God Has A Way About Him Series

God has a way about Him

Joshua 10:12-14

Series: Light Pollution

(12) Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.

(13) And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. [Is] not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. (14) And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.

I. As ministers and even as Christians we feel the need to explain God to ourselves and to unbelievers. We have almost made sharing our faith into a “sales pitch”, we try to hard sale God. We try to have an answer for everything. When the questions start off with “How did God do ____” we try to give an explanation.

A. We have been trying to explain God for centuries, but it seems within the last few hundred years we really try to “help” explain God. This goes all the way back to Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Once Charles Darwin challenged God’s creation with his theory of evolution. Christians have tried to explain how we all came to be.

1. In this first verse we are given a statement that in the beginning God created heaven and earth. And the following verses as a detailed layout of the creation process. This first statement in the Bible lays the groundwork for all that God is doing to have fellowship with mankind. It is here in the beginning that God created all that we know, taking His very nature and placing it into a created format that we may know Him, have fellowship with Him, and enjoy being with Him.

2. Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Many believe what is commonly called the “gap theory” where God had created the earth, and all things; and that somewhere in the fabric of time a tragedy struck possibly in the form of Satan’s fall that caused this former planet and possibly the dinosaurs and another race of mankind due to the use of God telling Adam and Eve to replenish the earth which many believe were created for Satan to rule over were all destroyed thus resulting in God to create again over a 7 day period. Giving way to 5 theories to explain how God did it. Emphasis on “theories” which means this is man inspired and not God inspired.

a. View 1: Historic Creationism: The word used for “beginning” in Genesis 1:1 is re’shit in Hebrew, which marks a starting point for what comes afterwards. There is no gap between verses 1 and 2. Rather verse 1 begins the Genesis story telling us that the God who created everything is the same God who creates His image bearers and the Promised Land where He will live with them. What God created in the first verse existed for an undefined period (which could be anywhere from a moment to billions of years) before God began the work of preparing the uninhabitable land for the habitation of mankind.

b. View 2: Young-earth Creationism: In this view, God created the entire universe, including Adam and Eve, in six literal twenty-four-hour days. As it seeks to be faithful to its reading of the biblical text, this view affirms that the entire universe is less than ten thousand years old. It interprets the data of science in terms of inspired Scripture, refusing to compromise God’s teaching about the date and divine methods of creation with naturalistic scientific theories.

c. View 3: Old Earth Creation or Intelligent Design (no evolution involved). The “days” of Genesis 1 are analogies of God’s workdays, setting a pattern for our rhythm of work and rest. They are understood in the same sense as “in that day” of Isaiah 11:10-11. They represent periods of God’s historical supernatural activity in preparing and populating the earth as a place for humans to live, love, work, and worship. These days are broadly consecutive periods of unspecified length.

d. View 4: Literary Framework View: In this view, Genesis 1 and 2 are intended to be read as a figurative framework explaining creation in a topical, not sequential, order. The six days of creation listed in Genesis 1 are also to be interpreted metaphorically, not as literal twenty-four-hour days. The literary framework view is outlined as Days 1 -3 are the Forming Days and Days 4-6 are the Filling Days.