Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz19950702.htm

FULFILLED SPIRITUALITY IN A TAINTED CHRISTENDOM
"Part V: Using Scripture To Answer The Theistic Evolution Theory"
(2 Peter 3:3-9)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

(1) Genesis 1:1 states that God created the universe.

(2) However, not only Liberals but some Evangelicals called theistic evolutionists believe that God USED evolution in the process! They often take the phrase "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" in 2 Peter 2:8 to mean that God took seven long eras of time in Genesis 1 to use evolution to create, Davidheiser, Evol. and the Chr. Faith, p. 168-172. Variations of this view are called progressive or threshold evolutionism. Roman Catholicism now teaches that man's soul did not evolve, but his body may have, Ibid., p. 173-176, 184-186 respectively.

(3) Theological problems formed by this view are very harmful:

(a) Ken Ham of the Creation Science Foundation writes: "One pastor in Ohio told me that . . . a 'progressive creationist' . . . gave a public lecture at the university where this pastor is involved in witnessing to the students. The pa stor was distraught that the non-Christians walked away comfortable that they could go on believing evolution, and many of the Christians walked away questioning their faith." (Creation Ex Nihilo, June-August, 1995, p. 17)

(b) In the same article, Ham quotes the heretical beliefs of Rev. Dr. Tom Ambrose, an Anglican clergyman, views caused by a commitment to theistic evolution! Rev. Ambrose preached in church: "'People try to tell us that Adam had a perfect relationship with God until he sinned, and all we need to do is repent and accept Jesus in order to restore that original relationsh ip. But perfection like this never existed . . . there was never a time when death appeared, or a moment when the evil changed . . . the universe. God made the world as it is, with evolution as the instrument of change . . . Death is as old as life itself . . . Can it therefore be God's punishment for sin? . . . God's answer is not a return to a past where there was no death. Such a world never existed . . . Resurrection is not 'restoration'. It points in diametrically the opposite direction.'" (Ibid., p. 16-17)



Well, DID God create by using evolutionary processes, or did He make the universe without it? Is death the punishment for sin to be removed in the believer's glorification, or do we not rise from the dead?! (We now turn to the sermon's "Need" section . . . )

Concluding Illustrations: (To demonstrate the lesson from science . . . )

(1) Leading underwater photographer, Gary Bell, is quoted regarding the way two kinds of fish discount evolution. "The goby lives with the (blind) shrimp in a hole which is dug and maintained by the blind shrimp. 'The shrimp has a never-ending job o f keeping the entrance to the hole clear of debris,' Gary explains. 'It does this by pushing the unwanted sand and debris out of the hole with its . . . claws . . . but can only do this when the coast is clear of . . . predators.' This is where the shrimp puts total trust in the goby. The goby sits near the entrance of the hole and stands guard while the shrimp does his work, with the shrimp always keeping one feeler on the goby. If danger approaches, the goby signals the shrimp with a flick of its tail a nd both scurry down the hole . . . 'There are many different species of blind shrimps and gobies,' Gary said, 'and they are common throughout most tropical seas. We have never seen them apart.'" (Creation Ex Nihilo, June-Aug., 1995, p. 12) If the many species of blind shrimp and goby live in symbiotic unions worldwide, then all had to be simultaneously programmed in all their species, and means only worldwide creation!

(2) Duane Gish, Ph. D. illustrates this truth with the bombardier beetle (Brachinus). This bug shoots its predators from behind with exploding gases. The burst comes from uniting two chemicals, hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone. Mixed in t he beetle, these compounds would melt down the insect if a chemical inhibitor were absent. But, an inhibitor is present. At the right moment, the whole mixture is sent from storage into expulsion tubes by a complex system of valves and precise communication system from the beetle's brain. In the tubes, two enzymes, catalase and peroxidase knock out the inhib itor, inflaming the unstable compounds and producing the smelly explosion that shoots out the back of the beetle's expulsion tubes! Now, all of this equipment and chemicals had to originate in the beetle at the same time or the beetle could not have survived; either its chemicals or predators would then have made it vulnerable to extinction! This insect "could not have evolved!" (Dinosaurs, Those Terrible Lizards, p. 51-54). God did not use evolution to make the bombardier beetle, either! God did not use evolution!

Thus, death came after Adam's sin, and death will be removed one day for all who receive Christ as Savior from sin!

Need: "Might God have USED evolutionary processes in creating the universe?! After all, 2 Peter 3:8 NIV states that 'with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day'! Couldn't this verse redefine 'day' in Genesis 1 to be six AEONS of time so that God could have USED evolution while creating?!"
  1. The CONTEXT of 2 Peter 3:8 shows that Peter countered belief in God's using evolutionary processes in creation!
    1. Peter condemned uniformitarianism as apostasy as follows:
      1. Peter said that scoffers would arrive in the latter days, 2 P. 3:4a.
      2. These scoffers would use uniformitarianism to deny truth, 3:4:
        1. The scoffers would mock belief in Christ's return, verse 4a.
        2. The basis of this scoffing would be their teaching that all things continued unchanged since the origin of the world ( uniformitarianism , Bib. Know. Com., N.T., p. 875)! (3:4b)
    2. However, uniformitarianism is the basic premise of evolution !
      1. In the 1700s, Hutton defined uniformitarianism behind Greek evolution , saying that "'the present is the key to the past ,'" Burns, West. Civ., p. 562; Whit. & Morris, The Gen. Flood, p. 95.
      2. Lyell exaggerated Hutton's view to say all past geologic events were very gradual , Whit. & Morris, The Gen. Flood, p. 95-96.
      3. Darwin then stated that one had to adopt Lyell's uniformitarianism to hold to his own views. He wrote: "He who can read . . . Lyell's . . . work on the Principles of Geology . . . and yet does not admit how vast have been the past periods of time may at once close this (Darwin's Origin of the Species) volume." (vol. XLIX of Great Bks. of the West. World, ed. Hutchins (Enc. Brit., '55), p. 153)
    3. Thus, to use 2 Peter 3:8 to make "day" be an "age" to teach that God used uniformitarian evolution processes in Genesis 1 is to counter Peter's whole effort in 2 Peter 2 to condemn uniformitarianism!
  2. We examine the meaning of "a day is like a thousand years" in 2 Peter 3:8 as follows to discover what Peter really MEANS there:
    1. Peter is not equating "day" in literal time with 1,000 years; otherwise, his stating that God is patient would be wrong as time would be meaningless to God, making God not truly patient!
    2. Rather, he says that though 1,000 years are literally much longer than a day, they are alike to God because He is so patient !
  3. We can supply ADDITIONAL Biblical reasons for resisting belief that God used evolutionary processes to create the universe:
    1. First, Gen. 2:21-22 records that the woman came from man's rib ; thus, man did not evolve !
    2. Second, there must be the death of organisms for evolution's survival of the fittest to occur. Yet, death did not come 'til after creation ended , cf. Gen. 1-3 and 1 Cor. 15:21-22! Thus, all organic life did not evolve !
    3. Third, the order of origins in Gen. 1 often counters that of evolution: as examples, (a) daylight precedes the sun; (b) daylight precedes the solar and stellar systems; (c) plant life precedes the sun, before a temperate climate due to the sun existed on the earth; (d) fish and birds precede land animals, including reptiles, a chief exception to evolutionary models, Davidheiser, Evol. and the Christ. Faith, p. 253; (e) whales precede land creatures whereas evolutionists say that whales came from land mammals, Ibid., 190!
    4. Fourth, God told Israel to keep the seventh "day" of each week to recall His 7th "day" rest after 6 "days" of creation, Ex. 20:9-11. This suggests literal days in Gen. 1 contrary to evolution!
    5. Fifth, the pagan cosmologies in Moses' day all taught that "the gods and the cosmos originated from the same primordial realm and were animated by a common source." However, "Moses (in Gen. 1) insisted on the transcendence of God. God existed before, apart from, and over His creation." (Gn. 1:2) (Waltke, Ph. D., Creation and Chaos, p. 57) Moses used Gen. 1 to critique paganism's evolutionary view that creative ability exists in the cosmos itself! Moses opposed theistic evolution!
    6. Sixth, the numerical adjectives modifying "day" in Genesis 1 use the cardinal form for the first day ("one") and ordinal forms for the other days ("second," "third," etc.). This order in all Semitic dialects defines consecutive days in one calendar month ! (Barker, Gen. Ed. of the NIV in Hebrew Class Notes, DTS, 1972) The Hebrew text prohibits theistic evolution in Genesis 1! (cf. Norman, "Evolution Unscientific," Ibid., Creation Ex Nihilo, p.28)
    7. Seventh, Rom. 8:18-24 states that creation is now unnaturally subject to death , and will be released from it with the believer's physical glorification! This text shows death to be absent before man's sin quite contrary to theistic evolution!
Lesson Application: Since Peter prophetically condemned the very uniformitarian IDEA that was necessary to form the theory of evolution, and since other Scriptures also agree with him, God created the universe by miracles without using evolution !