Abc - The Building Blocks Of Faith - Creation Series

Today we continue our series entitled, The ABC’s of faith. The larger idea is based on the idea that we learn over time through an exploration process of success and failure. Everything we come to know and understand is built over time on the foundation of trial and error.

We learned last week, the wooden blocks we have all played with were an idea in 1594, a practical concept 100 years after that, and only then it would take another 175 years to be mass produced as the blocks we know and love from Brooklyn, New York.

Last week,Peter and I talked about belonging and this week we continue with the beginning “C” alliteration by building on the ideas of Christian awareness, belief, behavior, belonging to Creation as part of our Christian witness. These are the building blocks (or the major aspects) of Christian identity that help us to withstand the storms of life.

In the beginning, God made a perfect Creation?

Was it really six days?

I’d like to start with a story. It was a number of years ago now, there was a very intelligent young person who came to his pastor to talk about the theory of evolution. He was concerned because in his science class the teacher and the texts said evolution is how the world came into being but this differed from his Sunday and youth group teaching, so which is right and how could he defend it. The pastor gave the young man two very detailed chapters from the book, Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. The young man studied the pages and created a debate chart for every point the public textbook was promoting. Throughout the next few classes, the young man armed with the facts would raise his hand and politely reject the teacher’s assertion of truth. Eventually, the teacher sent the boy to the principal's office for being disruptive. The parents were contacted. The boy told his side. The parents (a lawyer and a teacher) were impressed and reached a quiet solution with the school for the boy’s grade for the science unit that promotes evolution over intelligent design.

There are a couple of facts many don’t understand. Evolution is a theory of creation. It is not a fact. It can’t be proven conclusively. Do you remember the original beaks of birds we drawn by Jonthan Wells in Icons of Evolution in our public school science books? They were used to show the evolution of finches over time. The truth is the beaks drawn were actually just a seasonal fluctuation due in part to the rain fall in the region. It was an adaptation. Or remember the fruit flies, the two wing versus the fourwing version. PBS did a special promoting this as proof. However, the theory of evolution states mutations occur to better species. The fruit flies' new mutations didn’t have any muscles to move the extra set. It wasn’t evolution. It was a mutation. It didn't create a new species. Just a less efficient fruit fly. Or remember the drawing of the embryos by German scientist Ernst Haeckel. It started with a small embryo and 24 embryos later it showed the development of the fish all the way to a human. The problem is, even in Haeckel's day (over 150 years ago) they accused him of fraud and since then, even the journal of science has called Haekels drawing as “one of the most famous fakes in biology.” It was a manipulation. And yet, the information is still used as fact often used to justify the naturalism inspired worldview so prevalent today. If you want more info on this, I have copies of the chapter on the back table.

My point is as a Christian, we must understand the scriptures to combat the heresies the culture and evil one will throw at us to undermine our faith. So today, I’d like to jump into Genesis one to give a little of the basis for a Christian Worldview. So if you have a bible, please open it to the beginning: Genesis 1:1.

While you’re pulling it up again, let me remind you: The word Genesis means "beginnings." Genesis tells the story of the beginning of the universe, solar system, earth, life, man, sin, Israel, nations, and salvation. An understanding of Genesis is crucial to our understanding of the rest of Scripture. For example, Genesis chapters 1-11 are quoted or referred to more than 100 times in the New Testament alone. And it is over these chapters that the primary battle for the historicity of Genesis rages. All of the first eleven chapters are referred to in the New Testament. Every New Testament author refers somewhere to Genesis 1-11.

Jesus Himself, on six different occasions, refers to Genesis, thus affirming His belief in their historical nature.