How To Think About Origins

Thank you, Don. I appreciate that introduction. And thank you for the opportunity to share with you this evening. Sheila Richardson gave me the topics that I was supposed to cover. And I was intrigued by most of them. The title for tonight's talk, I don't remember how it went, I liked, how should we think about origins? And so that's a very good question. And I want to address that question first of all. I think the question of how we should think about origins is answered by how Abraham was called upon towards the end of his life, well, late in his life, I should say. In a sense, I think that the origins issue for the modern Christian is similar to the sacrifice of Isaac for Abraham. It is a 21st century example of it, in my opinion. Think about God's command of Abraham in Genesis 21. He says, sacrifice your son, your only begotten son, Isaac. An extraordinary thing. Imagine at this point, he's somewhere around 112 years old, and he's been walking with the Lord for decades, many decades. And God tells him, I want you to take your only begotten son and sacrifice him. What would you think in that situation? I mean, God doesn't require child sacrifices, does he? I mean, contrast with all these other people around him, that he's not a God who requires child sacrifices. And God tells him to sacrifice his son. Besides, God had promised him Isaac and specifically told him that Isaac would be the seed that would carry on Abraham's line. Killing the promised seed? I mean, does it make any sense? It really doesn't make sense. And you have to wonder if somebody in that situation, if you or I in that situation, wouldn't immediately think, did God really say this? It must really be, maybe it isn't God that said this, which, by the way, is exactly the very first question of the Bible. It's what Satan said to Eve. Did God really say? That surely would have been a temptation for Abraham to wonder, given how bizarre this is, Surely God didn't say that. It seems to be against God's very nature for Him to do this. It's contradictory. I'm supposed to kill Isaac, but Isaac is going to be the one that carries on the lineage. Surely that's what most of us would have thought. I'm thinking I would have thought that at that time. I would have questioned it. But we're told, especially in Hebrews chapter 11, we're given a little more insight in Hebrews chapter 11, because it says there that Abraham walked in faith. He responded in faith and he went there. This is astonishing. Believing that God would raise Isaac from the dead. What does that mean? What that means, astonishingly enough, is that Abraham went believing God, trusting that he was going to have to kill his son. We read it, seeing of that amazing provision of God, of the lamb and the thicket, thinking maybe maybe Abraham thought that was going to happen. Hebrews 11 clarifies, no, no. Abraham was ready to kill his son in obedience to God against what his brain had to have been telling him was reasonable against what he knew by experience. No one had ever had a resurrection from the dead before. No previous example of that in scripture is nothing to go by. Nonetheless, he trusts the word of God. over the reasoning of his mind, over the experience of his life, over everything else. He was called upon to trust God over his own reasoning. I believe in this day, we in the church are being called upon to obey, to trust God's word over man's reasoning, over our reasoning. over our observation, over what we believe must be true or seems reasonable to believe in God's word, no matter what it seems to mean. And that means over science. And I explain why. The creation makes no claims at all. Mercury, let's listen, does it say anything? Does it say anything? Does the butterfly say anything? Does the Grand Canyon say anything? Does it have labels? Are there labels on these things saying how old they are, how they came to be, what their purpose is, what they're there for, what they're made of? No. The creation makes absolutely no claims at all. The creation is silent. All the answers to those questions I was talking about have to be reasoned by humans. If somebody thinks that the mercury is a certain age or came to be in a certain way or is composed in a certain certain fashion, it's because humans discerned it, because they reasoned it, because they observed, because they reasoned, because they have this comes from humans. Thus, the answer to any of those questions is actually answered by humans, not by God. Remember, creation says nothing. But the Bible does make claims. The Word of God makes claims. It is not silent. It makes claims about the beginning of things, about the age of things, about how things came to be, about why things are. It gives us information, the Word of God on the matter. So you realize this is not a science versus religion issue. This is not even an issue of evolution science versus creation science. The issue before us is the reasoning of man versus the word of God. That's what it is. And so I believe it's analogous to the to what was the challenge that was given to Abraham in his life to believe God's word, even though it had to have seemed against the against human reason to Abraham. We're told in Hebrews explicitly It is by faith that we understand that the world's refrain of the Word of God. It is not by evidence. It's not by deduction. You might, in fact, reason from this, even this verse alone, that if you didn't use the Word of God, you would not conclude that it was created. And that, I believe, is true, not just from this verse, but from a variety of others. So our question is, do we believe the claims of God or do we do we believe the inferences and the reason of humans? Is it true since stars are billions of light years away? Surely it must mean the light took billions of years to get here. It's only reasonable. But God said. That he created, he said, let there be lights on the Earth And that said, after the end of day three of the creation week and before the end of day four. And by the end of day four, it was so. So according to God's word, the light. Got to Earth within a day. So which one do we take? We have radiometric decay seems to indicate I mean, it's a consequence of the laws of the universe, the inviolable, unchanging laws of the universe. Thus, it's an inviolable, unchangeable clock. So it must be that things are very old and the universe hasn't changed from the very beginning. But the Bible says that there's going to come in the last days scoffers walking after their own loss saying where's the promise of us coming for all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation all things continue as they've always been this way for this they are willingly ignorant that the heavens were of old created by God the word of God came brought things into being Seems reasonable to assume that fruit forms from flowers and flowers grow on trees and trees had to grow from seeds or cuttings. So surely the existence of a fruit would mean that that tree has been there for a long time and has grown up. But. God said on day three of the creation week, let there be plants, let there be vegetation, let there be fruit trees bearing fruit. And it was so the same day. That suggests they didn't grow up from a seed or a cutting. They were created that way. It would seem there's a reason to believe that the Earth is formed from accumulated dust in the solar system. But according to Psalm 33, the Lord God commanded, and it, the Earth, stood fast. Which one is it? It would appear that creation has to come to being over billions of years, yet According to Exodus 20, verse 11, right in the middle of the Ten Commandments, it says, For in six days the Lord God formed the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. So we're supposed to do the same thing. So which is it? Did He create in six days or did it take billions of years? Seems to be evidence that humans derive from animals. Humans are derived from apes. It sure does seem that way. There's lots of evidence that would suggest that. But according to Scripture, On the sixth day of creation, God took dust, dirt, and he formed man and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living soul within a single day. And he didn't come from animals. In fact, it very explicitly says, man became a nefesh hayyim. He became a living soul. Or actually, that phrase, nefesh hayyim, is used in the first chapter. translated living creatures when God said let there be, let the land bring forth living creatures. Never shall I. Let the seas bring forth living creatures. So what does Genesis 2-7 say? It says man became a living creature. It does not say a living creature became man. It very explicitly says the opposite. Man became a living creature. So which is it? It really is I believe. A distinction between, you've got to make a choice between the words of man and the words of God. So the question becomes, is God a liar, trusting the word of man, or is he God? I would suggest that people have a lot of wrong ideas about creation, but I don't believe it's because of the evidence. I think it's because they fear man more than they fear God. They trust man, they trust man's word, they trust science more than they trust the word of God. How could it possibly be that a document that's written thousands of years ago, at a time before humans had science, how could it possibly be right? So, question, I believe, is your God big enough to create as he said he did? Or do you have a God created by science that is far smaller than the God of Scripture? But you know what? There's an even more important thing to consider here than even that. It's sort of the negative side, sort of, kind of. Because there's a claim, I believe, that exists in God's Word that suggests that God's Word has priority over human observation and reason and always has from the very beginning. that it was always that preeminent position and should have been. In the Garden of Eden, we're told the Lord God commanded Adam of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. You may freely eat of all of the trees of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. There is a commandment, clear statement word of God. Interestingly enough, after the temptation, by the end of the temptation, the last verse describing Eve actually taking of the tree, notice what it says. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, where'd it come from? Where did this concept come from? She saw that the tree was good for food. Did God tell her that? Is that part of what God told her? No, she reasoned that. I don't know, they've not told exactly how she reasoned it, but it's reasonable to assume that what she did was, I mean, all these other trees, beautiful fruit, wonderful fruit. It tastes good. It's good for us. This looks like the fruit of all the other trees, pretty similar to it. It's created by the same God, a God who would only do good, right? Surely he wouldn't do anything that would be bad. And it stands to reason it smells like it's good to eat. It looks like it's good to eat. It's from the same creator. It's similar to all the others. Surely it must be good to eat. We don't know how she did it, but she did this by human reason. Secondly, that it was pleasant to the eyes. Did God tell her that? Did God tell her that it was purdy? No, she figured that out for herself. That was her reason. She saw that it was pleasant to the eyes. And then, it's a tree to make one wise. Where'd she get that? Did God tell her, this is a tree to make you wise? No, she reasoned that with a little help, perhaps, from the serpent there, who had told her, remember, that if she ate of the tree, she would become wise as God, knowing good and evil. Whoo! Really exciting stuff. Okay. There's probably a lot more to it than we're given in that text, but we know one thing for sure. She got this by her reasoning. Perhaps helped, but it was human reasoning. All three of these conclusions are human reasoning. All along, there's a command from God, do not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What was she supposed to do here? Was she supposed to eat of it? No, no matter how her reasoning went, the word of God was supposed to have priority over her reasoning and the reasoning of any other being in this universe. The word of God had priority from the very beginning. How do I know? I mean, I would suggest that's true, but I think I can confirm it from another passage. When Satan, through the serpent, is tempting Eve, she responds to the serpent, I believe, in the wrong way. The serpent said, did God really say that you could eat of all the trees of the garden? And she says, No, we cannot eat or touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, wait a minute. Where was where that come from? The Lord commanded of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. What does it say about touching? She responded, she responded to to the serpent with her words and her reasoning. I mean, you might even say there was some reasonableness to the reasoning. After all, if we can't eat of it, it's tempting. It looks pretty, smells good. Maybe I should be safe and say, I'm not only going to not eat it, I'm not even going to touch the tree. I'm not even going to come close to it. May not be reasonable, right? But when Satan asks her if this is the word of God, she says we shouldn't eat of it and we shouldn't touch it. She adds To the word of God. What does she think of the word of God? She obviously doesn't think it's important, does she? She's added to it. That's horrific. He who adds unto the words of this book is he will be added unto him all of the plagues and diseases that are listed in this book. That's what God thinks of adding to his word. She shouldn't have done that. What should she have done? I think it's very clear what she should have done. She should have quoted God. That should have been what she did. Now, why do I know that? Because 4000 years later, Satan is tempting Jesus Christ. Jesus, the creator of the universe, the one who created Satan, the one who can outsmart Satan, the one who could, if he desired, he could he could outmaneuver him intellectually. He could respond to Satan and and argue him into a corner. Because Satan ain't smarter than him. Satan might be smarter than us. Well, Satan is smarter than us. He's got a whole lot more experience than we have. But what Eve should have done is responded with the word of God, because that's what Jesus Christ himself did. The creator of the universe, when asked, when challenged, when tempted, quoted from the Bible. Quoted from all places. Deuteronomy, when's the last time you quoted from Deuteronomy? Is that the book you really focus on, okay? He quotes from the Word of God. If the creator of the universe responds to the tempter by quoting the Word of God, do you think he thinks the Word of God is important? And what do you think we ought to respond to the temptations with? With the Word of God. It has priority over human reason. Don't be tempted. I know we're tempted. We're tempted to use human reason against him. We're tempted to protect ourselves from the wiles of Satan in our own devices. But alas, scripture tells us we use the word of God. That is the power of God unto salvation. That is what brought this universe into being. There's more power in the word of God than there is in all the universe combined. Also notice this fascinating passage in Luke. Sixteen, you have the the rich man and Lazarus both die. And there's this fascinating conversation between the rich man in torment and and Abraham and in whose bosom we find Lazarus. At first, he's he's wanting some relief from his torture. Well, it worked. So he he turns from there. All of a sudden he becomes evangelistic. Here's an unbeliever that all of a sudden becomes evangelistic. He's now concerned about his brothers. Lazarus, please, OK, if I can't get relief from my suffering, please send Lazarus back to earth to my five brothers that they don't end up here. I mean, and Abraham says, no, I'm not going to I'm not going to send Lazarus back. They have Moses and the prophets. Moses and the Prophets. In Hebrew, it's Amirism. The first five books are by Moses and the last twelve books are by the Prophets. So, Moses and the Prophets would mean the whole Old Testament. They've got the Bible. And he says, but surely, the rich man comes back with, but surely a person who comes back from the dead like Lazarus, I mean, my brothers will listen to that. And Abraham's response is, if they hear not Moses and the Prophets, If they hear not the Bible, the Word of God, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." That's an awesome comment. Have you ever contemplated that? Do you really believe this? Do you believe something as extraordinary as someone coming back from the dead is less persuasive than the Word of God? Is that what you think about the Word of God? That's what Abraham thinks about the Word of God. That's what we ought to. It's more powerful or influential than even something miraculous. It's also better than an eyewitness, according to Peter. Peter, one of the three closest disciples of Christ, is brought to a place where those three disciples see Jesus transfigured before their very eyes. Whoa. We don't know what that's like, but it's had to have been awesome, OK? It blew their sandals off. Jesus is transfigured before them. They were eyewitnesses. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty at that point. But it doesn't stop there. There was a voice also. They saw him transfigured. And then there was a voice from heaven that affirmed that this is my son in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven, we heard we were eyewitnesses and earwitnesses of the truth of who God, who Jesus was. But Peter goes on. When we are with him in the holy mountain, we have, however, a more sure word of prophecy. Some translations make this, which made the word of prophecy more sure, but I'm assured by theologians that have worked on this, that that's not, this is the, the King James actually has a closer translation to what the Greek actually says. which is, but we have something more sure than our eyewitness and earwitness testimony, and that is the Word of God. It's got more authority than even what we see and hear with our eyes and ears. That's the power of the Word of God. That's the authority of the Word of God. Also, consider this verse, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6. This is a mind-blowing verse, another mind-blowing verse to me. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Do you want to please God? It is impossible to please Him without faith. Have you ever contemplated what that means? If faith is a special gift of God, And if faith is unusual, remember Christ referring to the centurions response and faith and saying, I have not seen such faith in all of Israel. And such comments as if you just had a green, just enough faith is a grain of mustard seed. You'd be able to move this mountain. He didn't see faith, but very, very rarely, if that's the case. How often do we please God? if it's only possible to please him with faith. Faith is rare. What does that mean? And look at the list of people in Hebrews chapter 11, that hall of fame of faith. What do these people have in common? Look at those stories. I challenge you, go back, contemplate this verse and then look at all those examples and see what does he mean by faith? Consider that passage of Abraham. that I referred to earlier, Abraham is commended for having faith. Apparently, he pleased God because of faith and says he believed that God would raise Isaac from the dead. Against his observation, against his reason, he'd never seen anything like that, he'd never heard of anything like that, but he thought God must. I'm going to I'm going to follow God's word in spite of what I know or think I know. Another amazing example in that chapter, and there are many, but another one, a favorite of mine, is Sarah. The promise given to Sarah. I remember when Sarah first heard, she was in the tent, when Sarah, that's not the first time Abraham heard. Abraham had already laughed at what God had said and fallen off the log. He'd laughed so hard. God told him, clarified, he said, you're going to have a son. Yeah, okay, I'm going to adopt my servant's son. No, no, no. You're going to have a son from your loins. Okay, and then they have the Ishmael thing. No, no, you don't get it. Sarah is going to bear a son. Ha, ha, ha. Fall off the log. He's laughing so hard, okay? Real man of faith, Abraham. Man of faith. Okay, now the second time God reveals this truth to him, Sarah overhears in the tent. And what does she do? She laughs. She laughs, and she's like, you've got to be kidding! I mean, come on, God. I've gone through menopause. Don't you understand this? There's some biology going on here. You see, for a child to be born, they have to grow from a fertilized egg. For an egg to be fertilized, an egg has to be produced. The egg is produced in menstruation. See, an egg is released. Then it can be fertilized. I haven't been menstruating in a whale. I don't produce any eggs. Therefore, they can't get fertilized. Therefore, I can't get pregnant. Don't you understand biology, God? It is impossible for me to bear a child. It's absolutely impossible. That's why she laughed. And God, Jesus pre-incarnate, speaking to Abraham, says, next year at this time, this time of the year, one year from now, Sarah's going to have a child. Now, you know, I don't think that the gestation period of humans has changed significantly since the time of Abraham, which means I don't think Sarah carried a child for 12 months. Notice the prophecy was 12 months from then she would have a child. I think she carried Isaac for nine months, which means this is cool. Think about this. That night when she went into the tent with Abraham, she didn't get pregnant. She didn't get pregnant the next night. Or the next night. Or the next night. Or the next night. Or the next night. Fulfilling what she thought was true, right? Or the next week, or the next week after that, or the week after that, or the month after that, or the month after that. She's not pregnant, as has been the case for over 50 years as his wife. You know what I think happened? This is my personal suspicion. Three months after God promised she would have a child, she woke up that morning and said, I believe. I believe God is going to give me a child. I believe I'm going to be, I'm going to bear a child. And I believe that night she conceived. Nine months later, she not only bears Isaac, but actually nurses him. Oh, God is awesome. Without faith, it's impossible to please him. Even when it's impossible. That's, in fact, what I think he calls us to do. Faith is believing God when it's against what we believe is possible or likely or we've never seen it before or it's against human reason. That's when it's faith. If it's if it was something that was reasonable, it would require no faith. So reason, so faith is trusting in God when it's against reason, when it's against observation. And that's the only thing that pleases God. God's word has always had priority over human reason, human observation. So many great examples. I love the Jericho one. Isn't that a fun one? Okay, Joseph, Joshua, just lead the people around the city. And then go home. And do it the next night. Go around the city and go home. And do this six times. And on the seventh day, I want you to go around the city seven times and sing. Have a gospel song, okay? and i don't know how much the roles that you've got to be kidding but he obeyed it didn't make any sense come on he wasn't that stupid if you've been in a situation i think you would have thought it was stupid and you wouldn't have done it but it's embarrassing every time it goes around i can see the people in fact i don't know what you guys do it out there come back around again have fun making fun of them the whole time it's gotta be it's a very ridiculous absurd But Joshua obeyed God's word, and a miracle occurred, and that was the only thing that pleases God. And finally, on this issue of origins, who was there at the beginning, just now refocusing? God's word has priority over everything, but let's now focus on the origins issue. Who was there at the very beginning? Well, we weren't. Humans weren't. So we can't, we don't know directly what happened. We are going to have to infer it from circumstantial evidence or something like that. It's like trying to figure out what happened in a murder. We didn't see it. There was no eyewitness. So the best we can do is take the circumstantial evidence, the evidence we find, and try to figure out what happened. And we try to evidence that thing with circumstantial evidence. But what happens If in the middle of that investigation, somebody walks in who saw it happen, what happens if an eyewitness shows up? There goes the circumstantial evidence. The eyewitness has priority, right? Okay, so we've been working for centuries trying to figure out how things began on this planet. Somebody shows up and says, I was there. If they're a genuine eyewitness, It ought to trump anything we infer about the origin of things, right? If it's a good eyewitness, well, that's a good question. We need to interrogate this eyewitness to find out if he's a good one. This God, is he appropriate as an eyewitness? Was he there? Yeah. You know, it'd be kind of nice if the eyewitness was there everywhere. I mean, this is a big thing, right? The origin, the universe. So it'd be kind of nice if our eyewitness could see everything from every perspective. That's always a problem with an eyewitness. They only have one perspective. God saw everything. He created everything. Okay, so that's kind of good. Let's see. We might also want to know if he could communicate his testimony. Can you speak? He created human language. He can speak. He can speak really well. He can speak better than we can. Okay. Let's see. Where are those people that lie on the witness stand? What if God can't lie? Hmm. Well, can we think of a better witness? This is the ultimate witness. The only question is, did he testify? Did he sit on the stand and testify? The Bible is his eyewitness testimony of the beginning. Why? Why would we think anything other than the fact that this has priority over anything humans would ever devise on the issue of origins? If we trust God's word. We should not only reject a human made God, and that would be the consequence of anything we infer from science. We infer anything about the origin of things without paying attention to God's word. Then we have created a God of our own making, and it will not be the God of Scripture. It will not be the great God of Scripture. If we trust God's word, we can not only reject that man made God. But we can please God. In trusting his word, against human reason and observation and, cool, come to know Him. And it will be an awesome God. If you want to settle for a human made God, go ahead, keep believing in science and reject the Bible. But if you want to know the God who created this universe, who is a billion times greater than any human God that could ever be devised, then trust God's Word.