In The Beginning
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
In today’s culture, we are challenged by two worldviews. The evolution worldview says that we are products of chance and are not a part of God’s divine plan. The biblical worldview says that God has created us for a purpose. The Bible says that we must trust Christ by faith, walk by faith and live every part of our life by faith in our God and His purpose for our lives. Does faith mean that we have to be blind to the evidence or should the evidence all around us build our faith? I heard one Christian defend her faith to an atheist by saying, “are you going to believe the evidence, or are you going to believe God?” Do we have to make that choice, or does the evidence point to God? I stand on the fact that the evidence points to God and because I know that what God has said is true, I can be confident that He is trustworthy to direct my future. You can’t exempt faith, but you can support it. My point is that God does not demand that we deny reality, but that we acknowledge the work of His hands and based on what He has done, we are to have confidence in Him in the things we can’t see with our eyes. This universe is a testimony to our God. What I plan to do is show that both evolution and creation require faith, but the evidence points toward creation and those who hold to evolution or a godless worldview are the ones who live by blind faith.
We read the first 5 verses of Genesis discussing the first day of creation. The remainder of creation follows:
Day 2 verses 6-8, God created the firmament (or expanse).
Day 3 God created the dry land and separated from the seas, and the plants. 9-13
Day 4 God created light, stars, moon and sun. 14-19
Day 5 God created life in the waters, birds 20-23
Day 6 God created animals on the land and the beasts of the field 24-25
Also on day 6, God created the crown of His creation. Man was created in the image of God.
Day 7 God rested to give man a day of rest.
Was man created by God and if so, Why?
Let’s first break this study into two parts as the above question suggests. We’ll look at the creation question first and then we will turn our eyes toward the spiritual application of the beginning as revealed in Genesis.
Part I. Was man created by God?
If God did not create man but instead we are products of random chance, then the purpose of man is meaningless and any further discussion of living for God is irrelevant. Obviously, the debate of creation verses evolution can’t be adequately addressed in a short study such as this. Many volumes have been written on this subject and many more volumes more will be written. When I approach a study such as this, I base it on the principle Jesus used in John chapter 10:
25 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me.
26 "But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you.
27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
Those who belong to God will hear His voice and the evidence will draw us toward Him. Those who do not believe have rejected God and no amount of evidence will convince them. God has not called me to be a debater and my goal is not to overpower those who reject creation. What God has called me to do is present the truth and provide reasonable evidence that allows faith to stand or fall based on what we choose to believe. I am absolutely confident that the evidence is overwhelmingly in support of the Biblical account of creation. However, what position we are seeking to validate is what we will ultimately choose. If an evolutionist sets out to prove evolution, he or she will be more than willing to ignore the facts that contradict this presupposition and cling to anything that can be forced into the evolution model. Watch any nature show and you will see this clearly this. I listened to this comment the other day, “Laying eggs is usually reserved for birds and reptiles. Only two mammals lay eggs instead of giving live birth, the platypus and the spiny anteater. It is a mystery as to how evolution preserved this trait when these mammals descended from their reptilian ancestors”. Anything that can’t be explained is called a mystery and credited to the intelligence of evolution. Evolution is given attributes as though it is intelligent and the word ‘design’ pops up inevitably. Evolution documentaries do not deny the fact of amazing design, but they attribute it to the intelligence of the evolutionary process. This focus of this study will be on the beginning of Genesis. In our present culture, it would be a mistake to examine creation without acknowledging the challenge that evolution has presented.
One thing I will mention in passing is the erroneous concept of ‘Theistic Evolution’. Many have taught that there is a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 where evolution occurred. This clearly falls under the repeated warning of scripture not to add or take away from God’s revelation of scripture. Science once believed in common spontaneous generation. This was the belief that life frequently evolved from the materials present. For example, how did weevils get into sealed bags of wheat? How did fruit flies appear in a closed jar? How did small animals appear in a jug of water? Before the knowledge of microscopic life, these were great mysteries. When Darwin first became a mainstream contender in the science world, he seemed to answer a lot of the unknowns. Darwin filled in many gaps that science had not been able to answer. Because of a lack of knowledge, Darwin’s ideas made sense to a lot of people. In what I believe was an attempt to save credibility, many theologians tried to marry the biblical account with the evolution account. There are two main flaws with theistic evolution. First, evolution was born out of an attempt to find atheistic response to our origins. It is also used by the pagan world that denies the existence of a personal God. It was a clear attempt to explain our origins without God. If there is a God and He created us, then there is a moral law and we are subject to Him. If there is no God or if there is but He had nothing to do with our origins and we are products of random chance, then we are only subject to our own ideas and our environment. Evolution is and always has been a rebellion against the God of the Bible.
The second flaw is that there is no evidence for it. In Darwin’s time, these theories seemed to answer many of these questions. However, Darwin himself admitted that his theory could only hold up if future scientific findings would support his theories. Science has not proven Darwin to be true. Today there is nothing that is observed by science that contradicts the Bible. It is not the observations of science that create the points of contention; it is the assumptions that are not observed in science or the real world that are areas of debate. Evolutionists balk at the notion that God could have created the world from out of nothing. But we should note that evolution, taken back to its ‘logical’ beginning, starts at the exact same point. Both worldviews begin with something being created from nothing. The ultimate difference is that the Christian worldview has an explanation. The God who created this universe does have the power and is able to create. If we follow creation all the way back, we find God. If we follow evolution all the way back, we find a gaping whole that is ‘a great mystery’. Evolution says a single ‘super-dense’ molecule was responsible for exploding and creating countless stars and now scientists say billions of galaxies (some say hundreds of billions) that are beyond our home galaxy. We either serve an infinite God who holds all things together or we are products of the infinite expanse of a single molecule. Evolution can never step all the way back to the beginning. They must stop at the molecule. To ask where the molecule originated is avoided in the ‘big bang’ theory.
I don’t want to turn this into an evolution rebuttal study, but I do see the need to address a few key points. My goal is not to answer all the questions, but to show that it takes more faith to believe in the godless world of evolution than to believe in the biblical account. I am going to address some of the proofs that are used to declare evolution as a ‘proven fact’.
Carbon dating
Lets begin by looking at carbon dating. Willard Libby developed this process of testing the age of materials in the early 1950’s. Carbon dating works by measuring the amount of carbon 14 in the atmosphere and comparing it to the amount found in a dead and buried plant or animal. Carbon 14 forms as the result of the sun’s radiation hitting the atmosphere. It is radioactive which means it is unstable and decays relatively quickly as compared to more stable molecules. When C14 encounters oxygen it forms carbon dioxide. Plants breathe it in and it becomes part of the plant tissue. The amount in plants is usually very close to the amount in the atmosphere since this is the air they are using. Animals eat the plants and C14 becomes part of their tissue. The premise of carbon dating is to measure the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and comparing it to the amount found in buried plants and animals. The break down of C14 is measured in half-lives. A half-life cycle is the premise that half of the C14 molecules will break down in 5,700 years. C14 will be measurable up to 5 half lives which is roughly 30,000 years. Beyond that it is immeasurable. So if a plant or animal is found, and it has lost half its C14 molecules, it is just under 6,000 years old. If it has ¼, then it is assumed to be 12,000 years and so on up to 30,000 years. Anything beyond 30,000 years cannot be measured by carbon dating.
There are two major assumptions used in the carbon dating method. First, the rate of decay is constant throughout the C14’s lifecycle. Scientists are assuming that it didn’t begin to decay rapidly and slow down or vise-versa. The second assumption is that the atmosphere contained the same C14 content when the specimen died as it does today. We know that this is not the case. Each time the atmosphere is measured, the carbon 14 ratio goes up. This completely contradicts the evolutionary model and here is why. Evolution assumes that C14 has hit the equilibrium rate. Equilibrium is the point where the rate of decay is equal to the rate it is produced by the sun. If sunlight were to hit the earth today for the first time, C14 would immediately begin to be produced. It would be around 6,000 years before significant decay would occur. As the C14 supply slowly decays, and new molecules are produced, the C14 rate will continue to rise until equilibrium.
To put it into perspective, picture a barrel full of small holes. You are going to fill the barrel with water. As the water rises, it comes to the first set of holes and begins to leak. As the barrel continues to fill it encounters more holes. The rate of the water rising continues at a slower and slower pace as it encounters new holes until it is leaking out as fast as it is filling. That is the point of equilibrium. Picture the holes as the decay of C14 molecules. The quantity in our atmosphere will rise until there are as many decaying as there are being produced. This will occur in approximately 30,000 years (the maximum number of half-lives measurable). So if our C14 rate is still rising, this shatters the theory that the world is 4.5 billion years old but instead it dates the world between 6,000 and 30,000 years. We can’t know exactly until we hit equilibrium.
Another interesting fact about carbon dating is that of the 21,000 specimens submitted for carbon dating, 19,000 were rejected as inaccurate. If 19,000 were rejected, why were the other 2,000 considered to be accurate? They fit the evolutionary model. One of the primary gauges for validating the age of a fossil is by the age of the geologic column. The geologic column dating was established in the middle of the 1800’s. This dating system is the established system and can’t be challenged even if the evidence is compelling. Good science is to develop a theory, seek out data and see if it validates or refutes the theory. Evolution does just the opposite. The theory is declared as a fact and all the evidence is accepted or discredited based on whether it supports the evolutionary model. Instead of validating the theory by the evidence, they validate the evidence by the theory. That simply is not good science. This is founded solely on blind faith.
Speed of light
Another sited piece of evidence for the earth being billions of years old is the distance of stars from the earth. Many stars are estimated as being as far away as 5 billion light years. If the light of those stars takes 5 billion years to reach us, it stands to reason that the earth must be at least 5 billion years old. However, there is no accurate way of measuring the distance of stars from the earth. It is a completely theoretical science. One of the most common ways used to measure a distance to a star is by parallax trigonometry. In layman’s terms this is the calculation between two fixed points of reference and the angle to the third point. In other words, if you have two fixed points, you can calculate the distance to a third point without having to reach it by using a geometric formula and using the angle as a reference for the third point. The problem with this method is that the two fixed points must be far enough apart to get different readings so a triangle can be measured to a distant object. If two surveyors stand side by side and try to calculate the distance to an object, it won’t work because they are both using the same fixed point as a reference. The farther an object is, the harder it is to get a triangle.
Astronomers use the earth’s rotation around the sun to get a larger triangle. An astronomer will take a reading in June and then again in December to get two fixed points at 186 million miles apart – or one point of reference on each side of the earth’s path around the sun. This may seem like a long distance, but in light distances, it is only 16 minutes. The sun is 8 light minutes away and the earth’s path on the other side of the sun is 8 light minutes beyond the sun. There is over 525,000 minutes in a year, so 1 light year compared to our two reference points 16 minutes apart would only give an angle of .017 which is barely beyond a straight line (and there are no stars as close as 1 light year). To put this into perspective, imagine two surveyors standing 16 inches apart measuring the distance to a point that is 525,000 inches away or 8.3 miles. Scientists claim they can accurately measure the distance of a star up to 20 light years away but make no claims of accuracy beyond this distance. 20 light years is equal to two surveyors standing 16” apart and trying to measure the angle of a dot 1,992.3 miles away. If you began at the tip of Florida you would have to go 500 miles into Canada to equal that 1,900 miles. Accuracy would be a stretch at 20 light years, but the star in question is not 20 light years away, it is 5 billion light years away. You have only gotten 1/250,000,000th of the way there. If we can only claim accuracy for 20 light years, how can we claim it to be a fact that we receive light from a star that is 5,000,000,000 light years from us? That is a huge leap of faith.
Red shift
Another scientific theory to the big bang theory is the red shift. Simply put, the red shift is the evidence that the universe is expanding away from the explosion point of the big bang. The red shift is a fact; it is the conclusion of what the red shift tells us that is in dispute. The red shift also known as the Doppler Effect. When an object is stationary it sends out wave fronts evenly. When an object is moving, it has different wave lengths. If a star is moving toward earth, the star will have a blue shift because the front of the light source will shorter wave lengths. If a star is moving away, the wave lengths will be longer or will have a red shift. This is the same effect that we get from radar. The speed of a cloud or even cars can be measured by how it reflects back to the radar. Short waves is movement toward the radar, long waves is moving away.
There are some problems with the red shift theory. The first problem is that some galaxies that should be moving away from us are showing a blue shift indicating that it is moving toward us. This blue shift alone defeats the big bang model.
The second theory, I believe has a better explanation. Australian physicist Barry Setterfield, and mathematician Trevor Norman, examined all of the experimental measurements of light since 1657 and concluded that light has been slowing down. Canadian mathematician Alan Montgomery also analyzed the data statistically and concluded that the decay in the velocity of light has followed a cosecant-squared curve with a correlation coefficient of better than 99%. What on earth does that mean? With this curve the speed of light may have been:
10-30% faster in the time of Christ.
Twice as fast in the days of Solomon
Four times faster in Abraham’s time and,
As much as 10 million times faster 6000 years ago.
Several other researchers have also concluded that experiments do indicate that light is slowing down. Most scientists agree that the universe is winding down. Evolutionary physicist, Stephen Pompea calculated the current loss of rotation and concluded that 420 million years ago the earth had 21 hour days. Though I don’t agree with his conclusion, I point this out to show that it isn’t only creation scientists that recognize the winding down of the universe, it is across the board. Is light in fact slowing down? I don’t know, but I do think it is clear that the ‘facts’ stated by the evolution model are not as solid as they lead people to believe. If anything, science (true science) points away from the evolution model. Evolution can’t compromise their ‘facts’ for fear of pointing toward the Creator. In all other sciences, when experiments prove a theory or even part of a theory to be false, researchers have to go back to the point of failure or even to the beginning of their hypothesis and re-think their model. In evolution, this is not so. Because evolution – by design – excludes God from any part of science, anything that points to God must be rejected instead of analyzed. Anything that points away from evolution points toward a designer. So it is easy to see why they are so dogmatic about anything that challenges their beliefs.
A common response against creation is the claim that evolutionists and atheists are intellectuals and elite thinkers. I have repeatedly heard comments like, “I don’t let superstitions and petty religious views cloud my reasoning. You keep your religion in your little world, and I will stick to science.” The evidence against creation is that it is religion and not science. Anything that is attributed to creation is immediately classified as religious in nature and does not have to be addressed. It does not matter what evidence that supports it, it belongs in the religious file and can’t be mixed into science. That is why you have scientists that were once respected that are now completely ignored and discredited on the basis of religion. If findings support creation or contradicts evolution, it is labeled as religious and rejected from the scientific community. It matters little that the evidence is compelling. Today science can only be measured against the evolutionary model. That is just not good science. It hasn’t always been this way. Creation scientists founded most of the major scientific fields of study. But today, creation evidence is a big no-no and anyone who ignores that line will be discredited. A case in point is Robert Gentry.
Gentry is a prominent researcher and has been published in Science, Nature, Journal of Geophysical Research and other scientific journals. He fell from the ranks of mainstream science when he published his research on Primordial Polonium Haloes. Polonium is very radioactive, which means that it is extremely unstable and decays very quickly. The half-life for the isotope of polonium 214 is .000164th of one second. When these particles explode outward they form a microscopic ring or what is called the polonium radio halo.
In order for these haloes to form, the rock had to be solid at the time the polonium broke apart or within the same instant. Evolution says that the earth was a hot molten mass that cooled slowly over millions of years. If this were true, the polonium would have disintegrated almost immediately and disappeared long before the rock could form. To put into a visual image, if you explode a hand grenade in a lake and freeze it at the moment of the explosion, all the particles would be captured and preserved. Granite is the foundation of the earth, so the formation of granite gives insight to the formation of the earth. Robert Gentry studied granite from all over the earth and found that these polonium haloes were throughout the granite indicating that either the rock was a solid mass at the time the polonium broke apart or it had to have formed within .001148th of a second after the polonium breakup. To get a mental image of this, our eyes blink at around .3 seconds (or 3/10th ) of a second. To preserve the halo, it would have to solidify hundreds of times faster than you can blink immediately after the earth formed. The polonium decays within 3 minutes max and could have been within seconds. The scientific implication is clear. The evolutionary model does not fit the evidence. The earth was not a molten rock when it formed, but a solid mass. Because polonium is extremely unstable it usually survives only a few seconds before the molecules begin to disintegrate. Therefore, the evidence points to a sudden formation of the earth in a cooled state. This finding has angered the scientific community because it points directly to creation. Genesis 1:2 says that the earth was covered by water at the time of creation. The science fits the biblical model but contradicts evolution; therefore it has been rejected and placed in the ‘religious file’. There is no other explanation offered by evolutionist other than these are religious in nature.
I added this information to this study so to make sure that when we here these terms we understand what they mean. We don’t have to know all the details, but it is important that we are not drawing a blank and unable to stand in defense of what we believe. I was also compelled to study this because I know that our culture has been echoing these terms as proofs for evolution. If we feel like the truth is against us, how will our faith stand? We don’t serve a God of contradictions. We don’t have to choose between faith and reality. God created all things and everything points back to God. The facts have to be re-shaped or discounted to keep them from pointing to our Creator.
* I am indebted to several speakers and authors who presented these science facts in layman’s terms.
*** This sermon can be downloaded as a Word document by following the link at http://www.exchangedlife.com/Sermons/sermons.htm
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