as you can tell I I speak a little bit
differently to the rest of you because I
was born and raised in Sydney Australia
and I was born into a devout Lee
Christian family regularly attending a
very strongly strong Bible believing
Church and I I remember early years of
growing up by the time I was five I was
expected to sit in church and not fiddle
and fool around but pay attention to the
preacher there was a very godly devoted
pastor devoted to his people and devoted
to God's Word and systematically
preaching God's Word also the older
older folk in the church mentor the
younger folk and they were very strong
in Bible teaching and so I had a very
quickly had a very good head knowledge
of the scriptures
scripture scripture memorization was was
stressed and practiced and so life with
life was good it was just before my
eighth birthday when I went with my
older brother off to a holiday camp it
was it was turn break and our
denominational churches had a property
out of out of out of the city and they
took the kids off for a bit of fun for a
week and it was during that week that in
the midst of all the fun that God really
spoke to me and so what became head
knowledge but went to the heart and I
remember vividly on the Friday night the
last evening of the the camp you know in
tears at my bedside with the counselor
there you know I couldn't commit in my
life to the Lord repenting and seeking
him with his forgiveness well of course
I moved on from there and I started
systematically reading the scriptures a
year later we went on a family vacation
to Tasmania Tasmania is the island state
of Australia that's off the southern
southeastern coast
and it's a beautiful area and we were
traveling around and my my parents had
friends through friends had connections
in Queenstown which is on the south I
saw it on the western side very rugged
area very famous area for mining it's a
copper copper gold mines the peaks of
Lyell a lot of fortunes were made there
and we we got access to an area that we
visited the mine we got access to an
area of the mine that most visitors
don't get to and we went to the you know
the spoil heaps and where some of the
the ore that is the economic
mineralization had been dumped and got
the opportunity to start picking things
up and of course all these bright shiny
rocks and minerals caught my attention
and started so I started collecting the
rocks and you know by that time I was
moving into the fourth grade and you
know we'd have our show-and-tell at
school and I bring in my rock collection
and start talking about my rocks and it
wasn't long before I I knew anything
more than anyone else in the class and
even the teacher about those rocks and
minerals and you know what it's like
when you when you start to know
something more than others that fuels
you fuels your interests because you're
the expert so by the time I finished the
6th grade in Australia at that's primary
school and moving on into high school by
the time I'd finished in primary school
I was convinced I was going to be a
geologist had had a geological hammer
actually I got that very soon after that
vacation I still had that geological
hammer now and so I was really
interested in geology that was what I
was going to do and I remember in the
first year at high school I used to go
into the library at lunchtime and I'd
get the big volume on on principles of
physical geology by Arthur Holmes and I
be reading in the library in the
librarian you know he got very irate
with this shouldn't you be out with
other other guys in the in the
playground you know enjoying the
sunshine and fresh air in the breaks
well at the end of the end of that
school year I got an academic prize
which had a you know
ouch oh so I went and bought that book
because yeah he thrown me out of the
library so I got went and got a copy or
for myself
actually it turned out to be the the
textbook one of the textbooks were used
in first-year geology the geology
program that I went to went into but it
was during those teenage years that I
began to realize there was a conflict
between what I was reading in the
geology textbooks and what I was reading
in my Bible and it was it was made more
complicated by the fact that the church
the Bible believing Church that I was
attending certainly believe that God
created but they bought into the gap
theory because of the Scofield reference
Bible and so that there was that tension
for me trying to try to figure out you
know where to the the fossils fit in and
and and Noah's Flood yeah a literal
creation a global flood but you know
we've got these fossils and so my my
parents were you know concern they saw
this struggle going on in in my my mind
as I was voraciously reading everything
I could get my hands on and so my mother
went into downtown Sydney to the
Christian bookstore and talked to the
bookstore owner and you know what I'm
going to say next don't you
he went to East my mother talked to him
about her son and and he said well I
I've just got the book your son needs
and he cuz he went to the short shelf
and he pulls down a copy of the Genesis
flooded by doctors Whitcomb and Morris
well when I read that that all the
pieces of the puzzle fitted together and
I got really excited because here here
I had confirmation that the evidence in
God's world definitely fitted with what
I read in God's Word and that really set
that the trajectory because unlike
unlike other guys in my high school
years you know a lot of young men find
it difficult to figure out what they're
going to do with their lives when they
get to their senior high school years I
already knew in fact in the in the two
senior years we had to we could we could
do upper level science and we could
actually do a major in one of the one of
the disciplines of science
and our offering you know physics and
chemistry geology and biology and very
few schools offer geology and the high
school I was at was a public high school
it was all boys only boys it was a boys
high school I think they figured that we
keep the boys a focused on their studies
rather than on the girls but I said to
the the science master the head of the
science department I said you know I
want to do geology come on you know
we'll never it would never get anyone
else to do study I study geology and I
kept on persisting he said look I'll do
it I'll make a deal with you if you can
get together a number of others to study
geology with you we'll put on a geology
class well we ended up with the second
largest group in the senior senior high
school to do two geology we had the the
biology and the geologists were the the
biggest groups ahead of the chemists and
physicists and the the guy that the
teachers they got assigned to teach the
geology program in in the in that second
last year high school he got so switched
on bio geology at the time there was a
mining boom in Australia he quit his
teacher's job and went went out offers a
a mine geologist then the next teacher
that came on he was that he was a
Christian
and he went to a church and he
encouraged me and at the same time I was
playing cricket
yes that's our national sport in
Australia with the son of a geology
professor at one of the universities in
in Sydney and so I met the geology
professor I'd go to his home they didn't
live too far from us and it was a
natural progression that I'd go to that
University and study under him which I
did so by the time I got to university I
was very convinced of the truth of God's
Word how you can how you could fit the
pieces of the puzzle together and I had
a definite sense that this is the
direction that the Lord wanted me go to
go in by the time I finished my
undergraduate program and in Australia
you actually you actually can do a
fourth year you do three you can do a
three-year undergraduate program
majoring in geology and you do a fourth
year and you do a field project and you
write a dissertation you do an
investigation review you spend a whole
semester doing a research project and if
your grade is high enough you you when
you graduate it's like a master's degree
you're ready to go into a ph.d program
during the summer vacations when I was
an undergraduate I went through I went
was had because of the connection with
that judge I was aware of Henry Morris
of course I'd go to the Christian
bookstore and get everything I could on
the subject and was reading you know I'd
even even try to get books directly from
the US if they weren't in in the store
and so by the time I finished my
undergraduate program I was convinced
that the Lord wanted me to to be talking
about this issue and teaching about this
issue and researching the issue of
creation and the flood the only person I
knew of course was someone like Henry
Morris at that stage he he hadn't he was
starting off the Institute for Creation
Research and but there was no one in
Australia that I knew that thought the
way I did I thought
was the sort of the only only only one
around so I had a choice by the time I
finished my undergraduate program I had
a choice to either I had an offer of a
job from a mining company which was
pretty lucrative or I had an offer of a
government scholarship
we had government scholarships in those
days that a writer for your tuition in a
ph.d program as well as a Living
Allowance and so I sought counsel and I
talked to pastors I talked to my former
high school teacher that taught me the
last year of geology and everyone said
look you know if you if this is the way
you feel the Lord is leading you then
you really need to do the PhD so I
enrolled in the ph.d program and in the
first year of that ph.d program Duane
Gish came to our campus and so I made
the connection and then also the
connection directly with Henry Morris it
wasn't long after that that I met people
like Ken Ham and others who I found were
talking about these issues as well why
what are why did I become a firm
creationist through all of this and you
know the rest the rest is history in a
sense why was I firm creationist well
first of all I was I was born and raised
and steeped in the scriptures right from
the beginning I had a early early time
when I came to the Lord
I had a church that nurtured me in the
ways of the Lord and was very strong on
gospel Proclamation and keeping the
focus where it ought to be that it was
the prescriptions were supremely about
Jesus Christ and that the focal point
was that people needed to come to faith
you know you could convince people in a
sense by the truth of the Scriptures you
could teach you could you convince them
to be creationists in that sense but
unless they met the Creator they were
going to go to hell like anyone else and
so that's that's why I was very
passionate became very passionate about
these issues because I could see the
justice that have been a
difficulty in my life where I could have
easily have had bought into you know
millions of years and then deviate into
evolution you know why did I mention
that high school teacher well I didn't
have much contact with him for many many
years after after I left and it was only
about 2 or 7 years ago
I actually got an email from him an
email from him he wasn't by that stage
he was we were living in Brisbane and he
wasn't living far away from us to the
south of Brisbane and it was very very
sad because you see he had bought into
the artistic evolution he'd been a
deacon in a Baptist Church he'd been on
the board of developing a Christian
school he told me in his email but he'd
walked away from it all he'd given up
his Christian faith he was virtually
living the Lefty's wife and family and
was virtually living the life of a
hippie and when he wrote to me he was
you know trying to tell me you know it
was the whole thing was foolish I should
I should give it up and I think that
illustrates why I get passionate about
this issue simply because it could it's
a dividing point that people either
choose the way of the world or to stay
true to God's Word beginning in Genesis
but also focused on who Jesus Christ is
and that's why I got involved in the
creation ministry organization simply
because the the very focal point is yes
we're doing the scientific research yes
where we're trying to think God's
thoughts after him but at the same time
we're trying to elevate Jesus Christ so
that when he is elevated he will draw
all men to him and that's what's so
important it's not about me it's not
about us it's about Jesus Christ as the
creator and the importance is that I'm a
creationist because he was a creationist
and we need to be able to point people
to him
his word the truth of his word defend it
to the hilt but never forget to tell
them that they need to it's not just a
matter of knowledge here in the head
it's also the heart they need to
ultimately submit to him as the Lord of
the universe and seek forgiveness in
repentance and come to faith with him in
him so that's why I'm a creationist I
look back and and realized that it's all
about him there's been many turns in the
road along the way and I can look back
at times in the past when I thought that
bottom of my world had fallen out that
God used those as I can see he's hand in
along the way and I want to give him the
credit in that sense because in a very
real sense you know he called me into
this ministry and it's not about me it's
about him and what he's done and that's
what I encourage you if you're wanting
to go into these issues then keep him as
the central focus submit to him allow
him to direct your paths and he will
faithfully bring you to your journey's
end when he calls you home thank you
[Applause]