The Origin of Sin/Creation
Picture #1: The Origin of Sin
It was plain that something was bothering Franklin. He moped around the house and picked at his food. His mother had been aware of his discontent for some time. Mrs. Roosevelt called him to her room, “Sit down, Franklin,” she said, “I want to talk to you.”
Franklin dropped into a chair with a sigh..
“Franklin, you seem to be unhappy. How is school going?”
“Okay,” he mumbled.
“Your girlfriend?” (You know how mothers fish)
”No, Mother, she’s great!”
“But why are you so unhappy?” mother questioned. “Your father and I have given you everything a boy could desire. What more do you want?””
“My freedom,” Franklin grumbled, “I have no time to do my own thing. From the time I get up until I go to bed, I have to do what somebody tells me to do.”
“I see,” said his mother. “So you want freedom to do just what you’d like without interference from anyone?”
“Right!” he exclaimed hopefully.
“I’ll talk it over with your father. You may go now. I love you, son.
The next morning at breakfast his father announced, “Your mother tells me that you want your freedom. You are free to do as you please.”
“Wow! Thanks.” Franklin grabbed his jacket and dashed out the door. He didn’t stop running until he reached the bottom of the hill at the Hudson River. All day he roamed the woods and skipped rocks on the river. He showed up at home, tired and hungry. Nobody asked where he’d been or what he’d done. Supper was over for the family, so he went to the kitchen to help himself to whatever was left over. He debated with himself whether to even take a bath. He didn’t have to. But he decided to do it anyway. Then he fell onto his bed exhausted.
The next morning, after breakfast, he walked to school and sat down opposite his teacher. School wasn’t so bad now that he was there by his own free choice. His parents had taught him how to make good choices. I think God was very wise when He made us with the freedom to choose, don’t you?
The Bible doesn’t tell us much about what happened before creation. I imagine the scene in Heaven as something like this:
Picture #2: Before this earth was created, God lived with His Son and the angels in Heaven. Love was the foundation of God’s government. He took no pleasure in forced obedience but granted freedom of will. To obey the One they loved brought each angel great joy. Lucifer was the shiniest angel of all the angels. It says in Isaiah 14:12, that he was called “Son of the Morning“.
Turn to Ezekiel 28:14,15. “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you. You were on the holy mountain of God; You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created.” And in verse 13, it says, “The workmanship of your timbrels and pipers was prepared for you on the day you were created.” This verse suggests that Lucifer lead the choir of angels.
Lucifer had it all. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to be God. In Ezekiel 28:17 it says, “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; for the sake of you splendor.” And in Isaiah 14:13 it says, “For you have said in your heart: ’I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.”’ What made Lucifer change?
Picture #3: One day at God’s usual meeting with the angels, He told them, “My Son and I are planning a special surprise. We are going to create another world. I need you to help me by doing just what my Son says.” That would be easy! They liked to do what God’s Son asked. After all, they loved Him. They knelt before the Son and broke into songs of praise and adoration to tell Him so.
Picture #4: Lucifer, however, frowned at God’s request and walked away from his place next to God. He began to mope.
“So God is making a New World,” he said to himself. “He didn’t ask me to help. I sit on the right side of the Father. I am the wisest and most beautiful of all the angels. Why should God expect me to obey His Son? He is partial to the Son. Humph! If I were in charge everything would be better.”
Picture #5: Lucifer held secret meetings with the angels. He told them, “With God’s Son in charge, our freedom is gone. I’ll never again honor or obey God’s Son. If you are smart you will not serve Him either. I love you more than God’s Son does. Let me be your leader.” So Lucifer spread discourse in Heaven. Now the perfect harmony of Heaven was broken.
In Heavenly council, the angels that still followed God pleaded with Lucifer to change his mind. The Son of God presented before them the greatness, the goodness and the justice of God. But the warning only aroused greater jealousy in Lucifer. He was all the more determined to have the same rights of the Son.
In His great mercy, according to His divine character, God bore long with Lucifer. Though Lucifer had left his position as covering cherub, he still could have decided to give supreme authority to God and His Son and fill his office again. The time had come for Lucifer to make a final decision; he must fully commit himself to God or place himself in open rebellion. He nearly reached the decision to return, but pride stopped him. It was too great a price to admit that he was wrong and to yield to the authority which he had been working so hard to prove unjust.
In Revelation 12:7-9 it says, “And war broke out in heaven: Michael (God’s Son) and His angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in Heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
Look at the beginning of verse 4; “His tail drew a third of the stars of Heaven and threw them to the earth.” This means Lucifer or Satan convinced a third of the angles in Heaven to follow him and they were cast out with him.
Picture #6: Again God talked with His Son about making a New World. Would they let Lucifer go to the New World? Would they let him talk to God’s new people as he had the angels in heaven?
“What will happen if the people listen to Lucifer?“ an angel asked. God and His Son knew what would happen. Lucifer would cause people to become sick, to kill and hurt each other; he would break up homes, and cause catastrophes to happen to God’s children. The New World would become a terrible place to live. But God and His Son wanted their new creations to have the freedom to choose between good and evil.
“Is there any hope for the people? What happens if some want to listen to you instead of Satan?” the angel spoke again.
Jesus looked up into His Father’s face. “I will go and die for them.”
Creation
We are told 6 billion years ago that this earth came into existence from a gaseous belch in the universe. If I took my watch off, and totally took it apart. Then stuck the pieces in a bag and shook it for 6 billion years. After 6 billion years what would be my chance of pulling out a watch ticking on time? Order does not come from chaos.
Look at your thumb. Have you ever been fingerprinted? My grandma was fingerprinted to get an Oregon Teaching license. Do you know that your thumbprint is an original? As Mark Lowery would say, “You are thumb body.” There isn’t another one like you in the world.
It would be very presumptuous to believe in evolution. I believe that a Higher Power is in charge of the universe. Who is this Higher Power? Let us look in Scripture.
Picture #7: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
This earth began by an act of God. The Heavens, in Hebrew refer to the atmosphere or sky that a human eye can see.
Picture #8: “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.”
The Higher Power, I think we all agree, is God. God also refers to the Godhead. In John 10:30 it says, “I and my Father are one.” The Godhead is made up of three separate identities. In Matthew 28:20, it mentions the three identities by name; God the Father, the Son (which is Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. If the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one, how can they have separate identities? I think of it as a marriage. The male and female, when they are married, are as one, but they are also separate people. They want to share their lives, goals, and future together.
I’m going to repeat the last part of Genesis 1:2, “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Hovering in Hebrew means that the Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit was already present and ready to act as soon as the order should be given. All three of the Godhead was present at creation. Isn’t that amazing!
Picture #9: “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
God didn’t create humans before light because without light there is no life.
Picture #10: “Then God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.”
God created an atmosphere that encircled the earth instead of the water vapor surrounding it. Also I believe that God created the laws of nature like gravity, and e=mc2, on this day.
Picture #11: “Then God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together, of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that is was good.”
Picture #12: “Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree (Picture #13) that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth’; and it was so. So the evening and the morning were the third day.”
Picture #14: “Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so.”
“Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.
So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.”
Picture #15: “Then God said, ‘Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures,”
Picture #16: “‘and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.’ And God blessed them, saying ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.”
Picture #17: “Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: (picture #18) cattle and creeping things and beast of the earth, each according to its kind’; and it was so.” In the first part of Genesis chapter 2:19 it says; “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air.” (Picture #19) This means that God formed every animal individually out of the ground. (Picture #20) God must of had a fun time creating the platypus, rhino and peacock.
Picture #21: “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
Everything was created in perfect order, each dependent on the other.
Every time I study the human body, I am astounded. A tiny ovary cell contains what you will become; hair & eye color; height; capacity to think and speak; hormones; and much, much more. Your blood stream is 60,000 miles long; long enough to go around the earth 2 1/2 times. In a life time the heart pumps enough blood to fill a string of tank cars 50 miles long. Your brain has more connections than the largest computer network and it has enough data to fill 20 volumes of books. In order to fill up your brain capacity; you would have to learn something every second for the next 3 trillion years. You are made in the image of God. Don’t you feel special?
Picture #22: “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.”
I am so happy that God gave us a day to rest. He made the Sabbath for us. He didn’t need a rest. When you have created something, don’t you like to step back and look at it.
I don’t know about you, but at the end of the week I am exhausted. God knew we needed a day to think about all the wonderful things He has created, relate with Him and to rest our tired bodies and minds.
Picture #23: “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God made a special garden for man to live in. Chapter two, in Genesis is a repeat of creation, but in detail.
Turn in your Bibles to Genesis 2:16,17; “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good an evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”’
God didn’t make humans like robots. He made them with the ability to choose. God wanted to see if Adam and Eve truly loved and wanted to obey Him. So He allowed Satan to only talk to Adam and Eve from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Picture #24: Turn to Genesis chapter 3; “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman. ‘Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ This is very interesting. Eve was not supposed to ever leave her husband’s side. She may have got side tracked or she was just curious about the tree. Either way she wasn’t supposed to be even near the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
“And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ Eve should have left right then but she didn’t.
“Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”
Picture #25: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make on wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” Adam did have a choice. But he didn’t trust God and feared losing his wife.
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and mad themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”
Picture #26: In verses 9-13, Adam and Eve blamed everyone but themselves for sinning. Then in verse 14, God cursed the serpent, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” Go to verse 16, 17; Because of sin, God told Eve that having children would be painful. He told Adam that it would be harder to bring forth food from the ground.
Picture #27: “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And know, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.’ So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”
“One and two and three and...” Herr Reutter’s baton kept time for St. Stephen’s Boys’ Choir one November day in 1749.
Seventeen-year old Joseph Haydn fingered the scissors in his coat pocket. They were new, and he longed for the singing to stop so he could try them out. He opened and closed them to the rhythm of the choirmaster’s baton.
His eyes fastened on the pigtail of the boy in front of him. A mischievous gleam sparked in Joseph’ eyes. Out came the scissors. One snip and the pigtail fell to the floor! The singing stopped, and all eyes stared at the severed pigtail.
Her Reutter’s eyes glared over his wire-rimmed spectacles at Joseph. His voice exploded like thunder. “Joseph Haydn, did you cut off that pigtail?”
“Yes, sir. I’m very sorry, sir.”
“I’ve had all I can take from you, young man. You shall be caned and dismissed from the choir.”
In a matter of minutes Joseph found himself alone, penniless, and hungry in the streets of Vienna. Like a gypsy, he wandered around until he was chilled to the bone. Exhausted, he huddled under a streetlight and wondered what to do.
It was there his friend Spangler found him. “What are you doing here at this time of night?” he asked.
“I got kicked out of the choir,” Joseph explained, telling the whole story of his disgrace. “I’m looking for a place to stay.”
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve done; you are still my friend,” Spangler said. “You will stay with me as long as you like.” Soon Joseph was eating steaming bowls of bread and milk beside Spangler’s fireplace.
Some people think that God is like Herr Reutter, harshly punishing us when we do wrong, sending us out into the cold world to suffer the consequences of our sin. But God is really like Spangler, a friend who comes to us in our misery and invites us home to His house, surrounding us with the warmth of His love.
God was compassionate and sent Adam and Eve out of the garden so they wouldn’t eat of the tree of life and live forever in their fallen state. God didn’t destroy Satan and his angels immediately. Instead He cast them out of Heaven to this earth. He wanted His creation to obey Him out of love, not fear. So God let Satan carry out his evil plans.
The time has come for a decision to either believe in the Bible story of Creation or Evolution. Do you want to believe in a personal God that created this earth and formed us in His image, with His own hands? Or do you want to believe this earth was created out of chaos and we evolved from apes?
