Check if post is older than a certain date

Hello there, I am trying to create an IF statement that I want to check if the date of an article is older than a date I want. I am having some problems though.. any help appreciate.
I am using j F Y to display the date of the article.

<?php
      $date1 = "25 09 2009";
      $date2 = the_date('', '', '', FALSE);
if ($date1 < $date2) {
$valid1 = "yes";
echo "$valid1"; } else {
$valid2 = "no";
echo "$valid2";}
      ?>