CREATED IN GODS IMAGE
Read Genesis 1:1-5, 14-19, 26-27, 2:1-3,
Last week we looked primarily at the first verse in the Bible. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” We looked at God being the creator of all things. He made the heavens and the earth and everything that is in them both.
This morning I want us to look primarily at Genesis 1:26-27.
- Genesis 1:26-27
God made man and woman and He created us in His image. You and I have been created in the image of God.
That is not a very popular idea in our society today. It certainly is not something you are going to be taught in most public school classrooms. But, I want you to know this morning, that God created you. He made you and He made you in His image.
We did not evolve. We did not come from another species. We did not descend from other animals. We were created in the image of God.
Tell someone, “You were created in God’s image.”
There are a number of reasons I know that God created me. There are number of reasons I know this was not a fluke, the result of some cosmic burp millions and millions of years ago.
I. I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE
1. The Bible tells me so
I know God created me because the Bible tells me He did.
- Genesis 1:27; 2:7
- Isaiah 44:2, 24, 49:5
> Jeremiah 1:5 I chose you before I formed you in the womb; I set you apart before you were born. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
If evolution is true, then the entire Bible is incorrect. If evolution is true, how do I explain the fact that Genesis 1 tells me that there was light and darkness, days before there was a sun, moon and stars? That is not possible.
If evolution is true, then how is it that I am formed in the image of God? At what point did I become the image of God?
If God would lie to me about creating me, would He also then lie to me about loving me? Would He also then lie to me about saving me?
The book of John tells me that Jesus created all things. That is the same book of the Bible that contains John 3:16. How do I accept one without the other?
> Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims the work of His hands.
That is the same book that tells me of a Shepherd who watches over me so I can walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death without fear. How can I accept one without the other?
Romans tells me that I have sinned.
> Romans 5:8 But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us!
> Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
> Romans 1:20 From the creation of the world His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.
Ephesians tells me that I am saved by grace through faith, that I am not saved by works. But, Ephesians also tells me
> Ephesians 3:9 … God who created all things.
There are those who believe that you can take parts out of the Bible and only accept other parts. There are those who believe the Bible is inspired in spots and that they are inspired to spot the spots. I am of the mind that you have to take the whole thing, hook, line, and sinker.
> 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,
My friends, when the Bible says God created all things in 6 days and then rested on the 7th, I believe it. When the Bible says God covered the earth with a flood and destroyed everything except a family and some animals in a boat, I believe it. When the Bible says a great fish swallowed a man and then 3 days later cast him up on dry land, I believe it. When the Bible says a young boy beat a giant, that 3 men walked through a furnace, Daniel slept with some lions, a virgin gave birth to a baby, Jesus walked on water & healed the blind; when the Bible says Jesus was crucified, laid in a tob and rose 3 days later, I believe it. When the Bible says Jesus is preparing a place for me and that He is coming back one day, I believe it.
There is no picking a choosing with the Bible. It either is the Word of God, or it isn’t. It is either inspired by Him, and has been protected from corruption by Him, or it hasn’t.
As for me, I believe the Bible and the Bible. I believe it from the index to the maps. The Bible says God made me. That is one reason I believe God created me and evolution is not true.
You see, if God did not create me, then I would have to throw out too much of it to make what was left of any value to me. So, I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE the Bible tells me so.
I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE
2. Life is too complicated to have developed out of non-living materials, without Divine help.
Nowhere, at no time, has life ever been observed to have come from something non-living, nor has man ever been able to cause it to happen. Life is too complicated to have developed out of non-living materials.
I remember when I was in school, and especially when I took a course at SCC entitled “Historical Geology” I was told that a scientist named Stanley Miller shot some electricity through at atmosphere like the one primitive earth had, creating amino acids, the building blocks of life.
There are a number of problems with that.
a. First – as early as the 1960s, and certainly by the 1970s, scientists had discovered that the atmosphere Miller used for his experiment, was not the type of atmosphere early earth actually had. Science magazine said in 1995 that experts now dismiss Miller’s experiment because “the early atmosphere looked nothing like the Miller-Urey simulation.” [John Cohen, “Novel Center Seeks to Add Spark to Origins of Life,” Science 270 (1995), 1925-26.]
b. Second – Some books continue to fudge on the results by saying that if you repeat the experiment using the correct atmosphere, that you will still get organic molecules. Well, the organic molecules you get by repeating the experiment are Formaldehyde and Cyanide. They are compounds so hazardous to life that they are used for embalming fluid.
c. Third – To assume that life can develop from non-living materials, even organic molecules, would be millions of times more difficult than it would be to assume that I could take an egg, break the yolk and dump the whole thing in a bucket of water, and that a chicken would evolve from the resulting mess. Life is too complicated to have developed out of non-living materials.
** Show cell video. (Showed clip from the Truth Project, on cell physiology).
I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE the Bible tells me so. I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE Life is too complicated to have developed out of non-living materials, without Divine help.
I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE
3. The human body is too complicated to have come about by accident.
> Psalm 139:14 I will praise You, because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know [this] very well.
This morning I asked to all to look around the room at the pictures we have hanging around. (These are human anatomy charts we had purchased. Did you do that? Did you see how our bodies have been put together? Did you notice how intricately and how well every part of our bodies work together?
Did you notice some of the diseases and some of the problems our bodies can have if just one part is not properly functioning?
Let me ask you, how could things like our heart and circulatory system, which gets oxygen and food to every cell of our bodies, have developed by accident? How could a nervous system, which communicates with every part of the body, have developed on its own? How could an eye, with the cones and rods that allow us to see colors during the day, and black and white in dim light; how could the eye, with its lenses and specifically placed focal points have built itself?
Think of our digestive systems. Think about what is required, what our bodies do to defend themselves, when we do something as simple as getting a cut.
** Show video about blood clots. (Video clip from the Truth Project)
NO, I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE, the Bible tells me so. I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE Life is too complicated to have developed from non-living materials. I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE the human body is too complicated to have come about by accident.
I KNOW GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE BECAUSE
4. Of how much effort the Devil has put into trying to convince me otherwise.
From the very beginning, the Devil has either tried to convince us that we were gods, or that God did not exist. One of the ways he has done this is by trying to convince us that we are an accident. The reason he has done this is because, if we are an accident, then God did not create us. If God did not create us, then He has no right to claim jurisdiction over us, i.e. He has no right to tell us what to do. Why do you think the Bible begins by telling us that in the beginning, God created everything?
The Devil has made a great effort at trying to convince us that God did not create us. To do that, the Devil created:
a. Darwin’s tree of life – Many of you have seen pictures in textbooks, encyclopedias and such, showing how all living things have supposedly evolved from simple living organisms.
There are several problems with this …
There are no intermediary animals.
There is no evidence showing that any of these actually evolved from other ones.
In the “tree” they actually have animals that have been found in newer rock formations, placed in the tree earlier than fossils found in older rocks. Why? Because it’s good science? No! It’s because that placement fits their theory so they move things around regardless of what the evidence shows.
Why would supposedly legitimate scientists do such a thing? Because the Devil wants to convince us that evolution is true, there is no Creator, and God does not exist.
b. Haeckel’s Embryos
You may remember seeing comparative drawings of embryos, showing how different animals were so similar as embryos and thus must have evolved from similar origins.
1. He intentionally chose animals that were similar to make them look alike. I.e. Chose a salamander to represent amphibians instead of frogs.
2. He faked the pictures to make them look more similar than they actually are.
c. Gill slits
Some of you remember seeing pictures of embryos, showing gill slits in human babies and in fish, showing that we all had similar origins. The problem is, those are not gills. They are not even gill slits. The fish don’t even have gills at that stage of development. They are only lines.
d. The missing link
Some of you remember …, birds & reptiles linked.
Supposedly, archaeopteryx was an intermediary stage between dinosaurs and birds.
1) It’s a bird with modern feathers. Not reptilian at all.
2) The reptiles most similar to them, that they supposedly evolved from, are found in newer rocks than the bird was.
e. Java Man – We have all seen pictures showing how man supposedly evolved from pre-historic man, to what we have today. Legendary newscaster Walter Cronkite said in a documentary on evolution, ‘we and the chimps share a common ancestor. My father’s father’s father’s father, going back maybe a half-million generations-about five million years ago-was an ape. [Quoted in The Case for a Creator, Lee Strobel, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004, 61].
One of the evidences given for our supposed evolution was Java Man. What is not known by most is that the fossils that came to later be known as Java man and that was supposedly a missing link between apes and humans consisted of nothing more than the top part of a skull, a couple of teeth, and a thigh bone that is no longer believed to have been a part of the other fossils. That’s all there was. A skull cap, a thigh bone, and a couple of teeth. From that they constructed what is supposed to be one of our ancestors.
My friends, think of all the work that has gone on, trying to get the teaching of creation out of the public schools. Shoot, they even have Baptist universities that now teach evolution. Why? because if evolution is true, there is no need for God and the Devil doesn’t want us to believe there is a God.
Listen, God made you. He created you in His image. That means several things.
II. SINCE GOD CREATED ME AND EVOLUTION IS NOT TRUE
1. Then you are someone special
You are someone special. There is not another one like you in the world.
> Luke 12:7 Indeed, the hairs of your head are all counted. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows!
2. Then you should worship God
> Psalm 139:14 I will praise You, because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, and I know [this] very well.
3. Then you should Obey God
4. Then you should Defend God
- Matthew 10:32-24
5. Then you should Trust God
Years ago, the early part of the last century, a man’s car broke down on the side of the road. He was out working on the car, unsuccessfully trying to get it started, when another man stopped to help. The second gentleman looked at the engine, worked on it for just a minute and told the first man to start it up. The car immediately started with no problem. The owner of the car asked his helper, "How did you fix the car so quickly and how did you know what it needed?" The man answered, "I am Henry Ford. I built the car. I know what makes it work."
My friends, God created you and me. He created us in His image. He knows what makes us work. He knows what we need. He can handle our problems and we can trust Him.
FURTHER READING
Strobel, Lee, The Case for a Creator Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
2004.
Brand, Dr. Paul & Philip Yancey, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made,
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1980.
Wells, Jonathan, Icons of Evolution, Regnery Publishing 2000.
DeYoung, Donald, Astronomy and the Bible, Grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Book House, 1989.
Wells, Jonathan, Charles Hodge’s Critique of Darwinism: An
Historical-Critical Analysis of Concepts Basic to the 19th
Century Debate, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1988.
Morris, Henry M., Science and the Bible, Revised and Updated.
Chicago: Moody Press, 1986.
Also see the study, “The Truth Project”, available through Focus on the Family)
