SA Ep83 - Articles of Faith #6 Creation

SA Ep83 - Articles of Faith #6 Creation

In this episode, we examine the doctrine of creation. The Bible teaches that God created all things by His power and for His glory. We will look at what Scripture says about the origin of the universe, the special creation of man, and the purpose behind it all. This episode will also address why creation matters to morality, accountability, and the Gospel itself. Creation is not just about how things began. It is about who is in charge, who we belong to, and why life has meaning.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I want to say something to see what your next thought would be in the beginning. If your next thought was God created, then you're on the right track. A lot of people don't believe that God created in the beginning. They might believe that God created over time, or that maybe in the beginning there was a large bang, an explosion of sorts. They may even believe that in the beginning there was some hot primordial soup that a bacteria formed in, grew legs, crawled around, swam, fell upon a rock, began to grow a tail, and from there became a man one day. But whatever people want to believe that the beginning was, the Bible tells us very clearly that in the beginning God created. And then the sixth article of faith deals with creation. And now that we are past the things of heaven, now we're going to look at things that are directly affecting us here on earth in our day-to-day life. And the creation is one we are involved with creation every single day. We interact with it all day, every day. And all these things are here, not by happenstance or by chance. They're here because God ordered it. And there's order in creation. And we'll try to look at some of that here in just a moment. But when we're looking at this article or doctrine of creation, we are really dealing with the foundation of how we understand the world and ourselves and God to exist together. And the Bible doesn't begin with any other explanation, no argument, no dissertation, other than a declaration. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. That single verse sets the tone for everything that follows after it. Not just everything that follows after it in the first chapter, but everything that follows after it through all the course of history until the present day. It tells us that before there was anything else, there was God. Because God was there in the beginning, before time, before matter, before space, before light, before the universe, God was already there. Creation is not the result of chance or accident or a blind process. There was no disorder that brought order. Chaos does not bring order and structure. Explosions and high speed uh movement does not all of a sudden generate life. God created all things by his power. And we're not given any sign of struggle. He didn't have to ask permission. He didn't experiment. He just spoke. And it was done. Those are called in theological study the divine fiats, divine fiat's, which uh those are uh holy statements, I guess, that would uh be made. The the the fiat uh is the Latin term that means let it be done or let it come to pass. And obviously divine is those things that are holy, those things that are of God. So the divine fiat's is what God allowed to be done or what God said to come to pass. And when studying these divine fiats, we must understand that uh it is by God. Hebrews 11:3, it says through faith is a big word, through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. That means that the visible world that we have now came from the invisible power of God that we can't see. So the power of God is manifested in the world that we see around us. People always say, prove to me there is a God. The burden of proof is not on me to prove to you there is a God. I had an atheist not too long ago that uh stood in my house. He came to work on computers. I'll fix anything in my house, on my house, under my house, around my house, uh any of it I will I'll fix, repair, take it apart, put it back together, but I cannot work on a computer. I don't uh computers and HVAC systems, I just I I let I have to have somebody else work on those. And I uh called a company, they came to my house and he worked on the computer, had to replace the uh some big component on the inside of it, whatever it was. And uh turns out he was uh he was an atheist and we began talking, and as he was leaving, I asked him, I said, What would it take for you to believe in God? Or believe there is a God, and we're standing there at our front door, big glass, we've got these big, massive steel doors, like uh castle type doors, they're about nine feet tall, arched uh doors, and so we're standing there at the at the doors, and um so what will it take for you to believe there is a God? And he said, You'll have to prove it to me. I said, Well, I I don't have to prove it to you. The burden of proof is not upon me to prove to you. I said, just look outside. What what do you think caused the green grass, the birds that are chirping out there, the trees that are growing, the clouds in the sky? What do you think caused all that? Everything that we see today demands a creator. A painting, a building, a car, the computer that you just worked on. Everything demands a creator. Why does the universe not demand a creator? Why does everything else demand creation except the universe can come from chaos, disorder, explosions? Why is there why why are we not seeing the evidence of evolution? It's never been observed. Now, if things change, but we're talking about species. Why do we not see that today? If it has happened for millions upon millions of years. And he has no answer to that, other than, well, I just don't believe there is, because the proof is right there in front. We see God's power everywhere we turn. That is God. I was standing outside one morning at uh uh doing the traffic work that I do, trying to make sure that kids get in and out safe, and I'm standing in traffic, and I and I look over my my left shoulder, there's the sun. I look over my right shoulder, there's the moon. I mean, as crystal clear as it could be. And it was one of those moments that I it just I mean I almost it was almost one of those uh moments where you have our such a flood of emotion that you're emotionless, like you can't you can't have an emotional uh experience or you can't even have an emotion because it's it's so overwhelming. I was standing there looking at the sun, I'd look at the moon, I look at the sun, I'd look at the moon. I thought, how can people deny there's a God? I mean, what else could do this? What else could order the world this way? So not only does creation reveal the power of God, but it reveals the wisdom of God. The order and things that were done, the balance, the design of the human body, the complexity of just the complexity of one uh of one plant shows that there is something that's gotta be greater. But the complexity of the human body. Oh my. Have you ever just tried to look at how the eye functions? What how does that come? Does that come just by just by chance? How do we how do we involve into logical thinking, rational thinking, reasoning? How do how do we get to that point? Why is there no other species on the face of the planet that are that are reasoning and log and and logical that that that can communicate the way that that humans do? Why is it just us? The creation and the wisdom of God go hand in hand. Let's let's look at some of the things that uh maybe are the behind-the-scenes things. First thing we notice in as far as the wisdom of God, when he creates the everything from days one to three to days six, days one to three, he creates light and dark, sky and water, land and vegetation. But then he fills those things. Light fills the day and night, birds fill the sky, fish fill the water, animals and man fill the land. He also, listen, he created the light before he created the sun. Why would the Bible have that in there? Have you ever thought about that? How could there be light before the sun? The reason is because God was not dependent upon the sun to produce the light. The light exists because God said so, not because the natural source gave it. Guards against the worshiping of the sun, which many, many cultures do. Some still do today. Because the sun was not the originator of the light. The sun only has light because God gave it light. The earth was completely prepared before he placed man. Look at the order. If there if any part of that, any portion of that would have been out of order, man couldn't have survived. Look at the increasing complexity each day. He starts with light, then the atmosphere, then the land and the planets, then the celestial bodies, and animal life, then the human. That's not chaotic. That's order. That's wisdom. What about uh the creation of man? Everything that was created, the divine fiatz, everything that was created, he said, Let there be. Let there be. Let there be. But then when he got to man, he said, Let us make. Let us make. There's only three times in scripture that you'll find God getting his hands dirty. One is in the creation of man. Or the creation of a family. He created man and you created woman. So he got his hands dirty during the creation of man. He got his hands dirty when he was correcting a fault in the John 9 blind man. He got his hands dirty to make the clay. And then he got his hands dirty when he was not only that, but he was conveying forgiveness. When he stooped down when the men wanted to stone the woman, and he stooped down and he wrote in the sand. So when God is dealing with man, when he's dealing with the things of men, he's a God that is very much involved. He's not just a God that's going to speak things and they be done. He's going to be involved in our life. And creation shows us that. But not only does it show him being personally involved, but it also shows in that in that portion of creating man, it shows the first mention of the Trinity. He says, Let us, who's us? Because it just says in the beginning, God. That's part of the Godhead, part of our articles. Let us. We have God the Father. And then John 1 ties Jesus back to creation. In the beginning was the Word, words with God, Word was God. And in Genesis chapter 1, and verse number 2 is when we see the Holy Spirit that comes into play of all this. It says in verse number 2, the earth was without form and void, and darkness on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. What spirit is that? That's the Holy Spirit. That's God the Spirit. So right there within the first few verses, we have the Holy Trinity. So there's order in creation. There's the wisdom of God in creation. There's the power of God in creation. And one of the biggest parts of this in the study of the creation or understanding of the creation is the creation of man. We talked about already, but man is not just a part of the animal world. He was a special creation. You see, after every portion which God created, if you go back and read the creation account, after every portion, God said it was good. And it was good. And it was good. And it was good. But after he created man and then woman, he said it was very good. You have to read those first few verses, and then the next few chapters of Genesis goes back and explains the creation process in a little more detail, so you kind of get a summary up front. It's almost like reading a book. You get a summary up front, and then you get the detailed version after that. And after he created man and woman, he said it was very good. That's why I say one of God's greatest creation is a woman. One of God's creat, I'm gonna say that again. One of God's greatest creation is a woman. Because he created man, but man could not sustain on his own. Man couldn't procreate on his own. He was incomplete. He was incomplete on his own. Now let me say this. In light of that, if he had created woman first, she would have been incomplete on her own. She couldn't have procreated either. She would have been incomplete. But he created man first to have dominion over all things. But the man could not be complete until God created woman. And after all the sunsets and sunrises for those first uh five days, the beautiful mountainscapes and the scenery, which must have been unbelievable. To have a bird's eye view of all that was created when it was fresh and new. And yet after he created woman, he says, it's very good. God holds women in a in a very high regard. I don't doubt that for one second. And I think we should do we should do that as well. We should honor our wives and our mothers and our daughters. We should uh we should be able to say in our lives that our life is very good because of them. And I hope that our wives and our mothers and our daughters can say the same thing for us men that it is very good because we're involved in their life. And I hope we're good to them in that way. Creation establishes the difference between the creator and the creation. And it's a line that can never be blurred. Today people are trying to elevate themselves to a place of God, secular humanism. There's a there's it's the belief that there's that we are not only, there's is there are not only a little bit of God in each one of us, but that we can we can raise ourselves to a godlike level. And that's just not the order in which God wants things to be seen through creation. As we said, he created light before he created the sun. Why? Because God is not dependent upon natural things. God is not dependent upon you and I. I know people want to think that you know they have some very important role in the uh eternality of heaven and earth. But God made it very clear that that's fine. If you're not gonna if you're not gonna praise him, the rocks will cry out. He told the Jews that even the stones, and we we know that uh that the Jews used to refer to the Gentiles as stones because of the stone hearts they had and they weren't willing to accept and all that. So whether it was the real stones or whether it was the stones of the Gentiles, all I do know is that all the way back from early in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy, Leviticus, uh, God made a way for the Gentiles. Even though the Jews were his chosen people, everyone else was there, was was given opportunity, was given a way of escape. And God made sure that the Jews understood if you don't, the Gentiles will. If you don't want to love me, the Gentiles will love me. If we as Christians don't want to love God, that's fine. If we don't want to preach God's word, that's fine. God is not dependent upon any of those things. And that's what we see in creation. But even in more than that, we see that creation connects directly to the gospel message. If God created man and man fell into sin, then the redemptive work of the same God who created him is needed. Therefore, the one who formed man from the beginning is the one who can restore man through Christ. Colossians chapter number one ties creation and redemption together by showing that Christ is both the creator of all things and the redeemer of all sinners. This means salvation is not an afterthought, it's part of the plan of the same God who made the world. So the gospel and creation are hand in hand together. And if we start, if we start tinkering around with creation, like these, the gap theory, that the day is not actually a day. It could be millions of years in those days. And there's people have got some wonderful arguments toward that. And that's fantastic if you want to believe that. I don't think that's going to be, I don't think it's a reason to start a new church over. I don't think it's a reason to, you know, run and drive your car off the next bridge that you go past because you can't figure this out. But I want to be, when I when I don't understand things, and there's a lot of things in scripture that I don't understand. I don't know about you, but there's a lot of things I don't understand. Instead of fretting over it, I just take it the most simplistic way in which it's written. And I don't understand creation. Maybe you do. I certainly don't understand it. How can all this be created? I mean, just how the words and all of a sudden it's there. I just take God's word for it. He said the first day in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. To me, I just I don't think it was there, and then all of a sudden it was. I think it was dark until he said, Let there be light, and then all of a sudden there was light. I don't think it took millions of years, thousands of years, hundreds of years. I think it took just a few words. That's about how long I think it took the light to turn on. Let there be light. About four words. So the gospel is is connected to all things. So what does this mean for you and I? Well, creation, the belief in creation, should give us stability in a very unstable world. If God is the cre the creator of all things, does he not order all things? Does everything not rise and fall at at his will? It should give us stability in our life to understand that God created everything. It it it sounds so so simple. And and the in the in the the the the world of academia, things that are simple and easy to explain are not the things that are uh interesting. I mean it's it seems it seems too easy just to say that God created this and in six days all of a sudden it was done. No, let's we gotta that's a little too dumbed down for us. We need to make this a higher level, a higher plane. But to me, it just shows God's power and the stability. Shows his love. It shows that because God said, Let us make man in our image, that I mean something to him. Because he was able to actually get involved uh physically in the making process of man, that he breathed life into man, everything else he just spoke it. Let there be light, let there be fish, let there be plants. But with man, he could have said, Okay, wake up, but he didn't do that. He breathed into him. That's a sign of the spirit when he breathes. And that's how man is born again today. The Spirit comes being breathed upon us by God, not by some hierarchical bishop or preacher of some sort that blows his breath on you, and you all of a sudden receive the Spirit. But it's the Spirit of God that moves through us, that draws us to conviction. And that is one of the great parts about creation. Is that it's connected to everything. So as you make your way outside today, I don't know when you'll be listening to this or what time of day it is. Take a moment. Look around and see the beauty in which God has created just by his words.