Monday, December 7, 2020

Living Biblically - The Creation

Because none of us were at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776, how could we know what went on? We can’t interview those who were there and get their stories since none of those men are alive. We’d probably research things others said about what went on. Or we might just Google it and see what Wikipedia offers. But, how much of what we find is reliable and does it cover every detail of what went on? What we’d end up with would be a summary from collected sources.

Imagine the day God said, “Moses, write an account of the creation of the heavens and the earth.” “Uh, Lord, that was a long time ago and I wasn’t there.”

What would you do? You’d collect what had been passed down through families connected with that story. How reliable would that be? Normally, not very, since stories change over the years. They get embellished or cut down, added to or subtracted from. Some details lost completely. But we’re talking about what will become Scripture. People are going to count on what Moses wrote being accurate so they can build their belief system on what he said.

He didn’t hear God say, “Let there be…” How did He know that’s what God said? He didn’t witness the sun, moon and stars bursting into light. He had no clue of the sequence of each thing being created. How would he know you needed an atmosphere, sunlight and water before you made plants? How could he write the story of a beginning he didn’t experience?

It’s the promise of all of Scripture: 2Pet 1:21 no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. 

Moses, to write of what he didn’t know, needed insight he didn’t have. So, he was moved by the Holy Spirit and wrote the words God inspired him to write, drawing from the stories passed down through the ages. What he ended up with was just a limited glimpse of an indescribable event in time. God could have given him more but that wasn’t the purpose of Genesis 1. God limited Moses’ understanding to just the high points of what He did.

Something as complex as creation would need a warehouse to contain all the details God brought in. Moses only had a chapter. So, God broke the complexity down to six segments and gave an overview of what He did in each of those segments. Can you know everything there is to know about creation by reading what Moses wrote? Of course not. Moses wrote an outline, a brief summary. The purpose wasn’t to give us a detailed account, but to answer the single question: not, where did all this come from? But, Who’s behind everything that is?

For us that establishes the overarching principle behind the creation story from which we base our understanding of the rest of the Bible. This God of creation is the Almighty God of everything that follows. From the opening words we have:

Gen 1:1-3 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be…and there was.”

Moses said the earth was formless and void. Formless means without any image, design or scheme. There was no concept drawing of a world waiting to be created. Void means nothing was there. The earth existed only as an idea with nothing to point to but God, Himself. Which makes us read quickly over the how and begin asking the why:

1.      Why is there something now when before that moment there was nothing there?

a.     The Big Bang remains the primary theory to explain existence for a godless society.

b.     But, the question begs to be asked: what was there two seconds before the big bang? What banged? Where did the stuff made by the bang come from? What caused it to bang? Who pushed the button? For the Big Bang to have occurred, whatever was there afterwards had to exist in some form before the bang, because the Big Bang isn’t creation out of nothing, it is a redistribution of the stuff that was there. How is that possible? God told Moses the earth was void. So, what was there for the Bang to explode?

c.     Explosions typically destroy not create. You’ve seen the implosions of huge buildings. Why has another building never appeared in the rubble of the first? Because, you don’t get order out of the chaos of an explosion.

d.     What are the chances of blowing up a library, which shreds all the books into scraps of paper with only one word on each scrap, and then enough of those scraps come together to produce a perfect copy of the works of Shakespeare?

e.     The Big Bang as the source of existence takes far too much faith for me to even consider as slightly possible.

2.    The word void means nothing, empty. There was no stockpile of elements waiting to be triggered into creation. God took nothing and made everything. Which means: all you have is God plus nothing and from that nothing He creates everything.

a.     The Big Bang cannot be supported by Chemistry, Biology, Physics or Mathematics. It violates every principle and theory every proposed.

b.     In Physics, there is a progressive deterioration within the physical world. Leave a hammer out in the weather and it will rust. Put a rusty hammer out in the weather and it will never become a pristine hammer.

c.     But evolution says in their system, simple things can progress to a higher level. That a one-cell organism can turn itself into the complexity of a human being given enough time. [Really? So, Evolution can override Biology, Chemistry, Physics, even Mathematic Probability when all of those say that’s impossible?]

d.    One scientist said: “The universe came into being in a big bang, before which, Einstein’s theory instructs us, there was no before. Not only particles and fields of force had to come into being at the big bang, but the laws of physics themselves.”

e.     That means, not only the things we see but the invisible laws that govern all we see had to be created at the exact same moment: gravity, photosynthesis, cell division, energy, even the desire to reproduce.

3.     Take any one aspect of creation – say the eye (not even the whole body, just the eye). The design and implications of an eye are beyond explanation. And to say this just happened is ridiculous. Because the eye is connected to the brain, we not only see but we also understand what we see, the colors, the range, the ability to examine a flea and then look into infinity in the night sky. You don’t accidently come up with an eye. Evolution didn’t make an eye happen. The eye required design. In Evolution there is no design, only chance.

a.     If you are walking deep in a forest, no evidence that any human has ever been there, and you find a red rubber ball, you immediately know somebody’s been here. A ball cannot simply appear in the forest.

b.     If you look at your watch, you immediately know there was a watch maker somewhere that made this. This watch didn’t make itself.

c.     I saw an accident this past week. I didn’t see it happen but I saw the evidence it had happened. Every emergency vehicle in Montgomery was on site with lights flashing. When I came by that same place later, it was all cleared away. At first, I forgot it happened, then remembered. Though the evidence was gone the fact remained because I had seen it. But if you saw no evidence you would never believe the wreck happened.

d.     Creation is different. God left the evidence behind. His fingerprints are all over everything He made.

e.     Ps 19:1 The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. 

f.      Rom 1:19-20 that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. 

g.     Look at all that is. You see design, uniqueness, purpose. You know Someone did this. It could not have just happened.

4.    Then there are those who say God created then left what He created to work itself out. It’s called Deism. Having a God at the beginning then that God backing away to let everything just run its course. That’s where Darwin comes in with his survival of the fittest – only the strong survive. According to his theory, Darwin believed “all living things descended from a common ancestor. And that species were not to be attributed to God's endless creativity, but were the product of a blind, mechanical process that altered them over the course of millions of years.”

a.     In his early days, Darwin said that just because we don't understand how something can evolve does not mean that the Creator wasn't behind it. Many buy into this deception without realizing what it means. It means throwing away the rest of your Bible because you have removed God from having established a purpose for what He created and placed value on it.

b.     Later Darwin decided "I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. I think that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

c.     The Atheist says there is no God. The Agnostic has no need for God.

5.     With Evolution, you need no God because creation is in charge of itself.

a.     If a lizard needs to fly, he adapts wings.

b.     If a worm needs to see, he adapts eyes.

c.     If an amoeba wants to walk, he adapts legs.

d.     If a monkey wants to dominate, he becomes a man.

e.     If a man wants to control his own life, he becomes his own god.

f.      Those who challenge the story of Creation do so because they want God removed from the equation. If you have a creator, you have the obligation of some level of loyalty to that creator. It’s expected that the invention is to work according to the design of the inventor.

6.    But Creation isn’t in charge. What has been created doesn’t decide what it gets to become. With being created comes the obligation to exist as created for the purpose behind why it has been created.

a.     Prov 16:4-5 The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil. Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; assuredly, he will not be unpunished. 

b.     Isa 46:9-10 Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure'; 

7.     Which takes us back to the beginning of this study Living Biblically, where we discovered two aspects of one foundation:

a.    The Word of God is true and can be trusted to build our lives upon.

b.    The purposes of God will be accomplished.

c.     Now, when were those purposes were first established? Before God ever spoke a word of creation. During the formless and void time, God formulated His purpose behind everything He would do.

d.     Eph 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

e.     Those trying to understand creation from a spontaneous explosion of life never look beyond that moment to search for the reason for why what they believe happened.

f.      Micah 4:12 But they do not know the thoughts of the LORD, and they do not understand His purpose;

g.     It is far better to admit we don’t understand God’s purposes than to dismiss those purposes by denying they exist. I can’t erase God’s claim on my life simply because I don’t want Him to have any claim on my life.

h.    Or, on the other hand, it’s better to believe that the God of Creation is the same God who can do Act 4:28 whatever His hand and His purpose predestine to occur.

Gen 1:3-25 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. Then God said, "Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a third day. Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens." God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind"; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 

Don’t read this without remembering Prov 16:4 The LORD has made everything for its own purpose. That will become clearer beginning next week when we discover that the story of creation, even the whole Bible, is about a specific family God chose to accomplish His unique purpose through, and from that family, provide the life-giving gift of His Son to save the world. For God so loved the world He had created, that He gave His unique, one-of-a-kind Son, so that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.

Which means: God’s purpose in Creation wasn’t simply to create existence but to make possible a relationship. That is the story of the Bible. God choosing to dwell within the people He created according to the conditions He predetermined.

TAKEAWAYS:

1.      Removing God from creation takes away the purpose behind why everything exists in the first place.

2.     Removing God from the management of His creation takes away His right to accomplish His purposes and His ability to fulfill His plans.

3.     Removing God as creator of life takes away the value of life and leaves behind no right or reason to exist.

4.     Which makes the most important fact about creation the God who created.

 

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