Our Origins

Islington Baptist Church January 14, 2001

Sermon: Genesis 1

Scripture readings: Job 38, Psalm 8, 19, 136

For the next while you and I are going to consider the early chapters of the book of Genesis. In the past year I have preached twice from the book of Genesis. The last time I was with you we looked at Genesis 3:14-15 which record God’s words of judgment upon Satan—words of judgment upon Satan and words of blessing for us who are in Christ. Earlier in the year we studied Genesis 2:18-25 which answers the question “For what purpose or reason was a woman created for Adam”.

Getting a grip on the book of Genesis is of vital importance for every believer. The book of Genesis tells us where we came from, it tells us how sin, death, and suffering has come to be our experience, it tells us why our physical world looks like it does today---with its high mountain peaks, vast oil reserves, tropical fossils in arctic and mountain locations---I’m talking about the Flood, it tells us why there are so many different nationalities and languages, etc, etc.

Unfortunately many Christians ignore the book of Genesis; I suppose because we live in a culture that mocks anyone who believes in the Bible’s account of creation or the Flood. Just recently Stockwell Day was publicly mocked for affirming that he believes that man and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time. Christians are regarded as simpletons and stupid if they hold to God’s/the Bible’s testimony regarding our origins.

Today our focus is going to be Genesis 1 which lays out for us how us and this whole universe that we are in came to be.

As you well know, the majority of Canadians believe in something called Evolution. In the 1859 Charles Darwin wrote a book entitled “The origin of the Species”. In this book he proposes that all life is a product of evolution. In essence he posited that we all had our origins in the muck ---muck that just happened to come out of nowhere.

-According to Darwin and his followers, life spontaneously occurred (meaning that which was non living, on its own became alive)

-According to Darwin and his followers, somehow complex systems came about by total chance.

-According to Darwin and his followers, things moved from chaos to order and beauty and design, all by accident.

-According to Darwin and his followers, all human life and all life is just a big cosmic accident. You and I are merely the product of a series of mutuations---according to Darwin you are a big mutant.

The full blown implications of Darwin’s theory is traumatic:

1. Human life has no value and your life does not matter one bit. On the flip side, the Bible invests in us great value, worth, honor, and gives us purpose

2. Morality, right and wrong, are completely relative. In fact—according to evolution—there is no such thing as right and wrong—it’s survival of the fittest

3. There is no God—this is the ultimate goal of evolutionists.

On the whole, the theory of evolution is completely unscientific. It is theory without proof. It is a theory with gaping holes in it.

1. No fossil evidence exists to prove the theories tenet that creatures evolved into higher life forms. No transitional fossils exist. No half man, half ape skeletons exist. No half bird, half reptile skeletons exist. On the flip side, the fossil record records the sudden appearance of multiple life forms (just like the Bible teaches)

2. Spontaneous generation is an impossibility (life does not just happen spontaneously). George Vald, former professor at Harvard University and a winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine wrote an article for The Scientific American Journal. In essence he wrote that either you believe in spontaneous generation or you believe in supernatural creation. He wrote that spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible, yet, note what he says “here we are a result of such an action any ways”.

3. Things do not move from chaos to order on their own!

Real science has proven this time and time again. Things break down, they don’t build up and get more complex by themselves. (2nd law of Thermodynamics)

4. Complex systems, beauty, order, design do not happen on their own or by accident: There has to be a designer, an intelligence behind such things

Another thing to note is this: there are very few debates between creationists and evolutionists today. It’s not because the issue is settled or that there is a lack of interest. It’s because over and over again evolutionists have been publicly humiliated in such debates. This is not me saying this. A Robert Smith of the Western Missouri affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (an anti Christian organization) said this.