THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Psalms: Living By Faith In God

CVI. Overcoming The Sins Of Our Forefathers

(Psalm 106:1-48)

Introduction: (To show the need . . .)

Many evangelicals today stand in need of overcoming the sins of many of our evangelical forefathers:

(1) In Matthew 19:4-6, Jesus handled Genesis 1-2 literally, not allowing for evolution. However, the spread of evolution in the nineteenth century led Christians who tried to “maintain some level of belief in the Bible’s history while adding millions of years to the creation account to insert those years somewhere. The GAP theory” put “them between Genesis 1:1 (‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth’) and Genesis 1:2 (‘The earth was without form and void . . .’).” (Liz Abrams, “What’s in the GAP?”, Answers, April-June 2023, p. 56) This view held that God created the universe in Genesis 1:1, but that a “gap” of millions of years occurred between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 when Satan sinned and polluted the earth, so God judged it to end up in the Genesis 1:2 chaotic state before He made a new universe in Genesis 1:3-31. (c) Even the Schofield Reference Bible at Genesis 1:2 permits the “Divine Judgment interpretation” with verse 2 depicting “a condition subsequent to . . . creation, not as it was originally.”

(2) However, “capitulating to nineteenth century science . . . gave people the idea that the Bible was not the authoritative source for earth’s history” (Ibid.), so now, “a growing number” of “evangelicals are doubting or denying Adam and Eve’s existence or . . . denying some of the details about Adam in Genesis . . . to make the evolutionary . . . timeline fit with Scripture” (Terry Mortenson, “The Last Word on the First Adam,” Answers, April-June 2024, p. 39): (a) “Dr. Denis Lamoureux . . . professor of science . . . at the University of Alberta” claims that “humans were made by God-designed natural processes over millions of years,” and that “Jesus was just accommodating the prescientific, mythical . . . beliefs of his listeners,” Ibid., p. 41. (b) “Dr. Francis Collins . . . founder of BioLogos . . . believes that Genesis 2-3 is symbolic, poetic allegory since the scientific majority says modern humans came from about 10,000 ancestors over 100,000 years ago,” Ibid. (c) “Dr. John Walton . . . professor emeritus of Old Testament at Wheaton College . . . insists that we should interpret Genesis in the light of Ancient Near-Eastern (ANE) pagan myths about creation . . . He also accepts evolution,” and “says . . . (a)ll the details about Adam and Eve’s origin are figurative because Genesis 1-2 is not about material origins but only about God giving function to pre-existing material,” Ibid. (d) “Dr. Hugh Ross . . . an astrophysicist and founder of Reasons to Believe” holds that “Adam and Eve were created supernaturally,” but he accepts “the big bang and a 13.8-billion-year age of the universe” so that he “follows the ever-changing evolutionary date for the first Homo sapiens” of “up to 50,000-150,000 years ago,” Ibid., p. 42.

Need: So, we ask, “How should we respond if many evangelical Christians today are sinfully compromising on belief in evolution like a number of our evangelical forefathers did?”

I. Psalm 106:1-6 opens with a call to praise God (v. 1-3) and a short prayer for God’s deliverance of the author and Israel (v. 4-5), for as Israel’s forefathers had sinned, so had Israel’s current generation (v. 6).

II. Then, in verses 7-46, the psalmist detailed the sins of the forefathers and God’s responses to them:

A. The forefathers had provoked God’s anger by their unbelief at the Red Sea in failing to learn of God’s help in delivering them from Egypt by the plagues, v. 7. However, God had still saved them at the Red Sea, v. 8-12.

B. The forefathers had roused God’s anger by forgetting His deliverance of them from Egypt so that they lusted after meat in the wilderness, v. 13-14. God gave them their desire, but He sent them a wasting disease, v. 15.

C. The forefathers had provoked God’s anger by forgetting His use of Moses and Aaron to deliver Israel from Egyptian bondage so as to envy their authority, so God catastrophically destroyed the rebels, Psalm 106:16-18.

D. The forefathers had provoked God’s anger by turning from worshiping Him to worshiping a gold calf at Mount Sinai, and Moses had interceded to keep God from destroying the idolaters, Psalm 106:19-23.

E. The forefathers had provoked God’s anger by forgetting His goodness in rescuing them from Egypt so that they disbelieved the good report of the spies, so God punished them to die in the wilderness, Psalm 106:24-27.

F. The forefathers had provoked God’s anger by worshiping Baal-peor, so God’s plague slew many of them until godly priest Phinehas had executed judgment and the plague had been stopped, Psalm 106:28-31.

G. The forefathers had roused God’s anger, forgetting about His provisions in the wilderness so as to murmur over a lack of water at Meribah, tempting Moses to sin so that he died outside of the Promised Land, v. 32-33.

H. The forefathers had angered God by not destroying the pagans in Canaan, but instead they had compromised with the idolatry of those pagans so that they had even sacrificed their own children to false gods, v. 34-40.

I. Thus, God had repeatedly disciplined the forefathers, and when the forefathers had repeatedly repented of their sins, God had graciously, repeatedly delivered them from His discipline of them, Psalm 106:41-46.

III. The psalmist then referred the sins of his generation that had had resulted in God’s discipline of the Babylonian Captivity, and in hope that God was still graciously willing to deliver his generation like He had the repentant forefathers, the psalmist asked God to deliver him and Israel in their era, v. 47.

IV. In faith in God’s coming deliverance, the psalmist ended Psalm 106 by praising the Lord, Psalm 106:48.

Lesson: Recalling God’s long record of graciously delivering past generations of Israel’s forefathers from God’s discipline for sin, the psalmist trusted God to deliver him and his generation if they repented in their era.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God's gift of eternal life, John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. (2) In witnessing many evangelicals today sinfully compromise with evolution like our evangelical forefathers did, may we trust God to bless us if we adjust as needed for blessing.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message and provide additional guidance . . .)

God has supplied insight from archaeological finds and Scripture on the issues of concern in our introduction to equip us to overcome our forefathers’ sinful compromise with evolution for His blessing (as follows):

(1) On the GAP theory, (a) the first word in the Hebrew text at Genesis 1:1 is Bereshit, (i) and ancient Jewish and Christian traditions never viewed it grammatically as being in the construct state where Genesis 1:1-2a as a dependent clause reads, “When God began to create the heavens and the earth – the earth being formless and void . . .” Rather, they viewed Bereshit in the absolute state, with Genesis 1:1 as the independent clause, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Bruce K. Waltke, Creation and Chaos, 1974, p. 28-32) (ii) Also, John 1:1 in the Greek New Testament opens by distinctly referring to an absolute beginning in the context of creation (John 1:3), stating, “En arche,” what can only be read as “In (the) beginning” (U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 320). (b) Genesis 1:2 is a circumstantial clause of the pattern waw + noun + verb that introduces a negative state before the Genesis 1:1 creation, what aligns with “normal Semitic thought which states the general proposition and then specifies the particulars,” Ibid., Waltke, p. 31-33. (c) Thus, the Hebrew text does not present a time “gap” between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, but verse 1 states a summary introduction for the entire chapter, verse 2 describes the unformed state that existed before God began to create, and Genesis 1:3-31 details God’s creation of the universe. [(d) God’s creation “ex nihilo,” from nothing, in Hebrews 11:3 thus at least includes His making the Genesis 1:2 mass before Genesis 1:1.]

(2) On Lamoureaux’s view that Jesus accommodated the errant views of His listeners on origins, in John 14:2, Jesus said that He did not accommodate His hearers on the “very common Jewish idea, that those in glory occupied different abodes” (A. Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Mes., 2004, p. 829). Jesus did not accommodate His hearers, for that would be lying, so since He treated the Genesis record on Adam as true, He implied that it is true!

(3) On Francis Collins’ idea that Genesis 2-3 is symbolic, poetic allegory to yield to the scientific majority of 10,000 hominids over 100,000 years producing modern man, (a) majority opinion can greatly err, for 1 Kings 22:6-40 presents a case where wicked king Ahab’s 400 prophets errantly predicted that he would conquer in the battle at Ramoth-gilead where God’s one prophet correctly predicted that he would lose the battle and die! (b) Since Jesus viewed Genesis 1-2 literally in Matthew 19:4-6 on the creation of Adam and Eve, we must view Genesis 1-2 literally!

(4) On Dr. John Walton’s call to subject our interpretation of Genesis 1-2 to Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) pagan myths, Genesis 1-2 sharply contrasts with and is morally far superior to the ANE myths: (a) The ANE myths depict their gods and the universe as coming from the same primeval realm, but God in Genesis 1-2 exists apart from His creation as transcendent. (Ibid., Waltke, p. 57) (b) The ANE myths present their gods as fighting to defeat hostile forces for creation even to occur, but God in Genesis 1-2 just speaks the universe into existence with no fight against any foe. (Ibid., p. 58-59) (c) The ANE myths depict their gods as despots and man as their slaves, but God in Genesis 1-2 creates a very good environment for man and gives him rule over the whole earth. (Ibid., p. 60-65; Gen. 1:26-31)

(5) On Dr. Hugh Ross’s claim that God made man 50,000 to 150,000 years ago to fit with an alleged 13.8-billion-year-old big bang to start the stellar universe, the six days of the Genesis 1 creation each consist of an evening and a morning, and each day is used with a numerical adjective, what elsewhere in the Pentateuch refers to solar days (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Gen. 1:5). Since God made the sea, land and plant life on the third solar day, the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth solar day, and man on the sixth solar day, all in the same solar week, there was no big bang to start the stellar universe, and thus there is no need to date man’s origin 50,000 to 150,000 years ago!

May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God’s gift of eternal life. May we adjust as needed to our forefathers’ sins of compromise with evolution for God’s blessing.