In the Beginning, Part 1

In the beginning, God. Say that with me, would you please? In the beginning, God. Now we're going to repeat that phrase quite often over the next three weeks. We're going to spend three weeks on that phrase alone. The story is told of Sir Isaac Newton. I don't know how much you know of him, but he would refute atheism. And he was a defender of biblical creation. And one day in his office, he had this replica of the solar system. A model put together. And it was a model, of course, that had all the planets rotating around together.

A very unique model. One of the scientists, who was a friend of his, came into that office and said these words. My, what an exquisite thing this is. Who made it? Newton said, nobody. The scientist said, what do you mean nobody made it? Somebody had to put this together. Who put this model together? Newton said, nobody. He said, Newton, do you take me for a fool? Somebody, and that somebody was a genius, had to put this model of the solar system together. Newton would arise from his desk, put his arm around his friend and say these words.

This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system, whose laws you and I know. And I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker, yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken, has come into being without either designer or maker. Now tell me, by what sort of reasoning do you reach such incongruous conclusions? End quote. That's pretty good. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's what the Bible says.

What is it you believe? It was not too long ago in San Francisco that a new theory on the creation of the solar system that includes a tremendous explosion by a giant star, the core of which slammed backwards into our sun and reversed the direction of its rotation. Among other things, this theory explains that its originator, Judd Boynton of Geophysics Labs and Research in Berkeley, California, is the origin of the chemical elements above hydrogen in the planets. Boynton theorized that the creative process started about four and a half billion years ago when an iron-rich companion star, five to ten times more massive than the sun, exploded as a consequence of a runaway internally generated nuclear fusion.

The blast blew more than 99.9% of the mass forever outwards into space. The residue eventually was pulled together to form the planets of the sun, their moons, and the asteroids, he said. Implosion of this even formed a dwarfed companion to our sun, which was blown backwards in relation to its original orbit and spiraled ever closer to the sun. Finally, this dwarf entered the sun, skimming the surface at orbital velocity and reversing the sun's original rotation.

And I say that's baloney. That's what the mind of man can come up with. And the Bible says, in the beginning, God.

You either believe that or you don't believe that. And we need to believe what the Bible says. Especially those of you who are in high school or junior high or college or are a university student, where the organic theory of evolution is taught. It goes as follows. Life on this planet originated several billion years ago when electrical disturbances caused reactions to occur in the chemicals of the primeval ocean. And these reactions produced amino acids. And these amino acids organized themselves into living cells.

As time went on, more chemical reactions caused the descendants of these one-called organisms to mutate and develop into a variety of types of multi-celled plants and animals. The process continued. And as each new variety of organism appeared, natural selection would result in its being either better or less suited to the environment. And therefore, it would either flourish or disappear. In the long run, then, species of plants and animals, better and better suited to their respective environments, appeared and developed.

Man is the highest product of this development. He is immediately descended from the same ancestors as the apes. More remotely, from the same ancestors as all mammals. He is himself still developing. That process is stalled by our present lifestyle. And biologically, it is inevitable. End quote. You've got to be a fool to believe that stuff. But that's what is being taught in our schools today. The theory of organic evolution. And I say, and God says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now, Genesis chapter 1 mentions God's name 32 times in 31 verses. Because God wants you to understand something. It's all about Him and what He did. If you look at the personal pronouns, He's referred to 43 times in 31 verses.

Now, isn't it interesting that Satan's greatest attack is in Genesis chapter 1? He has pulled out all the stops, all the artillery, to get you to believe in something other than a literal creation in Genesis chapter 1. And he's been very successful at doing so. If he can attack Genesis 1-1 and be successful at doing so, then he can begin to tear down other parts of the scripture. And so he has set out to destroy Genesis 1, verse number 1. And then all of chapter 1 to get you to believe something else other than what God has said.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, I need to let you know something. I am not a scientist. For those of you who did not know that, I am not a scientist. I'm a theologian. I preach what the Bible says.

And I'm going to say some things to you that disagree with science. But I want to let you know something. Science is not my authority. I use the Bible to prove science. I don't use science to prove the Bible. The Bible says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

That's so important for us to understand. We want to begin our study by looking at some preliminary questions. That's point number 1. Point number 2, we'll look at some powerful revelations.

I'm not sure we're going to get there today. But we'll pick that up next week. But we want to begin with some preliminary questions. We're going to answer all your questions. You're going to have them. But we want to begin with some preliminary questions. Question number 1, why study the book of Genesis? I mean, after all, it's in the Old Testament. It's way, way, way, way, way, way, way back at the beginning. Why not study the New Testament? Why go all the way back to Genesis chapter 1, spend 6 or 7 or 8 weeks just in chapter 1, when we could be talking about the new covenants in the New Testament?

Why study Genesis? Number 2, who wrote Genesis? And number 3, what about some of those controversies in Genesis? Those are our 3 broad preliminary questions. Hopefully, you'll be able to write them down and get some ideas as to where we're going. But first of all, why study the book of Genesis?

We need to understand Genesis. We need to understand the beginning. Or if we don't understand Genesis chapter 1, we will never understand man. In fact, you will never really fully understand God. You see, either everything happened the way God said it did, or it happened by chance, or it happened by coincidence. It either lines up with the facts of creation or the farce of evolution. The two cannot be together. You either are a creationist or an evolutionist. You are not both. You can only be one or the other.

And so you need to understand what the Bible says about creation. Those are facts. Evolution is a farce. And so you've got to be careful about what the Bible says so that you understand biblical creation.

Either things happened the way God said they did or they didn't. Either God created everything because He commanded it to be in existence with the Word, or He didn't. And if He didn't, maybe, according to 2 Peter, He is not preserving the universe with His Word either. And then maybe He won't destroy the Word or the world with His Word either, as He says in 2 Peter. So we need to understand what God says in Genesis chapter 1.

In fact, I find it very interesting that in 1903, Herbert Spencer, I don't know if you know who he is or not, he died. Of course, you probably don't care about that. But he did make one great contribution. Herbert Spencer said this. He said that all reality, all that exists in the universe, can be contained in five categories. Can be contained in five categories. Nothing exists outside these five categories. This discovery came in the 19th century. Here are the five categories, and he lists them in order.

Time, force, action, space, matter. Everything that exists falls into those five categories in that order. Now listen very carefully. In the beginning, that's time. God, force. Created, action. Heaven, space. Earth, matter. What God said plainly and precisely thousands of years ago, man did not realize until the 19th century. You see, the science doesn't prove the Bible. Bible proves science. Bible is the authority. God knew that all along. That's the way God designed it. Man just happened to come to that conclusion in the 19th century.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now some of you are going to say, well, do we have to be so dogmatic about creation? Isn't that really something that's not that important? I mean, after all, there are other things that are more important than creation. Well, there was a letter written and asked from one of the greatest, biggest men's movements in our country about what their stand was on creation, and this is what they said. You need to know that our ministry takes no stand on issues like this, that is, creation.

In fact, we specifically try to avoid such debates. Our efforts are designed to bring men together based on the historically essential doctrines of Orthodox Christianity as represented by our statement of faith, or to focus on things that unite the body of Christ instead of those which tend to divide it. Since different churches and individual Christians hold varying views about creation, it is one of those things we believe falls under the category of quote, secondary doctrines. Just as we do such things as spiritual gifts, eternal security, the rapture, et cetera.

In short, when it comes to subjects like creation, we believe Christians need to extend grace to each other as summed up in the statement in essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity, end quote. Now let me ask you a question.

Is creation a secondary issue? Some believe it is. Well, let's put it this way. If God is not creator, then he's probably not redeemer. Because you see, in the New Testament, the redeemer is the creator. God is the creator of the world. That is not a secondary issue. That is a primary issue. Because if God did not create as he said he created, maybe he did not redeem as he said he redeemed. See? You got to understand that. Paul, when he was in Lystra, over in Acts chapter 14, when the people began to bow down to he and Barnabas, because of a miracle they performed, he responded with these words.

In verse number 15, Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you in order that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. God had a plan. And the plan was about man. It was not about the universe. That helps you understand Genesis chapter 1. It's all about you and me. It's not about what God can do to create a great world. Nice trees, beautiful mountains.

It's about you and me and our relationship to the living God of the universe. So important. It was R.C. Sproul who said these words. Man in the 20th century has been busily engaged in a quest for dignity. It is a very earnest quest. The civil rights movement developed the cry, We are human beings. We are creatures of dignity. We want to be treated as beings of dignity. So also have others. But the existentialists tell us that our roots are in nothingness, that our future is in nothingness. And he asks, Think, man, if your origins are in nothing and your destiny is in nothing, how can you possibly have any dignity now?

If our past history tells us that we have emerged from the slime, that we are only grown-up germs, what difference can it possibly make whether we are black germs or white germs, whether we are free germs or enslaved germs? Who cares? We can sing of the dignity of man, but unless that dignity is rooted substantially in that which has intrinsic value, all our songs of human rights and dignity are so much whistling in the dark. They are naive, simplistic, and credulous. And the existentialist understands that.

He says, You are playing games when you call yourselves creatures of dignity. If all you have is the present, there is no dignity, only nothingness. End quote. Is that true? Of course not. Man has dignity because he is created in the image of God. Nothing else is. Man needs to understand that. If our kids on college and high school campuses are growing up with the fact that they are nothing but animals, that they came from a bunch of slime, they have no value, they have no worth, they have no sense of dignity.

But if they understand Genesis chapter 1, they realize they are created in God's image, everything begins to change. That's why we study the book of Genesis. How about the beginning of evil? How did it all happen? Why are things so bad? Remember Rabbi Kushner who wrote that book, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People? There ought to be another book, a sequel to that. Why do good things happen to bad people? That's the real book. That's the real story. Why do good things happen to you? When in reality, sin entered the world, and death through sin.

Genesis tells us about the origin of evil, where it all came from, what happened, man's disobedience, man's rebellion, and the course that has been running rampant since Genesis chapter 3. And because there was the origin of evil, there was the origin of salvation. And then in Genesis chapter 3 verse number 15, when the Lord God began to prophesy, there was a remedy for man's condition. There was a remedy for evil. It all centers around the promised seed of the Messiah. And you read Genesis chapter 22, in Genesis 49, as Moses continues to pick up on that theme throughout the book of Genesis, because everything centers around a coming redeemer that was a promised seed.

That would crush the head of Satan. It's all about the beginning of salvation, the beginning of evil, the beginning of marriage and family, the beginning of man's dignity, his worth. Also describes to you the origin of major doctrines of the Bible. Think about the doctrine of justification by faith. Genesis 15 speaks of Abraham and how he was justified by faith. How about the doctrine of sovereign election? People always have questions about that. Where did it originate? Genesis, when God chose Isaac, not Ishmael.

How about divine judgment? How did that all begin? Noah, the flood, the inescapability of divine judgment upon man. It's all there. That's why we need to study the book of Genesis. We'll see the point number two.

Who wrote the book? Who wrote Genesis? Moses wrote Genesis. How do you know? Jesus said so in the New Testament. That's how we know. All you got to do is read Matthew 8, verse number 4, Matthew 19, 7 to 8, Mark 1, 44, Mark 7, 10, Luke 24, 27, and John 5, 45 to 47. Christ would refer back to Moses as the author of the entire Pentateuch, the author of the first five books of the Old Testament.

You say, well, how can Moses write it? He wasn't there at the beginning. God told him. That's how he wrote it. God told him what to write, just like God told every other writer of the Old Testament and New Testament what to write. He explained it to them, and they wrote it out. That's how it all happened. Hebrews chapter 1, verse number 1, 2 Peter chapter 1, verses 20 and 21 speak about how God divinely inspired holy men of God to write the Word of God. Moses is the author of the book. And thirdly, what about all those controversies?

What about all those controversies, for instance, the gap theory? Most of you probably don't have the foggiest idea what the gap theory is. It's located somewhere between Genesis 1-1 and Genesis 1-2. There are many theologians who believe in what is commonly called the gap theory, that there was some gap of millions of years between Genesis 1-1 and 1-2. Millions of years where there was the destruction of the original world, unfolding of the geological ages, and then there was a recreation of that world in Genesis chapter 1, verse number 2, and God would replenish the earth because the earth was without form and void, and therefore, because those phrases refer to destruction, there was a great disaster between Genesis 1-1 and 1-2.

Is that true? Is that what the Bible teaches? Interesting. I'll just let you know real quickly, the only gap I believe in is the one down at the Montclair Plaza Mall where I buy clothes for my kids. What about the day-age theory? There are many people who believe that it wasn't six literal days in which the earth was created, but six periods of time. In fact, if you were to read the USA Today, on Wednesday of this past week, it tells us exactly how old the earth is. Isn't that good? It says that scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope announced Tuesday that they had at last determined an age of the universe, 12 billion to 13.5 billion years old.

Man, I'm glad it's all finally settled. But it's not. Why is that? Because it's not to the satisfaction of Alan Sandage, head of the Carnegie Observatories team in Pasadena, California, who says they've been studying this since 1968 and the earth is not between 12 and 13.5 billion years, but between 14 billion and 18 billion years. Hey, what's a few billion among friends, right? Who really cares? They go on to say this is the most important discovery in physical science ever, that we live in an expanding universe.

Is the universe expanding? What does the Bible say about that? Whereas scientists used to disagree about the universe's age by a factor of two, Friedman's team has cut the error margin to just 10%. Until the launch of Hubble in 1990, astronomers could not decide whether the universe was 10 billion or 20 billion years old. Friedman's team was able to calculate not only the age of the universe, but also its expansion rate. Amazing. Is the earth billions of years old? As these scientists say, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

As we close, let me remind you of the words of Martin Luther. I beg and faithfully warn every pious Christian not to stumble at the simplicity of the language and the stories that will often meet him there. We should not doubt that however simple they may seem, these are the very words, works, judgments, and deeds of the high majesty, power, and wisdom of God. And I say to you, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Let's pray.