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Jeremiah chapter number four the Bible reads in verse number one if thou wilt return Oh Israel sayeth the Lord return unto me and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight then shalt thou not remove and thou shalt swear the Lord liveth in truth and judgment and in righteousness and the nation shall bless themselves in him and in him shall they glory for thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem break up your fallow ground and so not among thorns. Jeremiah chapter 4 of course picks up right where we left off in the last few chapters the book of Jeremiah if you remember is being preached at a time when the children of Israel especially the southern kingdom of Judah that's being referenced have turned away from the Lord their God and Jeremiah is a prophet that's trying to call the people back to God and he's trying to get them to avoid the destruction that's coming when the king of Babylon will come and take over this is before the Babylonian captivity and if you remember for many weeks we were in Zechariah and that took place after the Babylonian captivity that's when they're coming back and so God is a little bit more positive toward them at that time because in many cases they were right with God they still had to be reviewed for some things whereas this is before they go captive into Babylon so pretty much the whole book is warning them straighten up get your act together get right with God get rid of the abominations or else I'm going to bring punishment I'm going to bring judgment the king of Babylon is going to come and take you captive and then of course when we get to the last chapter what happens the book of Jeremiah the last chapter it all happens and you know some of its recorded earlier than that but it records Babylon coming in and taking over and destroying them and then Jeremiah also wrote the book of Lamentations where he you know laments the destruction of Jerusalem and so forth now the reason that I bring that up is because one of the most important things to realize as we study Jeremiah or any other book of the Bible is the context what is the book about what's the preacher preaching about because people will often just take verses or sections out of these chapters and take them dramatically out of context to teach all kinds of crazy things Jeremiah chapter four is a chapter that is used to teach some serious false doctrine there's a very bad doctrine that's called the gap theory and it it comes from a twisting of Jeremiah chapter four and a misuse of this passage and so I want to spend a lot of time dealing with that tonight because that's what this chapter is sort of known for but before I get into that let's just look at what the chapter says in the beginning part here of course he's telling them in verse number one return unto me if thou wilt return oh Israel saith the Lord return unto me and if thou will put away thine abominations out of my sight then shalt thou not remove now what's the removal he's talking about then being removed into Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar comes and God's judgment falls and thou shalt swear the Lord liveth in truth and in judgment and in righteousness and the nation shall bless themselves in him and in him shall they glory so again the purpose was always that all the nations would fear the Lord that all the nations would see the example of the children of Judah and that they would worship the Lord also for thus saith the Lord to them in Jerusalem break up your fallow ground and so not among thorns this is sort of like the parable of the sower in the New Testament where Jesus said that when anybody hears the word the way their heart reacts to the word is like unto ground you know the the good ground the thorny ground the rocky ground you know when they hear the word sown the Bible is saying here that they need to break up their fallow ground meaning that they need to have a heart that's receptive to God's Word that's ready to receive and understand God's Word the Bible says in verse number four circumcise yourselves to the Lord and take away the foreskins of your heart you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem lest my fury come forth like fire and burn that none can quench it because of the evil of your doings now keep your finger there and go to Romans chapter 2 Romans chapter 2 and as you're turning there let me just point out that God's wrath upon us God's punishment is because of our doings it's our fault you know we can't blame God when judgment comes it's because of our wickedness that judgment comes according to that scripture but in Romans chapter 2 we have this idea of circumcising the heart look at verse number 28 of Romans chapter 2 for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God now in the New Testament this is a major theme that's taught about the circumcision of the heart being more important than the circumcision of the flesh and in fact under the New Covenant the circumcision of the flesh has no profit and has no meaning the Bible says that neither circumcision available anything nor uncircumcision but a new creature and the Bible says that it's not something that we do in the New Testament but even in the Old Testament he's already talking about the circumcision of the heart and he's already in many places not just Jeremiah 4 telling you you know it's not just enough that you just live in Judah or that you're a Jew that's not enough you need to have a circumcised heart not just circumcising the body and then say oh I'm one of God's people now he says no that's why John the Baptist preached the same thing think not to say within yourselves we have Abraham to our father for I say unto you that God is able to these stones to raise up children unto Abraham and now also the axe is laid under the root of the tree every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire so this just being physically circumcised was never the end-all be-all and in the New Testament it's not even something that we practice but today there are those who put great stock in this and they they think that you know the Israelites are the chosen people even if they don't even worship Jesus even if they don't even believe in him even if they believe in another God and even if they have wicked morals they're still considered a blessed people of the Lord and it's not a biblical doctrine go back to Jeremiah chapter 4 there he says declare ye in Judah in verse 5 and publish in Jerusalem and say blow ye the trumpet in the land cry gather together and say assemble yourselves and let us go into the defensive cities set up the standard towards Zion retire stay not for I will bring evil from the north and a great destruction the lion is come up from his thicket and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way he's gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate and thy city shall be laid waste without an inhabitant now notice when God talks about the Babylonians coming from the north and destroying the children of Judah and taking them captive and removing them he uses this term the lion is come up the lion the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way now if you would flip over to Daniel just a few pages the writing your Bible Daniel chapter 7 and while you're turning to Daniel chapter 7 let me just remind you that Daniel had this vision in Daniel chapter 2 of a great image a great statue with the head of gold and then the image went from gold to silver to brass to iron and then the feet were a mixture of iron and clay and he was told that these different sections of the image represented four kingdoms and he told Nebuchadnezzar thou O Nebuchadnezzar art that head of gold and then he said after you there's going to be another kingdom that arises that's inferior to you that was represented by the chest and the arms of silver which the Medo-Persian Empire and then the belly and thighs of brass represented Grisha the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great and then of course the iron represented the Roman Empire that would crush in pieces and that would be the empire that was in place when the Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth when he would come and and destroy the works of the devil spiritually then of course at the second coming of Christ he's going to physically destroyed the devil's Antichrist kingdom and the ten toes represent the ten kings and everything of revelation on and on but in Daniel chapter seven there's a similar vision that Daniel has but instead of being four sections of a statue it's actually four beasts that he sees okay look if you would at verse number one in the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed then he wrote the dream told the some of the matters Daniel spake and said I saw in my vision by night and behold the four winds of the heavens strove upon the great sea and four great beasts came up from the sea diverse one from another the first was like a lion and had Eagles wings I be held till the wings there are four plucked and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand upon the feet as a man and a man's heart was given to it now think about this if these four beasts represent the same thing as the four sections of the image which I believe that they obviously do when you look at these beasts and study this well then the first beast is like a lion so the lion represents Nebuchadnezzar the lion represents Babylon was exactly what it said back in Jeremiah calling the Babylonians and their king the lion okay now more evidence of that is that it says that the first was like a lion and had Eagles wings and I be held to the wings thereof were plucked and it was lifted up from the earth and made stand upon the feet as a man and a man's heart was given to it now something like this happened to Nebuchadnezzar because of the fact that in chapter four of Daniel he lost his mind and became as a beast of the field and he was out in the field eating grass like an ox and his fingernails grew like bird feathers and I mean I'm sorry like bird claws and his hair became like a bird feathers but then eventually he's given a man's heart once again and made to stand upon his feet right in that kind of what this says you know his feathers are plucked in the sense that he loses his kingdom and he becomes a crazy person and he's referenced like unto a bird except one that's on the land on all fours eating grass slobbering and whatever but then he's given a man's heart he's made to stand upon his feet and so forth so I believe that it's pretty clear that the that this is referring to the king of Babylon and then of course after that it says the second was like unto a bear in verse number five the third was like unto a leopard okay and it says in verse number six after this I be held low like a leopard which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl the beast had also four heads and an opinion was given to it the reason why the third beast representing the Greek Empire has four heads is that Alexander the Great had no air after he died so after he died the Greek Empire was ruled over by four of his generals they divided up his empire into four and so that's where you get the four-headed beast idea representing the Greeks and then it says in verse seven after this I saw in the night visions and behold a fourth beast dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly and it had great iron teeth and it devoured and break in pieces and stamped the residue with the feet of it and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it and had ten horns and so forth and then of course this also has an end times ramification because the end times chapter revelation 13 talks about the beast and it is a beast of seven heads and ten horns and it is like a lion it says like a leopard like a bear and it is dreadful and like unto the fourth beast so there's a clear connection between Daniel chapter seven and also the end times so back then it represented Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome leading up to the first coming of Jesus Christ then in the end times there's going to be basically a renewal of this beast this beast will be on the scene once again but this time it's going to be a combination of all of them because it's going to be a one world system that encompasses everything of the lion the bear, Medo-Persia, the Greece, the leopard and so forth and it's interesting because that beast has seven heads and ten horns right well think about this we have four beasts here right and one of the four beasts has four heads right so how many heads is that all together then seven because you got one two three and then on the the one it has four heads so there's your seven heads of the book of Revelation just more tying in there so let's go back if you would to Jeremiah chapter four and I'm just going through this to show you how consistent it is that this chapter from the Bible Jeremiah four is very clearly talking about one thing it's very clearly warning the children of Judah that destruction is coming judgment is coming as a result of their sin as a result of the abominations and a result of the uncircumcision of their heart God is sending judgment and that judgment is coming in the form of the lion the king of Babylon of course in Jeremiah 52 we see the king of Babylon come etc etc let's keep reading it says in verse eight for this gird you with sackcloth lament and howl for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us this is a verse that Joyce Meyer has never read because she wrote a book called God is not mad at you and on the back of her book God is not mad at you it says I don't care who you are I don't care what you've done God's not mad at you but this is one of a lot of verses that says the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us and if God was mad then he's mad now because people today are doing the same stuff that they were doing back in Jeremiah chapter four and so God still angry the Bible says God is angry with the wicked every day verse number nine it shall come to pass at that day say the Lord that the heart of the king shall perish and the heart of the princes and the priest shall be astonished and the prophets shall wonder what does it mean when it says they're going to be astonished and wonder it's saying they're going to be surprised they're going to be blown away whoa we didn't see this coming Jeremiah's warning them but they're not taking the warning seriously he's telling them you're committing abomination you're wicked you're uncircumcised of heart judgments coming the king of Babylon is coming and they're kind of saying yeah yeah yeah whatever and then when it comes like whoa it's actually happening and they're surprised that it's happening but we shouldn't be surprised when God's judgment falls upon a wicked nation there'd be a lot of people that be very surprised if judgment came to America but they really shouldn't be surprised when you think about everything that we've done as a country it shouldn't really come as a shock but you know and I know it would come as a huge shock to most people well we're such a great country what's going on we're the we're the nicest people ever but not in God's sight the Bible says in verse 10 then said I ah Lord God surely thou has greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem saying ye shall have peace whereas the sword reaches unto the soul now it seems like Jeremiah is is a little confused here because he's saying oh man God you've really lied to these people because you've said that they're gonna have peace but here's the thing he didn't say that they're gonna have peace but what it is there were a whole bunch of lying preachers around a bunch of false prophets who were saying oh thus sayeth the Lord thou shalt have peace and really there is no peace coming in and that's why God later in the book of Jeremiah is gonna say I didn't send these guys these prophets that are saying thus sayeth the Lord all these peaceful prophecies I didn't send them okay and God in his word the written word never says that you're gonna have peace when you commit all this sin and abomination all of the peace promises to Israel or to anyone else for that matter are contingent upon obeying the voice of the Lord Bible says there's no peace sayeth my God to the wicked but that's kind of an interesting verse where Jeremiah kind of has doubts there then said I ah Lord God surely thou has greatly deceived this people in Jerusalem saying ye shall have peace whereas the sword reaches unto the soul at that time shall be said to this people into Jerusalem a dry wind of the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people not to fan nor to cleanse even a full wind from those places shall come unto me now also will I give sentence against them and another another thing could be that maybe he's just kidding when he said that I mean I don't know when Jeremiah says like oh Lord God you really deceive these people by telling they're gonna have peace I don't know if he's doubting himself and he's just hearing all these other prophets of peace or whether he's just making fun of the prophets of peace you know but either way you know there were a lot of prophets and this will come up later as we say Jeremiah better prophesying peace that's the big thing that Jeremiah battles with throughout the book of Jeremiah later on the book of Jeremiah you know there he's wearing you know those things that like a yoke but sometimes they put people in a yoke to punish people or so you know they would attach them to stocks for example or other similar punishments have actually taken place throughout history putting people in stocks where they're stationary like this but also for example when I read the life of Genghis Khan you know he had to spend a few years or we don't really know how long but supposedly he spent months or years where he was enslaved and he had to wear this thing called a kang and it was sort of like a yoke that an animal but he was basically attached to it and other people had to feed him and give him water and stuff like that so he was locked into this thing as a punishment so later on you know Jeremiah's wearing a yoke type of thing to basically show them you're going into captivity you're gonna be enslaved you're gonna do forced labor and then another prophet comes and breaks it you know and says thus saith the Lord you know I'm gonna break your yoke and there's gonna be peace he's like a Joel Osteen you know coming and breaking it and then you know God tells Jeremiah well tell him that as a punishment for preaching lies instead of a yoke of wood that he could break I'm gonna make you a yoke of iron you know. So I'm just saying I'm just I'm bringing that out just to tell you that in the book of Jeremiah there's a constant battle between Jeremiah who's preaching doom and gloom God's gonna punish God's gonna destroy and all the prophets of peace saying oh Jeremiah he's hurting people's feelings and he's weakening the hearts of the people and the hearts of the men of war he's discouraging people he's not encouraging them enough but he's telling them the truth and it's the same thing we see today where the prophet who tells people the truth is criticized for being too negative and then the guy who's a prosperity preacher people just come to him by the droves to hear what they want to hear so that's why he says that in Jeremiah chapter four because there's a mixed message coming from the prophets Jeremiah is preaching one thing the false prophets are preaching something else. Look down at your Bible there in verse number 13 of chapter four. Behold he shall come up as clouds and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us for we are spoiled. Oh Jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts launch within thee? For a voice declareth from Dan and publishes affliction from Mount Ephraim. Make ye mention to the nations behold published against Jerusalem that watchers come from a far country and give out their voice against the cities of Judah as keepers of a field and they against her. Are they against her roundabout because she hath been rebellious against me sayeth the Lord thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee. This is thy wickedness because it is bitter because it reaches unto thine heart. Now, this chapter is not hard to understand, is it? Just really simple. God's angry, God's gonna punish you, get right with God, get it fixed or you're doomed. Verse 19, my bowels, my bowels, I'm pained at my very heart. My heart maketh a noise in me. I cannot hold my peace because thou hast heard. Oh my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war, destruction upon destruction is cried for the whole land is spoiled. Suddenly are my tents spoiled, my curtains in a moat. So Jeremiah's just getting really emotional. He's feeling physical pain when he thinks about the horrors of war. You know, some of us have been desensitized to the horrors of war just through video games and movies but war is a horrific thing. I mean, just all the bloodbath and the death and the carnage that's coming and Jeremiah sees all this stuff and it's making him sick. His bowels, his heart. I mean, he's just in pain. He says in verse 21, how long shall I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet? For my people's foolish. They've not known me. They're sodish children and they have none understanding. They're wise to do evil, but to do good, they have no knowledge. Now here's where you get into the scripture that the gap theory crowd just takes and teaches a false doctrine with. Look what it says. I beheld the earth and lo, it was without form and void. Oh, there you go. So they see this where it says without form and void and they say, oh, this is talking about Genesis one. This is talking about the creation. Now, is that what we're talking about in this passage, the creation story? Are we anywhere near the creation story? Is that on anybody's radar in this chapter? This chapter has been real consistent. Verses one through 22 and in fact, it picks up exactly where chapters one, two and three have left off. Chapters one, two, three and four have all been talking about the same thing consistently, just A to B to C, very clear, very simple. And then all of a sudden, people want us to believe that we're back at the creation now. We're just taking a huge leap back to the beginning of the world. I beheld the earth and lo, it was without form and void and the heavens and they had no light. I beheld the mountains and lo, they trembled and all the hills moved lightly and I beheld and there was no man and all the birds of the heavens were fled and I beheld and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness. Now watch this. And all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord and by his fierce anger. Now, what Jeremiah is seeing here is a scene of carnage where the earth is unrecognizable, the birds have fled away and where cities are broken down. The fruitful place is a wilderness and the cities are broken down. Now, the without form and void of Genesis chapter one is talking about where the earth is basically just covered in water and there's no dry land, there's no animal, there's nothing. It's just the earth without form and totally empty. That's what void means, empty, okay? So the earth is just completely empty, there's nothing there, there's just water and then God says, let there be light and God creates the firmament and God creates the dry land and on and on. This is something totally different. Just because you say that something's without form and void it doesn't mean that you mean the same thing both times. You know, this is just so ridiculous. Well, since they both say without form and void, ergo, they're talking about the same thing. I mean, that's just crazy because this without form and void is meaning I'm looking at it and the fruitful place is like a wilderness, meaning that farmland, farmland now looks like wild terrain and he says specifically that he sees cities that are broken down. Now, is that the image in Genesis one? A planet with cities on it that are broken down? No, it's without form and void. See, there's empty and then there's really empty. Does everybody understand? Like, I could have, you know, a glass of water with like a few drops left in it and if I said it's empty, that would be accurate to say, hey, it's empty, I need a refill. But then there's empty as in totally empty, like nothing there. Or for example, let's say we had a really low attendance at a church service and I say, man, it was really empty, you know, on that Sunday. But then there's empty as in nothing. Or I could say the building was empty. Hey, I got to church building at five a.m. and it was totally empty, meaning that there's no person there. Wouldn't it be accurate to walk in and there's not a soul in here? And I said, the building was empty when I arrived. People got there a half hour later, right? Okay, but what if I walked in and all the chairs were gone? The piano was gone, the organ was gone, wouldn't that be a different kind of empty? But both of those could be called empty. So Jeremiah's not looking at just, whoa, the Earth hadn't even been created yet. He's looking at broken down cities. Look at what it says. Broken down cities, the birds have flown away. Not that the birds don't exist anymore. It's just that they flew somewhere else. Cities are broken down, fruitful field becomes a wilderness, mountains and hills, whatever. Let's keep reading. Verse 27, for thus hath the Lord said, the whole land shall be desolate, yet will I not make a full end. So what's he saying? This is a prophecy of the land of Judah being made desolate by the coming Babylonian invasion, but he says, I'm not gonna make a full end. Now, according to this gap theory that tries to tie this in with Genesis one, and I'm gonna explain that in a moment. According to this gap theory, basically God wiped out a pre-Adamic race or pre-Adamic civilization and starts from scratch. And so basically our creation is not the first time. This isn't the first rodeo, because God already destroyed other people and Adam was like a start over, like a reset button. But here's what's dumb about that. This says I'll not make a full end. According to the gap theory, it sounds like he made a full end. I mean, if everything is wiped out, it's just water. For this shall the earth mourn and the heavens above be black because I've spoken. I have purposed and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it. Now, can you picture an invading army come in and destroy a city and the sky being black as a result? What do you think would cause the sky to be black as a result fire, right? Black smoke would come up and fill the sky and so forth. This is perfectly consistent with the rest of Jeremiah 4. He's talking about destruction coming, the Lord's fierce anger, the Lord's fierce wrath. And he says, I looked and it was just like unrecognizable without form and void. Cities are broken down, wilderness, the sky's black. God said it's desolate, but I'm not gonna make a full end. This is the Babylonian invasion of Judah. It's clear as crystal. The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen. That would explain why it's empty. Because what did he say? In verse number 25, I beheld and lo there was no man and all the birds of heaven were fled. Why is there no man? Because it just says in verse 29 because the whole city is gonna flee. So when the whole city flees, guess what you have as a result? No man, okay? And why are the birds gone? Because they didn't like that black sky thing. They're like, let's go where the sky is blue. So they left. So really this is a pretty simple passage, pretty easy to understand. But when you have an agenda to teach this gap theory, you can take just a few of these verses out of context and pawn them off on the simple and the unlearned, the people who didn't read the whole book or the people who just want to believe this. Because here's the thing, people believe what they want to believe. When they wanna believe something, they'll ignore all the facts and just believe what they want. If they have something that they wanna believe, they find a way to believe it. Now, this in my hand is the Scofield reference Bible. Now, I grew up with this thing. I mean, my first personal Bible, that was my nice Bible that I studied was a Scofield reference. I had it as a little kid. And I had the Scofield reference Bible as my personal Bible that I grew up with. In churches, this was like the most preferred Bible. If you got the nicest Bible, you had a nice leather-bound Scofield. They give these away as prizes. In fact, I just visited an independent fundamental Baptist church two months ago and someone was presented, somebody was graduating from school and they were presented with a Scofield reference Bible as their prize for graduating from school, very common. In fact, I've been in churches where when they tell you where to turn, they say, hey, go to Jeremiah four, which is page number, they would actually say, that's page number 776 in your Scofield reference Bible. And then everybody feels like, oh man, I gotta get one of those so I can get the page number. Now, this Bible is filled with lies and false doctrine, not just the gap theory, okay? It's filled with a lot of Zionism, a lot of, this is pretty much why the pre-Trib rapture exists in Baptist churches. It came through this book. This was really the book that popularized it. When this thing was distributed, that's how it got into the Baptist circles, okay? Because before that, Baptists did not know that doctrine, never heard of that doctrine. That doctrine is really post 1830, but not only that, it didn't really get popular amongst Baptists until the early 20th century, okay? And by that, of course, I mean the 1900s, okay? So basically, if you turn to Genesis one in a Scofield reference Bible, and this is what I understand, how can people not know it's a fraud when the first page is this bad? Now, independent fundamental Baptists almost universally don't believe in the gap theory. I mean, I think it's very safe to say that more than 90% of independent fundamental Baptists reject the gap theory. It's usually only the Ruckmanite style independent Baptist that would ever give credence to the gap theory. But yet they use this Bible, and so they're poisoning the minds of young people. And you say, well, they just read it for the, I just read it for the cross-references, but I don't read the notes. I just do it for the cross-references. But here's the thing. I was a kid, I was given one of these, and I confess, I read every note in the thing. I read every note in it. I'm pretty sure I read every note cover to cover. I was reading the notes more than I was reading the Bible. I mean, when you're a kid, I mean, you're just like, oh yeah, you know, read all these notes. And I read it. Everybody reads it, you know? So I had the sword of the Lord call me a couple of months or years ago. I don't have a very good concept of time, but they called me sometime recently, and they said to me, hey, we just wanna let you know, because we buy a lot of stuff from them. We buy our hymnals from them, and they have a lot of great stuff, great hymnals, Bible stuff. And they called me and said, hey, just wanna let you know, we've got this sale going on on the Schofield Reference Bible. And I told her, I said, I'm not interested in the Schofield Reference Bible. I said, do me a favor. I said, do you have a Schofield Reference Bible near you? She said, yeah. I said, open it to Genesis chapter one right now while you're on the phone with me, and look how it teaches that the earth is millions of years old. I said, is that what you guys believe? No, no. I'm like, well, maybe you should talk to the powers that be on why you guys are selling this thing when on the first page, that's what it teaches. So let me read for you from the notes on the Schofield Reference Bible. You can turn to Genesis one if you want and keep your finger in Jeremiah chapter four. But you start out in the Schofield Reference Bible right above Genesis one one, it says the original creation. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Okay? Then right after that, it has a note immediately between chapter one, verse one and verse two. It's impossible to not read this note. It's not possible because it's in the text. Like it's not like just a footnote where you go down to the bottom of the page or over here or over there. No, actually, let me just show you here. Look at that. It's like verse one, note, verse two. You can't skip it. It's impossible not to see it. And you can come look at it after the service. You'll see what I mean. It's like in the text as if it's part of it practically. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Here's what the note says. Earth made waste and empty by judgment. See Jeremiah four, 23 through 26. Then it says, and the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now anyone who just read this without this note would just think, so in the beginning, God creates the heaven and the earth and the earth starts out without form and void and then he's gotta start sprucing it up. So he says, let there be light. He creates the firmament to separate the waters above and below, on and on, right? That's how any rational person would just open their Bible and read it. Who in the world are you gonna hand a Bible to and say, hey, I want you to start reading the Bible, Genesis chapter one. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. You know, I don't know why, but I just have this compulsion right now to turn to Jeremiah chapter four. Because I just feel like something's missing between verses one and two. Nobody's gonna come to that in a million years. Because it's ridiculous. I mean, not to mention the fact that the book of Jeremiah is written so much later than the book of Genesis. I mean, they had the book of Genesis for so long, it's a shame they couldn't understand it until Jeremiah came along and filled in the most important fact between verses one and two. Okay, but listen to listen to Scofield's note at the bottom of the page where he really elaborates at the bottom of the page. Jeremiah four, 23 through 26, Isaiah 24, one and 45, 18, clearly indicate that the earth had undergone a cataclysmic change as the result of a divine judgment. That's clear, right? I mean, when you read Jeremiah four, it's crystal clear that it's referring to this. The face of the earth bears everywhere the marks of such a catastrophe. No, maybe it's a different catastrophe like the flood in the days of Noah, for example, clearly bears the marks of such catastrophe. There are not wanting intimations which connect it with a previous testing and fall of angels. See Ezekiel 28, 12 through 15, Isaiah 14, nine through 14, which certainly go beyond the kings of Tyre and Babylon. So what he's claiming, I mean, that's a lot to cram into this gap, big gap between verses one and two. Saying, oh, you know, there's, first of all, here's the evidence folks, Jeremiah four is crystal clear. Okay, secondly, all we gotta do is look around. I mean, look at all the marks of the catastrophe. Now that doesn't make, no, wrong. That's the Noahic flood that could have left some of that damage. And by the way, the earth looks pretty good to me. I mean, it doesn't look that bad. I mean, does it really look that tore up? Everywhere I look, I can just see divine wrath and judgment. It looks pretty nice, you know? Maybe, I mean, maybe you live in a weird part of the world or something, but Arizona looks pretty good. But anyway, he says, well, there's all these, you know, he doesn't wanna just speak normal English. So he says, there are not wanting intimations that this regarded a previous testing and fall of angels. Well, let's look at where God intimated this to us. Okay, let's go to Ezekiel 28, for example. Ezekiel 28, this is the intimation of the fact that it was a previous testing and fall of angels on this earth. Look at Ezekiel chapter 28. He is pointing us to, which verse is here? He's pointing us to 12 through 15. Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus and say unto him, thus saith the Lord God, thou sealest up the sum full of wisdom and perfect of beauty. Thou has been in Eden. Now, this doesn't look like it was taking place in some pre-Genesis 1 verse 2 former world before God destroyed it, because where does the Garden of Eden come into play? Genesis chapter 2. So where is the devil looking so beautiful? Where's Lucifer looking so beautiful and being the anointed covering cherub and being puffed up because of his beauty? And where is iniquity being found in him? It doesn't say anything about him being in some previous world. It talks about him being in Eden. And so again, this is total nonsense. If you keep reading it, it just says, thou has been in Eden, the Garden of God, every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the barrel, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold, the workmanship of thy tabards and of thy pipes was prepared in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, and I have set thee so. Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God. Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou hast created till iniquity was found in thee. There is no mention here that it was in some previous world or anything. The only place or time mentioned is Eden, which would go against this theory that they're trying to show us. Now if you would, flip over to Exodus chapter number 20. Exodus chapter number 20. Exodus chapter 20, and I'm gonna show you a verse that I was taught. Thankfully, I didn't just have a Schofield reference Bible as a kid, but my parents had all their notes in the back of the Schofield reference, they had written with an ink pen. And thank God my parents' notes were a lot more accurate than Schofield's notes, because they had in the back of that Bible that they gave me as a little toddler, or however old I was, when I first started reading. I learned to read when I was three. My mom taught me real young, and I'm very thankful for that. She taught me at a super young age how to read. I don't remember when I got that Bible, but I was probably around six years old, or maybe even younger. They had written in the back of the Bible, no gap. Exodus 20, verse 11. So they wrote, that was kind of a countermeasure to make sure I didn't get screwed up by the notes. So they wrote in the back, no gap, Exodus 20, verse 11. So I remember as a kid going to Exodus 20, 11, trying to figure out what are they talking about, no gap, Exodus 20, verse 11. Then I figured it out. Oh, okay, I see what they're saying. Because in Exodus 20, 11, it says, for in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and held it. Now notice here, in six days, God created the heaven and earth, that's verse one. The sea and all that in them is, that's verses two through the rest of the chapter, with no gap. See how there's no gap there? So of course there's no gap between Genesis 1-1 and Genesis 1-2 either, but it's a little easier to put a gap there. It's impossible to put a gap in Genesis 20, verse 11. Six days, God created the heaven and the earth. That's what it said in Genesis 1-1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And everything that's in them, all in those six days. So I believe that when God created the earth, that probably when he created the heaven and the earth, he created the heaven on the first day as a finished product. The place where he lives heaven, okay? We're not talking about the sky heaven. We're talking about the place where he lives heaven. I believe he created it as a ready-made finished product, and everything that's in it, all the angels, everything involved there, and that he created the earth without form and void. And so he says, you know, he created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void. And then he begins to, you know, work on the earth and so forth. Because God is able, it's funny how people say, you really think God created the whole earth in six literal days? Well, he could have done it in six minutes. He's God, I mean, he's not governed by time. So that's why I say he could have just created a ready-made heaven. That's what the scripture would seem to indicate. And I went into great detail on that and why I believe that and showed scripture on that in my sermon, I think on Genesis 2, you know, when we went through Genesis. Either Genesis 1 or Genesis 2, I covered that. Probably Genesis 2 sermon. But, you know, there's no gap here, it's crystal clear. But listen to what it says here in Scofield's note on Genesis 1 that I haven't read to you this part yet. The first creative act refers to the dateless past and gives scope for all the geologic ages. So what he's saying is that we're putting a gap in here because we wanna match up with geology, the geologic ages, the geologic column. Now, this book by Scofield, you know, I used to know what year it was from, but it goes back to what, 1909 it says, 1917. Those are the earliest dates on this thing. So 1909, 1917. Well, archeology and especially, you know, the theories of evolution and things like that, they really came on the scene in the late 1800s and they were really starting to be popular in the early 20th century. And this was a big battle that was going on in the early 20th century between people who accepted or rejected the teaching of evolution. Because really this teaching's only that old. I mean, really until 100 years ago or so, nobody believed in it, you know. But it really started getting popular in the early 20th century. It originated in the 1800s, okay. And so right at that time, people like Scofield are basically adjusting the Bible to try to fit in with these new scientific theories about evolution. Now, here's the problem with that. The Bible doesn't fit with evolution. The Bible doesn't fit with millions and billions of years old. And honestly, there's no reason in the world for us to adjust the Bible to this idea of the Earth being billions of years old because there's no evidence that the world is billions of years old and it's impossible to prove that the Earth is millions or billions of years old. Not possible to prove. Now, here's why it's not possible to prove that. And I don't wanna go on and on about the subject, but the simple fact is that no one was around back then. So any kind of a machine that would tell you how old something is would have to first be calibrated with something that we know is that old, okay. For example, when thermometers were first being made, they would calibrate the thermometer based on the freezing point of water, right. So they'd get some water, get it at the freezing point and then they could draw a line on the thermometer saying, okay, we know that that is 32 degrees Fahrenheit or zero degrees Celsius. Put a line on the thermometer there. Then the boiling point of water, they could measure that temperature and mark that as 212 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 degrees Celsius. Or they could take the human body temperature, right. And then that gives them another reference point, 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That what is it, 37 degrees Celsius? Who's a Celsius person here? Canadian, 37? All right, all right. So I don't do, I don't speak Celsius. I speak English. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, the point is, you get these reference points, right. And then you can draw all the lines in between. So then when I stick that thermometer somewhere else and it comes out with a certain temperature, I'd say, well, you know what? I know that that's the same temperature because I tested that on boiling water and we, you have to have a known. So in order to calibrate something that measures how old things are, you would basically have to have something where you say, well, I know that this is that old, right. And then I could calibrate whatever the system and say, well, since I know this is that old, then therefore, you know. But you say, well, Pastor Anderson, but they can measure stuff that's 1,000 years old or 2,000 years old and then they can just extrapolate that out. Okay, but here's the thing. Let's try that with a thermometer. Okay, so we put the freezing point of water, the boiling point of water. Well, here's the thing. Can we just measure something that's 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit on that thermometer? No. Or what happens, once we go so cold, that thing's not gonna be accurate anymore. Once we go so hot, the thermometer's gonna break and the mercury's gonna spill out. It only works for the range that we've calibrated and we don't really know what it's gonna do if we go to extreme colds or extreme heats until we test that and verify that, okay. And there are a lot of reasons why these dating methods could be inaccurate. And the one that's brought out the most is radiocarbon dating. Everybody talks about it. And it's funny, I've stood at the doorstep of a guy who had a science degree from Devil State University and he sat there and told me radiocarbon dating and I said, how far back can you go with radiocarbon dating? He said, millions of years. And I said, I said, no one believes that. I said, we could go on any website you want right now. We could go to any encyclopedia. We could go to any science book and no science book, no encyclopedia will tell you that carbon dating goes back millions of years because no one even makes that claim. Even the people who believe in carbon dating and swear by carbon dating would only claim that it could go back 25,000 years or 50,000 years, depending on who you talk to. No one claims that it goes back millions of years. But your average American, if we were to go take a poll, 90 some percent of them would say, oh, well they carbon dated stuff to figure out that it was millions of years old. It's not true though. Look it up yourself. And there are all kinds of problems with carbon dating. But even if you believed in it, I'm saying, it doesn't go back that far. No one even claims it does, except people who just don't know. And they're just kind of just throwing, oh yeah, of course, you know. I mean, it's a lot, listen, listen to me. There's a dumbing down in America. There's a dumbing down in the world that we live in. I mean, I literally, I was in a college classroom just a few weeks ago. And I was showing a bunch of statistics about the sodomite queer lifestyle, how destructive it is and how they're so filled with disease and how bad it is. And somebody's like, well, you know, I just don't believe, I don't believe in that. And I'm like, well, but these are statistics. You know, like I got these off of AIDS.gov. I got these off Center for Disease Control website, CDC.gov. This is not a right wing website. It's just studies that they did. You know, these facts are accurate. You can check this with, you know, and I'm showing them statistics. And then this is what one of the students said to me. And you were there for the Baker, right? And Paul Winberg was there. You know, what about all this? What about, you believe in statistics? What about the statistics? And this guy was not disabled. This guy was not, this guy was, look, this guy didn't have an excuse. This guy was a totally, he had all the chromosomes were right in with this guy. He said, this is what he said. Well, what about all the statistics that say that, you know, that teach evolution in the big bang? I mean, and this is in a college, we're in a college class. And he's like, what about all the statistics? I'm like, dude, I don't think you know what a statistic is. Because, so then I had to like, I'm like, that's not a statistic. You know, what are you talking about? So I had to explain him, statistics would be like, if I went to my church and I counted all the people that had blonde hair, and I counted the people that had brown hair, and I figured out how many people were this age, and that age, and how long they lived, and how many babies were born, and I compiled data. I'm like, those are statistics, you know, about, I'm like, but I just didn't even know what to say, because it's just like, what did he say? But honestly, when, I hate to say this, but at that college, there are a lot of moments like that a lot, where you're just kind of just like, what is it, we're doomed, you know? The human race, I mean. But anyway, you're just blown away by it. But they just believe whatever they're taught. You believe those statistics, what about the statistics about the big bang and evolution? They don't know what that means, they're just repeating. Oh, but what about the carbon dating, millions and billions of years? It's like, you don't even know what you're talking about. You haven't really proved these things or checked into any of this stuff. So there's a lot of science falsely so-called. And the Bible says, oh Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so-called, which some professing have erred concerning the faith, grace be with thee, amen. So the Bible says, people have erred from the faith as a result of science falsely so-called. The word science means knowledge, right? Things that we know to be true, things that we can test and observe and know to be true. Now anything where we talk about what happened thousands of years ago cannot be science. Now the Bible is not science. If I said creation and the flood and everything, that's not science, okay? Because we can't prove that empirically. We don't use experiments to prove that the Bible's true. We believe that the Bible's true by faith. It's not science, okay? But neither is evolution and the big bang. Neither is that science. That is also philosophy is what it should be regarded as or religion, philosophy, things of that nature, because philosophy answers the questions of who we are, why we're here, where we came from, and the view put forth by the big bang and evolution of we came here as a result of nothing. There was nothing and then nothing exploded and then there was something from nothing and then that something became a lot of somethings that evolved into other somethings that came alive. Now here's the thing. True science never contradicts the Bible and we need to stand on that fact today in 2016. Now there have been a lot of foolish teachings throughout the years that try to attack that truth. But true science, and that's implied when the Bible says oppositions of science falsely so called, that God is okay with real science because he's calling out a falsely so called science. He's not just saying, oh, avoid science. Stay away from science now. He says avoid oppositions of science falsely so called. See, we as Bible-believing Christians believe that the Bible is scientifically accurate and that the teachings of the Bible regarding science are sound teachings, okay? Now the Bible needs no apology in this area because the Bible has always been way ahead of science and I remember when I was dating my wife, actually no, this is actually before we were dating because she wasn't even saved. This is when we were first talking and I was trying to get her saved. Not the first time I gave her the gospel but a subsequent time that I gave her the gospel. And she basically just rejected the Bible as being God's word out of hand because she said, well, the Bible can't be true because the Bible is scientifically inaccurate because that's what she'd been taught her whole life. And then I sat down with her and said no and I gave her all these reasons why the Bible is scientifically accurate. And I showed her all kinds of scriptures and then after that, then she was open to hearing more about what the Bible said. But think about how dangerous that is where she just has a mindset, well, we know the Bible can't be true because it's scientifically inaccurate. So the devil has an agenda to convince people that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate so that they can be like her where they just reject the Bible out of hand. Now, here's the thing. The devil is a great con artist. The Bible says he has great wisdom, wiser than Daniel. And so he's smart enough to know that one size doesn't fit all. So he has multiple deceptions going on, multiple fronts. He has many different hooks in the water, as it were. And he always likes to approach things from two angles. And this is where we get the false left-right paradigm. Who's heard of the left-right, false left-right paradigm? Well, I thought we had more conspiracy theorists in the church than that. But anyway, several people put up their hand. A false left-right paradigm. And basically, people are falling for this right now in mass because we're in an election year. So it's just the left-right paradigm is in full swing. And what this is is where you are presented with two false alternatives, and you are told and convinced that these are the only two options and you must choose the one. And if you don't go with the one, then you have to go with the other, and vice versa. So let me give you some examples of this. Calvinism versus Arminianism. Oh, you're not a Calvinist? Well, then you must be an Arminian. Well, no, I'm not an Arminian. Oh, then you're Calvinist. They're both false because Arminianism teaches that you can lose your salvation. Calvinism teaches that God chooses who goes to heaven and hell, and that man has no free will. Those are both lies. But you're told that you have to choose one of those two. Okay? Or Republican or Democrat. Democrats or Republicans. And they basically say, you know, and think about it. You tell people, oh, I hate Barack Obama. And they say, oh, you love Bush. Isn't that true? Isn't that what they say? Or you start criticizing Bush. Why do you love liberal? Why do you love Obama? It's like, because, but they're both false. Okay? And we're constantly, how about this one? White magic, black magic. Right? I mean, are they both not wicked? All the magicians and the sorcery and all this stuff is wicked. But the devil comes at you with two options. The good, the wicked witch of the West, and then the good witch of the, right? The good witch and the bad witch, the white magic, the black magic, Coke versus Pepsi. It's the same drink, people. People get all worked up about Coke versus Pepsi. What kind of nonsense? And it's the same thing right now in the election year. You got the Republicans and the Democrats, and they both do the same thing. They say, look, I'll admit it. They say very different things. When you listen to them talk, they do talk very differently. But when you look at the deeds, when you look at the fruit, they do the same thing when they get elected. Republicans, in fact, spend more money than Democrats. That's a fact. But the Republicans, they talk a real good game about how they're gonna cut spending. And you're like, yeah, this is great. We're gonna finally trim things out. You know, hey, Ronald Reagan said, you know, government's not the answer to our problem. Government is our problem. And they tripled the size of the government in eight years in office. But he said a lot of great stuff. I mean, if you listen to those quotes from Ronald Reagan, you're like, man, this guy's awesome. But then when you look at what he did, and when you look at what Bush did, it tells a different story. Because actually, they're buddies. You can even see how the Bushes and the Clintons are like best buddies. They're all these pictures of them hanging around together going on vacation together. Look, if you actually had integrity, would you be buddies with a person like Bill Clinton? I mean, a guy who's desecrating the Oval Office by committing adultery on the clock in the Oval Office. Okay, a guy who is just, you know, he vetoes the partial birth abortion ban. A guy who his brother said he had a nose like a vacuum for snorting cocaine. Okay, I mean, a guy who's just wicked on so many, you know, Bill Clinton. You know, and it's like, but would you really be buddies with that person? But then the Bushes are like best buddies. But they claim to believe in different stuff. But it's sort of like the WWF, where they, you know, they hate each other, and I'm gonna kick your butt, and you know. And then backstage, they're best friends. They're touring America together, right? So there's a false left-right paradigm going on, where the devil has multiple deceptions, oppositions of science, falsely so-called. So on one hand, he comes at us with the Big Bang and evolution, which is not science, it's foolishness. It's foolishness. Listen, my sister ended, well, no scientist believes that. Yeah, there are plenty of scientists that believe in creation, and that reject evolution. They just tell you that there aren't any. Well, none that we like. Well, there's no scientists I like that are for it. You know, but anyway, okay, my sister-in-law, got a four-year degree from UC Davis, which is a respected school, amongst those circles for science. She got a four-year degree in genetics. So she got a science degree, she was a good student, and studied hard, and studied four years of genetics. And at that time, they were mapping the human genome, and it was a big thing going on, and a lot of that research was going on at UC Davis. And I did fire alarms in some of the buildings where they were working on it and everything, so I was exposed to a lot of that at that time, too. But my sister-in-law got a four-year science degree from UC Davis in genetics. And she said that it's just bizarre that anyone could believe in evolution and the Big Bang in light of genetics, because the DNA is so complicated. There's no way that it could come about without a creator. It's just ridiculously complicated. Even of the most simple organism, it's ridiculously complicated, and she said that it just confirms. All the microbiology classes, I mean, just confirm your belief in God, and your belief in the God of the Bible, more importantly. And so it's not that just, oh, well, you bunch of backwards bumpkins, you believe in the creation, because you're dumb. Well, here's a Bible-believing Christian, my sister-in-law, who got a four-year degree in genetics and still believed the Bible, and she used what she learned to demonstrate that it's foolish to believe in evolution. So on one hand, of the devil's false left-right paradigm is you have this thing of saying, oh, evolution and the Big Bang. So then Christians will sometimes try to twist the Bible to try to hitch on to that wagon and say, oh, well, we believe in the gap theory, and the gap theory leaves room for millions and billions of years. And he even says here, for all the geologic ages, because the truth of the matter is that the dating of these fossils is not based on radiocarbon dating, as they would lead you to believe. This is what it is. It depends on which layer they found it in the geologic column. And then they say, well, how do you know how old that layer is? Well, because we found these fossils in it. And how do you know that those fossils are that old? Oh, because we found them in that layer. And round and round we go. So basically, this is something that is somebody twisting the Bible to fit what the world is teaching, which is this pseudoscience, science falsely so-called, of what happened thousands of years ago when there's no record of what happened, except for, I mean, here's a book that somebody wrote about it, right? Its name's God. But other than that, you don't have any evidence of what things were like. You don't know the changes that have taken place on this planet. And people say, oh, but you can look at it and it looks old. Yeah, but if you would have looked at Adam, he would have looked old too. He probably would have looked about 30 years old. He was just created yesterday. So God created a mature earth. He created a mature Adam, a mature Eve. He didn't have a sapling of the knowledge of good and evil. Hey, once that tree grows, it might be a fruit that's good to eat. No, he planted trees. So if you would have cut down the trees in the Garden of Eden and counted the rings, you would have been wrong about how old they were. They're two minutes old. They're five days old, right? See what I'm saying? Or, oh, you know, the stars are millions of light years away. How could the light travel? You know what? God could have just created it with the beams of light in place. He's God. Or, oh, this stalactite took this long. Maybe he just created stalactites. It's not like he just created like a flat earth. Oh, that's another subject. But anyway, it's not like he just, it's not like he created the whole earth looking like Kansas. And then for the canyons and stuff to come about, you know, the river had to etch that. Maybe he just created canyons. Maybe he just created mountains and rivers and waterfalls. I mean, maybe just the first day when God created the earth, it had waterfalls. And at the bottom of that waterfall was a pool carved out in the rock. And if the waterfall would have carved the pool, it would have taken X amount of time. But he created a mature earth. It's impossible to prove that wrong. It could never be disproven. And it is reality because we know for a fact that he created. Look, which came first, the chicken or the egg? The chicken. Solved. Never need to bring that up again. Why? Because God didn't create saplings and seeds and eggs. He did not sow the Garden of Eden. He planted the Garden of Eden, full grown plants, full grown human beings. He didn't bring him a lion cub and say, what do you want to call this? He brought him a full grown lion and he named the name thereof. Does everybody understand that? So this nonsense, this science falsely so cold, we don't need to change the Bible to try to match that. Because then what happens is pretty soon the Bible just loses credibility. Because then we start twisting that. And then what are we going to twist next? And then next thing you know, it's just, oh, well, maybe the Bible is just a lot of good morals. But science is what we really trust at the end of the day. And it's not real science, though. But then there's another attack that the devil has. Because he comes at it from both angles. He comes at it to attack the people who believe in science where they really worship science. He gets them with this evolution big bang line. But then he goes after the people that aren't into science that don't believe in science. And then he comes at them with this flat earth stupidity. Teaching them that, oh, the earth is flat. And here's where I get infuriated and my blood starts boiling. Oh, the Bible says it's flat. No, it doesn't. It never says that. Show me that phrase in the Bible, the earth's flat. Doesn't say anything like that. The earth's a disk. It doesn't say that. So basically what happens is the devil now has this deception. And he's already pulled this out various times throughout human history. But it's in full swing right now, this flat earth crap. And I don't like using that word lightly, but that's what it is. It's a bunch of crap. I mean, I don't know what else to say about it. And the bottom line is that this flat earth thing is for people who say, oh, we reject science. We're just going to believe the Bible. And the Bible says it's flat. But the Bible doesn't say it's flat. And they just basically throw out the baby with the bath water and just reject all science. So instead of just rejecting the part that's a science, falsely so-called, where we're talking about stuff that happened thousands of years ago which we have no way of knowing, instead of just rejecting that part, they throw out the baby with the bath water and just say, oh, well, science is a lie. We can't trust anything that science tells us. And then they go with the earth being flat. Now, here's the thing about that, though. You can prove that the earth is not flat thousands of different ways, very easy to prove, using empirical, observable data. And here's the thing, every single day, it's proven. Every single day, people travel based on the fact that the earth is a globe. And no, it's not a ball. A ball is something you play with outside as a toy. But it's a globe or a sphere. And the thing about that is that there are all kinds of routes every day where people drive in their cars or fly in a plane or go in a ship. And that route is based on a globe. And it only works on a globe. For example, look at that map right there, if you can see it where you're sitting. But that map right there is a picture of the earth. But is the earth really a flat rectangle like that? No, it's not. So is that map really accurate? No. There's another map. If you turn around and look at the entryway of our church right there, you see that map right there? That is a flat rectangle map of the entire earth. That is also grossly inaccurate. Can you see how Greenland is like the size of South America on that map? Do you think that that's really that big? Because it's not. Otherwise, they'd be calling it a continent of Greenland. It's not really that big, is it? No. So that map is grossly inaccurate. That is called, that map and that map, those are called the Mercator projection. Now, when I was in school, we learned about several different projections of the earth. Because when you take a globe, you can't make a flat representation of that. It won't work. So in order to flatten it, you have to stretch it out and bend it and tweak it and mess it up, which is why none of these maps are accurate. But they still have a place to kind of give us an inkling of where things are. But they're not really accurate. If you really want an accurate representation of things, you have to look at a globe. That's the only way to do it. Go grab me a globe, Brother Baker, out of my office. So you have to have a globe in order to show it. Now, if you want to check the distance from point A to point B and actually see how far away things are, if you did it on that map, even if the map is to scale, because it's a Mercator projection or distortion, if you did it with a string and measured the string, that would not be accurate. That would not be an accurate distance. Whereas, if you took this globe right here and you get the scale of the globe where it tells you it's a 1 to 48 million scale, and basically this distance right here represents 96 kilometers, if you actually took a string and stretched it over the globe and took those distances, those would actually be perfectly accurate. And those are proven to be accurate every single day, every single day. Now, this is why when you book a flight, even if you just booked a flight to the East Coast, it's always a curved line. When you're sitting on the airplane, you want to see how far you are? Have you ever noticed it's never a straight line? It's always like a curved line, right? Everybody following me? If you went on Travelocity right now and just booked a flight and say, I want to see the path or whatever, it's always a curved line. The reason why it's a curved line, it's not that the plane is flying in a curved path. The flight is flying a perfectly straight path. But because you're distorting the map to make it flat and so that route gets distorted. Everybody understand? You're flying straight as an arrow, but because the map is distorted, the line becomes a curve, okay? But according to the flat earthers, no, no, it's all a big fraud, it's all a big scam, and none of that's real, it's all fake. And here's the thing, you try to talk sense into these people, they don't listen. They just want to talk and blow off their mouth and they don't want to listen. And you try to give them facts and they don't listen. You try to explain it to them. And here's what they'll do. They come at you with this flat disc map that's just flat. And in fact, they call it the flat earth, right? So wouldn't you think that they're saying it's flat? Just by that name, flat, okay? So then they come at you with this flat map and then it's like, you try to tell them, well, no, that doesn't work because look at all these curved routes. And then they come at you with this map that's like a chips and dip bowl, or like a Bund cake. Who knows what I'm talking about, like a Bund cake pan. They come at you with this one where it's like a dome in the middle and then it kind of goes out like this. But it's like, wait a minute, you just finished telling me it's flat and that we'd fall off the bottom and stuff. So are we all sideways on this little chip and dip bowl? So basically when they want to, it's totally flat. But then when you call them out on that, it's like, oh, well, it's the Bund cake. But then when you start talking about the curvature, they're like, there is no curvature, it's flat. It's like, oh, well, let's throw out the Bund cake then and get the flat again. Because this is why, listen to me, because it's not real. Because they're making fun of you. Listen to me, the people who are behind this flat earth thing are not for real. They don't really believe in it. They are making an idiot of you is what they're doing. It's a joke to them. They think it's funny. Now they have a sick sense of humor, but that's what they're doing. I do not have any doubt about it. And what they're doing is they get gullible people to fall for this stuff. It's a hoax. And they're laughing their heads off. The people, I'm talking about the ringleaders of this. They are laughing their heads off that wow, we can get people to actually fall for this. They know it's fake. Which is why when you try to call people out on this thing, either number one, they just kind of stonewall you and just keep switching models and just kind of just oh, you're just trusting NASA and blah, blah, blah, you know, blah, blah, blah. Or what they'll do is they'll just be so ignorant that when you try to explain them the math and the science, it just goes over their head. And it's really stupid. And then another thing, and look, this geocentricity thing, look, I'm not saying that if you believe in geocentricity, you're a complete idiot. If you believe in the flat earth, you are a complete idiot. Okay, I'm just, let me go on the record and say that. But look, if you believe in geocentricity, I don't believe that you're a complete idiot, okay? I can see how you could believe that, but it's false. And the thing is, I used to just kind of ignore geocentricity and just think like, well, whatever, who cares? It's not really that big of a deal. But it seems like geocentricity is like a gateway drug into the flat earth. You know what I mean? That's what's dangerous about it. It's the gateway drug. I'm serious, okay? So what you have now is you have people saying these stupid things like, what do you expect me to believe we're spinning at 1,000 miles an hour? You know, I don't feel it. Okay, but here's the thing. Because you know, the earth's spinning, right? Okay? I mean, if we're going 1,000 miles an hour, we're gonna be like, ooh, you know? Or if we jump, we're gonna land like, you know, a few feet over or whatever. But here's what they don't get. And I try to explain this to them. And they're like, why is the water so peaceful if we're spinning that fast? But here's the thing. Get on an airplane. How fast does an airplane go? About 500 miles an hour, right? So if I get on an airplane and I'm going 500 miles an hour, I have a glass of water on my tray table and it's very peaceful. It's not going anywhere. And I can jump up and down as many times as I want and I'm going half, they're saying 1,000 miles an hour. The plane goes 500 miles an hour. So why can I jump up and down and keep landing in the same spot? Why is it not just whoosh, whoosh, whoosh? Because the reason why is because everything's moving. It's not just the earth that's spinning. It's the atmosphere that moves with it. It's a pressurized cabin, as it were. Okay, right? I mean, the air and the atmosphere and everything, it's all spinning, so it's all going the same speed and here's how you know it's spinning because you can see everything moving. You can see the sun moving, the moon moving, and all the stars moving. Now here's the thing about that. You say, well, how do you know that we're not standing still and everything around us is spinning? But that's about as ridiculous as saying, well, how do we know that the plane's not standing still and it's the whole world that's going by? Here's why that, and look, I know I'm getting on geocentricity tonight and I hate this stupid subject, but it's the gateway drug, so I gotta bring this up. We need like dare, dare to say no to this stuff, okay? So the thing about, what is it, mad or mothers against drunk science or whatever, but anyway, here's the thing about it. Okay, and look, I feel like I have to teach this stuff. I don't like science that much, but I feel like I have to like talk about science just to make sure that people know what's up with this. So anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, yeah, the stars moving. Well, here's the thing about that. Okay, if the Earth is spinning, right, then it's going around basically about 1,000 miles per hour relative to its surroundings because of the fact that it's about 24,000 miles in circumference, roughly. So 24 hours in a day, 1,000 miles an hour, that's where that figure comes from, okay. Well, here's the thing about that though, because the stars are far away, I don't care how close you think they are or how far they are, we can all agree that they're not that close, right? Okay, and that the sun and moon are far away. Even if you don't believe what NASA told you. But anyway, you know, even though these things were calculated long before NASA had ever even been thought of, okay, like thousands of years ago, but if things are really far away and we're supposed to believe that they're all moving, they would have to be moving at some incredible speeds. Do you understand? It's sort of like, and I'm trying to break this down for people. You're on a swing, right? Okay, swing at the park. You know, that chain is only like, what, 10 feet long, eight feet long on the swing at the park. Okay, which links in the chain are moving the fastest? The ones at the top or the ones at the bottom? The ones at the top are barely moving at all, right? Now, what if I grab the swing, and in fact, I did this yesterday. I was at the park and one of the swings was out of commission because as baby Steven said, you know, some punk teenager must have thrown it over at the top. So I walked up and I grabbed that swing and I threw it up and I swung it all the way around and it did a whole rotation. Well, here's the thing. The chains that were the closest to the pole, they only moved a little bit. They moved a short distance. Whereas the stuff at the end of the chain moved a really long distance, was moving at an incredible speed relative to the one that was in the middle. So if the earth were staying put, then it would be like everything's just like, I mean, at amazing speeds, incredible speeds. Okay, that's one thing. Now, some people would say this. Well, you know, okay, well, which one's going around the other? Does it really matter? Just how you look at it. Sun and earth, just how you look at it. But there's this problem of the fact that there's seven or eight other planes. You know, they change it all the time because they're not sure what to call Pluto or whatever. But anyway, you know, there's eight other planets going around the sun too. That's kind of where this geocentricity thing falls apart. It doesn't work, okay. But again, you know, it's just a throwing out of things that are observable. We actually can observe the stars, the sun, the moon. We can actually take a trip to Antarctica. We could actually go to Chile and look up at the sky in the Southern hemisphere. And you know what you're gonna see? A completely different set of stars that don't rotate around the North star, they rotate at the Southern cross. So that alone shows that if it was a globe, so look, the people in the North are looking at the stars that are over here spinning, but it's actually the earth that's spinning. And then the people on the bottom are looking at a completely different set of stars that rotate around a different point, okay. But that's not what this flat earth thing shows or anything like that. It's all stupid. And the bottom line is that, you know, the devil has got this left-right paradigm where he is going to just do anything except get you to believe the truth. Either he's gonna get you to believe in all this weird evolution and big bang stuff and maybe through the gap theory or maybe just through atheism or else he's gonna get you to just completely reject even the good science and to throw out the fact that, you know, the earth is even a sphere which people have known for thousands of years to be true because even in ancient Egypt, ancient Sumeria, they studied the stars. Man has always loved astronomy and astrology and the zodiac and all these things, very well-documented throughout history, they've known. So it's a left-right paradigm, folks. So what happens when you tell people, hey, the earth's a sphere. Oh, you must believe in evolution and the big bang too. Oh, you don't like Obama? You must be a bush fan. You must love Trump or whatever, you know. Or, oh, oh, you don't like the Republican Party? You're one of these long-haired hippies. It's a false left-right paradigm where you say like, hey, you know, I don't believe in evolution. I don't believe in the big bang. And they're like, oh, you must believe the earth's flat. Oh, you believe the Bible? Then you believe in a flat earth. Now you can see how the devil would love this where you say, oh, I'm a Bible-believing Christian. And then that makes you a flat earther which makes you an idiot to anyone who knows any math or science. It makes you just an imbecile. Or if you're over here saying, I'm gonna bless God, I believe the Bible and the earth's flat, then you just look like a retard to the whole world. And either way, it makes this book look stupid. And the devil loves it. It's a false left-right paradigm. It's a joke that's being played on Christians where many Christians are getting on board with this and it just makes Christianity look stupid. It makes the Bible look stupid. And this is, I mean, people like my wife, you know, could have gone to hell because of this teaching where she said, well, you know, I know the Bible's not true because the Bible says the earth's flat. That's what they taught her in Catholic religious education class, that the Bible says the earth's flat when the Bible says no such thing. So you can see how dangerous both of these doctrines are. So here's what we need to do, folks. We need to accept science, meaning things that we can actually see, observe, measure, test, calculate. And we need to reject science falsely so-called, which is theorizing about the past. Until we build a time machine to go back in the past, no one knows. Okay, and we need to separate science from science falsely so-called. But the devil wants us to merge these two things. These people over here, they want us to believe that they're one and the same, that if you reject evolution and Big Bang, you just don't believe in science. Isn't that what the atheists tell you? And then the flat earthers over here was, if you won't say that it's flat, you're rejecting the Bible or something, because you must believe all that stuff. Either way, it's the same thing, and it's atheists that are behind it. It's the devil that's behind it, okay? And honestly, there's so many lies. I mean, I feel dumb even going on about it. But it's out there. But you know, evolution is just as dumb. It's all dumb. But it's a dumbing down of people where they would fall for any of this stuff. And people say like, well, everybody thought it was flat 500 years ago. That's not true. Lie. You know, and by the way, you can measure the distance that the sun is using trigonometry, how far the sun is away from the earth. And a guy named Eratosthenes did it around 100 BC. He measured the circumference of the earth, and he figured it all out, and he wasn't 100% accurate, because he didn't have all the facts in front of him. But his math was sound. It was, you know, but he was very close to the truth. He was within, you know, 100 miles accuracy, the way you look at it. I mean, and it's, because you make triangles, spheres, you know, it's time to pull out the math book and dust it off if you're confused about these things. But honestly, the Bible says that we be henceforth no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine and cunning craftiness whereby they lie and wait to deceive. And honestly, it makes the whole truth movement look stupid. And you know, there's an agenda to make the truth movement look stupid. Because then it just makes you want to just reject the whole truth movement and just be like, you know, I don't want to be lumped in with this stupidity. It's nonsense. But anyway, let's quickly finish in Jeremiah four. I'm out of time. I just want to point out a couple things real quick. So look, a plain reading of Jeremiah four and a plain reading of Jeremiah one without a Schofield reference Bible, you're never gonna come to the gap theory in a million years. And all God's people said, amen. And the Bible says here in verse number 30, and when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clotheth thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair. Thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life. For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child and the voice of the daughter of Zion that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hand, saying, woe is me now, for my soul is wearied because of murderers. Again, just going through and just talking about the carnage and the destruction that's coming as a result of the disobedience of God's people. We need to stay true to the word, we need to believe the Bible, we need to have faith in God's word above all else, but that doesn't mean that we should just ignore facts around us. If we look around the world and we see facts, we shouldn't just ignore those facts and say, well, I don't care, it's flat. Well, no, there's facts about that, you know? And about anything else for that matter. But we do need to reject science that contradicts the Bible, because it's science falsely so-called. It's philosophy, it's conjecture, it's not real, observable data. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you that we have the word of God to guide us and direct us, Lord. Please help us not to be foolish and gullible. Help us to study to show ourselves approved, Lord. The Bible says that if we're wise, we will seek knowledge, but the mouth of fools feedeth on foolishness. Help us to actually get real knowledge through study, reading, and actual gathering of knowledge, not just listening to all the deceivers out there and weirdos that we don't even know who they are, Lord. Help us to listen to people that we actually know who they are and know that they're actually a pastor if they're gonna teach us the Bible, not just some yahoo with a YouTube channel, but rather real men of God. If you're gonna watch YouTube, Lord, help us to find the guys that are men of God that are actually real life pastors, not to just play one on YouTube, Lord. And please just help us, dear God, to not be deceived, Lord, just open our eyes and help us to behold wondrous things out of your law. Bless us as we go our separate ways tonight, Lord, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.