WEBVTT 00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:01.439 Well, good morning. 00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:09.279 I'd like to ask you to turn, if you would, please, to Genesis chapter 1. 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:25.760 We're going to be continuing this week and for a number of weeks to come in a series of studies, Bible expositions, trying to open up the early chapters of Genesis for ourselves. 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:32.719 And today we've come to Genesis chapter 1, verses 3 through 23. 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:37.119 That's a typo on my PowerPoint. 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:39.759 It's actually to 1.23. 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:48.560 And in this, as we will see, I'm going to read it for us in a moment, but I want to kind of set the stage. 00:00:48.719 --> 00:01:00.880 In this, what we are hearing, what we are reading, that which Moses presents to us, comes under the inspiration of God. 00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:11.359 God is speaking to us in this throughout the whole scriptures, but also in the early chapters of Genesis. 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:22.560 And when God speaks to us, he does not stutter, and he does not mislead us. 00:01:23.599 --> 00:01:55.280 So as we read these opening chapters and opening thoughts, we approach it with an assumption, with a worldview that God is there, God is involved with us, God is communicating in ways we don't completely understand, that are not necessarily objective, as it were, but that God speaks and what he says is true, reliable, trustworthy, factual, accurate. 00:01:56.319 --> 00:02:02.159 And it's with that framework that I approach the scriptures. 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:15.840 These verses and these passages that we are looking at are very easily approached with a very different mentality. 00:02:16.159 --> 00:02:36.319 We live in a day, we live in a world, we live in a society, we've been raised in the post-Enlightenment rationalistic, objective, cognitive, propositional, logical approach to understanding reality. 00:02:40.159 --> 00:02:59.840 And certainly most of those around us, but also we ourselves, if we're not careful, we don't quite know what to do with the supernatural, with the non-rational, with the non-cognitive, with the fact that God speaks. 00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:02.000 He really addresses us. 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:16.159 And if we're not careful, we approach the scriptures, and certainly Genesis 1 and 2 and 3, kind of with the questions, well, how does this correlate with the reality that we see around us? 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:35.199 It's talking about an understanding of how the world came into being that is fundamentally different from that with which we are typically raised, or at least trained and educated and those around us. 00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:42.719 So God is not left out of the equation here. 00:03:42.879 --> 00:03:46.080 The supernatural permeates all of this. 00:03:46.719 --> 00:04:11.360 And if we only approach this with a questioning of the supernatural or a feeling compelled to correlate the so-called facts of things that we know about creation and how it all came into being, and correlate that which with this, we will find ourselves kind of struggling and kind of in trouble. 00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:25.519 I'll be talking a little bit more about that, but what I want to say is that what we have here is a pretty simple story, a pretty simple account that even a child can understand. 00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:55.040 And, and it's it's really pretty simple, folks, because this is not just Moses talking, this is not just human, this is not just man's words, but God used the writers of Scripture in ways that they may not even have perceived of exactly, so that the end result is what God is wanting to say to us. 00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:59.439 And that is a pretty radical thought. 00:04:59.759 --> 00:05:04.240 And yet, quite frankly, that's the way here we here at this church approach us. 00:05:04.399 --> 00:05:09.759 We believe that this is accurate and true and reliable and does not mislead. 00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:26.720 No, we have to wrestle, and we're gonna spend a good bit of the limited period of time I have this morning, to kind of wrestle with how we can correlate some of this stuff, but where we're coming from is a worldview in which God exists. 00:05:27.279 --> 00:05:42.319 He transcends the visible, the material, the physical, that which we can weigh and touch and analyze and put under a microscope or look at through a telescope and make complete sense out of on the basis of human thinking and human reasoning. 00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:48.160 That's not what this is all about, because that is not all that reality is. 00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:58.639 There are realities which go way beyond that kind of that approach. 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:00.319 We'll we'll talk more about that. 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:04.639 Um let's just read. 00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:07.120 Let me read for you uh Genesis 1. 00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:08.480 I'll begin at verse 1. 00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:10.959 We only touched on two verses last week. 00:06:11.199 --> 00:06:18.720 We're gonna try to do a little bit more than that this week, otherwise, it'll be four or five years from now before we get through the first four chapters. 00:06:19.439 --> 00:06:28.160 Um however, based on the first service, we're not gonna cover this morning everything that I wanted to cover, so we'll probably take this and uh split it into two. 00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:31.839 But um follow along in your Bible. 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:32.800 Open it up, please. 00:06:32.959 --> 00:06:37.920 If you don't have a Bible with you, there's a Bible in the back of the pew in front of you. 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:42.560 Um let's begin at the very beginning, a very good place to start. 00:06:43.199 --> 00:06:45.199 Genesis chapter 1. 00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:47.120 In the beginning, God. 00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:50.319 And that's really about all I said last week. 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:53.519 It took me a whole lot more words than that to say it. 00:06:54.240 --> 00:06:55.680 But that's really the point. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:58.959 We begin with the God who is. 00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:01.759 In the beginning, God. 00:07:02.639 --> 00:07:06.240 God created the heavens and the earth. 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:08.160 That's the way the Bible begins. 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:11.680 That's an understanding of reality that is our starting point. 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:14.319 The earth, verse 2, was without form and void. 00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:26.480 Darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, and God said, Verse 3, let there be light, and there was light. 00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:28.959 And God saw that the light was good. 00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:32.079 And God separated the light from the darkness. 00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:35.759 God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:40.240 And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day. 00:07:41.839 --> 00:07:43.040 Verse 6. 00:07:43.519 --> 00:07:50.480 And God said, Let there be an expanse, a firmament, a canopy in the midst of the waters. 00:07:50.639 --> 00:07:53.120 Let it separate the waters from the waters. 00:07:53.279 --> 00:08:00.160 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:03.519 And it was so. 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:05.519 That's the way it was. 00:08:05.759 --> 00:08:10.879 And God called the expanse heaven, and there was evening, and there was morning. 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:12.639 The second day. 00:08:13.040 --> 00:08:19.920 Verse 9, and God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place, let the dry land appear. 00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:21.759 And it was so. 00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:29.920 God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called seas, and God saw that it was good. 00:08:30.319 --> 00:08:41.440 And God said, Let the earth sprout forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth. 00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:43.039 And it was so. 00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:59.200 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which their seed each according to its kind, and God saw that it was good, and there was evening and there was morning the third day. 00:08:59.519 --> 00:09:00.480 Verse 14. 00:09:00.879 --> 00:09:15.919 And 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 for years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. 00:09:16.240 --> 00:09:17.840 And it was so. 00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:26.399 And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars. 00:09:26.799 --> 00:09:35.679 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light to the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:37.679 And God saw that it was good. 00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:41.440 And there was evening and there was morning the fourth day. 00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:50.240 And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let the birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. 00:09:50.480 --> 00:10:01.440 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. 00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:16.399 And God saw that it was good, and God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and 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. 00:10:24.639 --> 00:10:28.960 But we'll be doing really well to get through this. 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:36.000 So what do we do with this? 00:10:38.399 --> 00:10:44.879 What do we do with the the the layers, the strata that we see in the Grand Canyon? 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:48.000 Beautiful, phenomenal, awesome. 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:59.600 What do we do with the paleontologistic the the findings of paleontology or fossil records? 00:10:59.840 --> 00:11:03.279 I always get screwed up when I try to use a high-falutin word, don't you? 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:04.639 What do we do with that? 00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:21.120 What about carbon-14 dating, which, if we understand what we're being told on the basis of, I think it's the half-life of carbon or something like that, carbon-14, uh, then the world is something like 4.5 billion years old. 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:24.960 Um how do we approach those things? 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:36.720 Because when when we read the creation account and we just let it say what it says, we get a very different picture. 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:41.679 Um, how do we put those kinds of things together? 00:11:42.080 --> 00:11:51.279 Uh as I mentioned last week, I have to say very honestly, uh, correlating uh science in the Bible is really not my great interest. 00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:59.519 It's not as though we're going to convince people of different worldviews simply because we come up with logical arguments. 00:11:59.679 --> 00:12:09.600 People do not get argued or do not get embracing a fundamentally different view of reality because of argumentation. 00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:10.799 Now there's a place for that. 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:12.720 There's a place for apologetics. 00:12:12.879 --> 00:12:19.600 Apologetics, by the way, is not apologizing for what we believe, it's defending what we believe. 00:12:19.759 --> 00:12:24.639 Ravi Zacharias is a great example of a good and godly apologist. 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:31.519 And so he marshals the evidence, and there is evidence, and that's a worthwhile thing to do. 00:12:31.679 --> 00:12:33.679 It's just not what I do. 00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:39.120 And I deeply appreciate Ravi. 00:12:40.159 --> 00:12:43.759 But that's not what the early chapters of Genesis are trying to do. 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:48.399 It can be rightly used for some of that, but that's not what it was given for. 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:50.720 That we could win arguments. 00:12:51.120 --> 00:13:02.960 It wasn't given so that we would make ourselves by coming up with how you can overlay science and creation, the creation account, you can put those two together in a way that makes us feel good. 00:13:03.120 --> 00:13:05.279 That's not what it was revealed for. 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:12.080 And I really am not gonna spend much time on that. 00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:17.919 I've got about ten weeks to cover what I want to cover, and at least my thought was I would do this this week. 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:20.480 It'll probably be this week and two weeks from now. 00:13:20.639 --> 00:13:23.440 I'm gone next week back to Indiana for a week. 00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:27.360 But but I just we we it's not wrong to deal with these things. 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:38.879 And frankly, when we read Genesis, if we are alive and kicking and we know what the world is saying, and if we've had some education, then there's all kinds of questions that rise. 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:40.159 So, how do we deal with those? 00:13:40.320 --> 00:13:44.399 So I'm gonna do something now a little bit different from what I normally do. 00:13:44.559 --> 00:13:47.679 We're not gonna get into too much of the details of the text. 00:13:47.759 --> 00:13:49.840 We'll do a little bit more of that next time. 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:56.879 But I'd like to just help you understand how, in any case, I uh wrestle with these things. 00:13:57.039 --> 00:14:07.200 I've spent 45 years in vocational ministry, 45 years standing in front of people saying, this is what God said. 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:16.799 And yet, how do we correlate that with what science tells us and what the uh the data out there is? 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:24.639 And believe me, I'm not expecting to cover this in a complete, exhaustive, or necessarily even terribly helpful way. 00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:29.360 I hope it's helpful, but no guarantees in the little bit of time that I have. 00:14:29.519 --> 00:14:37.120 But just take this as your pastor, a shepherd who loves you, loves God, and loves his word. 00:14:37.519 --> 00:14:40.080 And we don't have to put our mind on the shelf. 00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:44.480 We don't have to say, uh, we don't listen to any of that. 00:14:45.679 --> 00:14:49.039 So let's just wrestle with those things a little bit. 00:14:49.360 --> 00:14:58.480 So what I want to suggest, um, I'd like to spend some time talking about understanding the creation account, kind of in a global way. 00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:03.279 Um talk about creation and science. 00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:09.679 Um my plan has been and will be one day to talk about the days of creation. 00:15:09.759 --> 00:15:11.759 How do we understand the word day here? 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:14.559 It's fundamental to our understanding of that. 00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:18.480 Uh how do we understand the flow of thought in this chapter? 00:15:18.639 --> 00:15:21.200 Is there continuity or discontinuity? 00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:26.720 Is there a big gap between verses one or one and two and then three and the rest? 00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:31.840 Uh is there one, just kind of, those are some of the things I'd like us to think about. 00:15:32.159 --> 00:15:39.840 And I trust you will see and perceive that these have very practical outworkings for us. 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:43.600 So let's try to do that. 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:57.600 So what we have here, I believe, as I read this, is a very simple narrative account that everybody can understand. 00:15:59.919 --> 00:16:10.960 Sometimes we think that unless we have a PhD in paleontology or geology or science or something, or a PhD in theology, then we really can't do very much with this. 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:12.720 We kind of get scared away from it. 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:18.879 And yet you share this with a child, and in simple ways, we get the picture. 00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:21.200 We get the picture there is a God. 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:22.960 There really is a God. 00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:28.399 And he really has spoken, and what he has to say explains a great deal. 00:16:28.559 --> 00:16:48.320 And as we grow and develop in that, we begin to understand that his perspective and what he shares with us and what we come to know and understand makes fundamentally more sense out of the reality around us than what we would only get by looking through a microscope or a telescope. 00:16:48.559 --> 00:16:51.840 Both are true, the data and the facts out there. 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:58.879 But what we desperately need to know is what God is saying in simple, clear ways. 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:06.319 And in this account, God speaks, and with six broad brush strokes, a picture is painted. 00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:10.640 The account here is one page long. 00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:11.519 Okay? 00:17:12.240 --> 00:17:14.000 That's all we have here. 00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:21.839 And we must clearly understand what he is saying to us and why he is saying it to us. 00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:31.599 Every aspect of what I read here I believe to be literally and actually true. 00:17:32.960 --> 00:17:47.279 I believe we have here an accurate and completely reliable recounting of what actually, literally happened, that does not mislead us in any way. 00:17:48.640 --> 00:17:50.400 This is not myth. 00:17:50.640 --> 00:17:56.480 This is not like Greek mythology, this is not fantasy, this is not the Lord of the Rings. 00:17:57.599 --> 00:18:01.119 This is God speaking to us. 00:18:01.599 --> 00:18:12.400 Now, when we read mythology, and actually, mythology is incredibly interesting, but we recognize it's mythology when we read fantasy. 00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:16.559 And actually, I love the genre of fantasy. 00:18:16.880 --> 00:18:30.079 But we understand fantasy when we read it, we understand mythology when we read it, when you read this with just a simple, clear, childlike way of saying, Lord, what are you saying? 00:18:30.240 --> 00:18:34.319 It doesn't come across as mythology or fantasy. 00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:41.759 It comes across as though God is explaining something we would know in no other way. 00:18:42.079 --> 00:18:43.519 This is through revelation. 00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:47.680 That means if he hadn't revealed this, we wouldn't know it. 00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:52.640 God is giving us a perspective on reality. 00:18:53.039 --> 00:19:08.720 And just so that you understand, I don't think you'd be able to miss it, I really believe that what is here is literally and actually true, recounting true events that literally happened. 00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:21.359 And what we have is a, as I talked about it last time, a compass and a map to help us orient ourselves to reality. 00:19:21.920 --> 00:19:22.240 Okay? 00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:24.400 So in the beginning, God. 00:19:24.799 --> 00:19:30.319 That we will not understand reality without beginning with God. 00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:39.200 And that God speaks, and that he who is not created has created everything we see around us. 00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:53.519 So if we study and try to relate to the world around us without understanding that that is not all that there is, then we find ourselves in deep trouble. 00:19:54.960 --> 00:20:33.359 Up until, let's say, maybe two, three hundred years ago, as the enlightenment, so-called enlightenment, uh, came, and as the scientific understanding of the world, which is based on what's measurable, uh, analyzable, touchable, viewable, correlatable, um, the the a scientific approach to reality, and I'm going to touch on there is true science, but there's a lot of stuff that passes for science that is scientism, not science. 00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:34.400 Anyway. 00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:51.920 But up until two or three hundred years ago, virtually everyone, believers, from the time of Moses up until a couple hundred years ago, we said this is the way it happened. 00:20:52.240 --> 00:20:57.200 But now we are sophisticated and we have other ways of looking at things. 00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:09.440 And so most people, unless you believe that God really exists and he really speaks to us and what he reveals is true, then the thought is this is obviously impossible. 00:21:09.599 --> 00:21:11.119 This could not be the way it is. 00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:12.319 We know better than that. 00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:15.680 Well, I don't know better than that. 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:19.839 I don't know anything better than what God says to us. 00:21:21.039 --> 00:21:29.359 Um, so it's a revelation, it's an accurate description that doesn't mislead us. 00:21:29.440 --> 00:21:43.200 And it's like having a compass when you're lost in a uh in a in a strange place with hills and valleys and trees and streams and no roads. 00:21:43.599 --> 00:21:44.880 How do you get along? 00:21:45.039 --> 00:21:59.759 Well, if you have a map, a topographical map, especially, talked about this last week, and if you've got a compass, if you know where north is and you have a sense of the lay of the land, well, then you can. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:01.680 Actually, find yourself. 00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:04.079 You can find your way home. 00:22:05.599 --> 00:22:11.039 And you know, if we could get rid of our pseudo-sophistication, we're just stumbling around, folks. 00:22:11.119 --> 00:22:12.720 We're trying to make sense out of life. 00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:13.920 Aren't you? 00:22:14.720 --> 00:22:15.680 Aren't you? 00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:20.000 I'm trying to make sense out of life. 00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:26.880 What we have here is not a scientific treatise. 00:22:27.119 --> 00:22:31.359 It is not an historical study. 00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:33.279 It's not the kind of thing you would submit. 00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:45.519 It wasn't intended to be submitted in the academic world with footnotes, cross-references, nice charts, and everything nice and neatly tied up. 00:22:47.279 --> 00:22:54.079 If that's what we expect from God, then we're expecting a God is not the God of the Bible. 00:22:54.240 --> 00:22:58.799 Nice and neatly tied up that we can fit in boxes and come to put our mind around. 00:22:58.880 --> 00:23:00.240 That is not our God. 00:23:00.880 --> 00:23:05.119 But that's also not what Genesis is doing. 00:23:07.839 --> 00:23:16.799 Now we don't have to deny the facts and the realities of what we observe and of science. 00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:18.880 That's not at all where I'm coming from. 00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:21.039 But I'm saying, how do we view it? 00:23:21.279 --> 00:23:26.160 And for what purpose has this been revealed? 00:23:29.119 --> 00:23:32.400 I mean, science is great. 00:23:32.640 --> 00:23:34.640 I was a biology major in college. 00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:36.960 I'll touch on that again later. 00:23:37.359 --> 00:23:56.640 But, you know, so you can study the physical dynamics of a tsunami where the water wells up and overpowers a whole country if it's a small island or something, creating thousands of people, killing thousands of people. 00:23:56.799 --> 00:24:00.400 You can analyze it, but why does that happen? 00:24:00.559 --> 00:24:01.359 I mean, really? 00:24:01.440 --> 00:24:07.759 And just knowing the physical dynamics doesn't really answer why is the world this way. 00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:17.039 An active shooter that stands up in the middle of church and turns around and starts killing people. 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:18.559 How do you explain that? 00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:21.119 Science does not explain that. 00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:31.759 The things that, the the conflicts in our own hearts, why we do what we do and why we do what we do to one another. 00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:36.960 How come the people we love most we hurt the most? 00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:43.279 And you see, it's things like that. 00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:44.640 That's reality. 00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:50.160 Those aren't measured, those aren't put under the microscope, but boy, those are real. 00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:56.559 And it's this broader understanding of why what is is. 00:24:57.200 --> 00:24:58.720 How did this come about? 00:24:59.119 --> 00:25:02.799 And that's what the early chapters of Genesis are doing. 00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:19.759 The consistent testimony of Scripture is that what we have here is actual, literal, historic data, revelation that is relevant for our daily lives. 00:25:19.839 --> 00:25:26.880 And I've just got four of hundreds of passages that you could think about. 00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:29.200 And let me touch on a couple of these. 00:25:30.079 --> 00:25:30.799 Relevant. 00:25:30.960 --> 00:25:32.559 Well, it's very interesting. 00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:41.599 In the middle of the Ten Commandments, in Exodus chapter 20, you know, we spent a number of weeks a year ago talking about the tender commandments. 00:25:41.839 --> 00:25:44.000 God is telling us how life works. 00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:47.039 He's telling us, go this way, don't go that way. 00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:49.279 Go this way and you'll harm yourself. 00:25:49.599 --> 00:25:54.640 Go this way and you will experience life the way it was intended. 00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:56.000 Very interesting. 00:25:56.160 --> 00:26:12.720 In the middle of the tender commandments, the Ten Commandments, we read as though it's just suddenly inserted here, Exodus 20, 11, in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and his all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:25.200 Your first reading of the Ten Commandments, you'd scratch your head and say, why bring in the creation account in the midst of God telling us how to live? 00:26:25.440 --> 00:26:28.480 Well, if you pose the question the right way, it begins to make sense. 00:26:28.640 --> 00:26:31.759 We have a God who tells us how to live. 00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:37.279 There is a contour to reality. 00:26:37.440 --> 00:26:44.240 If we live, the reality is if we live this way, we will harm ourselves, it will destroy us and create great trauma. 00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:52.240 There's other ways to live the way God wants us to that work, because that's the way life is. 00:26:52.400 --> 00:26:54.559 That's the way reality is. 00:26:55.119 --> 00:27:02.240 We need this understanding of creation, apparently, to be able to rightly understand the Ten Commandments. 00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:03.440 Or let's broaden it out. 00:27:03.599 --> 00:27:06.960 So God's telling me what I'm supposed to do? 00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:18.240 Well, if we understand who our God is, the answer is, duh! He made it! Why ignore the instruction manual? 00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:20.880 As though we have to figure it all out ourselves. 00:27:21.039 --> 00:27:26.240 No, we have a God who made it all, is involved with it, and communicates to us. 00:27:26.559 --> 00:27:40.319 So the understanding of God and how he works and the created realm has direct impact on how we respond and how we understand God saying, do this and don't do that. 00:27:41.039 --> 00:27:42.240 Very interesting. 00:27:42.880 --> 00:27:49.279 Hebrews chapter 11, verse 3 says, the universe was created at God's command. 00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:56.240 It's very interesting, all of these passages and many more point right back to a real event back in Genesis. 00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:07.920 The universe was created at God's command, and then he draws a conclusion so that what is seen is not made of things that are visible. 00:28:09.519 --> 00:28:16.640 Now, we talked last week about creatio ex nihiloa, the Latin term, creation out of nothing. 00:28:16.880 --> 00:28:25.440 The things that are came from not just other things that are, but they came from the creative power and work of God. 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:26.319 Okay. 00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:30.000 Now, why does he say that in Hebrews chapter 11? 00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:34.559 Well, Hebrews chapter 11 is the quintessential chapter on faith. 00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:45.839 It is the high point where there's example after example after example after example after example of people who took God at his word and they lived their lives accordingly. 00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:51.279 And faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. 00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:56.799 God created that which is seen from that which is unseen. 00:28:57.519 --> 00:29:09.680 And the point being that in our walk of faith, the things that matter most are not the things we see around us, but the truths. 00:29:10.160 --> 00:29:13.039 He gives the example, uh Abraham. 00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:16.559 He wasn't looking for the city from which he came. 00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:21.359 He was looking for another city whose maker and founder is God. 00:29:21.759 --> 00:29:27.200 And ultimately, that's talking in the revelation of Scripture about our real home. 00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:29.039 This is not our real home. 00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:33.599 We do not find our real home here in this world. 00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:37.920 We are east of Eden and very far from home. 00:29:38.400 --> 00:29:49.920 And going to the very heart of faith is learning to live on the basis of things besides what you can see, touch, taste, and make complete sense of. 00:29:50.160 --> 00:29:52.640 So this is very, and he points back to creation. 00:29:52.799 --> 00:29:54.000 That gives us a context. 00:29:54.079 --> 00:29:57.119 That's part of the contours of reality. 00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:03.440 Acts chapter 17, Paul's interacting with non-believing seekers. 00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:14.400 And he says, God made the world and everything that is in it, so that he made from one man a nation, every nation of mankind. 00:30:14.559 --> 00:30:22.480 So he goes back to creation of the physical world and then the creation of Adam and Eve from which everything else flowed. 00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:35.839 Why was that important when he was speaking to non-believing, pagan, but very intelligent Greek philosophers? 00:30:38.079 --> 00:30:52.079 Well, we're not going to get very far in helping people get a sense of who God is unless we point beyond the physical and beyond the material. 00:30:52.319 --> 00:31:00.000 Because we do not rightly understand the world around us without what God is saying to us here. 00:31:00.319 --> 00:31:03.920 Or Romans chapter 5, verses 12 and 19. 00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:16.960 Sin entered the world through one man, and you get the impression it was really a man, really Adam, a real live human being, and therefore sin came to all of us. 00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:32.079 And in Romans 5, verse 19, he says, in the same way, salvation comes through one man, Christ Jesus, and it is through that man that we are saved. 00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:45.200 So there's one man through which everything else came, sin, and there's another man through which salvation and restoration and forgiveness and new life comes. 00:31:46.079 --> 00:31:51.359 Well, a real man back here and a real man here, those are intimately tied together. 00:31:51.519 --> 00:32:00.960 Our understanding of salvation is based upon the view of reality that is found in the first chapters of Genesis. 00:32:01.119 --> 00:32:07.279 So there's a lot more I could say about that, but what I'm really trying, I'm trying to be subversive here. 00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:18.000 I'm trying to help you think in a different way and approach Genesis, these early chapters, at least the way I approach it is with a very different goal in mind. 00:32:18.079 --> 00:32:25.759 And it's not to win arguments and figure out how to how to disagree with Darwin. 00:32:26.319 --> 00:32:34.880 It's to figure out who God is and where He has placed us, the compass and the topographical map. 00:32:36.559 --> 00:32:39.200 Creation and science. 00:32:55.759 --> 00:33:07.279 I'm not trying to enfold, lay the Bible over on top of scientific or factual records to be able to correlate everything. 00:33:07.680 --> 00:33:13.039 I spent a very interesting day one time in the Creation Museum in Kentucky. 00:33:13.759 --> 00:33:17.039 A friend of mine was a pilot. 00:33:17.279 --> 00:33:21.759 He and his wife had an airplane, and they gave Jane and me a wonderful present. 00:33:21.839 --> 00:33:26.960 They flew us from the Chicago area down to Kentucky, and we spent a day at the Creation Museum. 00:33:27.039 --> 00:33:35.599 And what I sensed is that there was an effort to correlate and overlay these so that they, the one proves the other. 00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:38.400 And you can do that if you want. 00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:50.319 Let me put it this way. 00:33:51.119 --> 00:34:04.319 I believe there is, and listen carefully, no conflict between the Bible on one hand and the actual observable facts of science that can be observed. 00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:13.679 What we weigh, touch, feel, measure, magnify, bring close through a microscope or a telescope, the data that's out there is data. 00:34:13.840 --> 00:34:15.519 It's real, it's there. 00:34:17.679 --> 00:34:24.880 I see zero conflict between what I read in Genesis and what I observe there. 00:34:25.039 --> 00:34:26.800 Let me try to explain that. 00:34:27.039 --> 00:34:34.960 Because this statement, all truth is God's truth, I believe, but I think it doesn't say quite enough. 00:34:35.280 --> 00:34:39.920 Because the real question is, how do we know what is really true? 00:34:40.159 --> 00:34:43.360 All truth is God's truth, but not everything we hear is really true. 00:34:43.519 --> 00:34:45.760 How do we know what is really true? 00:34:45.840 --> 00:34:50.960 And how do we interpret the actual data that we find in the world around us? 00:34:51.199 --> 00:34:54.159 Those questions are much more profound. 00:34:54.480 --> 00:34:58.400 And actually, they're philosophical in nature. 00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:09.039 It goes back to the part of the study of philosophy of epistemology, another fancy word, that basically means how do we know what we know? 00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:13.760 Epistemology begins to think about how do we know what we know. 00:35:14.400 --> 00:35:16.239 And it deals with a worldview. 00:35:16.400 --> 00:35:24.239 And so I come to the scriptures with a worldview that is very different from the way I did when I was a pre-med student. 00:35:24.559 --> 00:35:25.440 I just do. 00:35:26.079 --> 00:35:34.159 I come to it with a set of glasses that has been formed and shaped by what God has said. 00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:42.000 That's why I'm trying to paint a larger picture. 00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:48.239 Maybe this would be helpful for you. 00:35:48.320 --> 00:35:53.840 Just to tell you a story, and I'll basically wrap it up with this, and we'll pick it up two weeks from now. 00:35:54.960 --> 00:36:02.559 I came to Christ in college back shortly after the Earth's crust hardened, I think. 00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:10.159 And I was in a pre-med program at a very good school. 00:36:10.400 --> 00:36:14.320 It wasn't a large school, but a school that had an excellent pre-med program. 00:36:14.480 --> 00:36:19.760 If you made it through their pre-med program, you could almost certainly get into medical school unless you tried hard not to. 00:36:21.679 --> 00:36:24.480 And it's so interesting. 00:36:24.719 --> 00:36:34.800 The very semester that I encountered Christ, some staff workers with crew came to my fraternity house and they shared the gospel with me. 00:36:35.039 --> 00:36:39.840 And something inexplicable happened. 00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:45.599 I was deeply and truly and fundamentally transformed from within. 00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:52.800 That very semester, I was taking an advanced biology course of in comparative anatomy. 00:36:52.960 --> 00:37:04.800 So what we did in that course is we took three different animals from the different stages along the developmental cycle or curve or whatever. 00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:06.320 So a very simple animal. 00:37:06.480 --> 00:37:08.800 I think it was a starfish, if I remember right. 00:37:08.880 --> 00:37:10.880 There's really not much to a starfish. 00:37:11.039 --> 00:37:17.920 And then there was a frog, a more advanced animal, and then there was a mammal, there was a cat. 00:37:18.079 --> 00:37:29.599 I remember the cat for sure because for probably two months I had this heavy plastic bag filled with the odor stench of formaldehyde. 00:37:29.679 --> 00:37:31.920 I can still bring it back up. 00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:42.079 And in that bag was the increasingly unrecognizable carcass of the cat as we began to dissect it. 00:37:42.239 --> 00:37:48.159 So we would dissect the starfish and we'd look at the uh the circulatory system of a starfish. 00:37:48.239 --> 00:37:49.840 It's really pretty simple. 00:37:50.159 --> 00:37:54.960 Um and then we'd look at the circulatory system of a reptile, and it's it's more complex. 00:37:55.119 --> 00:37:59.039 And then we'd look at the circulatory system of a cat, very complex. 00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:03.199 Nervous system, um, all the way through. 00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:10.480 Um the starfish has hardly has what you would call a brain, maybe a nexus of neurons, but but really nothing more than that. 00:38:10.880 --> 00:38:17.360 Uh a frog doesn't have much sense, it often gets run over by cars as it crosses a road. 00:38:17.679 --> 00:38:20.079 But a mammal, that is much more sophisticated. 00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:32.800 And the school I went to, it was not a Christian school, but we were taught that we try to understand the observable things before us, and so we developed theories. 00:38:33.039 --> 00:38:42.400 A scientific theory is a best effort that we can come up with to give a reasonable explanation of what we observe. 00:38:42.719 --> 00:38:51.519 So I had learned the theory of evolution, and I knew it was a way of trying to make sense out of observable things. 00:38:51.679 --> 00:39:01.599 And boom, in the middle of that, I encountered in an existential, profound way the reality of God. 00:39:04.719 --> 00:39:06.800 Now, I did a lot of thinking about that. 00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:11.760 It wasn't all that profound, and I'm not a real complicated guy, honestly. 00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:16.960 In a very simple way, I said, how do you correlate this? 00:39:17.119 --> 00:39:21.519 But I knew that evolution was a good scientific theory. 00:39:21.679 --> 00:39:23.199 It doesn't make it true. 00:39:23.440 --> 00:39:30.079 It makes it the best efforts that good minds that I highly respect, far more intelligent than me. 00:39:31.840 --> 00:39:35.039 But there are other realities out there. 00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:51.199 Once I came to know that God is real, and I came to know the God of the scriptures, then it changed the way I viewed the facts and the data that is out there, because there's another way to correlate it. 00:39:52.159 --> 00:40:00.239 Let me just give one simple uh example of this, um, and then I will really will wrap this up. 00:40:00.719 --> 00:40:11.039 Um I kept thinking about, okay, you look at um, so we're in the Genesis, and and there's a tree. 00:40:11.199 --> 00:40:14.239 God created all of it, and suddenly a tree appears. 00:40:14.480 --> 00:40:16.639 A tree of the knowledge of good and evil, let's say. 00:40:16.800 --> 00:40:18.159 I think it was a real tree. 00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:19.519 There were real trees. 00:40:19.679 --> 00:40:22.079 I think Eden was a real place. 00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:27.519 But if that's true, and if God created that, how old was that tree? 00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:38.480 Well, it from its inception was really not very old by the time we read the Genesis account in chapter 2 and 3. 00:40:38.960 --> 00:40:40.800 But it sure looked like it was old. 00:40:40.880 --> 00:40:44.480 It had the appearance of age, I'm assuming. 00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:47.440 Maybe that's stretching things. 00:40:47.519 --> 00:40:49.039 How about Adam and Eve? 00:40:49.360 --> 00:40:57.760 They were created by God, and that is recorded how that happened, and it wasn't through a period of gestation and development. 00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:05.920 Adam was created full-blown, and then Eve was created full-blown with the full appearance of age. 00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:08.320 Could it not be? 00:41:09.519 --> 00:41:21.199 Is it silly to think that when you study the marvels of the geological layers in the Grand Canyon, that God created those that way? 00:41:21.840 --> 00:41:31.280 Not the result of millions of years of matter and uh mud and different kinds of rocks and volcanic activity. 00:41:31.679 --> 00:41:33.679 Maybe some of that is since then. 00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:49.280 But why could not the world have been created with all that we see, which if we leave God out of the picture, the only conclusion we could come is that it takes millions and billions of years to, but I again I'm just really simple-minded. 00:41:49.360 --> 00:41:52.239 I think the world was created with the full appearance of age. 00:41:52.400 --> 00:42:05.360 And now with science, we look at that, and if we if we only look at it with a rationalistic, non-supernatural basis, then the best we can come up with is all the theories of science. 00:42:05.760 --> 00:42:11.519 The facts of science, that those things exist, absolutely undeniable. 00:42:11.840 --> 00:42:16.400 No need to deny them, because they're not fundamentally in conflict with this. 00:42:16.480 --> 00:42:18.960 It's just how do we explain them? 00:42:19.440 --> 00:42:38.320 And I personally believe that we can explain far more of reality on the basis of the revelation of God's word, not only here but elsewhere, than we can just with geology and paleontology and psychology and sociology. 00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:39.679 And there's a place for all of that. 00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:41.119 I'm not against that. 00:42:41.760 --> 00:42:46.800 The reason I didn't go into medicine was not because that was incompatible with being a Christian. 00:42:47.039 --> 00:42:47.360 Okay? 00:42:48.320 --> 00:42:51.599 God just revealed a different plan for my life. 00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:56.639 So all I'm trying to do is expand your thinking here. 00:42:57.280 --> 00:43:04.320 Um we've seen some verses that say this has everything to do with our life. 00:43:04.400 --> 00:43:18.880 And I'd like to just say this God brings light in dark places, and he fashions and forms and shapes and fulfilled that which appears to be chaotic and empty. 00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:21.360 That's what he does in creation. 00:43:21.840 --> 00:43:24.239 And my friends, that's what he does in our lives. 00:43:25.360 --> 00:43:27.760 He takes the darkness and he brings light. 00:43:28.400 --> 00:43:28.719 Oh. 00:43:29.599 --> 00:43:32.320 How we want that once we taste it. 00:43:32.559 --> 00:43:39.519 And that which doesn't make any sense makes more sense when we someday when we get to heaven, it'll make a whole lot more sense, no doubt. 00:43:39.840 --> 00:43:49.280 But that which is chaotic and and and that which is uh misshapen, God begins to fill and bring order and give shaping to. 00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:53.599 Just as he does that in creation, he does that with you and me. 00:43:54.079 --> 00:43:55.679 That's the gospel. 00:43:56.400 --> 00:43:57.360 The gospel. 00:43:58.239 --> 00:44:03.920 So this is far from an abstract theoretical thing so we can win arguments. 00:44:04.320 --> 00:44:07.519