A Classic Creationist Book Gets a New Update

Back in 1975, I gave my first ever creation apologetics talk as a sermon in a Baptist church in the country town of Dalby, 2.5 hours west of the city of Brisbane in Australia.

It was all part of pioneering the creation apologetics ministry that became known as Answers in Genesis. I have gained a lot of wisdom and knowledge since that time that we have passed on to countless people through our presentations, books, videos, social media, etc.

I believe one of the gifts the Lord entrusted to me is the gift of teaching, of communication. Since that first talk, I have developed thousands of slides and a phenomenal amount of content as part of communicating the creation apologetics biblical worldview material to all ages. The ministry has matured way beyond those embryonic beginnings.

I don’t remember everything I said in that sermon, but I do remember presenting information to show that what they (and their students in school) were being taught about evolution was not true. For example, I do remember refuting the horse evolution series (which now has been thoroughly discredited) and some of the so-called “ape-men” presented at that time as fact by evolutionists that have now been discredited by secularists themselves.

In 1977, a schoolteacher friend and I conducted the first-ever major creation apologetics conference in the city of Brisbane, Australia. I gave a presentation on evidence that supported a young earth and exposed many of the assumptions behind some of the dating methods that supposedly date rocks to millions of years.

During this time, I was also asked to speak in churches on the creation/evolution issue. What I found, though, was that people who heard me speak would be very thankful and say they hadn’t heard this information before, but then they would ask many questions about the days of creation, Cain’s wife, why the age of the earth matters to a Christian, can Christians believe in evolution, and so on.

It was then that I realized I needed to develop a talk that would answer such questions and teach the importance of taking Genesis as literal history. Using God’s Word, information my father had taught us as children about the importance of Genesis, and a few books I had been able to obtain, I developed what I call the “Relevance Message.”

The first time I gave this “Relevance Message” was in a church on the Gold Coast south of the city of Brisbane. I can’t remember the exact year, but I believe it was 1979 (the year I left school teaching to go full-time into the ministry) or 1980. But I remember vividly what happened as it has impacted me to this day.

I typed out a sermon based on the foundational importance of the book of Genesis. I showed how all doctrine was based in Genesis 1–11. I explained that Christians can’t be consistent if they have millions of years of death and disease in the fossil record before sin. Thus the fossil record had to come after sin as a result of Noah’s flood. I also explained that when people build their morality on man’s word instead of God’s Word in Genesis, then we would see moral relativism begin to permeate the culture. For instance, I predicted there would be increasing homosexual behavior, gay “marriage,” abortion, and so on. The earliest video of me giving this message is from 1986. When I watch that, I realize that a lot of what I was saying would happen if people rejected God’s Word as the foundation of their worldview has happened. Part of my sermon also challenged Christians not to compromise God’s Word with evolution and millions of years, as that undermined biblical authority.

When I first gave this talk, I didn’t have any illustrations: I just used the script I had typed out. I read some of it, but a lot of it, I had memorized.

I will never forget what happened as people met me after the service ended. I had so many tell me they had never heard this before and never realized how important Genesis is. Many said it shocked them into understanding they had to give up evolutionary ideas they thought they had to believe and so had thought the details in Genesis were not important. Many said they thought all Genesis really taught was God is Creator. They had never thought through the fact that all doctrines like marriage and the gospel are founded in the literal history in Genesis. So many people told me they were just stunned. Some said it was a light bulb being turned on in their head.

So many people told me they were just stunned. Some said it was a light bulb being turned on in their head.

And then people asked where they could obtain books like the ones I had found. I experienced a fervor from these people I had never experienced before.

So then I decided to give the same talk in the next church I was asked to speak in. And I received the same sort of responses. I then began to develop illustrations for use on an overhead projector to help people understand the main points.

In the early ’80s, an artist we had at the ministry drew the first castle diagram based on the arguments I was using to sum up the battle I was speaking about. Here is an early version of the castle diagram:

Here is the version I’m using today in a Keynote slide on my computer:

As I gave this “Relevance Message” over and over again, I began to add items into it and mature the message more and more. I continued to find people responding as they did the first time I gave it. By 1986, I had developed this message and then others to go with it. When I was asked to speak in a Bible college in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney, we decided to video record the messages.

Many people told me the “Relevance Message” needed to be put into a book. The then-president of Master Books, the publishing company that was publishing books by Dr. Henry Morris from the Institute for Creation Research, saw the phenomenal responses we were getting from Australian churches. He asked me to come to the US to conduct some speaking tours. He also told me I needed to put the “Relevance Message” into a book.

So in 1986, I had one of our staff transcribe from a cassette recording the Relevance talk that I gave at a church. I then took that transcript and expanded and enhanced it to become the manuscript for my very first book, The Lie: Evolution. It was published in 1987. It has sold well over 400,000 copies.

Many people told me how much they loved the cover of that first edition. Over the years, there were some different covers. But I would often have people ask me if we would consider using the first cover again.

In 2012, we decided I should update and expand The Lie for a 25th anniversary edition. So why am I now releasing another expanded and updated edition of this book? Well, in the past 12 years since the 25th anniversary edition, a lot has happened in the culture and the church. Men are now allowed in women’s restrooms and changing rooms. The Supreme Court in the US has legalized gay “marriage.” There’s been a catastrophic generational loss from the church. Moral relativism is permeating the culture. Many church leaders have become soft in regard to the LGBTQ movement. The culture (and much of the church) in the West is deteriorating in ways we haven’t seen before. And I’ve recognized the importance of teaching people what it means to have a true biblical worldview. Such is not taught in most churches, Christian schools, or homeschools.

Yes, I needed to update and expand The Lie once again. One of our outside editors (who has read many of our AiG books) read through this revised and updated manuscript and sent me an email stating, “This is by far the best book you have written.”

Our publisher, Master Books, produced a new cover with allusions to the first cover from 1987:

You know, the basic message of this book hasn’t changed because God’s Word doesn’t change. But I must admit, when I read through this revised and updated manuscript, I said to myself, “Wow, this is such an important message.

It really is the main message of the AiG ministry. It has always been the main message, but it is more relevant than ever.” It really is more relevant than ever. In many ways, it was a “prophetic” sort of book as what I said was happening and will happen to church and culture if they continue to abandon God’s Word beginning in Genesis has played out as predicted.

Really, the message of this book is the message based on God’s Word that resulted in the Answers in Genesis ministry and the two attractions, the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. It’s the message that permeates our exhibits, and it’s the message I will keep preaching for as long as the Lord enables me to. The Relevance Message that the Lord laid on my heart, in various ways, is a part of every talk I give. It’s part of the fire in my bones I know the Lord has given me. And this will always be a central message of the AiG ministry. It’s the primary message the Lord called our ministry to proclaim to the world. And it’s a timeless message as the answers will always be in Genesis.

This book really is the message the Lord called me to proclaim.

The new edition has the same width and height of my books Divided Nation, Gospel Reset, Divine Dilemma, and Will They Stand. Not only has the text been expanded, revised, and updated, but all the illustrations have been updated and are now in color. This book really is the message the Lord called me to proclaim.

Also, let me share that this month begins our end-of-year (EOY) campaign to fund exciting expansions at both the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter as well as investing in AiG’s faith-based, interactive AI technologies—all with a goal to impact more people for Christ.

As I write this letter, the family foundation that has provided a large EOY matching challenge gift the last several years is considering a similar matching gift for this year-end campaign. I am thrilled to share that a $1 million lead gift has already been committed to this exciting EOY opportunity. You can further help us start the campaign today with a gift of any size—your support is vital to helping us impact lives with the message of biblical authority and the gospel!

Thank you for prayerfully considering a gift to Answers in Genesis this month. Your prayers and generous partnership with us in this ministry are such an encouragement!