THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Deuteronomy: Moses' Great Appeal For Israel To Obey God For Blessing

Part V: Specific Treaty Stipulations Of The Great King, Deuteronomy 12-26

T. Holding To Scripture's Creator Of The Universe Versus Other "Creator Gods"

(Deuteronomy 26:1-15)

Introduction: (To show the need . . .)

In the last two weeks, people in our Church have told my wife or me how believers they know have been so impacted by secular science instructors that they are tempted to doubt creation and think evolution is a proven fact.

Nevertheless, each Sunday in my introductory remarks, I claim that "God created the universe apart from any evolutionary processes whatsoever," so we need validate such a claim in response to the secular science instructors.

[Some who may read these sermon notes may doubt or deny creation in favor of evolution, so, in fairness to them, all citations in this sermon outside of Scripture are taken only from pro-evolutionists, not from creationists!]

Need: We thus ask, "If secular pro-evolutionary science instructors ardently assert that science has discredited creation but proved evolution to be a fact, is the creation view defensible? How can I know?!"

I. Deuteronomy 26:1-15 called ancient Israel to RESIST STRONG PEER PRESSURE to REPLACE faith in SCRIPTURE'S CREATOR of the UNIVERSE with the Canaanite Baal "CREATOR GOD":

A. Deuteronomy 26:1-15 was written as Israel was about to enter Canaan and be exposed to a potent pagan Baal fertility cult that ardently looked to Baal for rain on a land that desperately needed it for crop production.

B. Also, akin to many Ancient Near East cults, Baal in Canaan was held to have defeated a "chaos monster" for creation even to occur, Z. P. E. B., v. One, p. 432-433; Bruce K. Waltke, Creation and Chaos, 1974, p. 1-72.

C. To counter this stout pagan peer pressure unto idolatry, God told Israel upon entering Canaan to heed one-time rituals to prompt her to hold to Scripture's Creator of the Universe versus the Baal "creator god":

1. The Deuteronomy 26:1-11, 12-15 firstfruits and tithe rituals were heeded just once, B. K. C., O. T., p. 307.

2. Being thus instructional on life amidst Canaanite peer pressure, the rituals with their confessionals were meant by God to prompt Israel to hold to Him as Creator of the Universe versus the Baal "creator god":

a. The pagan world held their gods were immanently part of nature itself (Ibid., Waltke, p. 57), but Israel's God as clarified in the firstfruits confessional (Deuteronomy 26:1-11) had provided for Israel's fertility and material needs wherever she in her ancestor Jacob or as a family or nation had gone, be it Aram (Genesis 29-31), Egypt (Genesis 46-Exodus 14), the Sinai (Exodus 15-Deuteronomy 34) or Canaan (Joshua 1-24), for God was transcendently apart from and above nature and so sovereign over it (Ibid.). Even the pagan harlot Rahab beheld this distinctiveness about Israel's God, and so put her trust in Him, Joshua 2:8-11!

b. [The Hebrew text at Deuteronomy 26:5 emphasizes God's provision for Jacob in Aram, claiming he was "perishing; straying (as an animal vulnerable to destruction)," 'abad, B. D. B., A Heb.-Eng. Lex. of the O. T., p. 1-2! The Bible record greatly supports this claim: after Jacob had fled for his life from brother Esau to end up working for a living for his uncle, Laban in Aram, Laban cheated Jacob in his pay ten times, but God did not let Jacob be hurt, but in his vulnerable state still gave him Laban's herds, Gen. 27:41-31:9!]

c. The Deuteronomy 26:12-15 first tithe confessional taught separation from pagan gods in Deuteronomy 26:14 and in Deuteronomy 26:15 extolled God as Lord in heaven in sovereignty over pagan deities, Ibid.

II. Well, Scripture's transcendent Creator of the universe is now rejected by evolutionists who push evolution that is imminently connected to nature as in pagan theology, presenting it as the "creator god" of the universe as a RELIGION, a fact we can verify in citing ONLY NOTABLE EVOLUTIONISTS:

A. Dr. L. Harrison Matthew's "Introduction" in the 1971 edition of Darwin's Origin of Species (pp. X, XI) stated: " . . . Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation -- both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof," as cited in Luther Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma, 1984, p. 30-31.

B. Dr. Scott Todd, Kansas State University in Nature 401 (6752):423, Sept. 30, 1999, wrote: "Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic," as cited in Roger Patterson, Evolution Exposed, 2006, p. 19. (Thus, as in ancient paganism, evolutionists hold the natural universe came to be from forces [the pagans called them "gods"] immanent with nature itself.)

C. Then, Karl Popper who Nobel Prize-winner Peter Medawar says is "incomparably the greatest philosopher of science who has ever lived" (Ibid., p. 26), wrote in his autobiography, Unended Quest: "'I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program . . . This is . . . why Darwinism has been almost universally accepted. Its theory of adaptation was the first nontheistic one that was convincing; and theism was worse than an open admission of failure . . .'" (Ibid., p. 28)

D. Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons," New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, in reviewing his colleague Carl Sagan's work, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, wrote: " . . . We take the side of [evolutionary] science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs . . . for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." (drjbloom.com; brackets ours)

E. Thus, notable evolutionists themselves hold evolution is not a testable scientific theory, but a faith akin to ancient paganism, a metaphysical research program adopted in biased rejection of creation, Romans 1:18-20.

Lesson: Like God called ancient Israel to hold to the Biblical Creator of the Universe versus strong Canaanite peer pressure to hold to the local false "creator god" Baal for crop production, so God calls us today to hold to Him as the Biblical Creator God versus today's peer pressure to hold to the naturalistic "creator god" of evolution.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ for salvation, John 3:16. (2) Then, may we (a) rely on the Holy Spirit to hold to Scripture truth (2 Timothy 1:13-14), trusting God to be the Creator of the Universe versus evolution!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . .)

To illustrate this sermon's lesson, the following citations are taken only from pro-evolution sources:

(1) In the 1840s, a "human skull composed of brown coal and manganiferous and phosphatic limonite" was found in "coal measures" as described by Otto Stutzer, an "outstanding authority on coal geology" in Geology of Coal (Trans. by A. C. Noe, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1940, p. 271) as cited in the creationist work, The Genesis Flood, 1978, p. 175-176 by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris. Whitcomb and Morris claim the date of the formation of the coal involved "is supposed to have far antedated the first appearance of man," Ibid., p. 176.

(2) Albert C. Ingalls, "The Carboniferous Mystery," Vol. 162, Scientific American, Jan., 1940, p. 14 reported on "human footprints . . . found in rocks from as early as the Carboniferous Period, supposedly some 250,000,000 years old" in the evolutionist's time line, where evolutionist geologists hold man began "about one million years" ago, as cited in Whitcomb and Morris, Ibid., p. 172. Mr. Ingalls claimed that such footprints, "'5 to 10 inches long, have been found on the surface of exposed rocks, and more and more keep turning up,'" Ibid., as cited in Whitcomb and Morris, Ibid., p. 173. Ingalls added such footprints have been found in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and "'westward toward the Rocky Mountains,'" Ibid., Ingalls, as cited in Whitcomb and Morris, Ibid., p. 172.

He concluded in this same Scientific American article: "'If man, or even his ape ancestor, or even that ape ancestor's early mammalian ancestor, existed as far back as in the Carboniferous Period in any shape, then the whole science of geology is so completely wrong that all the geologists will resign their jobs and take up truck driving. Hence for the present at least, science rejects the attractive explanation that man made these mysterious prints in the mud of the Carboniferous Period with his feet.'" (Ibid., Ingalls, as cited in Whitcomb and Morris, Ibid., p. 173)

(3) In 1983, Moscow News (No. 24, p. 10), a paper then under strict atheist communist control, ran the story, "Human and Dinosaur Foot prints in Turkmenistan?" on finding "dinosaur and human footprints on Kughitang-Tau Plateau." (Creation, Sept.-Nov. 1996 [18:4, p. 52]). The Moscow News added: "'Who knows, but maybe our very far removed ancestors did mingle with dinosaurs?'" (Ibid., cited in Creation, Ibid.) Professor Kurban Amanniyazov, head of the expedition, said, "''Science might possibly answer that in the affirmative some time in the future. However, at present we don't have enough grounds to say this. We've imprints resembling human footprints, but to date have failed to determine, with any scientific veracity, whom they belong to, after all.''" (Ibid., citing Moscow News, Ibid.)

(4) High school textbooks have long touted the illustration of the evolution of the horse as a great example of evolution. Yet, (a) the first fossil there, the Eohippus, has 18 ribs like the modern horse, but a transitional form, the Orohippus has 15 ribs and the Pliohippus has 19 of them! (Sylvia Baker, Bone of Contention, 1996, p. 11) (b) Also, Eohippus bones "are often found at the surface," not under the other forms, Ibid. (c) Some scientists say Eohippus is not connected to the horse, but is "a variant form of hyrax," Ibid. (d) The illustration's fossils are arranged to suggest an increase in size, but horses today vary from giant Clydesdales to humanly knee-high miniatures, Ibid., p. 11, 15.

(5) Noted atheist and evolutionist, Richard Dawkins, in The Blind Watchmaker (Oxford Univ., 1986, p. 1), "calls biology 'the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose,'" as cited in Dave Hunt, "Evolution or God's Word?", The Berean Call, Feb. 1997, p. 1!

May we trust in Christ for salvation. Then, may we rely on the indwelling Holy Spirit to adhere to the Scripture truth that the universe was created by God versus yielding to the false "creator god" of evolution!