Now we move on to session eight in our series, Searching for the Truth on Origins. In our last presentation, we looked at man’s perspective on human origins. Now we want to look at the origin and history of man from a biblical perspective—that is God’s revelation to us through Scripture. Let us begin by looking at a few verses of Scripture which will be a foundation to what I am going to be speaking to you about.
Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 says,
That which has been is that which will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, ‘See, this is new’? It has already been in ancient times before us. There is no remembrance of former things, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after.
Solomon tells us a very important principle in Ecclesiastes regarding history. History repeats itself! There is really nothing new under the sun. Whatever has happened before, it will happen again. If we want to understand what is taking place in the world today, we need to check out what has happened in the past.
As we are going to see, there are many things that happened in the past that are happening again today. When it comes to the subject of human history, God’s revelation gives us some insights and understanding that you will not find in any secular university.
We used a Scripture in Isaiah telling us that God’s thoughts compared to man’s thoughts are higher than the heavens are above the earth.
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)
And again we have looked at man’s thoughts in our last presentation. Now we want to look at God’s thoughts given to us in the Bible. The Bible challenges us to check out history and to check out what the ancients were doing in the past. Job 8:8-13 says,
For inquire, please, of the former age, And consider the things discovered by their fathers; For we were born yesterday, and know nothing, Because our days on earth are a shadow. Will they not teach you and tell you, And utter words from their heart? "Can the papyrus grow up without a marsh? Can the reeds flourish without water? While it is yet green and not cut down, It withers before any other plant. So are the paths of all who forget God."
What we want to do in this presentation is to inquire of the former age. That is, to check out from the Scriptures what man was like, what man was doing. And that is what we will do based on what the Bible teaches.
Let us look at the creation of man. You see the Bible makes it clear that man has been man from the beginning, He created Adam and Eve. God made man. Man came on the scene suddenly. There is no place in the Bible that describes this concept that over millions of years there was a progression of development from an amoeba to man. God does not say, "Over time, survival of the fittest, dog eat dog, brought about the existence of all forms of life." No, the Bible says that in the beginning God created and He gives us that account of the various kinds of life that He created. And at the end of the creation week, He created man from the dust. And this is what we read in Genesis 2:7,
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
There are a lot of people who are very critical about this. On open-line radio programs, often hosts will say, "Let me ask, do you believe in Adam and Eve?" And I will say, "Yes. I believe God created Adam, the first man, and Eve the first woman." They respond, "That is ridiculous!" I say, "Well, what do you believe?" They say, "I believe..." (they usually say if they are evolutionists) "that evolution is responsible for bringing man into existence." So then I help them to understand what evolution teaches. I ask, "So you believe that an explosion of matter created a big cloud of dust and that dust condensed and became Planet Earth. And from Planet Earth, that dust (non-living material) formulated a cell. And a cell through hundreds of millions of years of random chance events became man?" They say, "That is what I believe."
I would rather believe in God than an explosion. To me it makes more sense. You see we are made of dust. And God, being God, could take the dust and make us—that is what we are made of.
In Genesis we read,
And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. (Genesis 2:21-22 KJV)
So Eve came into existence; that is what the Bible teaches. We are told that Adam and Eve were created in God’s image.
Genesis 1 says,
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:26 KJV)
God created man with attributes and characteristics that God gave them. They were creative beings, loving beings, and caring beings. I believe they were humble beings, having all of the characteristics and attributes of God. God created man with a body, with a soul, and a spirit—with a free will. Man was created with a free will, so that man could choose whether or not he would remain in the relationship with the Creator. He did not create them as robots who were programmed only to love God. No, they had a choice. They were part of this perfect creation which we talked about earlier, and because they made a wrong choice, something happened to that perfect creation. There was a fall.
Genesis 1:31 tells us,
Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (NKJV)
So Adam and Eve were part of that perfect, harmonious creation. They had a relationship with the Creator that would have lasted forever. But they chose not to remain in the relationship because they disobeyed God and took of the forbidden tree. And that triggered the fall of man.
It is important to understand, if we are going to talk about the history of man, that we understand that there was a Creation of man and there was the fall of man. And in spite of the fall, it would seem that original man had tremendous attributes and capacities.
And the Genesis 4 record tells us about that. For example, in Genesis 4,
And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—noch. (Genesis 4:17 NKJV)
So regarding original man, in spite of the fall, these people were very intelligent! Adam was very intelligent. He used 100% of his brain when he lived as part of that perfect creation. And in spite of the fall, still these were very intelligent people. They could build cities and not just a bunch of mud huts.
They understood agriculture and animal husbandry. Genesis 4:20 says,
And Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. (NKJV)
We are also told that these people (original man) shortly after the fall, could make and play musical instruments.
His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the harp and flute. (Genesis 4:21 NKJV)
They understood how to alloy minerals together. Genesis 4:22 says,
And as for Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron.
Now do you see the picture? Are you getting a little bit of a glimpse of what the Bible teaches? From the beginning, man was man. Intelligent. Creative. He was building cities and understanding animal husbandry. He was making and playing musical instruments and alloying minerals together. He could write poetry and literature.
But as we know, something happened. We have previously discussed that in this series. God was troubled by the direction that man went. Man followed after the fallen spiritual dimension. You see, you cannot understand human history unless you understand there is a God who created, and He has an adversary who wants to destroy what God has made. He is the serpent, the dragon, the devil, and the one who deceives the whole world. Satan came to the garden and encouraged Eve to disobey God. As a result of the disobedience, that triggered the fall and then the degeneration of man.
And the wickedness and the perversion of mankind, according to the Scriptures, was very apparent. And because of their wickedness, God was grieved and He said, "I have to bring a destruction to this." And He warned and then He did bring destruction. And we have already made reference to that in this series—it was the great Noahic flood. This is when the fountains of the deep broke up. The windows of heaven were opened and the worldwide destruction occurred. And there were only a few survivors—eight humans and a representative of each kind of life. That great event happened and we can find the evidence in geology from the strata and from the fossils. And this event changed history.
We need to go back to the Scriptures now to see how mankind repopulated the earth following the great Noahic flood. And we turn to Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel scenario, beginning in verse one:
Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:1-9 NKJV)
This is extremely important if you want to understand human history. You see, following the great flood, the people started to multiply. The Bible says they all spoke the same language. They lived together. And God had instructed them, "Move out! Repopulate the earth." And they said, "No. We are going to join together." And in rebellion they built the city of Babylon. That is not what God intended for man.
Secondly, they said, "Let us build for ourselves a tower that will reach the heavens." And this angered God. Now, why would that anger God? Some say, "Well, they were trying to climb up into the heavens to reach God." Oh no, that is not the case because we are going to see if we study archaeology, these people at that time were building ziggurats and pyramids and the purpose was to reach the heavens, not to reach God, but the gods.
What do we mean by the gods? Well, you remember in Genesis 3, Satan talks about gods? Who were they? There is a fallen spiritual dimension and there is a holy spiritual dimension. Throughout history, since the fall of man, Satan has attempted to interfere in the affairs of man. And here now at the Tower of Babel, once more they repeated what they had done at the time before the great . Rather than worshipping God who created everything, they began to worship everything that God created. The sun is god. The moon is god. The earth is god. That is what they were doing. God was angry and He confounded their language. And now they had to separate into various language groups.
You see, the Tower of Babel scenario helps us to understand human history and why we have various races in various places. Earlier we talked about what happens when a gene pool gets segregated; or through selective breeding, how different features can be characterized. It was at this time that the human gene pool was divided into various groups because of language differences. Horizontal variation occurred, bringing about the different racial features and these people traveled to various places. It was at this time in human history that we see the sudden appearance of great civilizations.
If we look at the literature, we see that there are some mysteries when it comes to the subject of human origins. All kinds of journals and documentaries have been produced. Various magazines talk about the great civilizations of the past that suddenly appeared with no primitive beginnings. We can find books like: Splendors of the Past, or Megaliths and Their Mysteries, and Mysterious Britain. There is a series of articles out of Reader’s Digest entitled, "In the Beginning; The Mystery of Ancient Egypt," "Palenque, Mexico’s Mysterious Lost City," "Mysteries of the Maya," "Unsolved Mysteries of the Great Pyramid," "The Mystery of the Whirlpool Sculptures," "Mysteries of the Ancient World," "Mysterious Maya," "Mysteries of the Past," and "Mysteries of Mankind." Do you notice a common denominator? It is the word mysteries. Why are they mysteries? They are mysteries because the evolutionary worldview does not explain why these great civilizations suddenly appeared and they were doing incredible things. What were they doing? They were building cities! They were alloying minerals together. They were making and playing musical instruments and it goes on and on. But these great civilizations that are called mysterious can be understood in light of the Scriptures.
So now, what we want to do is to take a trip around the ancient world. And we want to look, first of all, at the ancient Samarian area where the Tower of Babel once stood.
The Tigris Euphrates Valley is where the Bible says that population took place, or the repopulation occurred after the great flood. Incidentally, this is the region that the world is watching to this day. We often hear about it in the news. It was in this region where archaeologists will agree that writing first occurred. We see numerous artifacts that have been found in this location, like the temple (ziggurat-like buildings) where they worshipped their deities—particularly the moon god.
Some of the paintings of the ancient Samarians have also been discovered.
Here is a gold helmet which indeed shows that they understood precious metals. Archeologists find them in their burial sites, they were their gods made of gold.
This is the very location where the Bible says civilization began after the great flood. It was also in Iraq that they discovered an ancient battery. They did not know what it was when it was first found. Later, well it was found to be a battery. It could still generate electricity! The ancients could generate electricity? Yes, they could—in fact, electroplated artifacts have been found in numerous places.
We could go into the ancient Danube in Europe, where tools were found that were made of alloy minerals. Egypt of course, is famous for its monumental stone structures and pyramids. By the way, speaking of pyramids, these pyramids all over the world were called "gateways to the gods". So when they were dispersed from ancient Babylon, they went to various places. And as we are going to see, in some places they built pyramids which were other ways to contact the spirit world.
Here is another example of a pyramid in Egypt. It is a ziggurat stepped structure, similar to the pyramids at Ur.
Notice the temple here in the foreground. It is decorated with serpents. By the way, we find around the world that that is associated with ancient pagan worship. The serpent is central and that can be understood in light of the Bible—the serpent, the dragon, the devil.
King Tut’s sarcophagus was made of precious stones and gold.
Some of the jewelry associated with King Tut’s burial were again made of precious stones and gold. Notice the ankh (that is the cross with the hook on it) is an occultic symbol that is popular today as part of the New Age.
The ancient Egyptians could also manufacture optical lenses. And they have discovered antibiotics like auramycin and terramycin buried in some of the tombs.
Then we could go over to the island of Crete, the great Minoan civilization. This civilization was wiped out and destroyed on two separate occasions, separated by approximately fifty years. It is interesting that this period of time corresponds to two major dates in the Scriptures—the Exodus and Joshua’s long day. Great temples were buried along with materials. They have found human beings who were sacrificed to their gods while this destruction occurred.
Here are some of the temples showing the decoration with the stones that were laid down for a floor. The columns brought natural ventilation.
We can see the paintings on the walls, and in the ceiling here we see stones that have been inlaid to decorate the ceiling.
And there, in the tile, is the presence of the swastika. This goes back to 1500 B.C. and it is associated with the occult or pagan worship. And some of the décor in the temples of the Minoan civilizations also shows their artistic skill in their pottery.
This is in Lebanon, Baalbek. Here you see in the foreground, a very large stone that has been left in the quarry.
There is a man standing there to give you some of the perspective. It is sixteen feet high, fourteen feet wide, and over sixty feet long. It weighs over 2,000 tons. The ancients were able to move stones like this! We do not know how they did this. In the background there, you see some Roman columns. The Romans built on the ruins of a previous civilization that used these large stones.
There at the base of those columns you will see one of those stones that I mentioned earlier. The Romans brought these columns from Egypt, climbing over two mountain ranges to this location. Again, we do not know how they did that.
We could go to India. India is famous as well for ancient civilizations that were highly advanced. They built cities in Mohenjadaro with neatly aligned streets. They had hot and cold running water. The temples that they constructed for their worship were advanced. Their jewelry making was also advanced.
In Indonesia and Cambodia we see the same thing. Temples that were constructed that were very sophisticated, and decorated with feathered serpents.
Here is a ziggurat pyramid.
Then we can go to China, where we see the emperor’s terracotta army.
This is an army of 7500 life-sized soldiers and 7500 horses made to scale. Every single face of these ceramic soldiers is unique. It was in this location that they found a sword. It was buried 2100 years ago and the sword today is still rust resistant. It was made of thirteen different metals alloyed together. It is amazing when you go to China, you find the further back you go, the more amazing are their accomplishments!
Another thing that is interesting about China is that their history reveals they originally worshipped the god who created the heavens and the earth. It was called Chiang-ti. Then later in their history they began to worship the dragon. Well that can be understood biblically.
Here is a lady that was buried over 2100 years ago in China.
Her body was removed from a sarcophagus. Her body is so well-preserved that today an x-ray technician is able to examine the tissues of her body. They know the last meal she ate before she died. Here is the location where she was discovered.
As I said, she was found in this sarcophagus and buried with her was silk cloth that was printed, musical instruments, pottery, and a compact containing rouge and lipstick. Again as Solomon states, there is nothing new under the sun—history merely repeats itself.
Here is a very interesting location where I have been a number of times in Mexico, Central America.
This is the city of Teotihuacan and I am standing on the pyramid of the moon and taking a picture of the pyramid of the sun. If you measure the pyramid of the sun from corner to corner, it happens to be exactly the same dimensions as the Great Pyramid in Egypt—to the foot! Now how could that be? If you measure the height, it is one-half of the height. You see, the typical explanation is that people came to Central America only after it was possible for them to walk across the Bering Strait when it was frozen over. They would have traveled down through Alaska, down through Canada, the United States, and into Mexico. And of course, they say they evolved independently. But is that really true? Is it a coincidence that this pyramid in Egypt was constructed to worship the sun god and that it is almost identical (at least the basal dimensions are identical) to the Great Pyramid in Egypt? What is the common denominator? Well, these people originated from the same place. They understood the same principles. They were worshipping similar gods. And in fact, if you study—well, they call it mythology—you will see worldwide in the past that people worshipped similar deities and demigods.
As I said, you cannot understand human history unless you understand that God has an adversary, who is Satan, the dragon, the devil, the serpent. And there is a spiritual dimension, a fallen dimension with an objective to destroy mankind. And throughout history we see the evidence of the obsession of man, worshipping the fallen spiritual world. As I said, the pyramid that I was standing on, was the pyramid of the moon. These people were worshipping the sun as god, and worshipping the moon as god, exactly the same as what they had done in Babylon.
Then to South America in the city of Machu Picchu, which is 13,000 feet high in the Andes.
This is a great city where stones were cut and shaped and notched and placed into position. Many of the ancient cities of the past, we find not only in South America but we read about it in the Bible, were built up on high locations. The pagans worshipped on the high hills, their groves. They were obsessed with the spirit dimension.
We could go to ancient Europe to Britain, at Stonehenge.
This is an ancient astronomical observatory, where at certain times of the year, specifically the solstice days (that is the longest day and the shortest day of the year) the pagans would worship. It was at this time of the year that they believed their gods materialized.
Then we could go to a more recent ancient civilization, ancient Greece.
This is the Parthenon. It is interesting that the Parthenon just sits above, not too far from, an outcropping called Mars Hill. The Bible sometimes refers to this as the Areopagus. That is where Paul stood and witnessed to the pagans of his day. That is where Paul pointed out to them that they were spiritual. He said they were worshipping various kinds of gods, but they were not worshipping the God who created them.
You see that is exactly what occurred at Babylon. You think the people would have known better. They had been delivered by the Creator through this great flood. But it did not take that many generations and they removed God from their thinking and they went their own way. They said, "Let us build for ourselves a city." They said, "Let us build for ourselves a tower to reach the heavens." They rebelled against the Creator and they worshipped the creation instead. That is history.
We have looked at two views on human origins. We have examined the claims of evolution. We have discovered that it is science fiction to propose the lineage of man. It does not exist. We have examined the claims of creation, showing that there is a Creator who made man in His image and that man fell and that man became involved with the fallen spiritual dimension. But in spite of his fallen nature, we can see that man had tremendous abilities and attributes and characteristics. And we have been able to go out and look at the artifacts from archaeology. And what we would expect man was capable of doing, we found out he did.
In Richard Leakey’s, The Making of Mankind, let me read another statement from the foreword of his book:
Evolution can be shown to have happened and to talk of the theory of evolution, [he says] is grossly misleading. The theoretical aspect of evolution is simply the question of the mechanism by which evolution occurs. How does natural selection actually work? Can large populations change very slowly over long periods of time? Or did major evolutionary events happen relatively quickly in small isolated populations? These questions and the more complex issues arising from molecular biology and genetics are often discussed on theoretical grounds. That species do change and have changed, as a result of evolution, is a fact as incontrovertible as gravity.
He goes on further to say that believing in creation is ridiculous.
There are two views on human origins—man’s view and God’s. Do you know what Paul says will happen when we reject the evidence that God has created? He says the evidence is so clear and so obvious that if you reject it, you are without excuse. He goes on to say that our hearts will be darkened. And professing to be wise, instead, we will become fools who believe a lie. There is something else that he states. He says it is predictable that when man tosses God off the scene, rather than worshipping God, he will worship what God made—the creation. And it can be demonstrated that that has happened historically. With every civilization I have shown you here today, that is what they did. And where are they? All we have is their artifacts.
This idea that we have evolved from lower to higher, is the Darwinian view. But as we are going to see in our next presentation, the Darwinian view has prepared us for a whole "other world" perspective—that man will continue to evolve onward and upward to become a new and higher being. Darwin’s view is that we are connected to everyone and everything, and that it is only a matter of time before the next phase of evolution will take place. In order for that to happen, we can introduce various kinds of methods and therapies—the use of crystals, meditation, yoga, and kundalini which is a kind of yoga. By the way, that is called the serpent power.
I would like to take you on campuses where I go. I would like to show you what is being taught—the leading edge of thought today—regarding what is science. While Creation is being claimed to be religion, Eastern religion is being promoted as science, and the pagan practices of the past are being introduced. It is called the new spirituality. And that is where we are headed globally, religiously, to a one-world religion. This is a revival of ancient Babylonianism. And by the way, it is going to happen in the name of Christ. Evolution is preparing the way. In our next sessions we are going to go into this in some detail. You see when man removes God from his thinking, this is the exact direction in which he heads. It has happened before and it will happen again. The Bible makes it clear.
We talked about what the ancients were capable of doing with physical things. But the Bible indicates to us that the ancients also understood spiritual things. I will point this out to you from a few Scriptures.
Job 19 states:
Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me. (Job 19:23-27 KJV)
This excites me! Job said, "I know my Redeemer lives and that in the last days He will stand on the earth."
And in Jude we read,
And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. (Jude 1:14-15 KJV)
Enoch who was the seventh from Adam knew about the Second Coming.
And in the book of Psalm 119:99-105, the psalmist writes:
I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word. I have not departed from thy judgments: for thou hast taught me. How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way. NUN. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. (Psalm 119:99-105 KJV)
These are words of wisdom. These are important words for you and for me today. That if we want to understand our times, if we want to understand the past, if we want to understand where we are headed in the future, then we should trust and believe what God has said in His precepts. We should trust in the insights that are given to us in Scripture.
In this session and the previous session, we have looked at the subject of the origin of man and we have looked at the claims of man, and we have looked at the claims that have been given to us in Scripture about man from God. We can see that just as the heavens are high above the earth, so too are God’s thoughts from man’s thoughts. I trust that this information will have been helpful in building up faith in God and His Word. I trust this is giving you reason to always question or be critical of the claims made that are made in the name of science that cause people to doubt the reality of God’s Word.
Bibliography
- Richard Leakey. The Making of Mankind
