Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20080127.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Genesis: Explaining The Foundations Of History
Part I: Explaining The Creation Of The Universe, Genesis 1-2
C. Explaining The Steps Of The Universe's Creation
2. Explaining God's Forming Structures To Address The Formlessness
(Genesis 1:6-10)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

According to some educational authorities, interpreting Genesis 1 literally as we do to end up believing God supernaturally created the universe in six solar days makes one a kind of religious terrorist!

Last Sunday's, January 20, 2008 issue of the Hartford Courant, "The Oldest Continuously Published Newspaper In America," printed several letters to the editor on page C2 that had responded to Professor Robert M. Thorson's January 17th column titled, "Biblical Literalism Troubling -- And Wrong"! From June Kinsky in Granby, Connecticut who wrote one of the letters of response, we discern that Professor Thorson, whom she noted is also a regular "Courant columnist", had classified creationists who view Genesis 1 literally to be "religious zealots" who are "what most Americans fear most in the world." (Ibid.)

His statement suggests that pure creationists are destructive religious terrorists, for June Kinsky responded to Thorson's article in defense of creationists by writing: "Bible-believing Christians are not murderers, thieves, . . . etc. . . . A student reading the column could come away with a very negative attitude toward 45 percent of Americans. Perhaps they would even be afraid of them, perhaps even worse. How very troubling indeed." (Ibid.)



Accordingly, someone might ask, "Does holding to a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 where one ends up believing in the pure creationist model of origins make him DESTRUCTIVE and thus an EVIL RELIGIOUS TERRORIST?! Why or why not?!



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

Need: "Does interpreting Genesis 1 literally lead one to become a destructive religious terrorist?! HOW do we KNOW?!"
  1. Genesis 1:3-31 explains HOW God's CREATIVE ACTS PRODUCTIVELY SOLVED the NEEDY STATE of Genesis 1:2:
    1. The unfinished world God had called into existence out of nothing (Hebrews 11:3) was NEEDY, being formless, empty and cloaked in darkness over its surface of deep waters, Genesis 1:2 NIV, ESV.
    2. Thus, God addressed the darkness need by creating light in Genesis 1:3-5, He addressed the formlessness need by creating the structures of heaven, sea and dry land in Genesis 1:6-10, and He addressed the emptiness need by filling these structures with life in Genesis 1:11-31.
  2. In SOLVING the FORMLESSNESS NEED of Genesis 1:2, as Romans 1:18-20 suggests, God displayed His invisible attributes of ETERNAL POWER and DIVINE NATURE (as follows):
    1. Genesis 1:6, 9 shows God calmly created structure from the Genesis 1:2 formlessness, calling it into existence by the power of His Word!
    2. The WAY He did this in view of the immediate and extended contexts testifies to God's CONSTRUCTIVENESS as a GOOD GOD :
      1. As in Genesis 1:3-5 where God divided the "good" light from the darkness, He continued emphasizing that theme of DIVISION by dividing the waters below from the expanse above to form the vapor canopy of "Heaven," and again dividing the waters below from the ground to form dry ground, naming them the "Seas" and "Earth", Gen. 1:6-10; Ryrie St. Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Gen. 1:7.
      2. In so doing, the Lord again emphasized man's need to choose truth and righteousness (signified in the light) over falsehood and sin (signified in the darkness) as we learned in our last sermon!
      3. Yet, man later failed to choose spiritual light over darkness, becoming sinfully DESTRUCTIVE (Gen. 6:1-3), so, to judge him (Gen. 6:13; 7:11-12, 19-22), God fittingly COLLAPSED part of His CONSTRUCTIVE DIVISIONS of the universe: He collapsed the water canopy above via rain and opened the fountains of the deep partly to collapse His division of land and water to flood the earth akin to the precreation Genesis 1:2 chaos!
      4. Yet, after the Flood, God GRACIOUSLY promised never again to flood the whole earth, for man was helplessly sinful all of his life, Genesis 8:21. At that time, He pledged to PRESERVE earth's STRUCTURAL order (not even letting an alleged "global warming" destroy it!) as long as the earth remained, Gen. 8:22!
      5. Pagan man recalled the world flood [as seen in "over 270 flood stories from all parts of the world" (Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Gen. 7:19], but he exchanged his faith in God and His promise to sustain the universe's structures for his own, vain view (Rom. 1:21-23); he authored a myth that a hero-god had slain a bad sea monster to allow for the current creative order, and then often ritually reenacted that false myth to sustain the universe (Bruce K. Waltke, Creation & Chaos, p. 48) and avoid another world flood!
      6. To oppose this falsehood, God showed He as Creator Sovereignly SUSTAINS the POST-FLOOD universe's STRUCTURES:
        1. The Hebrew word for "dry land" in Genesis 1:9-10 (yahashah) appears in later passages where God similarly divides water and ground to form "dry land" only in Exodus 14:16, 22, 29 and Joshua 4:22, B. D. B., Hebrew-English Lex. of the O. T., p. 387.
        2. In both later passages, God miraculously works so Israel can cross on "dry land" where a foreboding body of water had been, so these events critique the false myth of a sea monster in threatening combat with a land-based, hero-god as God reveals HE ALONE controls BOTH land AND the FEARED SEA!
        3. This explains why pagan Rahab said that Israel's crossing of the Red Sea meant her God ruled the UNIVERSE, Jos. 2:8-13, and why God backed up the flooded Jordan 15 miles upstream in a huge pile in view of pagans, Ibid., Ryrie, ftn. to Jos. 3:16!
      7. Thus, God's FORMING of the structures of the universe in Genesis 1:6-10 reveal His Sovereign, good constructiveness in contrast to the later tormenting, false pagan creation myth!
    3. When God eliminates sin in the new creation, there will be no more sea to threaten man as in his past sinful history, Revelation 21:1-8, 27!
Application: (1) May we trust in Christ to be to receive eternal life from God, John 3:16. (2) Then, may we LIVE UPRIGHT, CONSTRUCTIVE lives, reflecting our Sovereign CREATOR'S CONSTRUCTIVE CHARACTER to an INSECURE, lost WORLD!

Lesson: The WAY God FORMED the STRUCTURES of the universe, He showed His POWER, SOVEREIGNTY and CONSTRUCTIVENESS so MAN might REST in His CONTROL of the ORDER of the UNIVERSE, and REFLECT His CONSTRUCTIVENESS in UPRIGHT LIVING!

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

A literal reading of Genesis 1 leads us to believe man existed within days of everything else that was made. This view is supportable by solid evidence evolutionists often fail to explain or even resist:

(1) Otto Stutzer, Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in the School of Mines at Freiberg in Saxony reported: "In the coal collection in the Mining Academy in Freiberg . . . there is a puzzling human skull composed of brown coal and manganiferous and phosphatic limonite, but its source is not known. This skull was described by Karsten and Dechen in 1842." (Otto Stutzer: Geology of Coal (Transl. by A. C. Noe, 1940), p. 271 as cited in John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood, 1978, p. 176)

Whitcomb and Morris report that since the coal is presumed by evolutionary daters to be Tertiary in age, it is supposed to have far preceded the time when man first appeared on the earth. The evidence of the skull seems to have been ignored by most scientists "although it has been suggested that someone must have carved the skull!" (Ibid.)

However, there would have been no motive for anyone to have carved and planted it in the coal seam: Charles Darwin's Origin of Species that introduced evolution to the world was first published in 1859 17 years after Karsten and Dechen described the skull! (Ibid.; Edward McNall Burns, Western Civilizations, 6th ed., p. 798)

(2) The March-May, 1997 issue of Creation ex nihilo, p. 22 cites F. Barnes who wrote: "'There is a petroglyph in Natural Bridges National Monument that bears a startling resemblance to a dinosaur . . . with a long tail and neck, small head and all.'" (Barnes and Pendleton, Canyon Country Prehistoric Indians -- Their Culture, Ruins, Artifacts and Rock Art, 1995) Dennis L. Swift, author of the Creation article, added: " Barnes, who despises creationists, knows that this work (photo 6) shows every sign of age, such as pitting and weathering, etc. If there was an 'orthodox' [pro-evolutionary] way to explain these sorts of finds away, he would have tried to do so." (Ibid., brackets ours)

So, the early American Indians must have lived when these dinosaurs did to explain their depiction of this animal in their wall art!

Genesis 1 is literally true, and it does not make its believers destructive; no, it shows God constructed the universe to reveal man's need to live upright, constructive lives. Thus, in Christ's salvation and enabling, we should live upright, constructive lives!