People frequently ask me why I changed from being a convinced evolutionist to embracing,
with conviction, Young Universe Creation. To answer this question I need to first give a little
background. My teenage years were spent in government (public) schools and in an Independent
Baptist church in Pennsylvania. My mother had me in church every time it was open (praise
God that she did), but I did not believe the preacher’s messages. It was easy on Sunday and
Wednesday nights to fool people in the church into believing that I was a Christian, but the real
me was displayed on Friday and Saturday nights.
During my first week of studies in an organic evolution course at Bucknell University, the idea
of molecules-to-life-to-people over millions of years made perfect sense. I became a convinced
evolutionist. Studying the science courses at the University of Pittsburgh College of Dentistry
further convinced me that life can exist without the necessity of a supernatural God. By the time
my D.M.D. degree was conferred (June 6, 1966) this young dentist was an agnostic looking-
into-Zen-Buddhism evolutionist even though he had been strictly raised in an Independent
Fundamentalist Baptist church. In 1966 the United States of America was deep into the Viet
Nam War and my generation—the Hippy Generation—was rebelling against everything
traditional and sacred.
My military duty assignment was to be one of five dentists with the 89th Military Airlift Wing--
the pilots and crews of the presidential fleet of planes (during the Johnson administration)
including Air Force One. Arrival at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington D.C. was exciting
for two reasons: (1) It was the beginning of my career in dentistry and (2) Church was
“suddenly” important. Why was church suddenly important for this agnostic, Zen Buddhist,
evolutionist? Because I needed an answer to an answered prayer. Now that might sound strange,
but here is what had happened.
Medical Basic Training for the Air Force took place at Shepherd Air Force Base in Wichita
Falls, Texas. This young dentist had been raised in the church, but had not believed the teaching.
Since I did not know if the God of the Bible existed (as I was agnostic), I decided to clear things
up once and for all, so as I was sitting in the officer’s club drinking a whiskey and 7-up I said a
prayer: “OK God, if You are up there, You have two choices: You can either show me the girl
that I am going to marry, or You are going to see the wildest Air Force officer that You have
ever seen.” No one heard that prayer, I thought, so I considered myself to be safe, and decided
that I was going to go out and live it up.
However, about an hour after I prayed that prayer I met my future wife (which is a story for
another time). To make a long story short, on our first date, I told this beautiful young nurse
that I was going to marry her. While she was not convinced until many months later, I knew
immediately that I was going to marry her. I decided that I had had a very specific answered
prayer. The very day that I prayed “wife or wild life” I met my future wife. This is the reason
that I was on my way to church my first Sunday at Andrews Air Force Base—it was because of
that answered prayer—I had decided that the God of the Bible must be real.
The church that I ended up wandering into turned out to be a Baptist church. On the way out
of the church service the pastor, Charlie Warford, shook my hand and asked, “Captain, is there
anything I can do that might help you spiritually?” I said, “Anything you can do would help me
spiritually, I am zero!” I was a spiritual zero who had been raised in the church. This pastor just
asked me to read the Bible with him on Monday mornings. At 26 years old and after being in
church all my life, I had never read the Bible. According to one massive poll the average person
who calls himself/herself a Christian has never read the Bible even one time all the way through.
We Christians will bow before our Lord someday and what if He asks us: “How did you like My
Book?” What would you say? Would you have to answer “I had a whole lifetime to read, but I
never got around to Your Book, the most important Book ever written.”
Now back to my testimony. Pastor Charlie Warford and I read together Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John (not all on the same morning). While we were reading the Gospel of John chapter 3--
which is the account of Jesus and Nicodemas—John 3:16 jumped out at me. Actually it was the
first phrase of verse 16: For God so loved the world.... At that moment I realized that I loved
the world, was part of the world, and consistently did the things of the world. It was like God
was saying to me, “Jobe, I love you!” The entire verse reads: For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life. I dropped to my knees with Pastor Warford and prayed, “Lord Jesus (I knew
who He was since we had read the Gospels up to this point), I am a sinner, You know it and I
know it. I can’t live up to my own standards, let alone Your standards, would You please forgive
my sins? I believe that You are God’s Son and that You died on the cross for me so that my
sins could be forgiven. I believe that You rose from the dead three days later and afterwards
were seen by more than 500 people. I receive You, Lord Jesus Christ, as my personal Savior.”
At that point the Holy Spirit came to dwell in me, my sins were forgiven (past, present, and
future, Colossians 2:13-14) and I became a child of God. I also went from being an agnostic, Zen
Buddhist, evolutionist to being a Theistic evolutionist. I had God in my life, I was saved, but my
ideas about science were still based on the evolutionary model of millions of years. However,
now I believed that God used the processes of evolution to get us here. I had become a Christian
evolutionist (most commonly called a “Theistic evolutionist,” although there are people who
believe in evolution and different gods [theistic evolutionists] who are not Christians—they do
not believe that Jesus Christ is their Creator and Savior).
In September of 1971 I accepted a position on the faculty of Baylor College of Dentistry and
delivered my first lecture on the “fact” that human teeth had evolved over millions of years from
fish scales. I can’t believe that I believed that, but that is what I had been taught at the University
of Pittsburgh College of Dentistry almost 10 years earlier. (By the way, there is no relationship
whatsoever between scales and teeth, scales and hair, scales and feathers, or scales and porcupine
quills. Whether you look at it embryologically, histologically, physiologically, morphologically,
functionally, anatomically, etc., the answer equals zero developmental relationship, even
though a scales to teeth, hair, and feathers progression is still taught in university classrooms!
(For an excellent discussion of feathers and scales see: Formed to Fly, by Dr. David Menton,
Creation Library Series, www.answersingenesis.org) After my first wonderful lecture as a rookie
professor “proving that teeth came from fish scales” two of my dental students came up and
politely challenged me to study creation science with them. I readily agreed thinking that these
students were intellectually back in the Stone Age, and that every educated person knew that the
scientists had proven evolution and millions of years.
What kind of evidence would be necessary to prove to this cocky, rookie dental professor
that he was wrong in believing millions of years of evolution, and that the two “Stone Age
dental students” were correct in their idea that the universe was only about 6000 years old?
First and foremost, I was reading my Bible every day searching for clues that could be used
to convince the students that they needed some correction in their view of earth history. The
most common interpretation of Genesis taught that Genesis was mostly poetry, symbol, and
allegory—that Genesis was never intended to be taken literally. It was unfortunate that this
professor also held that Genesis was never intended to be taken literally. Little did I know that
the grammatical form of Hebrew poetry is subject-verb-object: God created plants, God created
fish, etc. That is how Genesis reads in English. But that is not how Genesis reads in Hebrew.
Created God the plants, created God the fish—is the grammatical construction in the original
Hebrew (verb-subject-object) and that is the Hebrew grammatical form of straight forward
Hebrew narrative. So Genesis is God telling us exactly what He did and the order in which He
did it in Hebrew historical narrative. He expects us to believe Him. Genesis is true literal history,
not exhaustive, but historically accurate!
My old earth position took a blow with that information, but I still believed that there were
other ways to come at this controversy to prove these students wrong. I asserted that it was
my responsibility to help these students understand that many, many brilliant scientists had
proven evolution and millions of years to be true science. However, the more I studied to find
scientifically observable proof of evolution to convince my students, the more my eyes opened
to the fact that old universe evolution is based on many tenuous assumptions. No one had ever
shown me how to spot the assumptions in the evolutionary literature, but these students did.
They said, “Dr. Martin, read this and that article defending millions of years evolution and
look for their assumptions—words like “we think,” “perhaps,” “maybe,” “this could be,” “we
believe,” “we posit,” “there is consensus,” “scientists agree,” etc. Back in the early 1970’s the
evolution defenders wrote their articles with their assumptions honestly and easily identifiable
by the above words and phrases. It became quite clear that the idea of evolution from molecules-
to-life-to-man over millions of years was based on unprovable and frequently unrealistic
assumptions.
Well so far I had learned that I could trust my Bible from Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 to mean what
it says. Genesis is true history. It became increasingly and startlingly evident that the millions of
years idea was based on unprovable guesses. The evolutionary literature was full of “we believe”
statements instead of “this is observable, repeatable science” (which records provable evidence).
Even the “accurate” dating techniques had major assumptions behind them. For example,
Uranium238
beginning (we know that decay rates can be accelerated). A second assumption is that there was
no lead (daughter element) in the original rock (maybe some lead was there in the original rock
or had been formed by some other mechanism). A third assumption is that the rock being dated
had never in any way been contaminated over the supposed millions or even billions of years
of its existence. (Measurable amounts of Carbon14
tested; see: www.icr.org “Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth.” This means that the
diamonds can only be a few thousand years old. From the evolutionist’s perspective that cannot
be—diamonds are some of the oldest [and are the hardest] rocks on earth. The evolutionists say
that the diamonds must have been contaminated with the Carbon14
hardest rocks, diamonds, somehow got contaminated with Carbon14
millions of years without any possibility of contamination at all?) Just these three assumptions: a
constant decay rate, no daughter element in the original rock, and no contamination over millions
of years, which are major assumptions, display the impossibility of dating rocks in billions of
years with undisputed accuracy.
Since I majored in biology in undergraduate school, the dental students asked me to prove to
them how specific animals could evolve and what mechanism produced the evolution, and how
they could exist with incompletely evolved essential parts of their anatomy. The first animal
they asked me to consider was the Bombardier beetle. This little insect mixes chemicals that
explosively react when mixed together. If evolution is true, the first time this insect mixed its
chemicals it would have blown itself up. Splattered bug pieces cannot evolve any improvements.
The beetle needs all of its equipment fully formed from its very beginning. Of course the
chemicals must be there in the correct configurations and concentrations, combining to produce
the explosive reaction in the specially designed combustion chamber (and nowhere else), and
being exhausted via the twin tale tubes or “cannons.” All of this must take place with the
exact timing so as to safely exhaust the 212 degree discharge and hit the target. Additionally,
the appropriate nervous system must be in place to select the target (friend or enemy), aim
the cannons, and trigger the explosive reaction. These components are all part of a system
functioning as “Specified Irreducible Complexity.” In other words, this amazing little insect
needs all of its parts fully functional from its first day of existence—there is no way it could
decaying to lead assumed that the decay rate had always been the same since the
have been found in all samples of diamonds
. So we are to believe that the
, but softer rocks survived
evolve a little bit at a time over a long period of time. Only instant creation—supported by the
reality of specified irreducible complexity—satisfies the problems encountered with evolution.
Specified irreducible complexity can be seen throughout creation and the inquisitive mind
will ask questions such as: Why does a giraffe not blow its brains out when it bends its head
down to get a drink of water? Where did the special tongue of the woodpecker come from?
Why does a gibbon have a “unique-among-the-primates” 3700
the only venomous primate, the Slow Loris, fit into the picture of evolution? How does the
wire-like middle finger of the Aye-Aye (another primate) display the supposed “consistency”
of evolution? Why does a baboon have food pouches in its cheeks and other primates do not?
This list goes on and on with facts about God’s creation that most people never heard. This is
often because evolutionists control the textbook industry as well as the media. Therefore, when
something like a venomous primate is discovered and cannot be explained in evolutionary terms,
it is often excluded from the customary textbooks. All of the creatures mentioned above and
many more are included in two series of three DVD’s each, titled Incredible Creatures That
Defy Evolution and Creation Proclaims (see: www.biblicaldiscipleship.org )
True observable science always supports the Bible. Observable science shows that the creatures
mentioned above needed all their parts from their first day of existence in order to survive. This
supports the fact that the Bible says God spoke them into existence (created them) during the six-
day creation week. From the Bible we understand that the earth was created in six normal days
about 6,000 years ago (reference the genealogical tables in the Bible) and thus, is not millions
of years old. Within the last 15 years the evolutionary scientists have been finding soft tissue,
elastic blood vessels, and red blood cells in dinosaur fossil bones claimed to be 68 and 80 million
years old. These fossil bones should have been solid rock! This observable science (We have the
tissue, blood vessels and red blood cells.) proves that these giant creatures fit more within the
Biblical time-frame of the age of the earth—a few thousand years old, not 60 to 80 million years
The Bible says that the earth was once covered with water (the Flood in Noah’s day) about 4,400
years ago. Evolutionists are now affirming that they believe the earth was once covered with
“However, some recent studies suggest that water may have covered Earth’s entire surface for
some 200 million years before the continents emerged.” M. Garrison, Oceanography, Brooks/
Cole, 2010, p. 16.
The evolutionists’ timing is incorrect, but they are confirming the fact of the Biblical Flood
of Noah’s day covering the entire the earth! It was not a local river overflow confined to the
Mesopotamian valley. The volcanic explosion at Mount St. Helens has, since 1980, been
rotating shoulder? How does
displaying geologic processes that were previously believed to require long spans of time. The
formation of polystrata fossil trees is one example. We do not need science to prove that the
Bible is true—it is testimony in itself. But it is nice to see that science that is based on provable,
observable evidence always supports God’s Word.
It took almost five years but, by studying my Bible, learning how to spot the underlying (and
invalid) assumptions held by the evolutionists (we believe, etc.), and observing that all life forms
must be created fully functional or they are dead, I finally emerged a totally convinced Young
Universe, Global Flood Creationist.
No true, observable science has to be discarded for someone to accept creation science as taught
in the Bible. Much evolution “science” has already been discarded by the evolutionists when
better evidence is produced (such as the recent understanding by evolutionists that the earth
was once covered in water). Huge problems exist for the evolutionist who refuses to believe
in a Creator God. How does matter/energy self-create and self-organize? In other words how
does a mindless, accidental, random, chance, non-directed, non-purposeful process produce
beauty and symmetry, predictability and regularity, design and law, and specified irreducible
complexity no matter how many millions of years are claimed? What was here before the
Big Bang? What made the Big Bang go kaboom? Where does information come from? Think
about this: information is non-material—it cannot be captured to insert into a gene, it cannot
be grasped and removed from a gene. Therefore all information in every genome had to have
been supernaturally inserted into those genes when that life form was created. How did life itself
originate? The Creator God of the Bible (Lord Jesus Christ) has answers in His Holy Scriptures.
Old Universe Evolution has big problems, but no observable, truly scientific answers.
The real issue in the creation/evolution controversy is GOD. People do not want to believe in the
God of the Bible! I didn’t, and evolution was the only mechanism available to justify my desire
to not have to deal with God and His righteousness and justice. I did not want to be judged by
a holy God for my lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and obnoxious pride of life (1 John 2:16-
17). The whole purpose of evolution is to get rid of Jesus as our Creator (John 1; Colossians
1; Hebrews 1) and Redeemer (Romans 10:9-13) and to get rid of a literal Genesis. If we can
get rid of Jesus and Genesis then we can get rid of the God of the Bible and eat, drink, and be
merry for tomorrow we die and go back to the worms. Atheistic evolutionist, G. Richard Bozarth
says it this way in the article titled “The Meaning of Evolution,” (American Atheist, Sept. 20,
1979, p. 30): “Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end
over evolution because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life
was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble
you will find the sorry remains of the [S]on of [G]od. If Jesus was not the [R]edeemer that died
for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.” (Bozarth did not
capitalize the names of God and so I did.)
Christians do not fight true science. Every major field of science was founded by scientists who
were friendly to the Bible and to Christianity—most of them were Christians themselves--
people such as Pasteur, Babbage, Newton, Lister, Raleigh, Faraday, Fleming, Kelvin, Boyle,
Kepler, Mendel, Damadian, etc. Some of these brilliant Christian scientists even wrote
commentaries on certain books of the Bible. A person who believes in Godless evolution (and
I was such a person for almost half of my life) is necessarily confined to a close-minded-don’t-
bother-me-with-the-observable-scientific-facts worldview based on fantasy. Evolution of Big
Bang to molecules to inorganic to organic to life to animals, plants and man over millions of
years exists only in the mind of the evolutionist. Dr. Richard Lewontin, an atheistic evolutionist
professor at Harvard University, expresses the evolutionist’s leap of faith like this: “It is not that
the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation
of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by an a priori [up front]
adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that
produce material explanations no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the
uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism [materialism is a synonym for evolutionism] is absolute,
for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door” (emphasis and inserts added). (“Billions and
Billions of Demons,” The New York Review, Jan. 9, 1997, p. 31). So Dr. Lewontin admits that he
is living in a fantasy world. Matter is all that there is! He believes this, even when it is “counter-
intuitive”—even when his own scientific studies demand a Designer and Creator. The God of the
Bible is the real issue in the creation/evolution debate, but the evolutionist cannot let that “divine
foot” in the door. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways
of death (Proverbs 14:12). The primary purpose of evolution is to get rid of God. Evolution,
then, robs God of His glory. It steals His praise. But God says in Isaiah 48:11: I will not share my
Jeremiah 10:10-12: But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king:
at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even
they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. 12
power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his
discretion.
John 1:1-4: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. 3
not anything made that was made. 4
Genesis 1:1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
How did everything originate? God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit through the agency
of the Lord Jesus Christ created everything and it was very good (Genesis 1:31). The first man,
Adam, and his wife, Eve, were given volition—the ability to choose. God placed a test before
them. They were free to eat anything in the garden except the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge
He hath made the earth by his
All things were made by him; and without him was
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
of Good and Evil. They ate of the forbidden fruit and death was pronounced by God as the
judgment for their sin. That means that there was no death before Adam sinned (Romans 5:12;
1 Corinthians 15:21-22). That means that there could not possibly be animals and humans dying
(like in a pre-Adamic race of people living and dying) before death as Adam’s judgment was
pronounced. This fact alone destroys all ideas of origins that demand millions of years of various
life forms living and dying. It also affects the Gospel. If there was death before the Fall and God
said to Adam, “Adam, if you eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you will die.”
Adam might have responded, “Death is already in the world—what kind of punishment is this? I
was going to die anyway.” Adam was created perfect and would have lived forever if he had not
sinned against God. Sin is punished by death (and we all sin and we all die as the Bible tells us
in Romans 3:23; 6:23; 5:8). Jesus was born perfect and He did not sin, so He could not die. But
He did die because He took our sin upon Himself and now He must die. The victory over sin and
its penalty, death, was displayed at the resurrection—Jesus came out of the tomb victorious over
death—the death that originated as a result of Adam’s sin.
If, as the Bible says, death began after Adam sinned there could not have been millions of years
of plants, animals and pre-Adamic people (the curse affected everything that has life, everything
eventually dies, Romans 8:22) living and dying before death was a reality. Since this is true
why do so many Christians believe in evolution over millions of years when it is biblically
impossible? All true, observable science does not conflict with the Bible! It is this writer’s
opinion that Christians who believe in the millions of years ideas at least in many cases either are
not aware of what the Bible teaches, or of all of the evidence supporting a young universe, or it
must be pride—academic or intellectual pride.
John 5:44: How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour
that cometh from God only?
John 12:43: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
We love the praise of men! If we want to appear to be intelligent, but claim that the universe is
only about 6,000 years old, we are eliminated from the club of the intellectuals. (I reluctantly
confess that this kind of pride was my problem.) The real problem for Christians is biblical
authority. Do I trust the Word of God or have I placed my faith in the words of men? Could I
possibly have a pride problem? If I do not trust God’s Word as it relates to the creation account,
then can I really believe God’s Word as it relates to the Gospel and salvation?
When Jesus talked with Nicodemus in the Gospel of John chapter 3 verse 7 He said, Ye must be
born again. Jesus had already said in John 3:3: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So a person must be born twice in order to go
to heaven. The first birth is our physical birth and the second birth is our spiritual birth when
we receive the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior. If we have these two births we only have one
death, our physical death and after that we live eternally with our resurrected Lord. The problem
is that if one never receives the Lord Jesus as his Savior, he will only have one birth, as he
has not been “born again.” With only one birth he earns two deaths—a physical death and an
ultimate spiritual death when he is cast into the Lake of Fire for eternity.
Revelation 20:11-15: And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the
earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. 12
small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened,
which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the
books, according to their works. 13
and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according
to their works. 14
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (emphasis
Revelation 20:11-14 is the judgment of the people who never by faith placed their trust in Jesus
Christ as their Savior. It is called the Great White Throne Judgment. If a person has never been
“born again” they will experience their second death after the Great White Throne Judgment
when they are cast into the Lake of Fire for an eternal separation from God in eternal torment.
Two births and one death or one birth and two deaths! Which will it be? The primary goal of
evolution is to provide an escape from the necessity of believing in our Creator God. If evolution
is true as taught by the evolutionists, there is no need to believe in God. We can be here without
God and evolution is the freeing mechanism. But if evolution is truly only in the minds of the
evolutionists, if it is a lying fantasy, then what must I do to be saved?
John 3:16-21: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17
world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18
on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19
is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. 21
that they are wrought in God.
Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift
of God: 9
Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
1 Peter 1:18-19: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as
silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19
the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
And I saw the dead,
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
For God sent not his Son into the
He that believeth
And this is the condemnation, that light
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest,
For we are his workmanship, created in
Romans 10:9-13: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in
thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10
man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11
the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
In conclusion, though I was raised in the church, I was pretending to be a Believer to basically
just please my mother, but I was an unbeliever. At 27 years of age I received the Lord Jesus
Christ as my personal Savior and became a Christian who was still an evolutionist. Due to
the courage and Holy Spirit’s leading through the challenge of two dental students and in
conjunction with much soul searching, I became a Biblical Creationist (sometime between ages
34 and 35). Almost half of my life (I am now 74 years old), I chose to believe the words of men
instead of the clear Word of God. Genesis is true history—we can trust its creation account just
as surely as we can trust the Gospel! This was my biggest spiritual struggle—praise our dear
Lord for the multitude of His tender mercies and His infinite patience and grace! I will conclude
with two questions: How about you—are you believing the words of man, or deeply trusting the
Word of God? Is it two births and one death for you, or one birth and two deaths?
with conviction, Young Universe Creation. To answer this question I need to first give a little
background. My teenage years were spent in government (public) schools and in an Independent
Baptist church in Pennsylvania. My mother had me in church every time it was open (praise
God that she did), but I did not believe the preacher’s messages. It was easy on Sunday and
Wednesday nights to fool people in the church into believing that I was a Christian, but the real
me was displayed on Friday and Saturday nights.
During my first week of studies in an organic evolution course at Bucknell University, the idea
of molecules-to-life-to-people over millions of years made perfect sense. I became a convinced
evolutionist. Studying the science courses at the University of Pittsburgh College of Dentistry
further convinced me that life can exist without the necessity of a supernatural God. By the time
my D.M.D. degree was conferred (June 6, 1966) this young dentist was an agnostic looking-
into-Zen-Buddhism evolutionist even though he had been strictly raised in an Independent
Fundamentalist Baptist church. In 1966 the United States of America was deep into the Viet
Nam War and my generation—the Hippy Generation—was rebelling against everything
traditional and sacred.
My military duty assignment was to be one of five dentists with the 89th Military Airlift Wing--
the pilots and crews of the presidential fleet of planes (during the Johnson administration)
including Air Force One. Arrival at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington D.C. was exciting
for two reasons: (1) It was the beginning of my career in dentistry and (2) Church was
“suddenly” important. Why was church suddenly important for this agnostic, Zen Buddhist,
evolutionist? Because I needed an answer to an answered prayer. Now that might sound strange,
but here is what had happened.
Medical Basic Training for the Air Force took place at Shepherd Air Force Base in Wichita
Falls, Texas. This young dentist had been raised in the church, but had not believed the teaching.
Since I did not know if the God of the Bible existed (as I was agnostic), I decided to clear things
up once and for all, so as I was sitting in the officer’s club drinking a whiskey and 7-up I said a
prayer: “OK God, if You are up there, You have two choices: You can either show me the girl
that I am going to marry, or You are going to see the wildest Air Force officer that You have
ever seen.” No one heard that prayer, I thought, so I considered myself to be safe, and decided
that I was going to go out and live it up.
However, about an hour after I prayed that prayer I met my future wife (which is a story for
another time). To make a long story short, on our first date, I told this beautiful young nurse
that I was going to marry her. While she was not convinced until many months later, I knew
immediately that I was going to marry her. I decided that I had had a very specific answered
prayer. The very day that I prayed “wife or wild life” I met my future wife. This is the reason
that I was on my way to church my first Sunday at Andrews Air Force Base—it was because of
that answered prayer—I had decided that the God of the Bible must be real.
The church that I ended up wandering into turned out to be a Baptist church. On the way out
of the church service the pastor, Charlie Warford, shook my hand and asked, “Captain, is there
anything I can do that might help you spiritually?” I said, “Anything you can do would help me
spiritually, I am zero!” I was a spiritual zero who had been raised in the church. This pastor just
asked me to read the Bible with him on Monday mornings. At 26 years old and after being in
church all my life, I had never read the Bible. According to one massive poll the average person
who calls himself/herself a Christian has never read the Bible even one time all the way through.
We Christians will bow before our Lord someday and what if He asks us: “How did you like My
Book?” What would you say? Would you have to answer “I had a whole lifetime to read, but I
never got around to Your Book, the most important Book ever written.”
Now back to my testimony. Pastor Charlie Warford and I read together Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John (not all on the same morning). While we were reading the Gospel of John chapter 3--
which is the account of Jesus and Nicodemas—John 3:16 jumped out at me. Actually it was the
first phrase of verse 16: For God so loved the world.... At that moment I realized that I loved
the world, was part of the world, and consistently did the things of the world. It was like God
was saying to me, “Jobe, I love you!” The entire verse reads: For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life. I dropped to my knees with Pastor Warford and prayed, “Lord Jesus (I knew
who He was since we had read the Gospels up to this point), I am a sinner, You know it and I
know it. I can’t live up to my own standards, let alone Your standards, would You please forgive
my sins? I believe that You are God’s Son and that You died on the cross for me so that my
sins could be forgiven. I believe that You rose from the dead three days later and afterwards
were seen by more than 500 people. I receive You, Lord Jesus Christ, as my personal Savior.”
At that point the Holy Spirit came to dwell in me, my sins were forgiven (past, present, and
future, Colossians 2:13-14) and I became a child of God. I also went from being an agnostic, Zen
Buddhist, evolutionist to being a Theistic evolutionist. I had God in my life, I was saved, but my
ideas about science were still based on the evolutionary model of millions of years. However,
now I believed that God used the processes of evolution to get us here. I had become a Christian
evolutionist (most commonly called a “Theistic evolutionist,” although there are people who
believe in evolution and different gods [theistic evolutionists] who are not Christians—they do
not believe that Jesus Christ is their Creator and Savior).
In September of 1971 I accepted a position on the faculty of Baylor College of Dentistry and
delivered my first lecture on the “fact” that human teeth had evolved over millions of years from
fish scales. I can’t believe that I believed that, but that is what I had been taught at the University
of Pittsburgh College of Dentistry almost 10 years earlier. (By the way, there is no relationship
whatsoever between scales and teeth, scales and hair, scales and feathers, or scales and porcupine
quills. Whether you look at it embryologically, histologically, physiologically, morphologically,
functionally, anatomically, etc., the answer equals zero developmental relationship, even
though a scales to teeth, hair, and feathers progression is still taught in university classrooms!
(For an excellent discussion of feathers and scales see: Formed to Fly, by Dr. David Menton,
Creation Library Series, www.answersingenesis.org) After my first wonderful lecture as a rookie
professor “proving that teeth came from fish scales” two of my dental students came up and
politely challenged me to study creation science with them. I readily agreed thinking that these
students were intellectually back in the Stone Age, and that every educated person knew that the
scientists had proven evolution and millions of years.
What kind of evidence would be necessary to prove to this cocky, rookie dental professor
that he was wrong in believing millions of years of evolution, and that the two “Stone Age
dental students” were correct in their idea that the universe was only about 6000 years old?
First and foremost, I was reading my Bible every day searching for clues that could be used
to convince the students that they needed some correction in their view of earth history. The
most common interpretation of Genesis taught that Genesis was mostly poetry, symbol, and
allegory—that Genesis was never intended to be taken literally. It was unfortunate that this
professor also held that Genesis was never intended to be taken literally. Little did I know that
the grammatical form of Hebrew poetry is subject-verb-object: God created plants, God created
fish, etc. That is how Genesis reads in English. But that is not how Genesis reads in Hebrew.
Created God the plants, created God the fish—is the grammatical construction in the original
Hebrew (verb-subject-object) and that is the Hebrew grammatical form of straight forward
Hebrew narrative. So Genesis is God telling us exactly what He did and the order in which He
did it in Hebrew historical narrative. He expects us to believe Him. Genesis is true literal history,
not exhaustive, but historically accurate!
My old earth position took a blow with that information, but I still believed that there were
other ways to come at this controversy to prove these students wrong. I asserted that it was
my responsibility to help these students understand that many, many brilliant scientists had
proven evolution and millions of years to be true science. However, the more I studied to find
scientifically observable proof of evolution to convince my students, the more my eyes opened
to the fact that old universe evolution is based on many tenuous assumptions. No one had ever
shown me how to spot the assumptions in the evolutionary literature, but these students did.
They said, “Dr. Martin, read this and that article defending millions of years evolution and
look for their assumptions—words like “we think,” “perhaps,” “maybe,” “this could be,” “we
believe,” “we posit,” “there is consensus,” “scientists agree,” etc. Back in the early 1970’s the
evolution defenders wrote their articles with their assumptions honestly and easily identifiable
by the above words and phrases. It became quite clear that the idea of evolution from molecules-
to-life-to-man over millions of years was based on unprovable and frequently unrealistic
assumptions.
Well so far I had learned that I could trust my Bible from Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 to mean what
it says. Genesis is true history. It became increasingly and startlingly evident that the millions of
years idea was based on unprovable guesses. The evolutionary literature was full of “we believe”
statements instead of “this is observable, repeatable science” (which records provable evidence).
Even the “accurate” dating techniques had major assumptions behind them. For example,
Uranium238
beginning (we know that decay rates can be accelerated). A second assumption is that there was
no lead (daughter element) in the original rock (maybe some lead was there in the original rock
or had been formed by some other mechanism). A third assumption is that the rock being dated
had never in any way been contaminated over the supposed millions or even billions of years
of its existence. (Measurable amounts of Carbon14
tested; see: www.icr.org “Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth.” This means that the
diamonds can only be a few thousand years old. From the evolutionist’s perspective that cannot
be—diamonds are some of the oldest [and are the hardest] rocks on earth. The evolutionists say
that the diamonds must have been contaminated with the Carbon14
hardest rocks, diamonds, somehow got contaminated with Carbon14
millions of years without any possibility of contamination at all?) Just these three assumptions: a
constant decay rate, no daughter element in the original rock, and no contamination over millions
of years, which are major assumptions, display the impossibility of dating rocks in billions of
years with undisputed accuracy.
Since I majored in biology in undergraduate school, the dental students asked me to prove to
them how specific animals could evolve and what mechanism produced the evolution, and how
they could exist with incompletely evolved essential parts of their anatomy. The first animal
they asked me to consider was the Bombardier beetle. This little insect mixes chemicals that
explosively react when mixed together. If evolution is true, the first time this insect mixed its
chemicals it would have blown itself up. Splattered bug pieces cannot evolve any improvements.
The beetle needs all of its equipment fully formed from its very beginning. Of course the
chemicals must be there in the correct configurations and concentrations, combining to produce
the explosive reaction in the specially designed combustion chamber (and nowhere else), and
being exhausted via the twin tale tubes or “cannons.” All of this must take place with the
exact timing so as to safely exhaust the 212 degree discharge and hit the target. Additionally,
the appropriate nervous system must be in place to select the target (friend or enemy), aim
the cannons, and trigger the explosive reaction. These components are all part of a system
functioning as “Specified Irreducible Complexity.” In other words, this amazing little insect
needs all of its parts fully functional from its first day of existence—there is no way it could
decaying to lead assumed that the decay rate had always been the same since the
have been found in all samples of diamonds
. So we are to believe that the
, but softer rocks survived
evolve a little bit at a time over a long period of time. Only instant creation—supported by the
reality of specified irreducible complexity—satisfies the problems encountered with evolution.
Specified irreducible complexity can be seen throughout creation and the inquisitive mind
will ask questions such as: Why does a giraffe not blow its brains out when it bends its head
down to get a drink of water? Where did the special tongue of the woodpecker come from?
Why does a gibbon have a “unique-among-the-primates” 3700
the only venomous primate, the Slow Loris, fit into the picture of evolution? How does the
wire-like middle finger of the Aye-Aye (another primate) display the supposed “consistency”
of evolution? Why does a baboon have food pouches in its cheeks and other primates do not?
This list goes on and on with facts about God’s creation that most people never heard. This is
often because evolutionists control the textbook industry as well as the media. Therefore, when
something like a venomous primate is discovered and cannot be explained in evolutionary terms,
it is often excluded from the customary textbooks. All of the creatures mentioned above and
many more are included in two series of three DVD’s each, titled Incredible Creatures That
Defy Evolution and Creation Proclaims (see: www.biblicaldiscipleship.org )
True observable science always supports the Bible. Observable science shows that the creatures
mentioned above needed all their parts from their first day of existence in order to survive. This
supports the fact that the Bible says God spoke them into existence (created them) during the six-
day creation week. From the Bible we understand that the earth was created in six normal days
about 6,000 years ago (reference the genealogical tables in the Bible) and thus, is not millions
of years old. Within the last 15 years the evolutionary scientists have been finding soft tissue,
elastic blood vessels, and red blood cells in dinosaur fossil bones claimed to be 68 and 80 million
years old. These fossil bones should have been solid rock! This observable science (We have the
tissue, blood vessels and red blood cells.) proves that these giant creatures fit more within the
Biblical time-frame of the age of the earth—a few thousand years old, not 60 to 80 million years
The Bible says that the earth was once covered with water (the Flood in Noah’s day) about 4,400
years ago. Evolutionists are now affirming that they believe the earth was once covered with
“However, some recent studies suggest that water may have covered Earth’s entire surface for
some 200 million years before the continents emerged.” M. Garrison, Oceanography, Brooks/
Cole, 2010, p. 16.
The evolutionists’ timing is incorrect, but they are confirming the fact of the Biblical Flood
of Noah’s day covering the entire the earth! It was not a local river overflow confined to the
Mesopotamian valley. The volcanic explosion at Mount St. Helens has, since 1980, been
rotating shoulder? How does
displaying geologic processes that were previously believed to require long spans of time. The
formation of polystrata fossil trees is one example. We do not need science to prove that the
Bible is true—it is testimony in itself. But it is nice to see that science that is based on provable,
observable evidence always supports God’s Word.
It took almost five years but, by studying my Bible, learning how to spot the underlying (and
invalid) assumptions held by the evolutionists (we believe, etc.), and observing that all life forms
must be created fully functional or they are dead, I finally emerged a totally convinced Young
Universe, Global Flood Creationist.
No true, observable science has to be discarded for someone to accept creation science as taught
in the Bible. Much evolution “science” has already been discarded by the evolutionists when
better evidence is produced (such as the recent understanding by evolutionists that the earth
was once covered in water). Huge problems exist for the evolutionist who refuses to believe
in a Creator God. How does matter/energy self-create and self-organize? In other words how
does a mindless, accidental, random, chance, non-directed, non-purposeful process produce
beauty and symmetry, predictability and regularity, design and law, and specified irreducible
complexity no matter how many millions of years are claimed? What was here before the
Big Bang? What made the Big Bang go kaboom? Where does information come from? Think
about this: information is non-material—it cannot be captured to insert into a gene, it cannot
be grasped and removed from a gene. Therefore all information in every genome had to have
been supernaturally inserted into those genes when that life form was created. How did life itself
originate? The Creator God of the Bible (Lord Jesus Christ) has answers in His Holy Scriptures.
Old Universe Evolution has big problems, but no observable, truly scientific answers.
The real issue in the creation/evolution controversy is GOD. People do not want to believe in the
God of the Bible! I didn’t, and evolution was the only mechanism available to justify my desire
to not have to deal with God and His righteousness and justice. I did not want to be judged by
a holy God for my lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and obnoxious pride of life (1 John 2:16-
17). The whole purpose of evolution is to get rid of Jesus as our Creator (John 1; Colossians
1; Hebrews 1) and Redeemer (Romans 10:9-13) and to get rid of a literal Genesis. If we can
get rid of Jesus and Genesis then we can get rid of the God of the Bible and eat, drink, and be
merry for tomorrow we die and go back to the worms. Atheistic evolutionist, G. Richard Bozarth
says it this way in the article titled “The Meaning of Evolution,” (American Atheist, Sept. 20,
1979, p. 30): “Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end
over evolution because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life
was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble
you will find the sorry remains of the [S]on of [G]od. If Jesus was not the [R]edeemer that died
for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.” (Bozarth did not
capitalize the names of God and so I did.)
Christians do not fight true science. Every major field of science was founded by scientists who
were friendly to the Bible and to Christianity—most of them were Christians themselves--
people such as Pasteur, Babbage, Newton, Lister, Raleigh, Faraday, Fleming, Kelvin, Boyle,
Kepler, Mendel, Damadian, etc. Some of these brilliant Christian scientists even wrote
commentaries on certain books of the Bible. A person who believes in Godless evolution (and
I was such a person for almost half of my life) is necessarily confined to a close-minded-don’t-
bother-me-with-the-observable-scientific-facts worldview based on fantasy. Evolution of Big
Bang to molecules to inorganic to organic to life to animals, plants and man over millions of
years exists only in the mind of the evolutionist. Dr. Richard Lewontin, an atheistic evolutionist
professor at Harvard University, expresses the evolutionist’s leap of faith like this: “It is not that
the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation
of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by an a priori [up front]
adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that
produce material explanations no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the
uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism [materialism is a synonym for evolutionism] is absolute,
for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door” (emphasis and inserts added). (“Billions and
Billions of Demons,” The New York Review, Jan. 9, 1997, p. 31). So Dr. Lewontin admits that he
is living in a fantasy world. Matter is all that there is! He believes this, even when it is “counter-
intuitive”—even when his own scientific studies demand a Designer and Creator. The God of the
Bible is the real issue in the creation/evolution debate, but the evolutionist cannot let that “divine
foot” in the door. There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways
of death (Proverbs 14:12). The primary purpose of evolution is to get rid of God. Evolution,
then, robs God of His glory. It steals His praise. But God says in Isaiah 48:11: I will not share my
Jeremiah 10:10-12: But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king:
at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even
they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. 12
power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his
discretion.
John 1:1-4: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. 3
not anything made that was made. 4
Genesis 1:1: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
How did everything originate? God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit through the agency
of the Lord Jesus Christ created everything and it was very good (Genesis 1:31). The first man,
Adam, and his wife, Eve, were given volition—the ability to choose. God placed a test before
them. They were free to eat anything in the garden except the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge
He hath made the earth by his
All things were made by him; and without him was
In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
of Good and Evil. They ate of the forbidden fruit and death was pronounced by God as the
judgment for their sin. That means that there was no death before Adam sinned (Romans 5:12;
1 Corinthians 15:21-22). That means that there could not possibly be animals and humans dying
(like in a pre-Adamic race of people living and dying) before death as Adam’s judgment was
pronounced. This fact alone destroys all ideas of origins that demand millions of years of various
life forms living and dying. It also affects the Gospel. If there was death before the Fall and God
said to Adam, “Adam, if you eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you will die.”
Adam might have responded, “Death is already in the world—what kind of punishment is this? I
was going to die anyway.” Adam was created perfect and would have lived forever if he had not
sinned against God. Sin is punished by death (and we all sin and we all die as the Bible tells us
in Romans 3:23; 6:23; 5:8). Jesus was born perfect and He did not sin, so He could not die. But
He did die because He took our sin upon Himself and now He must die. The victory over sin and
its penalty, death, was displayed at the resurrection—Jesus came out of the tomb victorious over
death—the death that originated as a result of Adam’s sin.
If, as the Bible says, death began after Adam sinned there could not have been millions of years
of plants, animals and pre-Adamic people (the curse affected everything that has life, everything
eventually dies, Romans 8:22) living and dying before death was a reality. Since this is true
why do so many Christians believe in evolution over millions of years when it is biblically
impossible? All true, observable science does not conflict with the Bible! It is this writer’s
opinion that Christians who believe in the millions of years ideas at least in many cases either are
not aware of what the Bible teaches, or of all of the evidence supporting a young universe, or it
must be pride—academic or intellectual pride.
John 5:44: How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour
that cometh from God only?
John 12:43: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
We love the praise of men! If we want to appear to be intelligent, but claim that the universe is
only about 6,000 years old, we are eliminated from the club of the intellectuals. (I reluctantly
confess that this kind of pride was my problem.) The real problem for Christians is biblical
authority. Do I trust the Word of God or have I placed my faith in the words of men? Could I
possibly have a pride problem? If I do not trust God’s Word as it relates to the creation account,
then can I really believe God’s Word as it relates to the Gospel and salvation?
When Jesus talked with Nicodemus in the Gospel of John chapter 3 verse 7 He said, Ye must be
born again. Jesus had already said in John 3:3: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So a person must be born twice in order to go
to heaven. The first birth is our physical birth and the second birth is our spiritual birth when
we receive the Lord Jesus as our personal Savior. If we have these two births we only have one
death, our physical death and after that we live eternally with our resurrected Lord. The problem
is that if one never receives the Lord Jesus as his Savior, he will only have one birth, as he
has not been “born again.” With only one birth he earns two deaths—a physical death and an
ultimate spiritual death when he is cast into the Lake of Fire for eternity.
Revelation 20:11-15: And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the
earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. 12
small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened,
which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the
books, according to their works. 13
and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according
to their works. 14
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (emphasis
Revelation 20:11-14 is the judgment of the people who never by faith placed their trust in Jesus
Christ as their Savior. It is called the Great White Throne Judgment. If a person has never been
“born again” they will experience their second death after the Great White Throne Judgment
when they are cast into the Lake of Fire for an eternal separation from God in eternal torment.
Two births and one death or one birth and two deaths! Which will it be? The primary goal of
evolution is to provide an escape from the necessity of believing in our Creator God. If evolution
is true as taught by the evolutionists, there is no need to believe in God. We can be here without
God and evolution is the freeing mechanism. But if evolution is truly only in the minds of the
evolutionists, if it is a lying fantasy, then what must I do to be saved?
John 3:16-21: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17
world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18
on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19
is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. 21
that they are wrought in God.
Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift
of God: 9
Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10
Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
1 Peter 1:18-19: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as
silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; 19
the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
And I saw the dead,
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
For God sent not his Son into the
He that believeth
And this is the condemnation, that light
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest,
For we are his workmanship, created in
Romans 10:9-13: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in
thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10
man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11
the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
In conclusion, though I was raised in the church, I was pretending to be a Believer to basically
just please my mother, but I was an unbeliever. At 27 years of age I received the Lord Jesus
Christ as my personal Savior and became a Christian who was still an evolutionist. Due to
the courage and Holy Spirit’s leading through the challenge of two dental students and in
conjunction with much soul searching, I became a Biblical Creationist (sometime between ages
34 and 35). Almost half of my life (I am now 74 years old), I chose to believe the words of men
instead of the clear Word of God. Genesis is true history—we can trust its creation account just
as surely as we can trust the Gospel! This was my biggest spiritual struggle—praise our dear
Lord for the multitude of His tender mercies and His infinite patience and grace! I will conclude
with two questions: How about you—are you believing the words of man, or deeply trusting the
Word of God? Is it two births and one death for you, or one birth and two deaths?