1050. The Biblical Position Regarding Creation

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina today speaker is Dr. Steve Pettit, who served as an evangelist for over 29 years before becoming president of Bob Jones University.

I decided this morning to really just preach a very straightforward message on the biblical position of creation as it is revealed in Scripture.

My goal today is to be very simple and be very clear to establish that the view of creation as it set forth in the Scripture with the idea that we believe the Bible is the word of God as we open this morning service. We had our affirmation of our great inequity begins with I believe in the inspiration of the Bible. Both the old and new Testaments. The Bible is self authenticating it itself claims to be inspire. So as we approach the Bible we don't come at it with our own ideas and see if the Bible fits into my ideas, but really the opposite. We calm and seek truth as we seek to understand what does God say and so this morning I like to ask you to take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Genesis chapter 1 this morning were going to look at numbers of verses will move very quickly through the Bible today, but I'd like us to begin at the beginning and the very first chapter of God's word. We read in the Genesis account where Moses the author affirms clearly that the creation of this world. The world that we live in today finds its source and it finds its origin in God.

Verse one says in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. So how did God actually create the world. Well according to verses two and three, God works in creation through the supernatural agency of both his spirit and the authority of his word.

Look at what it says in verse two and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be and their wives God supernaturally by his spirit and through his word created everything out of nothing and from the very beginning of the Bible we learn how it is that God's power works in the world today and throughout history. How does God work. God works by his spirit and God works through his word, the spirit of God working through this book is the way that God is at work in the world today. Moses goes and he tells us in the Genesis account that the world did not come into existence by a random process or by chance. It didn't just happen the world that we live in today was created by the wisdom of God where we see a strategic orderly and complete process. That process is found throughout the entire first chapter with the basic needs of life by God are created like light water, land, sees vegetation, CD yielding plants, fruit bearing trees, the sun, the moon, the stars living creatures in the seas, flying birds in the air, living creatures, and based upon the earth, and finally on the last day.

The ultimate creation that is the creation of mankind, both male and female God's making of us in his own image, in this supernatural process took place in an orderly manner that orderly manner is called day, so in chapter 1 verse five it says in the evening in the morning were the first day day in the Hebrew is the word y'all llamas, a unit of time that is reckoned from sunset to sunset for us.

Our day started at midnight and it goes to midnight but for the Jews. It starts approximately 6 PM at sunset and then the next day it ends 24 hours at sunset. That's why for the Jewish Sabbath day it already always starts on Friday evening and ends on Saturday evening and so each day God speaks about what he does in chapter 1 verse eight he says the evening and morning were the second day.

Verse 13 the third day. Verse 19 the fourth day. Verse 23, the fifth day in verse 31, the sixth day and so the plane reading of the Scripture is that creation of all things takes place in six days and then we come to chapter 2 in the creation work comes to a conclusion or you could actually say a completion and on the seventh day.

What does God do God has a Shabbat the word Shabbat in English means arrest. How many of you like to take a rest. My favorite place in the world is when I get in bed at night. That's my favorite place. Genesis 2 verse one on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. So from the very beginning of creation God establishes our river, in the and what is that writ rhythm is a seven day week. A complete week in those days have been designated as days of work and then finally a day of rest. So here's the question alike as does Moses ever speak of the Genesis. Genesis account of creation in any other place you say okay Steve, I got it.

Genesis 1 to 2 talks about creation, but what about other places where I think it's important to remember that Moses not only altered Genesis. But he wrote the first five books of the Bible we call it the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

So you would expect that if Moses wrote about the creation account outside of Genesis, that it would be consistent with what he had already written and it would be a confirmation on what he'd already written so it would be consistent and it would confirm.

So the question is this. There are some who take the first two chapters of Genesis and they view them as literary coins and analogy and is not a historical reality. So how is it that Moses Would Confirm What Took Pl. in Genesis one and two and he does that for us in Exodus 20 and Exodus 31 if you have your Bibles turn Exodus 20 in verse nine. For here we see the 10 Commandments, and we calm to the commandment in verse nine where he tells the people of God.

Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God, so you were to work six days and rest one verse 11. Here's why pieces for that's a marker of causation that is the six days of work are based on what he's about to say for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and he made it holy. What is Moses doing he's actually confirming and giving us a commentary on Genesis 1 and two and he is saying that what he said in Genesis 1 and two is actually what happened. Any confirms that by saying that you are to have a Sabbath they rest according to the law and the basis of that is that God created the world in six literal days. Then we come to chapter 31 in verse 15 and their once again he confirms for us, for he says in verse 15, six days may work be done within the Sabbath is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Then we come to verse 16 where for the children of visual shall keep the Sabbath. Verse 17 is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. Why, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. So what is Moses telling us in Exodus is a consistent testimony to what God did literally in Genesis chapter 1 and two, and that is that God created the world in six literal day.

Now there are many other places in the Old Testament where the Scripture speaks of God's creator, and here we see the numerous aspects of the Genesis account highly highlighted. For example in the book of Psalms Psalm eight when I consider that works but by thy heavens and the work by fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son of Man, thou visited Stamford, thou has made him a little lower than the angels. Psalm 91 the heavens declare the glory of God what his word glory mean it means your your abilities are put on display. So when you set when you look at the heavens and you see the stars shining with God like diamonds with a backdrop of black velvet. It is a display of the creative power of God the heavens declare the glory of God. Psalm 33 six by the word of the Lord were the heavens made all the host of them by the breath of his mouth God spoke, let there be in their lives. Then we come to the book of Isaiah and Isaiah many times speaks about creation but I love Isaiah 40 verse 22, he says, do you not know. Do you not hear has not been told you from the beginning. Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth. It is he who sits above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to dwell in. Have you not known, have you not heard the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the R, the testimony of Scripture is that God has created this world in six literal days, we come to Ecclesiastes chapter 12 in verse when I mentioned this verse because I attended my undergraduate education at a school in Charleston, South Carolina, suitable, and every day I would walk to class. I would walk by the chapel and etched in granite only on the front of the chapel were the words of Ecclesiastes 12 one. I read them every day and God use those verses to can my heart because I was not a believer I did not believe in creation. I believed in evolution that was what I was talking high school, but every day I was combated with the truth of Ecclesiastes 12: when it says remember now that I create tour in the days of thy youth, remember God while you're John before the evil days, so the conclusion of the Old Testament. The reading of it simple reading is that the world was supernaturally created by God in six literal day that we come to the New Testament, we come to the gospel of John is very interesting that John's Gospel in John chapter 1 verse one uses Genesis 11 language lesson what it says in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the word was God. The New Testament confirms what the Old Testament has established that God created the world through the agency of his word. How do we know that verse three. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. He was in the world and the world was made through him. John 110 so the question then is who is the word by which the world was created. And John tells us in verse 14 when he says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth.

Who is the word the word is Jesus Christ and what is it what is the New Testament tell us it tells us that the Jehovah God of the Old Testament is Jesus of the New Testament and Jesus Christ is actually the Lord of glory. And he had created the entire universe and in the New Testament. Many passages reveal Jesus's creator, listen first Corinthian is 86 yet for us there was one God the father, for whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. The teaching of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ is the create tour Colossians 164 by him of Jesus were all things created that are in heaven and that are in the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and all things are created for him and then we come to the book of Hebrews chapter 1 verse two where it says that God hath in these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he may all world's folks.

Unless you are deaf and you cannot listen to truth the declaration of the Bible is that God supernaturally created the world through the agency of his Spirit in his word and his word is his own son is very interesting to me that when Jesus was questioned about his position on divorce. He responded by appealing to the Genesis account in Matthew 19 it says have you not read Jesus says, have you not read that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female he said for this cause shall a man leave his father, mother, and shall cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh where there where there there are no more to one flesh. What therefore God joined together, let not man put asunder what he's doing in a few short words, Jesus is establish the creation he establishes the creation of mankind, both male and female in the short passage of Scripture that we get God's approach to our sexual identity. So he answers all the issues of transgender is him we get God's proper viewpoint on sexual relationship, so we understand what is sexually sinful and what is not. We get God's position on the permanence of marriage between a man and a woman only because marriage is between them and man and a woman, not between a man and a man and a woman and a woman that's Bible and this is all rooted in the Genesis account. Most of the social issues that we are facing today in 2019, especially the moral issues that were facing today can be actually answered in the first two books of the Bible perhaps is no place in the New Testament that so clearly affirms creation and the fall of the first man as what we read in acts chapter 17 verse 24, where Paul is preaching in the city of Athens. Listen to what Paul says in verse 24.

The God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth is not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands is that we needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth. Paul says that God is the creator of all things and that the entire human race descended from one man, Adam. So why is it that the six-day creation is crucially tied to Adam because according to the Bible, sin and death did not exist before Adam's sin, you go back and read what Paul writes in Romans five pieces by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men, for that all of sin. God puts forth an order and that is he creates the world he creates on the sixth day mankind, and then after that man sins and after that death comes into the world. Why is this order so crucial because it God created the world over millions of years. Then death existed long before Adam and Paul tells us that Jesus came to fix what Adam messed up because we have the first Adam in the garden. We have the second Adam in Jesus for the first man Adam brought sin and of the world and the second man, Adam, Jesus brought salvation into the world, for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Folks, we can't even understand the real gospel message. If we don't understand that it's rooted in the fall of Adam and it deals with our own sinfulness our own fallenness in our nature by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift comes upon all men unto justification of life.

And so what we find we find we find in in the very beginning we find the entire plan of redemption. Salvation rooted in creation and the fall. Folks, let me take something believing in Jesus and salvation and separating it from creation and the fall. The creation of the world and the first man and Adam, if you can't separate the two.

So we have in the in the Bible, clear accounts of the truth of God. But what about history. What is the history of the church. We go back and read some of the church creeds and what they say the Nicene Creed in 320 A.D., says we believe in one God the father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth of all things visible and invisible. The apostles Creed says I believe in God the father Almighty Creator of heaven and earth. The Westminster confession of faith. Speaking of creation says to please God the father son and Holy Ghost for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom and goodness in the beginning to create or make of nothing the world and all things therein, whether visible or invisible in the space of six days, and all very good. The testimony of the history of the church is that God has created the world supernaturally and it's from this belief that we get what we call a worldview probably the best verse of the Bible. I think this speaks of a worldview is Hebrews 11 three. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of the things which do appear. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.

That's our worldview. Our worldview is the lens by which you see this world you put on the glasses and you see through those lenses and we see the world through a particular worldview worldview requires faith because nobody was there when everything got started. Today we have opposing worldviews, competing worldviews, we have a secular worldview that is fundamentally atheistic that believes that everything is happen through natural and random causes that has a metanarrative up a big story that began with a beat Big Bang and then everything has evolved over time from a from from lower forms of life through an evolutionary process to hire and in the end, that view is really a materialistic view because there is no God and God doesn't really matter and the only thing that matters is matter the only thing that matters is living the Christian worldview is very different believes that God created the world and God created the world for his own glory in this world has purpose and meaning. And though it's fallen in sin, God's redeeming centers through his son Jesus Christ and is one day going to actually re-create the world that we live in.

So today this worldview is the battleground that we face in many ways it is being seriously challenged to secular society through secular education and through secular social issue, but sadly it's also being compromised today by those who are professing Christian is an organization called bio logout you can go online and read. It is almost shocking.

Their mission statement says bio logout invites the church and the world to see the harmony between science and biblical faith as we present an evolutionary understanding of God's creation and their core commitments. They have two of them is as we embrace the historical Christian faith, upholding the authority and inspiration of the Bible. And secondly, we affirm evolutionary creation. Recognizing God is creator of all life over billions of sad today that they are supported by men like Tim Keller, NT Wright just recently five Wheaton College professors with a grant from bylaw gospel produced a book entitled understanding scientific theories of origins, cosmology, geology and biology in a Christian perspective in the Christian perspective is that God created the world over billions of years.

There are theistic evolutionists, so what were facing today is just not only the challenge of secular society, but the significant compromise of God's people.

I find it very interesting and bio law.

God's that they talk about the different views of how the world was created in one of them is called the calendar view. It says Genesis 1 is a straightforward, here's the view. Genesis 1 is a straightforward historical narrative in the modern journalistic sense, the repeating formula there was evening and there was morning, the first day and so alone for six days, refers to 624 hour periods.

This conclusion combined with a summation of years given and biblical genealogies lead most advocates to this view, to believe that God created the material universe and one ordinary week between six and 10,000 years ago. Those who hold this view are known as young earth creationist. I like to pose for you what we believe it Bob Jones University Bob Jones University believes the account of origins in Genesis is a factual narrative of historical events, that is, God created the universe, including all original kinds of living organisms, including man and six literal days. We believe the genealogies recorded in Genesis 511 indicated date of the creation week, less than 10,000 years ago.

I'm so glad that we are what bio logout says we are on a close with this this morning.

I became a Christian at 19 years old, I would not have believed in creation, especially in college until after I became a believer and I actually began to understand salvation and then all of a sudden reading the Bible. It all started making since the so by the time I was a senior in college I was a thoroughly thoroughgoing creationist, but I was in a secular school nice to have guys come up to me and asked me to. You actually believe in creation and I said absolutely I would ask, and you believe the monkey story I used to have a God that would come in my room almost every night because every night about 1030. I will be laying on my bunk and I'll be reading my Bible always get my Bible with a fact is up my Bible and my pillow because it was so precious to me they would come to my room and he would just come to stare at me. I mean we were friends and we make fun of each a little bit, but he was still under underneath it all, he was very serious and he would look at me like Pettit, why do you believe, and I was able because the Bible is the word of God is and I don't believe in evolution. I believe that story and then he would get all frustrated with me. He would say Pettit. This is the way you view the world and he think is handing you see the world this way.

I said yeah but it sure looks good and I never forgot I never forgot that I was locked. I was marked because I believe in creation and on March 26, 2014 I received a phone call from the chairman of the board of Bob Jones University and asked me if I would consider coming here to be the president Bob Jones when I became the president Bob Jones University. I cannot tell you how humbled and honored I am to be at a school where we have 23 PhD's in our science department who have degrees from literally all over the world and all 23 PhD's believe God created the world in six literal days.

Yes, I cannot tell you how I how what a blessing.

And I'm thankful as long as I'm here is the president weighing change in one not even close. Because the Bible is the word of God and God is spoken and thank God he created the world and he created you and I and he loves you and I lay down the cross of that we can spend eternity with it with our heads together for prayer. Father, we thank you for your wonderful word you spoke and we believe and help us Lord to continue to stand to be true and faithful to the word not getting into the pressures of this world and not being conformed to this world, but standing on what is true and right in Jesus name, amen.

We hope you'll join us again next week as we study God's word together on The Daily Platform