Genesis (means beginning) - not a science text - or current events
(written by bilingual Moses about 1300 BC describing events at least 500 years prior (Joseph) to 800 yrs prior (Abraham) to ?
Genesis communicates truth - unique among creation stories
God 1st Material stuff 2nd. Science is so overwhelmingly proving that God exists that if they want to have a debate to prove that God does not exist, they must go to the philosophy dept. to find someone to debate the issue, science is unable to successfully debate the issue anymore
In the beginning = GOD
Gen. 1:1-2:3 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
40 years ago Stanley Miller took methane, and hydrogen and ammonia and put an electrical spark through it and created amino acids, and his conclusion was that God was out of a job. But NASA says that the atmosphere in those early years was mostly CO and N so even NASA says that his evidence is totally useless.
The COBE project - Apr. 24, 1992 Cosmic Background explorer satellite confirmed the big bang theory, concluding that 14 billion years ago all matter, stars exploded from a space the size of a period in this sentence. No longer is anyone able to say that the universe has always been there. Scientists readily admit that something can not come forth out of nothing, so for the universe to exist there had to be someone to create it. Whatever causes the original, must be uncaused itself, beyond the limitations of time because It created time. And it must be immaterial.
35 years ago the common thought was that life was a random event with boundless ways for life to begin to exist. It turns out that this is totally wrong, that the chances of life springing up are so minuscule that there is really no chance of chance playing a part. For example, if the rate of expansion within one second after the big bang had been 1/100 trillionth of a % smaller, the universe would have immediately collapsed into a fireball. Unless the # of electrons matches the # of protons to within 1 trillion trillion trillion, of a percent there would be no chance of planets or solar systems emerging.
If there were dimes covering the entire NA continent up to the moon (1/4 million miles high) and also a billion similar continents covered with dimes and only 1 painted red, the chance of blindly choosing that dime is equivalent to the odds just described
Life is balanced on a razors edge, it is so precise that it is a miracle that it even took place at all.
- God spoke and it was Created - read examples from Gen. 1
Good reason to learn and explore God’s Word
-It was good
Not only good but Amazing! why is there so much diversity, creativity, and imagination. Does the vast creation hide or reveal the character of God?
Comment on the diversity of creation - see bulletin about insects 2 million species catalogued - 5-10 million not yet. (some estimate over 1 million kinds of beetles alone!)
The miracle of ice, water is the only molecule that gets bigger when it gets colder.
"Body snatcher" parasites that control their host’s behavior cause their hosts to act in ways that are very different from their normal behavior. When a thorny-headed worm reaches maturity inside a pillbug, it causes the pillbug to move out into the light, against its normal urge. Exposed, the pillbug is more likely to be eaten by a bird. If it is eaten, the thorny-headed worm then enters the next stage of its life cycle inside the bird, its new host.
The lancet fluke passes through several stages in the course of its life, the fluke must pass directly from the body of a snail to an ant and finally into a sheep - a transition that would be a lot simpler if the three species ordinarily met. First it develops in eggs in a pasture but do not hatch until eaten by a snail. After 3 months, they are ejected by the snail in the form of slime balls. Ants eat the slime balls and they continue their growth. To move into their final host the fluke must get the ant who generally stay near the ground, to be eaten by sheep. The fluke overcomes this difficulty by invading the ants nervous system. Under this foreign control, the ant suddenly and unaccountably decides to climb a tall blade of grass and lock its jaws shut on the tip. Unable to escape the lancet fluke’s command, the ant has no choice but to await being eaten by sheep.
Why is there so much diversity, creativity, imagination?
Does the vast creation hide or reveal the creator
God is so smart that He can hide from the smartest of us - so approachable that He can be known by the simplest of us.
Creation of the Sabbath
2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
1948 Gulag Irkutsk, a Christian believer, received a 25-year sentence in Siberia. Refusing to work on Sabbath, he was ordered to stand in a 3 X 4 ft. cell for 10 days with only water for nourishment. For a year Irkutsk went through the same routine, in confinement for 10 days and out for 4 days.
A general came to inspect the prison camp, and found Irkutsk in solitary confinement. Irkutsk explained about the Sabbath. "I am a believer in God," Irkutsk said. "A sign of my loyalty to Him is to rest on the Sabbath. However, I am prepared to work twice as much the day before in order to have the Sabbath off."
Irkutsk was ordered to filling the reservoir with enough water for the 1,000 prisoners each Saturday. He was given an ox, and for 10 years they followed the same routine of working twice as fast the day before and resting on Sabbath.
When Irkutsk was released the ox remained and assisted another prisoner as he transported water. When the first Sabbath came, that ox lay quietly chewing his cud. Nothing would move the beast - neither shouting, pulling, threatening, nor beating. Every Sabbath the same drama happened. Finally the exasperated jailer told the prisoner, "You will never change the ox’s behavior. The Sabbathkeeper has made the ox into a Sabbathkeeper. And Sabbathkeepers are very, very stubborn!"
37 years ago Sandy Koufax - a Jewish pitcher - announced that he wouldn’t play on the holiest day of his year, Yom Kippur. Koufax’s employer, the Los Angeles Dodgers, respectfully pointed out that this was the first game of the 1965 World Series. Couldn’t he pitch just a little?
"No," Koufax said. But later pitched a shutout in games five and seven, and the Dodgers won the series, 4-3.
Sabbath Challenge - 1 - arrange your life to keep Sunday a day of rest and Worship
2. Decide here and now that God is worthy of your highest worship every week
3. Miss worship at no greater proportion than work (miss work 5 days before 1 Sunday)
