Today, it is popular to say today “If you believe in the Bible, you are un-scientific.” This bias against Christians is most seen in three areas: Science, Education and Politics. As an example of this bias, during the Sept 8 Republican Presidential Primary Debate, Jon Huntsman accused Texas Gov Rick Perry of “running from science” because he did not believe in global warming or evolution. The news media and academic elites are quick to pick up on this judgment against what they view as un-scientific Christians.
The judgment against Christians is not new. Since the beginning of the Age of Reason, Science went from its foundation of Christian principles, to become a religion of its own, entirely against the idea of
‒ Miracles
‒ Creation, or
‒ a Young Earth
How have Christians responded to this judgment?
1. Some Avoid scientific issues of creation
2. Others Adapt to contemporary science
The BioLogos Foundation is one group that strongly asserts you can reconcile the Christian faith and evolution. According to their website, The BioLogos Foundation “is a group of Christians, many of whom are professional scientists, biblical scholars, philosophers, theologians, pastors, and educators, who are concerned about the long history of disharmony between the findings of science and large sectors of the Christian faith. We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. We also believe that evolution, properly understood, best describes God’s work of creation.” This group of professing Christians says they are committed to promoting a perspective on the origins of life that is both theologically and scientifically sound. In the words of BioLogos contributor Tim Keller, their main point of advocacy is “that biological evolution and biblical orthodoxy can be compatible.” [1]
William Lane Craig, a leading Christian apologist argues that Christians who believe that the earth is young are a liability against belief in the gospel
But as we will see today, if one believes that the Bible is to be interpreted literally, Scripture itself does not allow for billions of years for the earth’s creation. I propose to you that adapting the Bible to fit with modern science weakens the gospel, because the evolutionary model is built first and foremost on a pursuit to eliminate the need for God. Therefore, I urge us today to
3. Advance the gospel, by a knowledgeable, accurate, and logical defense of the literal interpretation of the Bible, and the relatively young age for the earth.
Today’s sermon is not a SCIENCE LESSON, but a BIBLE LESSON.
Note that in GENESIS 5:3-32, we have a series of genealogical records covering ten generations. Each contain 5 parts
(1) the age of the individual patriarch when he fathers his firstborn son,
(2) the remaining years of his life,
(3) the acknowledgment of “other sons and daughters,”
(4) the total years of his life, and
(5) the notice of his death. (Mathews, NAC, vol. 1A, 308)
This arrangement leaves no gaps in the record between ADAM and NOAH.
The next set of records is found in Genesis 11:10-32. It is somewhat less precise, but it too covers ten generations and gives us a continual list of the individuals between Noah and Abram.
There are tremendous implications from observing these passages.
1. From Adam-Noah there are Ten generations, or 1186 years
2. From Noah - Abram, there are Ten generations, or 390 Years.
3. The text leaves open the possibility of a greater amount of time between Noah and Abraham, but not enough of a difference to accommodate an evolutionary view.
4. Therefore, we come up with a date of creation approx 4,000-6,000 BC
Why does this matter?
1. REDEMPTION. The most important observation is that there is a Continuous Record from Adam to CHRIST! This is to demonstrate that the redeemer promised when Adam and Eve sinned has come.
Perhaps you are tempted to read through these genealogies quickly. There is nothing very exciting about reading lists of names that you do not know. But although there is nothing of a devotional nature here, there is great significance in the fact that God gives us a continuous record that demonstrates the Messiah’s place as the descendant of Adam, Abraham and David. The Bible is teaching us that redemption is God’s priority and that He has not forgotten his promise! The Geneologies give us the PATH to REDEMPTION!
Some of the most important chapters in the Bible are Genesis 5, 10, 11, Matt 1, Luke 3!
2. REVELATION. If we dismiss Genesis 1-2, we can dismiss the rest of the Bible
The Bible is a unique book. The only book from ancient history that gives the names and record of people from Adam to Jesus!
3. RELEVANCE. God’s Word is our foundation.
4. REVERENCE. Evolution is first and foremost a system of belief based on the assumption that there is no God. Notice how evolutionists view their belief. It is obvious from these quotes, and many others, that evolution is a philosophical, or religious pursuit. While they claim to be pure, unbiased scientists, they are guided by their presuppositions, and they are extremely strong.
Sir Julian Huxley was perhaps the world's leading spokesperson for evolution in the Twentieth Century. He was a professor at Oxford University and Kings College in London. He was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London, a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund, and the first Director of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Through his life’s work, Huxley did much to advance the cause of evolutionary humanism. In 1964 here is what he said. Evolution... is the most powerful and the most comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on Earth. — Sir Julian Huxley, 'Education and Humanism', in Essays of a Humanist (1964), 125.
Evolution: At the Mind's Cinema
I turn the handle and the story starts:
Reel after reel is all astronomy,
Till life, enkindled in a niche of sky,
Leaps on the stage to play a million parts.
Life leaves the slime and through all ocean darts;
She conquers earth, and raises wings to fly;
Then spirit blooms, and learns how not to die,-
Nesting beyond the grave in others' hearts.
I turn the handle: other men like me
Have made the film: and now I sit and look
In quiet, privileged like Divinity
To read the roaring world as in a book.
If this thy past, where shall they future climb,
O Spirit, built of Elements and Time?
— Sir Julian Huxley
'Evolution: At the Mind's Cinema' (1922), in The Captive Shrew and Other Poems of a Biologist (1932), 55
Huxley’s ode to evolution is more fitting for worship than for science. Huxley worshiped the God of Time and Chance.
More recently in 2009, the famed atheist Richard Dawkins was commissioned by The Wall Street Journal to respond to the question "Where does evolution leave God?" Here is an excerpt from Dawkins’ response:
“Before 1859 it would have seemed natural to agree ... that the creation of life was God's greatest work. ... Today we'd amend the statement: Evolution is the universe's greatest work. Evolution is the creator of life, and life is arguably the most surprising and most beautiful production that the laws of physics have ever generated…
Where does that leave God? The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear. Evolution is God's redundancy notice, his pink slip. But we have to go further. A complex creative intelligence with nothing to do is not just redundant. A divine designer is all but ruled out by the consideration that he must be at least as complex as the entities he was wheeled out to explain. God is not dead. He was never alive in the first place.”
So we ask the question, Can you Believe the BIBLE and SCIENCE? The answer is that You CAN and you MUST!
Jesus instructs us that belief in the book of Genesis is essential. This leads us to understand that the creation story must be taken literally as well, because Jesus, the creator himself believed what Moses wrote.
John 5:46–47 "For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. " "But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”"
Science is guided by your PRESUPPOSITIONS
A Christian friend of mine earned his PhD in biology from a university in England. He is a brilliant scientist, and he is also a Christian who believes Genesis is to be literally understood. His research is with human genes. He is on the cutting edge of various therapies and discoveries to help understand and cure diseases. He wrote an article titled,
“What Would Darwin Think of the Human Genome Project?” He is writing about what scientists called “junk DNA.” They called it junk because it was the leftovers after DNA had replicated. To evolutionary scientists, it was evidence that all species evolved from the same primordial soup. But recent discoveries are demonstrating that the Junk DNA is not really junk at all, but is vitally necessary for life. Joe Dukes writes,
“The "junk" DNA can no longer be used as an argument by evolutionists against creationists to ask why would a God leave all this unnecessary information there if He created us? Creationists come back to where they should never have left - God does not create "junk."
Back to rejection of God based on lack of proof. This is ironic from scientists as let us observe the alternative: a big bang from nothing to create everything. Now one of the fundamental laws of the universe is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So energy existed forever, this explains the big bang theory and how it occurred. God existed forever and can neither be created nor destroyed. Do you see some parrallels now in these arguments? Scientists who reject the personal God reject it in favour of their own impersonal "god," the god of energy. So whether you believe in evolution by chance or one God who created things similarly, you still have to have faith that something or someone existed for all of eternity, unchanged and immortal. God or energy, both take faith. To look down on those who believe in a God who has created things we see around us is rather hypocritical when the alternative is believing that the big bang just occurred.
We need Christian Scientists like Joe!
Another Christian who is a Scientist, Tiberius Rata, writes
“The same scientists who say that science has ‘proven’ that a six-day creation week dating only thousands of years ago is impossible would ALSO tell you that science has proved that a virgin birth is impossible, that no one can walk on water or calm a storm with a word, that people can’t be miraculously healed of blindness or leprosy with just a touch or a word, and that people certainly can’t be raised from the dead.” (Tiberius Rata, “In the Beginning, God Created,” The Voice, a publication of the IFCA, January, 2011)
These intelligent and academically accomplished believers, along with many others, understand the complexity of life. They encourage us that we do not need to cower at the shouts of those who demand that we abandon the Bible. Yes, upholding a literal interpretation may cost you academic recognition, and may earn sneers from the press, but in the end, the truth will triumph.
Hold fast to the truth! God’s word can be trusted in every area of your life.
