Intro Welcome to New Journey Christian Fellowship’s Sunday evening study – Sunday Driver as we journey together through the Bible. Tonight we continue our series Beginnings as we look at chapter one of Genesis. Last week we began our look at the account of creation as we examined the 6 literal days of creation and can they be believed. We examined how the world dismisses the account of the 6 literal days and science has been at odds with this account for many years. I also shared with you how we can now see through mathematics and scientific study that the six literal days of creation match up to what we know, depending on point of view i.e. God’s versus ours. We then took into account the launch of creation as we saw the universe being brought into existence at a single point. For many years, science basically assumed that the universe had been here forever. The bible said that initially there was nothing and then God spoke the universe into existence. These statements, which were written thousands of years ago, are now supported by what we have learned. However, these are things that couldn’t have possibly been known when they were written, which only serves to further our belief and contention that the bible is the inspired word of God. Are you ready to continue in the book of Genesis as God calls forth light, creates the living things and then ultimately man in His image? Pray

Genesis 1 – Can We Believe the Bible? The Story of Creation in Six Days - Part II “In the view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who says there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views. Who do you suppose said this? It may surprise you to discover that this quote is by none other than Albert Einstein.i How is it then that we can look at creation and come to the conclusion that there is no creator? Is it ignorance? Is it stupidity? Is it arrogance? Is it pride? Perhaps it is a combination of all of these things. Brennan Manning has this to say “Creation discloses a power that baffles our minds and beggars our speech. We are enamored and enchanted by God's power. We stutter and stammer about God's holiness. We tremble before God's majesty... and yet, we grow squeamish and skittish before God's love.”ii Let’s pick up in verse 2 tonight as we continue in the creation in 6 days…

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The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. a. New science actually supports this theory. i. Science says close to the point of creation (their big bang) that the initial gravitational forces would have still been so great that not even light would have been able to escape. 1. Darkness is confirmed here. 2. Our idea of an initial explosion with light and stuff blasting from the point of creation is actually wrong. ii. Also, we know that initially as the universe expanded, the masses had no yet gathered together to form individual planets or stars. 1. How could Moses have been able to understand complex physics models? a. Perhaps it was just a good guess. b. But wait, there’s More!

III – The Light Appears 2

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Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. a. Science tells us as the universe expanded, it reached a point where the gravitational forces became weak enough that light was finally allowed to escape and thus, in a separate moment, light became visible. i. Again we have to ask ourselves, “How could Moses have possible known this?” 1. The answer is that he couldn’t. 2. God certainly knew it however. a. So right here in the very beginning, we can verify the inspiration of the book – a book given to us by God himself. i. Can any other book make this claim? 1. Rhetorical – answer is no. 4

IV – The Land Arrives 3

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Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." 7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day. 9 Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. a. We see now that the mass God created is coming together to form the earth that we live on. b. As the mass of the earth begins to spin and cool, the land masses are formed and the waters are divided into seas. i. Pretty impressive for a shepherd no?

IV – Life In the fictional book, “A Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert Heinlein, The fictional Character Jubal Harshaw said this “Random chance is not sufficient to explain random chance. This statement is entirely true – random chance cannot explain itself. Creation demands a creator. That was true enough when we were simply talking about rocks and water and things cooling and coming together. Now its truth becomes undeniable as we see things which live, reproduce and have a purpose.

1. Genesis 1:11-13 (NKJV) 11 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day. a. Next on the creational calendar, we see that God places the grass, the herbs and the fruit trees. i. He indicates that each will reproduce after its own kind. ii. This is our first indication in scripture that creation was not permanent iii. Obviously if things were to reproduce, that meant that there was a life cycle. Otherwise, the plants would have just overrun the earth. 1. There are those who propose a young earth theory and they point to the fact that with sin, death entered the earth as we will read in chapter 3. a. Therefore, they state, since God said “It was good” that meant there was no death and no suffering. i. Not sure if plants suffer or not. 2. I will be addressing this later in more detail when we reach that point in scripture, but for now I would like to point out that in order for that theory to be taken to it’s logical conclusion, then God would have filled the earth with everything that needed to be here. It would all live in perfect harmony and there would never have been any death. I am not suggesting that God could not have done it that way, but that is not what we are told in scripture. 3. Revelation 2:11 speaks of a “second death” This is the spiritual death that follows our physical death if we do not accept Christ, as I understand scripture. It is this death that enters the world, I believe, as we will see with the fall of man. b. God states that “it is good”. He puts His stamp of approval on the plants of creation. But God is not finished is He? 2. Genesis 1:14-19 (NKJV) 14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day. a. We see now that there is a light in the sky, the sun by day and the moon by night. i. Remember when you consider how God has given us this information, He is giving it to us in the most simple and rudimentary terms, terms that even a man of simple faith could understand. ii. It is quite possible that while the earth that God had created was cooling, that there was a thick dense layer or cloud surrounding it that even blocked the light from being fully realized on the Earth. This would be in perfect harmony with some scientific theories. 1. I do not propose this as “the” definitive answer, only to say that it is a reasonable possibility that would unify scientific and theological positions.

2. When we finally come to the truth, as God reveals it to us, we will find I believe that we were close to the answer but sometimes we dig our heals in too deep to see the truth. iii. Again we are told God declared that “It was good”. 3. Genesis 1:20-23 (NKJV) 20 Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens." 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. a. Now we see that creation advances as God creates the creatures of the sea and sky. b. There is an explosion of life. c. In the Cambrian period, there is literally an explosion of life as the fossil record would indicate. i. The scientist would say that this is evolution at work. 1. Why all at once 2. Where are the transitional kinds? 3. No explanation. d. More importantly, when we see something wonderful and complex in design, we assume a designer. i. You would not look at a car and simply assume that metals and fossil fuels and animal skins etc just happened to come together in a precise and purposeful way to make a Mercedes Benz would you? 1. Of course not 2. Yet the animals of this world are a million times more magnificent and complex than a car and the scientist would put his fingers in his ears and sing lalala in order to deny a designer. a. Why? i. They would be accountable to a God that had made everything. ii. They could not pat themselves on the back for their amazing insights. 3. The simple mechanics of flight indicate that it is not accidental. When man wanted to fly he just couldn’t figure out how it was done. Only recently have we come to understand flight. a. Yet this was magically accomplished by nature, with no need, no understanding and totally by chance. i. And they call our faith a fairy tale. b. We could go on and on, millions of examples in nature of things that will not work unless all of the pieces are there. 4. Example of the mousetrap a. Any of the pieces not there it will not function. 4. The Denial of a Creator takes greater faith and blind, reckless ignoring of the truth. The scientist wouldn’t even have to agree with our definition of who the creator is – but for some reason, and I believe it is the prideful arrogance of man that they refuse to believe. a. Psalm 14:1 tells us that the fool says in his heart that there is no God. 5. Genesis 1:24-31 (NKJV) 24 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind"; and it was so.

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And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29 And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food"; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. a. At last we come to the sixth day, the last day of creation. i. We see initially that the creeping things of the earth were brought into existence. 1. God is making provision for man. ii. Each thing is made according to its kind. 1. Science has no evidence of a single kind becoming another kind. 2. It makes suppositions that are not supported by what we know. 3. It can only show adaptation. b. Then God creates man in His image. i. God does not have a physical body as we do, so this does not speak of the physical attributes of God. 1. Ephesians 4:23-24 “…and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. ii. Notice here that God says “let Us create man in our image, according to Our likeness” 1. Does God have a mouse in His pocket? 2. We have seen earlier that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, but its usage indicates that this is something separate. 3. In John 1 verse 1 we are told that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. a. Wait, I am confused, we have God, We have the Spirit of God and we now have this Word? b. What is the Word? i. In John 14 we are told this New International Version The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. ii. Ahh… We see that the Word is the Son of God, Jesus. 4. Here is the Triune God. He is three in one, separate yet together, all working in harmony. Application / Conclusion There is so much more that could be said here. We could dissect each point of creation and spend days just on the triune God. We could go into why God created us. In fact, that is our application.

God created this world and us for His pleasure. He desires us to worship and love Him. In order for this to happen, He needed to give us free will. If we were to truly love God, we had to be given the choice not to love Him. We shall see in the coming weeks what man does with that free will and how God responds from the foundation of the world. Tonight however, I have a question for you. Do you believe that God created all that is? Do you believe that you can trust the creator of the universe? In Luke 19:40 we are told, (New International Version (NIV))40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” His very creation speaks of Him. Will you surrender tonight to the creator? Will you turn your life over to the God that created the stars, the moon, the sun, the fish, the birds, the animals and yourself? We only really have two choices, either to believe or to stick our fingers in our ears and cry lalala as creation shouts of the creator. I hope you choose to surrender. i

(The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University, page 214)” ― Albert Einstein

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― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out