Sermon Tone Analysis

*Creation is about the Glory of God the Creator, Part 2 ~~ Genesis 1:24-25*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on  July 15, 2007/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

 

On the NASA website this week[1] I read and watched footage of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to approach the Moon, which entered lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968.

That evening, the astronauts; Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders did a live television broadcast from lunar orbit, in which they showed pictures of the Earth and Moon seen from Apollo 8.  Lovell said, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth."’

We actually found an *audio clip* of the end of that broadcast:

 

William Anders: "For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you".

<Reads Gen 1:1-4>

 

Jim Lovell: <Reads v. 5-8>

 

Frank Borman: <Reads v. 9-10>

 

Borman then added, "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you - all of you on the good Earth."

A little over a year later, on February 5, 1970, a microfilm packet containing Genesis 1:1 in sixteen languages and a complete English Bible were deposited on the Moon by Apollo 14 LEM Commander Edgar Mitchell.[2]

The next year one of the few astronauts to walk the moon and the first to ride the moon buggy, was James Irwin in July, 1971.

His trip into space was so moving that he later became a Christian evangelist.

This is what he wrote of viewing earth from his space ship: “Seeing this has to change a man, has to make a man appreciate the creation of God and the love of God.”

 

Senator John Glenn, after returning to space in 1998 on the Discovery Space Shuttle, said: “I don’t think you can be up here and look out the window as I did the first day and see the Earth from this vantage point, to look out at this kind of creation and not believe in God.” [3]

 

The sad reality, though, is that so many who study the majesty and magnificence of creation in astronomy or the other sciences, can look at the grandeur and greatness of the universe and not believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

 

We could go through a lot of examples and illustrations of people like the astronauts who read Genesis 1 in space or the other lunar mission that deposited the text of Genesis 1 in multiple languages.

So many have considered the first chapter of the Bible to be so important, but what pains me is that there are so many Christians and biblical institutions who do /not /think its details are important or at least worth taking a stand on it as literal history and what it really means and certainly it’s not consider worth studying with the detail that we are examining its implications.

I was reading this week of a study or survey of over 100 schools in an association of Christian colleges, about 95% of the schools appear to be ‘open to a reinterpretation of Genesis 1–3 that accommodates evolutionary theories.

Numerous well–known Bible teachers and apologists see the whole question as moot, and some even aggressively argue that a literal approach to Genesis is detrimental to the credibility of Christianity.

They have given up the battle—or worse, joined the attack against biblical creationism.’[4]

I certainly don’t want to judge anyone’s hearts, but as John MacArthur has asked, it’s a fair question as to what the motive is: Do they /not/ teach Genesis 1 is literal history because they want to please secular scientists rather than their Sovereign Savior?

Do they love the applause of men? Do they love the reputation of academics more than the God to whom they must give account?

Do they seek the approval of departmental committees more than the holy God of Scripture?

Darwin’s theory originally met a lot of opposition from /secular/ communities, scientists and others, but was very quickly embraced by many Christians.

In fact, if you study the history of evolution, it seems to me that its success is due a lot more to Christians than to atheists – it was a different view of God, not a denial of God.

A vast number of evolutionists /are/ theists, many churchgoers, and at the same time that evolution and naturalism are once again being attacked and dismantled /outside/ the church (scientists from leading prestigious universities signing dissent from Darwinism, intelligent design movement, etc.) at this same time so many /inside/ the church are holding more tightly than ever to evolution by God or at least progressive creationism over evolutionary ages.

An ABC News Poll for May of this year (2007) shows 60% of Americans believe God created the world without evolution and did so in six days.

Other recent polls I have seen from numerous sources suggest similar numbers, at least more than half.

It appears that the percent is much higher in America at large than in Christian academic institutions.

It’s also interesting that conservative Muslims and Mormons have held to a more consistent view of literal six-day creation than most Christians hold to.

It’s an interesting trend to notice how the Catholic Church (although Pope John Paul was somewhat open to evolution by God) has held more consistently to some things that mainstream evangelicals haven’t such as church leaders being men.

Sometimes those outside the evangelical Christian church put to shame those inside and expose our inconsistencies.

It’s also interesting to note that in the first half of the twentieth century, even some State governments refused to compromise on evolution where the church had.

Here is the law from the State of Tennessee which was in force until 40 years ago:

 

It shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the universities,

normals, and all other public schools of the State which are supported

in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach

any theory that denies the story of the divine creation of man as

taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from

a lower order of animals.

---Tennessee Legislature Act, March 21, 1925.

Repealed, May

17, 1967[5]

 

Of course, nowadays, to even put a sticker in a science textbook that doesn’t mention God but explains that evolution is a theory which not all scientists agree on – to do this is deemed unconstitutional.

It’s intriguing to me how countries like the Philippines allow more freedom, speech, and honesty then the U.S. which prides itself on this.

The Philippines still has freedom /of /religion, whereas America really has freedom /from /religion.

Just in case you don’t know where I stand by now, the Westminster Confession (Chap.

4.1) was written in the 17th century, but I don’t think modern theologians have improved on its summary:

 

It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, (Heb.

1:2, John 1:2–3, Gen. 1:2, Job 26:13, Job 33:4) for the manifestation of the glory of His eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, (Rom.

1:20, Jer.

10:12, Ps. 104:24, Ps. 33:5–6) in the beginning, to create, or make of nothing, the world, and all things therein whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days; and all very good.

(Gen. 1, Heb. 11:3, Col. 1:16, Acts 17:24)

 

I don’t claim that there are no challenges to this view or no good Christians teaching different views, but I must trust God and His Word unequivocally even if that means most of the world and a lot of Christians will think I’m naïve or old-fashioned, unsophisticated or outdated – I have to interpret my worldview and view of origins by what the Bible actually says, because God is the only One who was there during Creation Week and the only One who knows everything and never lies.

In contrast, the world almost always trusts the ideas of fallible “experts” who weren’t there, don’t know everything, and often make errors and sometimes lie.

My passion is not primarily in the area of some of these details or debates in and of themselves, but it is God’s Word and God’s Glory that drive me.

To compromise or diminish either of those is not what we want to do.

Many of the ivy league schools in America did that very thing, although many began as seminaries and schools for biblical training, they now are as secular and pagan as possible.

Why must we hold fast to God “in the beginning”?

For God’s glory and also for our good.

Why did God do it the way He said in Genesis 1?  The same reason He does everything – for His own glory, and in a way that most glorifies Himself.

OUTLINE:

*I.

The Perfect Goodness of God – v. 24-25*

*II.

The Praise Deserving of God – Ps 148 (Rev.

4:11)*

 

*/First, The Perfect Goodness of God/*

24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. 25 God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

* *

7x in this chapter we have /it was good/.

Seven is the number of completion, perfection – all God made was perfectly good.

The text repeatedly says each type of land animal was created “according to ~/ after its kind.”

Each species or class or family of animals was created not in an imperfect evolving state, but every animal was perfectly good right after its creation.

Things did not gradually become “good” in the sense of perfect; they were already “good” the day God created these creatures.

Everything in God’s original creation is described as good.

Verse 30 suggests the birds and land animals did not originally eat each other then.

This phrase “its kind” does not allow for evolution as the creatures always reproduce in their own biblical kind, one kind of animal will never turn into another kind, God set genetic limits.

What does “/earth bring forth/” mean in v. 24? 

 

‘This is an interesting expression.

It doesn’t imply any creative forces in the earth itself, or any power in the soil to generate life.

It certainly isn’t suggesting that these life–forms evolved from in–animate matter.

But it reminds us that creatures God made are composed of the very same elements as the earth.

Genesis 2:19 affirms this, saying that God formed the living creatures “out of the ground.”

When they die, their bodies decompose and they go back to the earth.

As we shall see in chapter 8, this is true of human beings as well.

Adam was formed from the dust of the earth.

And when we die, our bodies return to dust (Genesis 3:19).’[6]

God seems to intentionally have created His earth creatures from the dust as a reminder to them that they are earthy and little more than dust without God’s gracious work in them.

At this point, of course, before sin there was no hint of death, disease, decay, degradation, destruction, struggle of survival of the fittest.

Lion could lie down with the lamb, and paradise was peaceful and perfect – as v. 30 says, all God made was “very good.”

Scripture says that one day in a sense this paradise will be restored, and lion will lay down with lamb again, and a child can play with a cobra.

For now, in the story, it’s /all good./

/ /

In Genesis 1:25, we have listed three types of land creatures:

“beasts”            – a general term including wild animals

“cattle”             - NIV has “livestock” – this may be a broader term than both translations suggest, and generally refers to the animals man can domesticate or tame, including dogs, etc.

“creeping”        -  smaller, close to the ground animals, presumably including those with short or no legs, perhaps small reptiles, amphibians, maybe even insects.

The basic idea of this is more concisely stated in the line of a song:

/All creatures great and small, The Lord God made them all/

/ /

God’s goodness is still evident in creation and His creatures today, it was not wiped out when sin entered paradise.

 

1 Timothy 4:4 (NKJV) \\ 4 For every creature of God /is/ good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving;