can we trust what God’s word says in relation to that? I want to lay out also another point to really bring this home and that is the issue of the age of the earth as it relates to dinosaurs. Because really dinosaurs are probably the poster child for millions of years. If you open a book about dinosaurs, they’ll probably say millions of years ago these creatures lived. And so for a lot of people, they associate directly dinosaurs living millions of years ago. And that’s why of course they couldn’t live with man. And so why can’t we have millions of years? And the Bible? And here’s why. Because the Bible is clear that God made a perfect creation. Originally there was no death and no suffering, no blush and a disease.

Bryan Osborne:  And God warned at him today, you eat of the fruit and rebel, you will surely die. And then man rebels and it’s man’s sin that brings death the enemy into God’s perfect creation. So God made it perfect, resurrected death came into the world because of our sin. But if you embrace millions of years and dinosaurs are the poster child for that in our age today, embracing dinosaurs with that, if you embrace millions of years, you’re embracing the idea that they were millions of years of time before man and thus before sin. And what’s he supposed evidence for the millions of years? Well, it’s the rock layers. You see, the secular say those rock layers, they weren’t laid down by global flood 4,400 years ago roughly. No, no, no. Silly rabbit. Those rock layers were laid down slowly over millions of years long before man ever existed and thus before sin.

Bryan Osborne:  And those right layers supposedly laid down before man and before sin, we find evidence to lots of dead things and disease and bloodshed, lots of dead things like dinosaurs, dinosaur balls, and many other dead things. But how could those be laid down before man and thus before sin? Because there was no death until after man sin. And watch this Sam, if there was death before sin, that would mean death is not the payment for sin. He’s just always been around part of God’s very good creation. And if death is not the PA for sin, then Jesus’s death cannot and does not pay Allison debt. And we just undermine the gospel of Jesus Christ indirectly, whether we meant to or not. And I tell people all the time, that’s why we care so much about these issues, about the age of the earth and dinosaurs and so forth, all this stuff. It’s not about winning a debate about dinosaurs in particular, but rather defending biblical authority and the gospel rooted in that authority. And Sam, here’s the deal. The enemy wants to undermine biblical authority any way that he can. And there’s really been a concerted attack by him on the Bible’s history to undermine the Bible’s authority. And when you undermine the Bible’s authority, then you can redefine humanity, sexuality, gender, and get the cultural chaos that we see today. So it does come back to that core biblical authority issue and the gospel rooted in that authority.

Sam Rohrer:       And Bryan , that is perfect. And it’s exactly correct. It’s the logical extension of we either embrace ladies and gentlemen, God’s word as is completely all of it. Or we begin to say, well, part of it, maybe a little bit here, a little bit there. At that juncture, we now become the authority, we become God, of course. What is the circumstance where we are today? You’ve touched on it a little bit there, Bryan . Build it out a little bit more if you can. That’s the implications, the implication of saying, well, I’m going to believe science, the pseudoscience, that this world is millions of years old and all the things you talked about. And I’m going to say, well, I’m going to disregard a bit of the Bible. I can’t quite handle our, build out a little bit of the implications because it affects every area of life, doesn’t it?

Bryan Osborne:  Absolutely. And Sam, I’d word to you like this, I think for so many Christians, for so long, we’ve been hit by these different ideas in our culture about the age of the earth and dinosaurs, and even things like radiometric dating and human evolution. Evolution in general. And for most Christians, we don’t have any good biblical response. And so Christians either ignore it or try to compromise on it one way or another. But here’s the bigger problem. For older Christians who are genuine Christians, they already believe these questions of evolution may have not been a big deal to them as far as according to their faith because they’re already saved. But then as they’re raising their kids and their grandkids and the coming generations, so these questions have become dominant in our cultural landscape, then we have people coming to us in our family saying, Hey, if the Bible’s true, pastor, Christian, mother, father, grandpa, if the Bible’s true, what about evolution and the age of the earth?

Bryan Osborne:  And what about dinosaurs and the Bible? What about the eight men who did Cain marry? And all these sorts of questions coming, and they’re good questions in light of the stuff being taught in our culture today, and Sam, what’s been our general response to those questions for the last few decades? We’ve been saying something like this, you know what, honey? I don’t know about the rock layers or dinosaurs or whatever. Don’t worry about that. Just trust in Jesus. And we want them to trust in Jesus, of course. But hear me, Sam, when we just ignore the questions and we just say, trust in Jesus, we’re ignoring their fundamental question, which is this. Here’s what they’re asking. Why should I trust in your Jesus? Because a message of salvation through Christ alone, that message comes from the Bible. And Dear Christian, mom and dad, if I cannot trust the beginning of the Bible, why trust the middle or the end? It’s an issue of biblical authority and the gospel rooted in that authority. And I’m not flown through all this downton of stuff we’re squeezed in. I encourage our listeners to go to answers or justice.org, check out the website and I got a book called Quick Answers to Tough Questions I deal with and that book as well. Lots of great resources to dive deeper on this if people would like to do so.

Sam Rohrer:       Bryan , that’s perfect. We’re right at the end of the program. Thank you so much for being with us today. Again, ladies and gentlemen, that website, interest and Genesis, spell it out, interest and genesis.org, all those things Bryan  just mentioned, our website, stand in the gap radio.com or on our app Stand in the Gap. And there can also obtain very quickly a transcript of the program where you can go back and read along with, as you listen again perhaps to this program. All of the programs have far too much information I know for everyone to write down or to remember the transcript and the program. Go back and avail yourself of it, share it with a friend at the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, the authority of God’s word makes all the difference in the world, our current life and our eternal life.