25 Jan Transcript – Does The Bible Teach Evolution or Creation?
Genesis 1:1-25
We started a brand new book in the Bible today, we’re in the book of Genesis. If you’ve got a Bible, it’s really easy to find. Just go to page one, that’s all you gotta do. All right. Now hey, as we get into the book of Genesis, we’re gonna spend about nine months looking at this incredible book and we’re gonna begin in the beginning with this year, at the beginning of the year. It is absolutely perfect sequencing and timing. And today we’re gonna talk about our planet. Do you like our planet?
– Yeah.
– It’s a great planet. Hey, you know what? It’s better than the options. Right now, it’s 10,000 degrees in the sun, aren’t you glad you don’t live there? Can you imagine living in that kind of heat? If you’re here in July, a little bit. You kinda can, yeah. And then other planets are so cold, you can’t live there. Right now on Neptune it’s 360 degrees below zero, that’s as cold as a Trump-Biden double date, that’s freezing. Nobody could live there, that’s uninhabitable. Instead, we have this amazing, great planet, and it’s so much better than the options. I’ve been to I think at least 14 nations, I’ve been to most of the 50 states. And with the world being closed here recently in the last few years, I bought a Bronco and I love going out into the mountains. I like exploring God’s creation. It’s been in the snow. It’s been in the rain. It’s been in the mud. It’s been in the woods. Today, I had the top off and I drove in and I got to watch the sun rise, just continually reminded in this breathtaking place that we live, the greatness, the glory, the goodness, and the grandeur of God’s creation. As you look around at the world that God made, the question is, well, where did this begin? And how did this start? And why is it here? And was there a designer? So that’s the question we’re going to answer together in this sermon. Does the Bible teach creation or evolution? And we’re gonna do so by looking at this ancient literature. You think about it, the book of Genesis, it’s about three and a half thousand years old. Just consider right now, all the books that are being written and all the concepts that are being shared, in three and a half thousand years, most of them will be utterly and totally forgotten. But here we are looking at ancient Eastern literature, three and a half thousand years after the fact and the book of Genesis gets its name from the first line, “In the beginning, God created.” Beginning is another word for Genesis. It is in fact the beginning. The book is written “I believe” by Moses about 1400 years before Jesus Christ walked on the Earth. It’s one of the first five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch, the book in five parts: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. He is writing to Hebrew slaves who have escaped from the clutches of Pharaoh and they are in the wilderness between Egypt and the promised land in the book of Exodus heading toward the home that God designed and created for them. Now, when it comes to Genesis, it is not exhaustive. As you read Genesis, there’s gonna be questions that it simply does not answer. Some of you’re like, “Oh, what does that say about the dinosaurs?” Nothing. “What does it say about tacos?” Nothing. “What does it say about taco-dinosaurs?” Nothing, there’s things that it doesn’t tell us. So it is a selective theological telling of our planet and human life on it in relationship to God. It’s a big picture then homes in to Adam and Eve, and our first parents in our relationship with God. Now, before we jump in, one thing I want you to know as well, as you’re reading Genesis… And I would encourage you to read it to continually read it, grab the study guide either a free copy here, or a digital copy at legacy.realfaith.com and just start to get into Genesis. But as you read it, just remind yourself, it covers about 2000 years of human history. It covers roughly the same amount of time as the rest of the Bible in totality. So sometimes when you turn a page in Genesis, you’re actually skipping hundreds of years. And so it’s this magnificent overview of the planet. And so here’s what we read, we’re gonna start in Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning, God created.” So Genesis 1:1 and 2, we’re gonna start right here. “In the beginning, God created.” Nothing is super nerdy , and I’m not a language scholar. I mean, I am bilingual. My second language is pig Latin, but the Hebrew word here, this is originally written in Hebrew. And sometimes as we go from one language to another, with the translation, we could lose the meaning. I’ll explain all this in a moment. But, “God created or Bara the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the spirit of God,” There’s the Holy Spirit, “Was hovering over the face of the waters.” So we’ll look at all of these amazing statements in succession. He says in the beginning, what this says is that the planet that we enjoy, the universe that we inhabit, it had a beginning, it’s not eternal. And this corresponds with two primary concepts within science, the first is the Big Bang Theory. And we’re not against science, but sometimes what science does, it doesn’t want to come to the conclusion that God did something, so it will instead have faith in chance and accident. But the Big Bang Theory is basically this. Somehow, a bunch of matter came into being, we don’t know where, and it was all together. And for some reason, it blew up, it exploded, big bang. And then it organized itself in a perfect way to where now we can enjoy life. And what I would say is, interesting. That’s a very interesting concept. And what I would say is, if you believe all of that, you have faith too. You have Big Bang, we have big God, either way we both believe that there was some sort of massive event that set in motion the world that we enjoy. Both would agree that there was a beginning. In addition, one of the most well-established and accepted posits within science is the second law of thermodynamics. And that is that things are winding down, that they are deteriorating. And that would indicate that there was a beginning and there will be a conclusion. And so whether or not you believe in the Bible, here, the Bible agrees with even what general scientific inquiry and conclusion would determine. And that is the world that we live in had a beginning, it is winding down and eventually it will come to a conclusion. Now, that being said, from this line, “In the beginning, God created,” comes to what I will call arguments for the existence of God. One is called the Kalam, cosmological argument. It’s popular among those who are more Muslim. And it says the fact that we have time, indicates that we have a beginning ’cause you can’t measure time, unless there’s a starting point. So I’ll give you an example. I’m 51 years of age and I know I don’t look it. I know I look like I’m aging in dog years. But nonetheless, the reason I know that I’m 51 is I had a beginning and then I can trace my time from that beginning. The reason that we have time is because our world had a beginning. In addition, the other argument that comes out of this is something called the Kalam… Not the Kalam, but the cosmological argument from first cause. And that is that for there to be an effect, there needs to be a separate cause. So for example, if I push the pulpit and I won’t, but if I push the pulpit and it fell over, that would be the effect, I would be the cause. So the world exists, that’s the effect. The cause, someone had to do this, someone had to start this, someone had to design this, someone had to push the first domino as it were. That being said, things don’t create themselves. Things don’t architect and organize themselves. There’s an outside force that enables and allows that to happen. The world that we enjoy is not something that architected itself or was designed by us, it was designed for us. Now, that being said, it tells us who the designer is, is in the beginning, God. And the point is this, nothing makes sense until you start with God. And as we read Genesis, you’re gonna meet all kinds of interesting characters and events. You’re gonna meet the Nephilim and people that week, you’re gonna see some weird UFO people show up with tinfoil hats, and they’re gonna be like, “Oh, I know who it is.” No, they don’t. Don’t listen to those people. You’re gonna see a massive arc and you’re gonna wonder, was it a real arc? You’re gonna see all kinds of interesting people and things in Genesis, but don’t get distracted. It’s a book about God. It’s first and foremost about God. “In the beginning, God.” Here’s the big idea, nothing makes sense unless you begin with God, your data doesn’t make sense unless you begin with God, your life doesn’t make sense unless you begin with God, your marriage doesn’t make sense unless you begin with God, your family doesn’t make sense unless you begin with God. Nothing makes sense until you begin with God. If you don’t understand God, you don’t understand anything or anyone. And the problem that we have in our day, we don’t start with God, we start with us. We know far more about our personality than God’s attributes. We take a lot of selfies and we’re not thinking about a savior. And so what Genesis does it reorients us and says, “Start with God, begin with God. And until you understand God, you don’t rightly understand yourself or anyone or anything else.” Now, that being said, the name for God here is Elohim. Not to get super nerdy on you, but in Genesis, there will be two different primary names of God that are used: Elohim and Yahweh. Elohim is a more general term in reference to God’s relationship with all of creation. So here it’s Elohim because human beings have not yet been created. When God’s people come along, they use the word, Yahweh. It’s more of a personal, endearing, intimate, private, worshipful name for God. So for example, some of you will call me Mark, some of you will call me Pastor Mark, some of you will call me other things that I can’t say in church, which is fine. And then my kids call me, dad. So there’s a general name that everybody can refer to me and then there’s a special name that my kids use to refer to me. So it is with God His father, Elohim is a general term that we find here, later on, they will refer to him as Yahweh in relationship. And here’s the big idea, everyone comes from God. Everyone and everything comes from God, everyone, and everything belongs to God, everyone and everything is dependent upon God, everyone and everything is returning to God, everyone and everything will give an account to God that we begin with God. “In the beginning, God,” and hear this: God is the Trinity, not shocking. You’re at Trinity church, we believe in the Trinity. The father, son, and spirit is the doctrine of the Trinity, it is the unique belief of Christianity, no other religion has this concept. One God, three persons in relationship sharing all the divine attributes, loving and serving together forever. And what happens throughout Genesis, you will see certain doctrines, certain beliefs that are introduced in bud form and then they blossom throughout the rest of scripture. It’s called progressive revelation. That an idea is introduced and that it is progressively unveiled. In here, we have the beginning of the doctrine of the Trinity. So in the beginning, God, most commentators believe that that is in reference to God the father. And it says that the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. There’s God, the holy spirit. In addition, the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ is present. And the way that God does his work of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 is through the power and presence of His word. So the word of God goes out and then creation comes into existence by the sheer authority and force of the power of God’s word. Well, who is God’s word? It’s Jesus Christ. John picks this up in his gospel and says in John 1, “In the beginning,” he starts where Genesis starts. “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” He was with God in the beginning, so Jesus Christ is our creator, he is not created. He is God, and he preexists creation. “He was with God in the beginning, all things were made through Him.” So Jesus is the word of God bringing creation into existence. “And without him was not anything made that was made.” And then it says the word became flesh, that our creator entered creation in the God man, Jesus Christ. So what we see here in the beginning, God, and this God is the father, son, and spirit working together to bring creation into existence and it says that they created. Now, there are two words in Genesis 1 and 2 and elsewhere in scripture that refer to creation, one is Bara, one is Asah. Part of the confusion is our English translations will translate both words the same, “Created.” And Bara and Asah are different words. Bara means to make or create from nothing. Asah is to prepare something that is comprised of elements that already existed. So for example, if I wanted a ham sandwich, and I do, if I wanted a ham sandwich, I can’t just say ham sandwich and get a ham sandwich, that would be Baraing a ham sandwich. And I wish I could do that. Instead, I need to Asah a ham sandwich. I need to go get all of the ingredients. So I gotta go find ham, and bread, and lettuce, and cheese, and pickles, and mayo and then I need to do the work of assembling all of the different pieces of my ham sandwich. Only God Baras and we and God Asah. Only God can make something from nothing. We need to take what God has made and then use it to make something that we desire and God likewise can do the same. And so the reason that I tell you this is some of the confusion and conflict that comes in defining how creation is happening is translating those two simple words. So what it is telling here is that God Bara, He created out of nothing. This is amazing. See, only our God needs nothing. Only our God needs no one. Isn’t that good news?
– Yeah.
– So if you’re looking at your life, you’re like, “I have nothing.” God’s like, “That’s not a problem. I can do something with nothing.” That’s what our God can do. And the language here that the theologians will use, and a lot of theology… Theology is Theos, God study, theology is the study of God. We use Latin terms because a lot of the original scholastic work was done in the language of Latin, and they would use this phrase, “Ex nihilo,” it means out of nothing. And this is exactly what we read in Genesis. God Bara, created out of nothing. And it is also commented upon in Hebrews chapter 11:3, by faith. And the point is this, everyone has faith. If you believe that nothing created matter, that chaos created order and that unintelligence created intelligence, you have faith too.
– Amen.
– Okay, we just have faith in God. You have faith in chance and accident. It says, “By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God.” This shows you the power of the word of God. So that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. God didn’t take something that existed and then cause it to be Asah or organized. That would be what secular atheistic evolutionary process would tell you. That somehow preexisting things were formed. What it says here, “God made everything out of nothing and He made it orderly,” ’cause our God does order not chaos. Out of this, “In the beginning, God created,” we get something called the teleological argument from design. And that is, if you look at our body, “It is fearfully and wonderfully made,” to quote the Psalmist. How many of you have looked at the human body? And you’re like, “What an engineering marvel.” There are a few medical doctors in this church family that went into medical school as atheists and they’ve shared their story with me. They became Christians in med school. As they’re studying the Bible, they’re like “Somebody put this together.” They just came to the inevitable conclusion that somebody intentionally architected our human body and all of its systems for life. In addition, what they would tell you, those who would hold this position of the teleological argument from design is not only is our body custom built for life, so is our environment. That all of the variables that enable and sustain human life on our planet, if they were altered just a bit, human life would cease to exist. I’ll give you just a few, we’ll get more into this next week, we’ll get into further details. And even if you get a headache today, come back. Pretty soon there’s a guy drunk, naked in his tent, you’ll understand that. His name is Noah. But what they would tell you is that things like gravity and gravitational force and carbon monoxide levels, that those are so specific in our environment, that what they would call it is a fine tuning argument. And that is not only did God designed the world and our body, he finally tuned the environment and our body so that we could live exclusively and solely in this environment. So it include distance from the sun and so many other variables that we enjoy. Now, that being said, I wanna give you a quote. It’s from the Physicist Freeman Dyson. He studied at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. This is where the Nobel laureates, the greatest minds come together as a think tank of sorts to share ideas and to seek to answer the biggest questions of humanity. So these are the top research scientists and minds in the history of our nation at the very least. He started serving there in 1953 as professor of physics and one of his colleagues was a guy named Albert Einstein. He served there until he died at the age of 96, he was not a Christian. He did like the ethic of Jesus. “Oh, it’d be nice to people, feed people, forgive people,” but he didn’t believe in a personal God. Instead he talked about God as the universal soul. He didn’t believe that Jesus was God, didn’t believe in the resurrection of God, didn’t believe in the virgin birth. But looking, looking at creation, here’s what he says: “The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture.” That’s a crazy line. If there is architecture, you know what there is? An architect. I’ve never walked up to a building and thought, “Good job, building.” I’m wondering who architected it. “The more I examined the universe and the details of its architecture,” he says, “The more evidence I find that the universe, in some sense, must’ve known we were coming.” What! Yeah, it was so crazy. It’s like, “Here’s my hand,” and then there’s a glove that perfectly fits my hand. It’s like the glove knew that the hand was coming. It got itself ready. If you see a design, assume a designer. If you see architecting, assume an architect. If you see life, assume that there is a God who is the source of life. In the beginning, God created. And what did He create? The heavens and the Earth. I believe that here in Genesis 1:1, God created everything. Now, we’ll get into the six days of creation and some people will think that he created other things on those days, I don’t. Now, you can disagree with me, and you will. You will. So when we come to these issues, there are closed handed and open-handed issues. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth, that’s what we believe. How long ago? How old is the Earth? What happened on each of the six days? Open-handed. So we can discuss and debate and dialogue and it’s super fun. And some of you have very strong opinions. Some of you have no idea what I’m talking about. So you’re like, “I heard there’s a funny guy in a carnival. I don’t know, that’s why I’m here.” And some of you were like, “Oh, I’ve been up early. I got charts and graphs I put on my Dockers, I got my compass and my protractor and I’m taking notes and I’m gonna be criticizing you later.” Great, we’re glad to have you too. We’re gonna have a whole range of opinions on these things and here’s what you need to know. You need to study, you need to learn, and we need to love each other.
– Yeah.
– But my view is this, and of course it’s the right view. So my view is that in… Seeing if you’re still paying attention. Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. I believe everything is created there and this is a thing called a mirrorism. Within literature, mirrorism is you take parts of a whole and you use them to denote the whole. So if I stay from stem to stern, that’s the whole ship. If I say from head to toe, that’s the whole body. What about the kneecap? It’s counted in there. I say lock, stock and barrel, right? That means Arizona. And or it means gun, sorry, but it denotes the whole gun, okay? Here it says the heavens and the Earth. That is a mirrorism speaking of everything, everything up there in the heavens and everything down here on the Earth and everything in between. God made everything. In the beginning, God made the heavens and the Earth. The word here for Earth in some of your English translations will be translated, land. It’s the original Hebrew word, Eretz. Now, this is very interesting because how you define this one little word, determines in large part, how you interpret the beginning of the world in Genesis 1 and 2. It appears this word does for land or Earth, about 400 times in the Old Testament. It’s a very significant word. Sometimes it means the whole planet. Sometimes it means the promised land. Now, my view is that it is most likely referring to, not the whole planet, but the promised land. Then what happens in Genesis, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. And then what happens is the camera moves in to one place called the promised land and to our first parents, because God’s focus is on His people in His place. The promised land, and you’re gonna see this if you come back. In Genesis is where God gives us the borders and boundaries for the nation of Israel. It’s the only country in the history of the world that God has told us what the boundaries are. That’s why there’s always a fight over the boundaries of Israel, ’cause God said it and Satan’s always trying to reset it. But when it comes to the land, I don’t believe that they would have had the same perspective as us. Because we live in the day of the telescope and the microscope. We live in the day when astronauts go up and they take a photo of the Earth and we think, “Okay, that’s the land, that’s the Earth.” They didn’t have that perspective. In fact, this will blow your mind. For the first 1,600 years of human history, everybody lived in the promised land. It’s not ’till Genesis 11 at the Tower of Babel, that God scatters people, that they start living in other places. So for the first 1,600 years of human history, we all lived in one place. There was nobody in Apache Junction, there’s nobody in Detroit. There’s nobody there, there’s nobody in Taipei. They’re not there. And so when they think of land, they’re thinking of their land. Furthermore, the original recipients of Genesis were those who had been enslaved for 440 years in Egypt. They have been delivered by God and they’re in the wilderness walking home toward-
– The promised land.
– The promised land. When they hear land, they’re thinking about their land and they’re trying to get back to their land. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. This would include the planet, but here I believe the focus is starting to shift toward the promise land. And it says that at this time that the world or the Earth was without form and void. Some of you, I can tell you, try and take notes, you’re gonna get carpal tunnel. So let me just give you a little secret. So if you go to legacy.realfaith.com, my sermon notes are there, the transcript will be there, audio and video will be there, daily devotions to sign up for will be there, and a free study guide will be there. And you’re gonna have a lot of other questions and so I would just point you to a resource called the Doctrine Book. It’s got about a thousand footnotes. It’s a systematic theology that I co-wrote, and there’s a whole chapter on creation. You’re like, “I got questions.” There’s a whole chapter. “Oh, what about the Trinity?” Whole chapter. “What about sin and the fall?” When we get into Genesis 3, it’s in there. “What about Adam and Eve and our first parents and marriage and gender and sexuality?” There’s a chapter. “What about covenant relationship?” It’s all there. Just go to legacy.realfaith.com, if you got more questions, you want more resources. I love teaching the Bible, it’s all free. Just click on the store and get free copies digitally. But when it says that the Earth is without form and void, again, in the original language it’s Bohu and Tohu. And what happens is, it says first and foremost, that there was darkness. Well, there are two options here. Number one, God has not yet created the sun, the moon and the stars, so it’s dark. Again, I believe in the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. I believe that the sun, moon, and stars were created there. The second option is that God begins his work at night. Question, is it darker at night? Even if you’re not a Christian, like, “I think I know this one.” Yes, so it may be telling us if it’s dark, it could mean that there was not yet light or it could mean that God starts his work at night time when it is dark out. And no one is here except for God, so He’s revealing to us what happened through the Holy Spirit who was present. Now, when it says that the world was without form and void, that the Earth was without form and void, what sadly affects English translations of the Bible all the way back to William Tyndale at 1523, and he did a great job and we’re forever grateful for him, it’s ancient Greek cosmology. Ancient Greek cosmology says that God went from… Or rather that the world we inhabit went from chaos to cosmos, it went from hunk of mud or primordial soup to order. And the truth is that that’s not how our God works. Our God doesn’t create chaos, He creates order. Our God doesn’t create something that’s not good. Everything he makes, he says is good and very good. Our God doesn’t start with something that is a total mess, our God gets it right the first time. And so within this, some would look at this and say that the world was like a hunk of mud or a primordial soup, I don’t believe so. These same Hebrew words “For without form and void,” Bohu Tohu, I’ve got it in the notes, but it’s in Deuteronomy. It appears in the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. And it refers to barren wasteland that is not able to sustain human life, okay? And so here’s what I believe, and you can disagree with me. God Bara the heavens and the Earth, He made it from nothing. And then at some point, he Asahed it and prepared it for human life and flourishing. I was thinking of how to explain this to you. It’s like a developer. I’ve got buddies of mine that are developers and what they’ll do, they will obtain a large amount of land and at some point they develop it so people can move and live there, right? If you’re new to Arizona, just drive around, this is exactly what’s happening. You’re in a desert, right? No one can live here unless we get it ready for you. If you just moved here and you’re like, “Hey, I can’t afford to live… high cost of living, fast-growing city and county in America. I’m just gonna go out to the middle of the desert and live there.” For 15 minutes, you’ll live there. If there’s no water, there’s no shelter, there’s no food, there’s no you. So what the developers need to do, they need to develop Asah the land. So God created the land, but we are now Asahing the land, preparing it so that as people move here, they have places to live where they can actually survive and flourish. The truth is there are still places on Earth that if you just dropped a human being, it didn’t prepare it, they would die. I believe that’s exactly what it’s talking about. I’ll give an example. Right now, if we just parachuted you over and dropped you in Antarctica, how long would you live? Minute. There are places that you can’t live like Portland. It’s not… It’s not fit for human life, you can’t survive there. Okay? It’s funny unless you just moved here from Portland. And the fact that you moved here proves my point, so don’t get so offended. So what I believe it’s saying here is that the land may have been something that could sustain plant life or animal life, but not human life. So God prepares it, He is developing it. Now what this does, this allows us to still believe in six literal days. We’ll get into this. That God created the heavens and the Earth and that Adam and Eve are the first human beings that God made. And God could have done the Baraing and Asahing at the same time or he could have left a period of time in the middle, which would account for the appearance of an old Earth and young humanity on the planet. I’ll get into that a little more in a moment. But what we know is, again, Hebrews 11:3, “The universe was created by the word of God.” Not pre-existing matter, but God the creator. And it’s not made out of things that are visible. So the barren and empty wasteland was made by God, Barad, and then Asahed by God for us. Now, oh boy, this leads to all kinds of questions. One of the questions that now comes up, we’re gonna look at the six days of creation. And the first question is, are these literal 24-hour days? That’s a big question. If you say yes, there are a few options for what team you’re on. And if you say no, there are other options for the team that you are on. It’s a big issue, interpretive issue. Again, open-handed issue. Because the word for day is oftentimes referred to as a literal 24 hour-day in the original Hebrew and sometimes it means an extended period of time. So if you come to either of these conclusions, you still are interpreting the Bible, you’re just coming to a different conclusion, but it doesn’t mean necessarily that you’re into some false teaching. So that being said, here’s the question: are the days of creation literal 24-hour days? I would say, yes, for this reason: each day is numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, that seems to indicate an actual week. We’ll deal with that in a moment and referred to as evening and morning. Hebrews, Jewish people have always seen the day starting at sunset not sunrise. So their Sabbath begins at sunset. Evening and morning is how the Hebrew people would see a day. In addition, here’s what we read in Exodus chapter 20:11, also written by Moses, also given to the refugees in the wilderness who received the book of Genesis says, “For in six days,” the original Hebrew word there is Yom. And it can mean, again, 24-hour a day or extended period of time, but it goes back to creation and I believe this commentary shows that it was 6, 24-hour literal days. “The Lord made heaven and Earth,” he’s quoting Genesis 1. “The sea and all that is in them. and he rested the seventh day.” What it says here is that here’s how God worked. He set up a seven-day week, six days he works, seventh day he Sabbaths. This sets in motion for us a seven-day week. We’ll deal with this next week. But ultimately there are nations, particularly atheistic nations in the history of the planet that have sought to have something other than a seven-day week just to kind of protest against God. And you know what they find? It doesn’t work. And even the atheistic nations go back to a seven-day week. Here’s why. Ultimately, God created us and the world and things don’t work unless we obey His divine design. So yes, I believe that it is seven literal days. Now, we have different names for our days. Some of you say, “Pastor Mark, how did we get different names?” Thank you for asking. We name our days after Norse pagan gods, God numbers them one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Day one, we call Sunday, that’s the sun’s day, not the Phoenix suns, the suns day. Day number two is Monday, that’s the moon’s day. Day number three is Tuesday, that is Tiw’s day. Wednesday is Wooden’s day or Odin’s day. Thursday, day five is Thursday, Thor’s day. Day six, we call Fridays, Freya’s day and day seven is Saturday, Saturn’s day. So God creates these seven days, and one He Sabbaths and six He works. So one more thing I wanna do. I wanna look at all the teams for how we view Genesis 1 and 2 and then we’ll look at the six days of creation. So there are five basic teams and these are the various Christian views of creation. Again, it’s all in the Doctrine Book, you can study more. And here’s the big idea: when it comes to interpreting Genesis 1 and 2, I’m gonna tell you that I see it as a five-lane highway. You can be in any one of these five lanes and love Jesus and believe the Bible. Some churches, it’s a one-lane highway. And if you’re not in that lane, they sideswipe you until you merge. We’re not gonna do that. Okay? The point is this, we tend to fight over some things that are maybe less important and then not fight for some things that are more important.
– Amen.
– In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. And He created the heavens and the Earth so that we could live together in love. And if we’re arguing and fighting about how we made the place we live, we’re sort of violating the point for which He made it. Furthermore, when Jesus returns to his creation, it would be nice if He didn’t have to break up a church fight with people arguing over Genesis 1 and 2. I think it was Galileo who said: “The Bible is not intended to tell us how the heavens go, but how to go to heaven.” So as we get into this, you will say, “Pastor Mark, okay, I disagree with you. Can I still be at the church?” Answer, my wife disagrees with me on this issue. So not only can you be at the church, you can be married to me. I mean, it’s some people ask, “Do you and Grace ever disagree? Has there ever been a time you disagreed?” Yeah, day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six, day seven, we disagree all the time, but we agree to love Jesus and love each other.
– Amen.
– So we want this to be an issue where you can dialogue and debate and discuss and that’s great, but don’t divide. Okay? Here are the five ways that Christians interpret Genesis 1 and 2. Historic old Earth and young humanity creationism. This is one of the positions of the earliest church fathers, all the way back to Augustine before the Scientific Revolution. And the point is this, they would say that God Barad the heavens and the Earth, that there may have been animal and plant life. This might even explain the dinosaurs, just throwing it out there. And then at some point, in six literal days, God Asahed the creation and prepared it for human life. Like a developer, He owned the land and then he developed the land because He was making us to put us in the place of the promised land that He created for us. This would allow the possibility of an old Earth and young human life on the Earth. It requires six literal days for the creation of sawing and preparing. Furthermore, part of the debate is often those who would really hold scientific ideology and methodology, they would say that the Earth is old because of radiocarbon dating. And they would say that the Earth is, let’s say 4.5 billion years old. And those who are honest in their scientific pursuits would also say that human life on the Earth is young. Human life as we know it, living in towns or organized communities, farming, not just foraging, growing our own food, raising livestock, living together in community like people do today. They would say, “Well, human life like that is around 10,000 years old.” What I like about this view, and this is my view, that’s why I put it number one. It’s number one to me. That ultimately what it allows is, it allows us not to argue over the age of the Earth. So I go, “Okay, will you believe the Earth is old?” That’s possible. And you believe that human life on the Earth is young, that is what the Bible teaches. The genealogies in Genesis five, 10 and 11 if my… Yeah, five, 10 and 11. As we get into Genesis, there are these genealogies and it tells us the generations. And there was a guy named Bishop Ussher in the 17th century, totalled them up and said, “Well, human life on the Earth is around 6,000 years old.” So what this allows is, I don’t have to argue over the age of the Earth and I get to say, “You know what, really human life on the planet is young, whether you believe the Bible or you believe science, and let’s talk about human life on the Earth, let’s talk about people and Jesus becoming a person and how people need Jesus, their creator also their savior.” And so this would be the position of old Earth young creation. The second position is young Earth young humanity. And what they would say, including my wife, Grace, this is her perspective is that God Barad and Asahed at the same time. That He made and prepared in six literal days, there was no time in between the Baraing and the Asahing. Therefore, human life on the Earth is young, less than 10,000 years old and our planet is young, less than 10,000 years old. Okay? This is more prevalent in conservative Christian circles, conservative Baptist circles, homeschooling curriculum for Christian families, this would be that prevalent position. And so what happens and we can hear them chuckling. We could hear all the homeschoolers… All the homeschool kids are like, “Tell me my mom was wrong. Tell me, tell me, tell me.” I’m not gonna do that, I am not that silly. Okay, but the question then would be, why does the Earth appear old? It does appear old, right? You go to the grand canyon, you’re like “That’s a lot of mud, I wonder how long that took.” Now, what those who hold this position would say, young Earth, young humanity is there’s a couple of different options. Number one, science is wrong. There’s something called presuppositional apologetics. It presupposes something is right and then attacks everything that disagrees with it. The Earth is young and if you disagree, we’re gonna argue, we’re gonna fight, we’re gonna discredit. So they would say science is wrong. And kind of can be the anti-science. The second option is when God made Adam, did he make them as a zygote in his mother’s womb that then grew to be a man or did he create them as a grown man? Grown man. If you go to Adam when he’s made, you’re like, “How old are you?” He’s like, “A week old.” You’re like, “You’re big.” I’ve never seen a one week old with a beard, all right? What kind of formula? I mean,… So if God can make… The point would be, if God can make a man mature, he can make the environment for the man mature. If God can create mature, if He can create, He can create mature. The other would be… Someone said that there was a global flood. We’re gonna get into this in Genesis 6 through 9. And that it compressed the geological layers and it changed the topography of the planet so that it appears old. That is a possibility. Now, I’m gonna say a few things just to see if anybody’s online paying attention, okay> So one of them is, I’m not sure that the flood was a global flood. Because the point of the flood was to kill all the sinners who all lived in one place. So it was big, people how big? Big enough. Now, it wasn’t a Jello flood. I mean, it spilled over, but I don’t know if God flooded Detroit. Now, if He did, I understand. I mean, if you’ve been there, you’re like, “It’s not a bad idea.” But there was nobody there, so there was nobody to drown. So maybe we’ll get there. Feel free to send me an email, we have a team standing by with a delete ministry ready to serve you. The third option is old Earth creation or intelligent design. And that is that the Earth is old human life on the planet is young, but it didn’t come… Human life didn’t come into existence through evolutionary process, it was God who divinely designed human life. And so this position would be sort of a mediating position between atheistic, evolutionary naturalism and literal six-day creationism. And they’d say, “Yeah, God made the world, God made us God, divinely designed it, but not in six literal days. And God was the designer and architect behind our world and also human life on the Earth.” The fourth position would be the literary framework view sometimes called the day-age theory. And that is, if you read Genesis 1 and 2, it’s poetry, and a lot of it is. Quite frankly, it’s ancient Hebrew poetry. And they would say, “This was a poetic way of inspiring worship of God as creator an enjoyment of creation.” This was not intended to be a scientific textbook. This was written now 3,500 years ago before the telescope and the microscope and the Scientific Revolution. It was written to Hebrew slaves who had been enslaved for 440 years and they’re walking around in the woods and this is what they get. This was more like a song or poetry, it’s not to be taken literally, but to be interpreted allegorically and metaphorically. The truth is there is a lot of poetry in Genesis. And they would say, “As a result, the Earth is probably old that the six days are not literal and this is ancient poetry.” The fifth position of Bible-believing Christians, and this is not atheistic, evolutionary naturalism, but evolutionary creation is, “You know what? The Earth is probably old, human life is probably evolved over time. But it was ultimately the hand of God that was behind it all.” That God worked through a process in the same way, sometimes God heals people and sometimes God works through a doctor. They would say, God worked through the evolutionary process. It was His hand that worked behind the scenes. So they would hold to the basic tenants of evolution and they would just give credit to God behind it all. Now, the point is this, if you believe the Bible and you love Jesus, any one of these five viewpoints is within Christian acceptance and orthodoxy. Okay? And my point is simply this. I don’t wanna just tell you one answer and then you get to be arrogant and then judge everybody else. I want you to study and think for yourself and come to your own conclusion and talk to it with some people and see if we can all learn from each other. We want this to be a community of learning and exploring and investigating and considering, and not just assuming and arguing. That being said, now we’re gonna look at the six days of creation. And I gotta go fast ’cause I’m 46 minutes in and I’ve covered two verses and I have 23 to go. All right, so… No, no, we believe in miracles, we just talked about this. You’re gonna see one right now. All right, here we go. Day one, Sunday, Genesis 1:3 through 5. “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And 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 morning the first day.” So this is day one. And what God does here, He separates. Now, God doesn’t create on each of the six days, sometimes He just separates. And here’s what you need to know, God separates and what our world is trying to do, it’s trying to eradicate those distinctions that God made. So God says, “Well, there are people and animals,” and then animal rights activists and evolutionists wanna collapse that difference. Oh, there’s men and women, two genders, we’re gonna look at this next week. And people say, “No, no, no, no, there’s a spectrum.” Oh, well there’s creator and creation. No, no, the radical environmentalist and the pantheist and the they wanna collapse those two into one category. God separates light and darkness, day and night, land and sea, animal and human life, male and female gender, our God differentiates and distinguishes, He separates. And that’s what He does here. He separates darkness and he also separates it from the light. And so this is on a Sunday, God begins His work and God begins His work at sunrise on Sunday. And He does the same thing with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The creation begins at sunrise on Sunday and the new creation begins with the resurrection of the son of God and the rising of the sun on Sunday and that’s how we become new creations in Christ. So when it comes to the sun, you have a few options. Number one, God made the light on this day. Number two, God made the light in Genesis 1:1 and here He announces that He is the creator of the light. Or number three, if God did create the light here, you say, “Well, how is there light before this day?” It may be that it was the glory of God that illuminated creation, because it tells us in Revelation in the new creation, there will be no sun, it will be the glory of Jesus Christ, the son of God, that illuminates all of the world that God made. That being said, what we do see here is that God does not make every day of the six, but He speaks, ’cause our God is a prophet and a poet. And you need to know, our God still speaks every day.
– Amen.
– And when God speaks, there is this pattern here in Genesis 1. There is an announcement and God said, there is a command, let there be. There is separation, God separates the day and night, the water and the land, the animal in the plants, there is a report and it was so an evaluation and God saw that it was good. The point is this: God speaks and things are only good life-sustaining an orderly, if His word is obeyed. And what happens in creation, He says that things are good and very good because they obey His word. Whenever we obey the word of God, we experience the power of God and things are good. And God says that everything is good, and it’s just kind of a funny thing. On the six days, God says that every day is good with one exception, Monday . God doesn’t say it’s good, He doesn’t say anything. I agree with God. Monday is not a great day. All right, so we will look at Monday. Day two, Monday. Genesis 1:6 through 8, “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 that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven and there was evening and there was morning, the second day.” What He does, He separates the water up there from the water down here, the water up there is clouds. How many of you love it when monsoon season comes? You’re like, “I gotta see this.” You see the clouds just rolling in and they’re just build with water and you know it’s about to get real exciting. It’s what He says, there’s water up there and then there’s water down here: lakes, rivers, streams, oceans, and the like. And what He says is that He is doing his work to rule over the water up there and the water down here and the expanse in the middle is the sky. And it says that God is doing this work on a cloudy day, it’s a cloudy day. Next time you see the monsoon clouds roll in, just remember, my God rules and reigns over those. And one day He’s gonna ride in on one of those. That’s gonna be an amazing day. He goes on as well on Tuesday, day three, to say this: and God said, Genesis 1:9 through 13. “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place and let the dry land appear. And it was. God called the dry land Earth.” We tend to think planet it’s air, it’s land and also could be the promised land. “And the waters that were gathered together, He called seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, ‘Let the Earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit which is their seed according to its own kind.'” Let me just hit a little thing here quickly. He’s gonna say about plants and animals, they reproduce according to their own kind. This negates macroevolution. Macroevolution is that lower life forms evolve into higher life forms. Here’s the big idea. Apple trees make apples, cherry trees make cherries, people make people, and monkeys don’t make people. That’s the big idea, each according to its own kind. “Let the Earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit, which is their seed according to its kind on the Earth. And it was so. The Earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its own kind. God saw that it was good, and there was evening and there was morning, the third day.” The third day. And so what He’s doing here, He’s preparing the land for human life. So my perspective would be, at some point, God Barad created everything. And here it tells us how he prepared it for us, maybe not just the whole planet, but particularly the promised land where His children are going to live for the next 1600 years. And what He’s talking about here is pools of water. He’s talking about seas and lakes. He’s talking about bodies of water on the Earth. My view is that he’s probably not referring to the whole planet here because he refers to the whole planet as dry land. The whole planet isn’t dry land. I’ve been to Lake Michigan, you’ve seen that there is water, not here, but in other places. And so I believe here he’s talking about the promised land. And what we see here is that He is creating berries and fruit trees. How many of you like berries? Like berries? How many of you like fruit? You like fruit? So this is the beginning of fruit and berries. If you’re a fruit berry person, it is a great day for you. My assumption is this is also when they invented the pie and the cobbler and I hope ice cream, ’cause that would be good day. Do you like fruit and berries? God made them for us to eat. Now, I have bad news, this is actually hard to say. For the first 1,600 years of human history, we were all vegetarians. You’re gonna see this in Genesis. It’s not ’till much later that God says we can eat meat before that we’re eating plants and berries and fruit. And I’m glad I was born later. That’s right. And God doesn’t create on this day, but He allows the land to produce human life. God is going to create us and we’re given articular dignity. Here, He allows the land to create food for us. And then there is day four, Wednesday. Genesis 1:14 through 19: “God said…” You see this, God speaks, God speaks, God speaks, God speaks, God speaks. God works through His word. There’s power in God’s word. Well, God’s word goes out, it accomplishes life and it brings forth newness. That’s why there’s always such an opposition to Bible teaching. “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. Let them be for signs and for seasons, for days and years, let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens and give light upon the Earth.’ And it was so. And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day.” That is the-
– Sun.
– The sun, we’ve seen that in Arizona. And the lesser light to rule the night, that is the moon. Anytime you look up at the sun and the moon and He throws in the stars, just say, “I know who made that.” And He made it cause He loves me. And He didn’t want me to walk in darkness physically, and He doesn’t want me to walk in darkness spiritually. And the light reminds me that Jesus is the light of the world. “And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the Earth, to rule over the day and over the night and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.” We see when God does stuff, it’s good. If you see bad, you know that’s not God. “And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.” And what He does, He separates day and night. Moon gives us light along with the stars at night, sun during the day. So there are two options here that on this day, God created the sun, the moon, and the stars, or number two, my view, God created the sun, the moon and the stars. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.” And here here He is declaring their purpose. God is saying, “Hey people, I’m your creator. The reason it’s not dark, I love you. And I want you to walk in light, not in darkness.” He’s telling us the purpose for what she created these things. In addition, we then read day number five, Thursday. Genesis 1:20 through 23: “God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures.'” Do you like fish? Hey fishermen, big day! Go fishing on Thursday, just tell the Lord, thanks. “‘And let the birds fly above the Earth, across the expanse of the heavens.'” Do you like birds? I was sitting outside preparing for this section of the sermon and I kid you not, a little hummingbird on Saturday just was flying right in front of me, right over my Bible. It’s like the Lord saying, . “So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” God’s good, God does good. And then there’s this line. We’re gonna look at it in a moment. “God blessed them, said ‘Be fruitful and multiply.'” He’s gonna say that to our first parents as well. “‘Fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the Earth.’ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.” Here we get the birds and the fish. And this is one of two things. Either God created the birds and the fish on this day. I believe He created them in Genesis 1:1. And that would mean that number two, what He’s doing here, He’s not creating them, but He’s moving them to the promised land. My people are gonna live here. They’re gonna need fruit and berries and they’re gonna need fish. And we’re gonna need birds to help oversee the ecosystem and the environment in addition to beauty. And so God is preparing. God is developing the land that He owns, preparing it for the people that He is going to make shortly thereafter. Now, that being said, what I love here is that it says that God bless them. This word for blessing appears roughly 80 times in the book of Genesis. It’s gonna say about our first parents before they did anything, that God made them and he blessed them. This book of Genesis has the word bless or blessing or blessed more than any other book in the Bible. Some theologians would say that the theme of Genesis is that our God is the God who blesses. The point is this friends, as we look at the world that God made, we just need to be awestruck with wonder and say, “I’m blessed, I can breathe, I can see, I can hear, I can eat food, I can drink water, I could see the sunset.” Surrounding me is the beauty of the glory of God. And I would just tell you, don’t spend so much time looking down on your phone that you don’t look up to God’s creation. And to say, “You know what? We’re blessed.” And the most blessed thing is a child. The Bible says that children are a blessing. When you hold the baby, go “Fearfully and wonderfully made. Divinely designed, perfectly architected, yet another gift and a blessing.” And this sets the stage for the coming of humanity and the history. And then day six, Friday. we’ll deal with it today, and then we’ll follow up next week, Friday. Genesis 1:24 through 25: “God said, ‘Let the Earth bring forth creatures according to their kind-livestock.'” If they’re gonna be farming, they’re gonna need livestock to help them tend to the agrarian society and creeping things and beasts of the Earth according to their kinds. And it was so, “God made the beast of the Earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that what He had made was good.” We started out here as wild versus domestic animals. How many of you have a domestic animal? It’s a pet. And if you just let it go, it’s not gonna last long. It’d be like a free sample at Costco in the wilderness. It’s just gonna get eaten, right? Now, wild animals, they can take care of themselves. And what He’s distinguishing here, There are wild animals and then God brings domesticated animals to the land so that when the people come, they have help with their farming and agriculture. And close to this, this is controversial. I haven’t said anything controversial, so I feel like this is the time. My view is that God created the heavens and the Earth, Barad. And then over a period of time, at some point, He decided that He would work to Asah prepare for human life. And that Adam and Eve were the first human beings that the six days are literal 24-hour days. And that there was the possibility, hypothetical possibility of death before human sin. Not human death, human beings don’t die until we sin against God and we no longer partake at the tree of life because we are not immortal beings, we are dependent beings, dependent upon God. But here He just made livestock. What do livestock eat?
– Livestock.
– Well, yeah. Some eat other livestock, many eat grass and plants. If an animal before Adam and Eve sin, let’s say an animal eats, let’s say a cow eats grass. What happens to the grass?
– It dies.
– It dies. So there could be potential for plant death, potential for animal death, but not human death until sin. That would be my view. And if you disagree with me, you’re wrong. No, I’m just kidding. Just saying. If you disagree with me, I might be wrong. Here’s what I’m telling you friends. I’ve been studying this 25 years, I still have a lot of questions. And the Bible is perfect, but no preacher is. This is how I see it. I wanna awaken in you a sense of wonder for God’s word, like, “Well, there’s a lot more in there than I thought. I wanna study this. I wanna show Pastor Mark, wrong.” Great, I would love that. I want you to use the mind that God has given you to study the word that God has written to you. To explore the world that God has created for you. And I want it to be all a sense of wonder and worship and awe and joy. I’m gonna bring the band out and we’re gonna worship God because ultimately this is setting the stage and now everything is prepared for what? The creating of the man and the woman in the first wedding. We’re gonna hit this next week. But here’s what we’ve learned. We’ve learned that in the beginning, God. So Genesis is ultimately about God. Here’s what we’ve learned about our God. Our God is the only God. There is no other God than this God.
– Amen
– And this God is our creator, God. And this God is the eternal God without beginning or end. And this God is the living God. And He is the source of all life. And this God is the independent God, He needs no one, He needs nothing. This God, as well is the transcendent God. He’s separate from His creation, but He is the eminent God. He comes and He serves and He seats and He speaks particularly in the person of Jesus Christ. That this God is a personal God. He has a name and He wants a relationship. He is a powerful God, nothing could stop Him. No one could Him, and none is equal to Him. He is a beautiful God. He is a majestic God. He is an awe-inspiring God. He is a holy God who is separate from the world that He has made. He is a prophet who speaks into our life every single day. He is a gracious God who blesses us. And He is a sovereign king rules over us. He made this world and He made you and I to dwell together here, to have a relationship with Him and to worship Him. And ultimately this God is Jesus Christ who says, and I quote, “I am the alpha, the beginning, the omega and the end.” It begins with Jesus, it ends with Jesus. We are waiting His return into human history to lift the curse, to solve our problems, to heal our hurts, to return to his divine design plan and what we’re gonna do right now, we’re gonna worship Him until we see Him. Amen? Please stand, I’ll pray. Father, we come to do that which we were created to do. To worship our creator in Jesus name. Amen.
