Sermon Tone Analysis
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Last week, we discussed worldviews.
How our worldview will interpret available data to match what we believe to be true.
This often leads us to mishandle information and distorting the truth.
Selective attention will cause one to pay special attention to the data that lines up with their worldview or belief system and skip over all other information — causing one to have a distorted view of truth and reality.
We must look at life through the lens of the Bible.
Not using other thoughts or theories to interpret the Bible, but using the Bible to interpret and evaluate various thoughts and theories.
That is looking at life through the lens of a Biblical worldview.
Last week, I gave you all a challenge.
Let’s look at scripture, God’s message to us, with new eyes.
The next two weeks, I want to focus on two main points.
Death before sin & the evolution of races
Let’s begin death before sin with a quick video.
Pain and Suffering video
Regarding creation, no matter what you choose to believe (young earth, old earth, big bang, billions of years), you cannot have death before sin in a proper biblical worldview.
As soon as you place death before sin, Jesus is no longer needed, and the New Testament can be tossed away.
Seriously.
Sin brought death, disease, pain, and suffering.
If your worldview has any of this before sin, there is no need for a savior.
Jesus is irrelevant.
Death before sin places the punishment before the crime.
This logic is absurd.
Death is a Result of Sin
If we let scripture interpret scripture, death is a result of sin.
This means, there was no death before sin.
Adam was the first person in history to sin.
I believe that any interpretation of creation week in Genesis outside of 7 literal days requires death before sin.
Some might ask the question, If God made the world and everything in it perfect, where did evil come from?
Did God create evil?
That’s a good question.
I don’t believe that God created evil.
Here’s why.
Everything was very good.
No evil.
I believe that God created the possibility of evil?
The Possibility of Evil
Choice, free will, is the possibility of evil.
God has given us the ability to choose option b, not God.
You can choose me, or you can choose not me.
You can choose God, or you can choose not God.
Just as darkness is the absence of light, evil is the absence of good.
We can have light without darkness, just as we can have good without evil.
But once you remove light, the only option is darkness.
Once you remove good, you have evil.
Just by instructing man to not eat of a specific tree, God created a tree of the knowledge, or understanding, of good and evil.
It wasn’t necessarily the tree that opened the understanding of good and evil, rather the choice to disobey or rebel.
Not eating from this tree is keeping the light on.
Eating from this tree is removing the light.
Without light, you have darkness.
Without good, you have evil.
This represents the alternative to accepting the rule of the Creator.
God created the possibility of evil by creating a choice.
He gave humanity the option to obey or disobey.
Here is one quote that I read about this topic that sums it up pretty well.
“Prohibiting people from eating of the tree could have been a test to see if they would be content to stay in their proper place or if they would try to ascend to God’s level...
...The people’s sin is pride and disrespect for God’s authority, seeking to obtain that which was forbidden—wisdom that would make them like God.”
If God is good and everything he created is good, then evil being the opposite of good must be the opposite of God.
When Adam and Eve sinned by choosing to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they chose to understand evil.
They chose the opposite of God; they chose separation from God.
You’ve got to get this.
Evil is Separation From God.
Every day we get to make a choice; to choose God or the absence of God.
Let’s go back to the light and dark analogy.
Do you find it interesting that you can’t turn on dark?
Think about it.
We don’t have a dark switch; we have a light switch.
We don’t turn on the dark; we turn off the light.
Dark can never overpower light.
To get a shadow, you must block or hide the light.
As soon as there is light, darkness is gone
Just as when we sin, we’re choosing the absence of God.
We’re choosing to step out, away from God. Almost like we’re turning off our access to God.
Adam and Eve walked with God.
They had direct access to his throne in Eden.
This is a devastating ordeal.
Picture the Moment
Put yourself in their place.
You’re faced with a decision to make; it looks good and probably tastes good too.
You go for it, only to find yourself buck naked, covered in shame, looking for something to cover up a misguided choice.
I know, we’ve all been there.
(Hopefully not literally naked.)
But spiritually naked and full of shame from some wrong decision.
And we try to cover this naked shame.
We make coverings to wear, hoping that no one will notice; that no one will see our shame.
We pretend that everything is good and try to live a lie.
And we’re good actors; most people are fooled.
But not everyone.
Here’s where they get caught.
A couple of questions come to mind when I read this.
First, they “heard” the Lord God walking in the garden?
Was he in physical form?
I believe so.
This is what theologians call a theophany; a visible manifestation of God in human form.
This actually happens several times throughout the Old Testament.
But, not to be confused with the incarnation of Jesus.
The Lord God is approaching Adam and Eve, so they hide themselves from his presence.
Where do they hide themselves?
Among the trees.
Among the trees?
They are covered in fig leaves, and they hid among the trees.
Did they think they could blend in with the trees?
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