Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20070909.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
1 Corinthians: Discipling Believers With Very Sinful Backgrounds
VIII. Overcoming Secularism's Denial Of The Bodily Resurrection
C. Overcoming The Acceptance Of Death As Normal
(1 Corinthians 15:12-22)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

One hundred years ago, Christians universally held that God created all life in six consecutive solar days as they read Genesis 1-2 in the literal sense. However, today, things are very different:

(1) On February 12, 2006, "over 400 congregations in 49 states in the USA" celebrated "the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin", calling it "Evolution Sunday.'" (Ken Ham, "In praise of Darwin this Sunday . . ." Answers In Genesis web site, Feb. 6, 2006).

(2) In 2004, Professor Michael Zimmerman at the University of Wisconsin acquired the signatures of 10,200 American clergy, getting them to "sign a letter that supports evolution and rejects the Genesis account of creation as literal history." (Ibid.)

(3) Dave Hunt's March 1997 issue of The Berean Call reported that the notable evangelical publication, Christianity Today and the evangelical Promise Keeper's official magazine, the New Man, now allow for the belief that God used evolutionary processes to create.

(4) Ken Ham of the Answers in Genesis organization, in his article titled, "Theological Jello" in the March-April, 2000 issue of The Biblical Evangelist, p. 15 reported that Baker Book House had just published a major work, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics by conservative evangelical scholar and theologian, Norman Geisler that asserts: "If, of course, the days of Genesis are long periods of time, then there is no conflict with modern science on the age of the Earth . . .'" Thus, this key evangelical apologetics specialist has left room for there to have been billions of years in the Genesis 1-2 record!

Yet, Ken Ham notes in his article cited above that "as soon as one accepts billions of years, one has to accept millions of years of death, bloodshed, disease, thorns and suffering in the fossil record before man's existence . . ." as one thus allows for the evolutionary process of natural selection to occur to create life forms. (Ibid.)



So, we ask, "With so many religious leaders and institutions and even key evangelical leadership now allowing for long ages in Genesis 1-2 where God is said to use evolutionary processes to create, why STILL hold to PURE CREATIONISM as we do?!"



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )

Need: "With many Christians and even key leaders allowing for God to have used evolution to create, why hold to pure creationism?"
  1. Like some of Paul's readers, those who hold to theistic evolution, the view God used evolutionary processes to create, mistakenly but LOGICALLY inevitably SABOTAGE the whole Christian FAITH:
    1. Some of Paul's readers mistakenly but logically sabotaged the whole Christian faith when they held death to be good and resurrection evil:
      1. Some of Paul's Corinthian Christian readers, influenced by Greek philosophers, held that death was good as it released the soul from the sinful, weak body, The Wycliffe Bible Com. , 1971, p. 155.
      2. As a result, they denied belief in the resurrection, 1 Cor. 15:12.
      3. Yet, that denial logically sabotaged the Christian faith, 15:13-19:
        1. Denying the resurrection mistakenly, logically led to a denial of the resurrection of Christ Himself, 1 Corinthians 15:12-13.
        2. Denying Christ's resurrection logically led to a denial of the rest of the Christian faith -- to hold the Gospel of Christ's resurrection and their faith was futile (15:14), to make the Apostles false witnesses (15:15), to leave them still in sin (15:16-17), to hold those who had died trusting in Christ had perished (15:18) and to make Christians pitiable, 15:19 NIV!
    2. Similarly, by treating death as a part of God's "very good" creation (Genesis 1:31), believers holding to theistic evolution like Paul's readers mistakenly but logically are left sabotag ing the Christian faith:
      1. Theistic evolution suggests God used Darwin's natural selection belief to create our present life forms (Jacques Monod, June 10, 1976 interview by the Australian Broadcasting Commission as cited in David H. Lane's, "Theological Problems With Theistic Evolution," Biblotheca Sacra, April-June 1994, p. 167).
      2. Now, natural selection suggests the species evolved via the survival of the fittest at the cost of the death of weaker life forms (Bolton Davidheiser, Evolution and Christian Faith , 1969, p. 189).
      3. If so, death is part of God's "very good" creation (Gen. 1:31)!
      4. Yet, since resurrection counters death, then resurrection logically is left becoming an evil as it then counters a "very good" death, and Christ's resurrection and the Christian faith are left as false!
      5. Besides, when the theistic evolutionist holds to the death of the weak for the survival of the fittest as he relies on Darwin's natural selection belief, he is left logically contradicting Christianity's core ethic that we must help the weak (Galatians 6:1-2), a fact that atheistic Nobel prize winner in molecular biology, Jacques Monod, critiqued of theistic evolutionist Christians, Ibid., Bib. Sac.!
  2. Yet, opposite such errant views, Christ's resurrection REVERSES the DEVIANT state of DEATH and its CAUSE in SIN, 15:20-22:
    1. Contradicting his errant readers' view, and also the logical results of holding to theistic evolution today, Paul declared Christ is risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of believers who die, 1 Cor. 15:20.
    2. Then, OPPOSITE Darwin's "natural selection" IDEA in theistic evolution, Paul declared that since by man came death, so also by man came the resurrection from the dead, 1 Corinthians 15:21.
    3. To clarify, he noted that as by Adam's sin all die, so "in Christ" will all (believers) be resurrected, Ryrie St. Bib., KJV, ftn. to 1 Cor. 15:22:
      1. Adam and his wife were the last entities to be created on the sixth day of creation, so their subsequent sins that brought death were not part of God's "very good" creation, 1 Cor. 15:22; Gen. 1:1-3:6.
      2. That being so, death unnaturally invaded God's good creation BY way of SIN so that death was NOT a NORMAL part of creation!
  3. So, theistic evolution GRAVELY ERRS, and pure creation, Christ's resurrection, the Gospel and the Christian faith are all TRUE:
    1. The Bible reveals death is an evil aberration from God's initially "very good" creative order, so, Christ's resurrection and the hope of its application to the believer a blessing of God's goodness and grace.
    2. Thus, Darwin's "natural selection" belief is an utterly unbiblical, false one, "theistic evolution" that utilizes it is equally erroneous and the Christian Gospel, faith and pure creationism are all true!
Application: (1) May we BELIEVE in the Gospel of Christ's death for sin and His resurrection to be saved, and hope for our own resurrection victory in Christ. (2) May we by the Holy Spirit's power keep holding to pure creationism versus any form of evolution in support of the Christian faith, 2 Timothy 1:13-14.

Lesson: Belief that God used evolution to create implies that death is part of God's "very good" creative order. However, Scripture reveals that death as an evil, alien entity invaded God's good creative order through Adam's sin, and that it will be overcome for believers in their own bodily resurrections through the risen Christ. Thus, theistic evolution errs, and pure creationism, Christ's Gospel and the Christian faith are all true!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

In Romans 1:19-20, we read that the invisible things of God, including His eternal power and Godhead, are clearly manifested to mankind in the things God has created. At time, viewing the simplest things in creation best reveal the stunning greatness of our Great God!

Such is the case with the common monarch butterfly. We have all seen it fluttering in a field on a summer day with its large wings composed mainly of black veins and contrasting yellow segments.

Scientists have noted that it migrates 2,500 miles each year all the way from Canada where it lays its eggs in autumn to winter in Mexico. When it arrives down in Mexico, it goes to the same spot its ancestors wintered all without ever having been there before! ( Creation (Answers In Genesis), March-May 2004, p. 34)

For many years, scientists have known that monarchs use the sun for direction, but, recently, they have learned that these insects have a magnetic "compass" built within them that directs them to align their sense of direction with the earth's magnetic poles. This explains how they know so accurately what direction to fly on their long migration even on cloudy autumn days, Ibid.!

However, nobody yet knows how they know the exact spot where their parents and grandparents migrated when they themselves have never before been there! That remains a tremendous mystery!

Though we humans have much greater intelligence than monarch butterflies, we have no such honing system! We can get lost in the woods near home in broad daylight if we're not careful! Yet, these common, lowly butterflies never fail to find their way even to a place where they have never before visited. How could such lowly, common insects have such keen sense of direction and place? The only possible explanation is God!

So, just because many CHRISTIAN parties and groups are caving into the evolutionary model of origins in some way due to the alleged force of "scientific" evidence, even many reputable SCIENTISTS have to deal with such overwhelming evidences of the Creator's handiwork as seen the honing ability of the common monarch butterfly!

May we see death as abnormal and so evolution in all its forms as FALSE so that we hold FIRMLY to the Christian FAITH and Christ's resurrection!