“WHAT HAS FASCINATED MAN MORE UNIVERSALLY THESE DAYS THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN ALL CREATION? THE ANSWER IS DINOSAURS AND DRAGONS. WITHOUT A DOUBT THESE HUGE CREATURES THAT ONCE WALKED THE FACE OF THE EARTH ARE A MYSTERY TO BEHOLD.”

 I’m Dennis Finnan, host and speaker on the World, the Word & You! Broadcast and in a moment we’ll talk about THESE MYSTERIOUS VANISHED GIANTS…

… As a young boy I can remember my fascination when in science class, my teacher began to tell us how our earth once saw huge giant creatures that roamed the planet. These were called dinosaurs and later on dragons as he told it. As I grew up in New York City , New York , I visited the great Museum of Natural History where I was mesmerized by the giant fossil bones of a dinosaur reconstructed in all fullness of stature, to show the immense size and shape. Indeed, there probably isn’t another subject more fascinating to young and old alike that these giant creatures we call dinosaurs. However, most are not aware that interest in, and discovery of these giants that once roamed the earth, is really a recent event in human history.

“The name ‘dinosauria’ was coined by Dr. Richard Owen (M.D.), a friend of the famous French scientist Dr. George Cuvier. Owen first used the word in his ‘Report on British Fossil Reptiles’ presented in 1841 to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. ‘Dinosaurs’ is a combination of two Greek words: "deinos (fearfully great)" and "sauros (a lizard)." Thus, the name literally means "fearfully great lizard." The term caught on and was eventually adopted by scientists around the world and is now quite familiar, even to young children.” 

So today I want to explore the world of dragons and dinosaurs to dispel the myths from the facts that surround these great creatures that once roamed the earth and discover why they disappeared. So don’t go away, I’ll be right back to share some interesting truths you may not have heard about them…

… There is no doubt in the minds of Creationists and Evolutionists that a variety of strange, exotic and great creatures once flourished all over the earth. Today there isn’t any continent where the fossil remains of the huge animals cannot be found by digging into the earth. To date, over 200 differing kinds of dinosaur have been found and named so far. Paleontologist, who make it their life’s work to study these bones, have attempted to put together the pieces found and display them in museums all around the world. Indeed, anyone who has seen these castings of bones is awestruck as to their fantastic shapes and sizes. Yet dinosaurs and dragons have been a heated issue among young earth scientists and old age evolutionists for centuries since their discovery.

In 1993, Hollywood produced a movie called “ Jurassic Park .” It was the story of a scientist who had recovered DNA from ancient Dinosaurs and had found a way to use it to clone and reintroduce these creatures to our world today.

However, as Hollywood would have it, things went awry an soon the dinosaurs began to take over. This film among many others that glorified the violence of dinosaurs, stimulated the public interest in these creatures of the past, far beyond any previous concern. As a result, increasing numbers of Christians have thought, “Since we have found all these fossils and dinosaur bones, we know dinosaurs existed. How come they are not mentioned in the Bible?”

Well let’s begin with this question and try to answer it, for the teachings of modern secular science today seems to indicate that man and dinosaurs never saw each other. The most common  teaching today in evolutionary science classes, is that dinosaurs died out over 65 million years before man came on the scene. Yet the truth is, the Bible seems to say differently. For instance, over 4000 years ago a man named Job wrote of a giant creature that lived in the presence of mankind. In the 40^th chapter of Job, he writes a record of seeing one of these wonders of creation we often call, dinosaurs. We read of God speaking to Job in,

Job 40:15 (NIV)  "Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox.

In these two chapters (Job 40-41) God was speaking to Job about the wonders of His great creation that Job knew nothing about. In so doing he tells Job to look at a strange but giant creature some have called a Behemoth . We further read, …

Job 40:16-19 (NIV)  What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! 17 His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit. 18 His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron. 19 He ranks first among the works of God, yet his Maker can approach him with his sword.

While “behemoth” is a generic term used commonly in the OT for large land animals, the description in this passage suggests an extraordinary creature. Job further describes it for us,

Job 41:1 (NIV)  "Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope?

Both the words “behemoth,” and “Leviathan,” are Hebrew terms for a huge giant creature. Some have speculated that Job was describing a Crocodile, Hippopotamus or an Elephant. However, the huge reinforced body, coupled with the very long huge tail (v.17) could not refer to either of these.  Rather, it seems to match the probable description of a great land dinosaur, such as perhaps the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Dr. Henry Morris, from the Creation Research Society, in his biblical commentary on these verses in the Book of Job, states:

 “Leviathan was evidently the greatest of the marine reptiles, or dinosaurs, something like a plesiosaur, perhaps, although modern commentators tend to call it a crocodile. Isaiah says that leviathan was "the dragon that is in the sea" (Isaiah 27:1), and the psalmist said that leviathan "played" in the "great and wide sea" (Psalm 104:25,26)”

This referred obviously to the Mediterranean Sea . Thus, we can conclude Job lived during a time when some type of huge reptilian creature, extinct to us today, languished in the sea or near the shore, shared the earth with him and others of his day. This of course, contradicts evolutionary science, yet the Bible is more specific about the fact that dinosaurs did roam the earth while man existed along side. For instance we read in the creation account in Genesis,

Gen 1:1,24 (NIV)  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… 24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so.”

Then after six literal days of creating everything that exists in the universe and on planet earth, God rested and said it was very good (Gen. 1:31). Thus, we have God’s revelation record that tells us man existed at the same time as these giant creatures on the earth. However, today evolutionists say that is preposterous for dinosaurs died out 65 millions years before man evolved. Yet what does the scientific record really show? Well, do you know that in a recent article, scientists from Montana State University , seemingly struggling to allow professional caution to restrain their obvious excitement at the findings, reported on evidence which seems to strongly suggest that traces of real blood from a huge dinosaur, has actually been found.

The story starts with a beautifully preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton unearthed in the United States in 1990. When the bones were brought to the Montana State University 's lab, it was noticed that some parts, deep inside the long bone of the leg, had not completely fossilized.' So far, to find an un-fossilized dinosaur bone was unheard of and more quite frightening to evolutionists. Why? Well if dinosaurs died out millions of years ago, how could this be possible? Let’s let biologist, Mary H. Schweitzer, Ph.D., author of the ground-breaking research paper recently published in Science on the discovery of soft tissue in dinosaur bone, take up the story of when her co-workers took turns looking through a microscope at a thin section of this Tyrannosaurus Rex bone, only to find it complete with blood vessel channels. She stated in her paper…

“The lab filled with murmurs of amazement, for I had focused on something inside the vessels that none of us had ever noticed before: tiny round objects, translucent red with a dark center. Then a colleague took one look at them and shouted, "You've got red blood cells. You've got red blood cells!"

The evidence that hemoglobin had indeed survived in this dinosaur bone of course casts immense doubt upon the 'millions of years' idea of their existence and demise. To claim that dinosaur bones could remain intact for millions of years without being fossilized (mineralized) stretches credibility. Moreover, the report here of red blood cells in an un-fossilized section of dinosaur bone is NOT the first time such bone has been found.

But for the bible believing Christians today, this is just one more proof that Scripture tells us our world is not millions of years old, but rather young perhaps no more than a far stretch of 50,000 years old. Of course, that kills the theory of evolution, if true, but more and more science is leading toward a “young earth view of the past,” that fits perfectly with the Bible’s record of history.

To date more from 200-500 species of dinosaurs have been found in the earth, which tells us that something catastrophic happened to universally kill off these amazing creatures. The latest dinosaur extinction theory suggests that the earth was struck from space by a six-mile-wide meteorite (a comet or asteroid). Such a collision could have left a huge layer of dust in the atmosphere. The dust could have been enough to block out the sun's light for months and perhaps years. Because most plants need lots of sunlight, this would have destroyed many of them. The dinosaurs would have starved on a cold, darkened planet. 

However, it is only a theory that cannot be substantiated by any known evidence today. Rather, the Bible tells us what happened to them by reading the story of Noah’s Food (Gen. 6-8) which inundated the entire earth, wiping out all living creatures on the land. Of course on the ark Noah built, God had miraculously gathered a sampling of every living creature that He wished to be preserved. It may well have been that dinosaurs were not included, but I think they were. Small creatures in infancy were carried along and let loose upon an entirely different world when the waters subsided. We read in the Bible about the new world Noah entered,

Gen 8:17-18 (NIV)  Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you--the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground--so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it." 18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives.

During the Ice Age that followed the Flood, much land vegetation scarcely existed. Many of these now extinct creatures probably didn’t make it, in the vastly changed environment. In fact, all lifespan were greatly reduced. Man before the Flood lived upwards of a 1000 years, and if these reptiles called dinosaurs did too, that explains their huge size, for reptiles continue to grow throughout their lifespan. But changing environmental conditions now limited man to only a hundred or so years, and likewise all of God’s creatures, their lives were shortened too.

Yet how do we explain Job’s Words and other accounts of huge dinosaur like creatures we call dragons in the sea, appearing?

Like fish, some of the great reptiles of the sea probably lived through the Flood. Noah was told to only protect land-dwelling animals and birds, not fish and other creatures that could survive in the floodwaters. To date, in every part of the world, ships have made reports of huge marine like animals and other types of unknown creatures either being sighted or attacking their vessels.. Most scientists agree there are probably many more sea creatures to be discovered. Actually, man knows more about the surface of the moon than he does about life in the world's great oceans. Additionally, there is more sworn evidence for huge "sea monsters" than would be needed to prove any ordinary case in the court of law.

The point of all this is Dinosaurs and dragon like creatures have been reliably reported to exist following the flood.

"Fran Barnes, a recognized authority on rock art of the American South-West, writes, ‘In the San Rafael Swell, there is a piictograph that looks very much like a pterosaur, a Cretaceous flying reptile’..." This figure, about 7 feet long from wing-tip to wing-tip, is actually painted with a dark-red pigment.[1]  

Then we have the Indians of the Fremont culture are thought to have inhabited the "Swell" between 700 and 1250 A.D. Black Dragon Canyon is named for the pictograph which resembles a large winged reptile with a headcrest.

In 600 BC, under the reign of King Nebuchanezzer,a Babylonian artist was commissioned to shape reliefs of animals on the structures associated with the Ishtar Gate. Centuries later, in 1887 AD, when German archaeologist Robert Koldeway stumbled upon the blue-glazed brick, that gate was rediscovered. The animals appear in alternating rows with lions, fierce bulls, and curious long-necked dragons . The lions and bulls would have been present at that time in the Middle East . But, on what creature did the ancient Babylonians model the dragon? Both the description and the image on these unearthed walls, are now displayed in the Berlin Vorderasiatisches Museum , and strongly appear to fit a sauropod dinosaur. [2]

Moreover, the ancient Sumatrans produced multiple pieces of art depicting long-tailed, long-necked creatures with a headcrest. Some of these animals resemble hadrosaurs. This particular work in a Museum, in Budapest , depicts a creature that bears a striking resemblance to a Corythosaurus which is shown being hunted by these ancient Indonesian peoples. [3]

Without a doubt, throughout man’s history there are reports of various types of dinosaurs and dragons that existed along side of man. Although they may be few in numbers and now non-existent, they did live along side of man and with the newly discovered un-fossilized dinosaur bones with actual hemoglobin deep within them -- there can be no other explanation than these creatures are not millions of years old, nor did man not know of their existence. All this points to the fact that the Bible is more clearly true than the fanciful imaginations of evolutionists who wishes to reject the idea of a Creator God who created them.

Do you realize that today with the mounting evidence for a young earth creation, rather than a billion year old randomly formed universe, leads logically thinking adults and children to accept the truth --  we are the divine creation of an omnipotent God of eternity.

If so, then it is not without reason this God would want to communicate with the highest creation, mankind, who was made in His image. Indeed, God has done that with the Bible, and His message is sure and clear. God loves us and gave us this beautiful world to live in so we might give back glory to God and be thankful for our existence. However, since man is in rebellion to God, and has walked away from Him, we read of our foolishness,

Rom 1:18-23 (NIV)  The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

The question we face today is – have you recognized that you are a created being living in a created universe and as such God has a message for you to respond to today? Here is the message of the Bible all mankind needs to know and respond to,

John 3:16-17 (NIV)  "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Rom 5:8 (NIV)  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Christianity teaches that God loves all mankind and to save us from our sins and disobedience of rejecting His right to rule our world and our lives, He has given us a substitute to pay for our sins. Yes, Christ died for us. Jesus Christ we are told, is the human form of God the Creator,

John 1:3 (NIV)  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

Col 1:16-17 (NIV)  For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Friend, the purpose of this program is to reacquaint you with the truth and promises of our loving Creator who wants us to be restored to fellowship with Him. In fact, as we think about dinosaurs and dragons we might ask, “why did God create them?”

The answer is all animals, including the first dinosaurs, were created to benefit mankind in one way or another. Although God's exact purpose for the various dinosaurs is still a mystery. Yet we rightly ask, why did God invent so many different kinds of beautiful, interesting huge and surprising animals? The answer from my perspective is, He wanted to delight Man with His power, wisdom and love. May the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His most wonderful gift of salvation and forgiveness of sins, be yours, as you come to surrender your life to God through His Son Jesus Christ. Indeed, as we have looked at so great a creation, hopefully we too can see so great a God who creation them all. To him be all glory and honor, Amen.

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[1]  Swift, Dennis, "Messages on Stone," Creation Ex Nihilo, vol. 19, p. 20.

[2] Shuker, Karl P.N., "The Sirrush of Babylon ," Dragons: A Natural History, 1995, pp. 70-73.

[3] Bodrogi, Tibor, Art of Indonesia, plate #10, 1973.

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For more information on recent dinosaur and dragon sightings and drawings mentioned in this message please visit:  http://www.genesispark.com/genpark/ancient/ancient.htm