Thursday, December 8, 2016

Does Belief in Creation Disqualify Mike Pence?

It is becoming more and more obvious that those who have no legitimate argument very quickly resort to name-calling, mockery, and ridicule. Vice President-Elect Mike Pence has become the target of such predictable nonsense. He is being accused of being “anti-science” because he has the wisdom and common sense to reject evolution and believe in the Creator. In reality, there is nothing scientific about believing that order came from chaos, design came from randomness, life came from non-life, etc. The whole idea of evolution is preposterous and totally anti-science.

In the minds of some, belief in creation disqualifies an individual from running for public office. Such an idea is absurd, since what it is really saying is that someone cannot possibly do a good job as a leader if he has the wisdom to believe in the obvious fact that all things had to have had an origin, and that origin ultimately goes back to God. If someone is gullible enough to believe the universe and all it contains, including life, came about by time, chance, and natural processes, that would seem to be a greater disqualifier than believing in the Creator, because one would hope that our public servants have some level of wisdom and common sense.

Does belief in Creation disqualify Mike Pence, or any other politician, from holding public office? Of course not!

I addressed this issue in another post back in 2015.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The Election is Over

Ever since the election, we have been hearing about how unfair it is that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote. There are a few realities that must be faced before that argument goes very far.

The first is that there is NOT a national presidential election. What? How can I say that? I can say it because it is true. There are 50 separate state elections (plus D.C.), and the goal is to win as many states and electoral votes as possible. Extra votes in one state election do not transfer to another state election, just like winning a game by a large margin does not give an advantage to the winning team the next time the two teams play. When I coached basketball, we beat a team by 50 points. Three weeks later, that same team beat us by two points, giving each team a win over the other. It would have done no good for me to petition the league that my team should get two wins because of a 48-point differential in the two games. Such an action would have been ludicrous. A vote in a California election does not transfer to a ballot proposition in Colorado, nor does it transfer to any other state’s presidential electors. Each state has its own elections.


The 1960 World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees should serve to illustrate this point. The object of the World Series is not to score the most runs but to win four games. The Pirates won the series four games to three. The Yankees won their three games 16-3, 10-0, and 12-0. The Pirates won their four games 6-4, 3-2, 5-2, and 10-9. The Yankees scored 55 runs on 91 hits, while the Pirates scored only 27 runs on 60 hits. Regardless of those statistics, the Pirates won the series fair and square. There were no marches and riots by Yankee fans demanding that Major League Baseball award the series to the Yankees because they scored twice as many runs as the Pirates. Such would have been considered an absurdity. Yankee fans simply had to accept that their team was outplayed in close games, and the result is forever in the record books.


The same is true of the 2016 election. Regardless of the popular vote, Donald Trump won fair and square according to the rules. No amount of protesting and lawless rioting can change the rules after the fact. The electoral college plays an important role in that it prevents New York, California, Illinois, etc. from controlling every election and totally marginalizing rural America and those who do not live in large cities.


The second reality that must be faced is that we will never really know who won the total popular vote, because states do not count absentee ballots once it is obvious that there are not enough of them remaining uncounted to change the winner of that state's electoral votes. In every election there are hundreds of thousands to even millions of uncounted absentee ballots. This makes no real difference, in that there are never enough of these uncounted votes in a given state to swing that state’s electoral votes. However, there are usually more than enough uncounted absentee ballots in all states combined to potentially swing the entire popular vote. For an article on this topic, click here(Note:  If the Internet sources from which I got this turn out to be unreliable, then I will withdraw this second point. However, this point is of far less importance than the first, because in our Constitutional Republic, the popular vote is not what determines the presidential election, anyway.)


Another reality that must be considered is that in some places, there is a huge chance of many thousands of illegal votes. At present, there is no way to actually determine how many such votes get cast and counted, so there is no way to determine their impact on the outcome. This problem will never be solved until and unless all states go to a system of voter ID.


Based on historical trends, it is not at all unrealistic to believe that George Bush may well have won the popular vote over Al Gore in 2000, and that Donald Trump may well have won the 2016 popular vote. We will never know for sure who won those popular votes, but it doesn’t really matter, because our system is the electoral college. Love it or hate it, that is our system, and those who are demanding that the electoral college be done away with need to also demand that every vote be counted, including the many absentee ballots cast by our military members stationed overseas. 

Shortly after Barack Obama took office, he famously said, “Elections have consequences, and I won.” Another familiar statement from that time was, “Get over it.” It’s time to take some of their own advice and get over it. Trump won. Clinton lost. Eight years ago, and then four years ago, there were those who thought the world had come to an end because of the outcome of the election. Now, there are those on the other side of the political aisle who think the same thing. Here is the truth:  The world did not end then, and it has not ended now. All the whining, marching, demonstrating, signing petitions, and rioting in the world is not going to change the outcome of the election or our method, according to the U.S. Constitution, of electing a president.

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Sunday School Class: “Creation as Foundational Truth,” Week 12 (Final Week)

Section 11:  Scientific Evidence for Creation

There are really only two options:  creation or evolution. Evidence against one is evidence for the other, and evidence for one is evidence against the other. There can be no real evidence for that which is false.

Following are some positive evidences in favor of creation:

DNA

DNA is the final nail in the coffin of evolution. Obviously, evolutionists will dispute this, and they actually try to say that DNA is evidence in favor of evolution. That is utter foolishness.

There are approximately 200 different types of cells in the human body. Estimates of how many cells there are total in the body range from 35,000,000,000,000 to 40,000,000,000,000. Almost all of these cells contain the complete blueprint of the individual.

In addition, there is human DNA and DNA for all types of animal. There is both male and female DNA. Finally, there is DNA specific to the individual.

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works,
and that my soul knows very well.
(Psalm 139:14).

DNA shows us that to think one kind of organism could evolve into another is an absurdity.

Irreducible Complexity

Charles Darwin conceded, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down” (Origin of Species, 1859, p. 158). With this statement, Darwin provided a criterion by which his theory of evolution could be falsified. Michael Behe claims to have shown exactly what Darwin claimed would destroy the theory of evolution, through a concept he calls "irreducible complexity."

Irreducible complexity is a term used to describe a characteristic of certain complex systems whereby they need all of their individual component parts in place in order to function. In other words, it is impossible to reduce the complexity of (or to simplify) an irreducibly complex system by removing any of its component parts and still maintain its functionality. This idea applies to any system of interacting parts in which the removal of any one part destroys the function of the entire system. An irreducibly complex system, then, requires each and every component to be in place before it will function.

Behe popularized the concept by presenting the common mousetrap as an example of irreducible complexity. A typical mousetrap is made up of five integral parts: a catch, a spring, a hammer, a holding bar, and a platform. According to Behe, if any of these parts are removed without a comparable replacement (or at least a significant restructuring of the remaining parts), the entire system will fail to function.

Irreducible complexity is an aspect of the Intelligent Design Theory that argues some biological systems are so complex and so dependent upon multiple complex parts, that they could not have evolved by chance. Unless all the parts of a system all evolved at the same time, the system would be useless, and would actually be a detriment to the organism, and therefore, according to the "laws" of evolution, would be naturally selected out of the organism.

Irreducible complexity most definitely points to something outside of random processes in the origin and development of biological life.

Behe asserts that the complicated biological structures in a cell are all-or-nothing:  either everything is there and it works, or something is missing and it doesn't work.

Behe used the “simple” bacterial flagellum as a biological example of irreducible complexity. The bacterial flagellum is a cellular outboard motor that bears the marks of intelligent design. These motorized bacteria are in no way “simple”.

The bacterium swims about with a whip-like cord called a flagellum (plural flagella), driven by a fantastic motor embedded in the outer shell. The motor generates waves in the cord, which drive the germ forward.

A bacterial flagellar motor has the amazing quality of combining speed with efficiency.

These extremely efficient motors can quickly stop, start, change speeds, and reach a top speed of about 100,000 rpm. The cell is propelled up to 15 body-lengths per second at top speed. If this could be scaled up, it would be like a human swimming at 60 mph. The density of water compared to these bacteria is equivalent to a human swimming at very high speed through peanut butter.

It is also very versatile, because it has forward and reverse gears, enabling the germ to reverse direction within a quarter of a turn. These motors have many parts and are clearly irreducibly complex.

Evolutionists perform many contortions and write many papers in an effort to make such things as this into evidence for evolution. Their efforts amount to saying that the more complex a machine, such as a car, the easier it is to say than no one made it.

This motor is far more efficient than any motor made by man.

Eight million of these motors would fit in the cross-sectional area of an average human hair.

How is all this possible?

Evolutionists cannot offer any reasonable explanation for this and millions of other examples of God’s handiwork.

The reasonable answer is that motorized bacteria had an all-wise designer, Jesus Christ our Creator (John 1:3).

Click here for a fifteen-minute video on Irreducible Complexity.

The Bombardier Beetle

This tiny beetle is a tremendous example of irreducible complexity.

It is ½ inch long, but it has a very impressive weapon. 

When an enemy is closing in behind him, and just about ready to eat him, an explosion occurs right in the face of the enemy with a very bad smelling gas that shoots out from two tail tubes, the temperature of boiling water.

The Bombardier Beetle has two chemicals in it’s body:  hydrogen peroxide, and

hydroquinone. When mixed together you get an explosion. How can it carry these chemicals around in him without exploding? He carries a 3rd chemical:  an inhibitor. 

The two chemicals are mixed with the inhibitor and stored in two chambers in it’s body until needed. When an enemy approaches, the beetle squirts the two liquids together and adds a 4th chemical:  an “anti-inhibitor.” Then the resulting action is BOOM!!!  A hot irritating foul smelling gas is blown right into the face of the predator.

How could this have evolved? It couldn’t have. The beetle would have blown itself up before it ever got this right. Obviously, it had to be CREATED that way.

Click here for a short video on the Bombardier Beetle.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

The evolution model would have us believe that we began as some kind of swamp goo and through chance and random processes, we evolved into what we are now. 

The second law of thermodynamics says that everything runs down, not up. Complex things break down, life becomes more disorganized, time and chance make things worse, not better. If we look around, everything starts right and then deteriorates.  Trees, people, buildings, etc. Yet the evolutionists want us to believe that ONLY where evolution is concerned are we to disregard the second law of thermodynamics.

Migratory Birds

Twice each year, the sky is filled with birds seeking new grounds for feeding and nesting. They don't even need a flight plan to know precisely when to leave or how to get there. How do they know when and where to go?

Click here for a short video on the Pacific Golden Plover:

Complexity of Living Things

There is no such thing as a “simple” organism, not even a single-celled organism. Scientists have determined that a single cell is more complex than a space shuttle.

Regardless of what many evolutionists say, complexity points to design, not merely “the appearance of design.” Even “the appearance of design” would demand a designer to create that appearance, so it is absurd to stop short of admitting there truly is design in every living thing.

Mathematical Reality

Evolution is a mathematical impossibility.

“…the chance that a 200-component organism could be formed by mutation and natural selection is less than one chance out of a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion! Lest anyone think that a 200-part system is unreasonably complex, it should be noted that even a one-celled plant or animal may have millions of molecular parts.” (Institute for Creation Research).

Young Age of the Universe and the Earth

Evolution demands a very old universe. However, it is becoming more and more apparent that the universe is not nearly as old as they want it to be.

The present popular evolutionary position is that the universe is 15 to 25 billion years old. However, there is much evidence that we should think in terms of thousands of years instead of billions of years. Following is just one piece of evidence:

Comets

A comet spends most of its time far from the sun in the deep freeze of space. Once each orbit a comet comes very close to the sun, allowing the sun’s heat to evaporate much of the comet’s ice and dislodge dust to form a tail. Each close pass to the sun greatly reduces a comet’s size, and eventually comets fade away. They can’t survive billions of years.

If the solar system were billions of years old, then all comets would have long ago ceased to exist if they were not continually being replaced. The fact that comets still exist makes sense if the universe was created just a few thousand years ago instead billions of years ago.

Evolutionists have come up with an answer – the Oort Cloud. The Oort Cloud supposedly contains billions of comet nuclei orbiting the sun thousands of times further from it than the Earth. Occasionally one breaks free and becomes a new comet.

This supposedly supplies the new comets needed to overcome the idea of a young universe.

There are problems with the Oort Cloud, the greatest being that there is absolutely no evidence that it even exists. No one has ever seen it. Evolutionists need it to exist, so they say it is up to creationists to prove it doesn’t exist.

How do anyone prove the non-existence of anything? In reality, It is up to them to prove it does exist.

What they have done is to invent evidence to support their pre-conceived notion, and then claim it is up to us to disprove it. That sort of thing could go on forever without actually proving anything. This is typical of basing evidence on the conclusion instead of the other way around.

This is only one of MANY evidences of a young earth, such as

fossils laid down by the flood, the amount of salt in the oceans, the amount of sediment on the ocean floor. moon dust, the earth's decaying magnetic field, the the shrinking sun, the gradual slowing of earth’s rotation, etc.

Final Summary

Truth can never contradict itself. God’s Word is Truth. “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17).

All truth is from God. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). Even the truth we see in His creation is consistent with His written Word. A wrong interpretation of truth does not modify absolute truth. The written Word is absolute truth.

We believe in creation, not simply because of the evidence, but because of the written Word, since God cannot lie. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).
 
 
This was the final week of the study, “Creation of Foundational Truth.” This study and the study on Apologetics will begin again this Sunday, June 5, in order to give opportunity for those who want to complete both studies to do so.
 
 
Following are some of the resources, in addition to the Scriptures, that have helped me a great deal as I have studied to teach this Sunday school topic. These include the following:
 
Materials from the Institute for Creation Research, including the book The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris.
 
Materials from the “Answers in Genesis” website, and the book The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham.
 
Sermons by John MacArthur from the website, “Grace to You.”
 
Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, a proponent of the Intelligent Design movement.
 
The “Got Questions?" website.
 
The "creation.com" website, specifically http://creation.com/genesis-the-seedbed-of-all-christian-doctrine.
 
Various other resources, both printed books and websites.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Sunday School Class: “Creation as Foundational Truth,” Week 11

Section 9:  Genesis as Foundation of Doctrine, continued:
 
Last week, we looked at the Doctrine of God (Theology), the Doctrine of Man (Anthropology), and the Doctrine of Sin (Hamartiology), as seen in Genesis.
 
Doctrine of Salvation (Soteriology)

The Bible teaches that God in His mercy and grace forgives our sin, but only when the penalty is paid by a substitutionary blood sacrifice. This is first seen in the promise that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). The first actual blood sacrifice was performed by God Himself when He made coats of skin to clothe Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21).

Take away Genesis and we lose this promise that speaks of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan does not want anyone believing this verse (3:15), because it spell his doom and redemption through the Lord Jesus Christ.

If Genesis is a myth, then so is Jesus Christ.

Evolution hinders man from putting faith in Christ. Theistic evolution is simply a sugar-coated version of the same idea and produces the same results.

A number of other doctrines have their foundation in the book of Genesis.  Examples:

Doctrine of Angels (Angelology). It shows us Satan (a fallen angel) in 3:1, and the Cherubim (a type of angel still faithful to God) in 3:24.

Doctrine of Last Things (Eschatology). Future things make no sense without Genesis as a foundation.

Conclusion

All major Christian doctrines have their source, directly or indirectly, in the book of Genesis.

There are those who object to this foundational view of Genesis in that it does not agree with the evolutionary theories of modern-day “science.”

As Bible-believing Christians, we stand in awe of the handiwork of the Creator (the “Potter”) instead of the supposed intellect of the clay. “Woe to him who strives with his Maker! … Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’” … (Isaiah 45:9, NKJV).

Every atheistic evolutionist amounts to a fool in God’s eyes … “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God” (Psalm 14:1, NKJV). We ought not to give any credibility to the ramblings of such fools. “They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Psalm 14:3, NKJV).

Section 10:  Quotes from Evolutionists and Other Scientists

Even prominent evolutionists have some very serious doubts about their beliefs. Recommended Reading:  That Their Words May Be Used Against Them - Quotes from Evolutionists Useful for Creationists, Institute for Creation Research, Compiled by Henry M. Morris, 1997.
 
The bold emphasis in these quotes is mine.

Self-proclaimed Marxist and world-renowned Darwinian geneticist Professor Richard Lewontin:  (Italicized words are his.)
 
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism...we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." (Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons,"  The New York Review, January 1997, p. 31)
 
Another evolutionist said the following, and it was an honest statement:

“If living matter is not, then caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces and radiation, how has it come into being?  I think … that we must … admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it.”  (H.S. Lipson, FRS, Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, UK, “A Physicist Looks at Evolution.” Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, 1980, page 138)

Steven J. Gould, who along with Niles Eldredge came up with the idea of "Punctuated Equilibrium" in the early 1970’s, said the following:

"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persist as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection, we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study."  (Stephen J. Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, vol. 86, May 1987)

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution." (Stephen J. Gould, 1982)

Even though Gould discounted the evidence for Darwin, he still accepted evolution and instead turned to punctuated equilibrium.  Note:  If the evidence is bad, maybe the idea is bad, too. Why not just throw out evolution?
 
"Paleontologists have been insisting that their record is consistent with slow, steady, gradual evolution where I think that privately, they’ve known for over a hundred years that such is not the case." (Niles Eldredge, 1981)

My summary of the ideas of punctuated equilibrium evolutionists:  "We know the evidence for evolution is bogus, but evolution is true; it has to be. We just have to figure out another way for it to have happened, since it couldn’t have happened the way we thought it did, and clearly, God couldn’t have created everything."

From a letter from Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History to creationist Luther D. Sunderland:

"I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. I will lay it on the line; there is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favored by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way to put them to the test."

Another quote from Lipson:

"Darwin’s book - Origin of Species - I find quite unsatisfactory:  it says nothing about the origin or species; it is written very tentatively, with a special chapter on 'Difficulties on Theory;' and it includes a great deal of discussion on why evidence for natural selection does not exist in the fossil record. As a scientist, I am not happy with these ideas. But I find it distasteful for scientists to reject a theory because it does not fit in with their preconceived ideas."  (H.S. Lipson, FRS, Professor of Physics, University of Manchester, UK), 'Origins of Species,' in 'Letters,' New Scientist, 5/14/81, page 452)

Charles Darwin wrote the following:

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distance, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree." (Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species, J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. London, 1971, page 167)

This is a favorite quote of creationists, and evolutionists say we use it out of context by not including what Darwin said next. He goes on to say, "The difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated."

My interpretation:  "I don’t really care how it got started. The eye does exist, so it must have evolved, and any absurdity we think we see is simply not real. Given enough time, it could have happened." That is typical evolutionist nonsense.

Another statement: "The age of our globe is presently thought to be some 4.5 billion years, based on radio decay rates of uranium and thorium. Such 'confirmation' may be short-lived. There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radio decay rates are not as constant as previously thought. And this could mean that the atomic clocks are reset during some global disaster, and events which brought the Mesozoic to a close may not be 65 million years ago, but rather, within the age and memory of man." (Frederic B. Jueneman, FAIC, “Secular Catastrophism.” Industrial Research and Development, June 1982, page 21)

"We all jumped at the Origin of Species because the idea of God interfered with our sexual mores.” (Sir Julian Huxley). They not only express doubts, but they also give away their true motives. Evolution = no God = no one to whom I must answer = no absolute standards = I can do as I please.

"The irony is devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last trace of an incredible God from biology.  But the theory replaces God with an even more incredible deity - omnipotent chance."  (T. Rosazak, "Unfinished Animal", 1975, p. 101-102)

"If complex organisms ever did evolve from simpler ones, the process took place contrary to the laws of nature, and must have involved what may rightly be termed to be miraculous." (R.E.D. Clark, Victoria Institute , 1943).

"... evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit with it ..." H.S. Lipson. “A Physicist Looks at Evolution." Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, p138, 1980)

From The Humanist Manifesto II:

"I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new:  the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of 'love thy neighbor' will finally be achieved.”  (John Dunphy, Humanist Manifesto II)

“Christianity has fought, still fights, and will continue to fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing." (G. Richard Bozarth, “The Meaning of Evolution,” American Atheist, p. 30, February 1978)
 
We should never forget that the real aim of evolution is to remove God from the picture and make man free to do as he pleases.

Evolutionists like to say that the Bible and evolution can be harmonized. Only gullible Christians fall prey to believing such foolishness. Evolutionists absolutely know better. Richard Dawkins, one of the best-known atheists and evolutionists, openly admits that he became an atheist because of his exposure to and acceptance of Darwinism. Other evolutionists are not happy with him for being honest enough to blow their cover, but it is clearly true that evolution and Christianity are in no way compatible.

We need to be aware of Satan’s devices. (2 Cor. 2:11).

“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves”  (Matthew 10:16, NKJV). “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.’  He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The LORD shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, And distress them in His deep displeasure” (Psalm 2:2-5).
 
 
Continued and concluded next week with  "Scientific Evidence for Creation."
 
 
Following are some of the resources, in addition to the Scriptures, that have helped me a great deal as I have studied to teach this Sunday school topic. These include the following:
 
Materials from the Institute for Creation Research, including the book The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris.
 
Materials from the “Answers in Genesis” website, and the book The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham.
 
Sermons by John MacArthur from the website, “Grace to You.”
 
Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, a proponent of the Intelligent Design movement.
 
The “Got Questions?" website.
 
The "creation.com" website, specifically http://creation.com/genesis-the-seedbed-of-all-christian-doctrine.
 
Various other resources, both printed books and websites.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Sunday School Class: “Creation as Foundational Truth,” Week 10

This section should really be connected with Section 1, “The Importance of Genesis.” I will reorganize the material the next time I teach it.
 
Section 9:  Genesis as Foundation of Doctrine

Genesis is the foundational book of the Bible. Genesis 1:1 declares, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The word “genesis” actually means “beginnings” or “origins.” Every important theme and teaching in the Scriptures find their beginnings in Genesis.

Genesis is not simply the record of creation, but also the foundation of Biblical doctrines.

If we dismiss Genesis as a myth or mere symbolism, then we have no starting point for all the vital teachings of Scripture, which in turn means that we have no solid rock for our faith.

The fact that Genesis gives us the origin and initial explanation of the major biblical doctrines is a big reason for the continued attacks on Genesis, especially chapters 1-11.

They want to kick the foundations out from under our faith.

If a building has no solid foundation, the structure cannot last for long. “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3, NKJV).

Evolution is an attack on the foundation.

Lack of faith in Genesis has brought about unbelief in the Bible in general.

Trying to “make the Bible relevant” to modern-day so-called “science” is a losing battle and a waste of time. The Bible is already relevant.

“… Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge (“science”) — by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith” (1 Tim. 6:20-21, NKJV).

Remove the authority and inspiration of Genesis and the rest of the Bible must crumble.

This is exactly what Satan intended when he cast doubt on the Word of God and then blatantly denied the Word of God. 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?’” 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.’” And the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:1-4, NKJV).

Atheistic and Theistic evolution have sought to destroy the foundation of Scripture.

Those who reject the literal interpretation of Genesis do not really believe the Bible.

 

Major categories of doctrine addressed in Genesis:
 
1. Doctrine of God (Theology)
 
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
 
This verse tells us many things about God:
 
He is the Creator. Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves” (Psalm 100:3).
 
He is all-wise.  The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; By understanding He established the heavens” (Proverbs 3:19, NKJV).
 
He is all-powerful. For the Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker” (Psalm 95:3-6).
 
He is in control of all things. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him  (Colossians 1:16).
 
Genesis also presents God as Lawgiver in His command to Adam not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:17).
 
God is seen as Judge following Adam’s disobedience,as well as in His judgment at the Flood, at Babel, and on Sodom and Gomorrah.
 
God is also seen as Savior (Genesis 3:15). This is seen in His saving Noah and his family from the judgment of the Flood. Without the flood of Genesis, we cannot really explain why there are billions of fossils, since fossils are formed by rapid burial in water and mud, not over millions of years. The flood presents us with the fact that God must punish sin. This is not a popular teaching and is another reason people reject the whole idea of God judging the world by the flood. If we really believe the Bible, we must accept all of Genesis, even the parts we don’t fully understand.
 
God also saved Lot and his daughters from the judgment on Sodom (Genesis 18 and 19).
 
As the Creator of all things, God has the absolute right to rule over all things, and He exercises this authority in the world — demonstrating His sovereignty. This is seen in Genesis in four outstanding events:  the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. It is also seen in God’s choice, call, and direction of four outstanding people:  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
 
The Trinity is seen in Genesis. The Hebrew word for God, Elohim, in Genesis 1:1 is a plural name with a singular meaning, a “uni-plural” noun, thereby suggesting the uni-plurality of the Godhead. God is one, yet more than one. In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make man in our image.” This shows the “Tri-Unity” of God.
 
The Spirit of God is mentioned “hovering over the waters” in Genesis 1:2.
 
Christ is mentioned prophetically as the “seed of the woman” in Genesis 3:15.
 
2. Doctrine of Mankind (Anthropology)
 
The first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, appear in Genesis as special creations of God.
 
Adam was made from the dust and Eve from Adam’s rib. Both were made by God in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27).
 
We are not evolved animals, or a mere conglomeration of chemicals, but we are beings with a spiritual or God-conscious nature.
 
Clearly, the whole human race is descended from this first man and woman (Genesis 3:20).
 
Eve was created to be a “companion” for Adam (Genesis 2:20–22).
 
From this follows the doctrine of marriage (Genesis 2:24–25 and confirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19:4–6), as the union of one man and one woman for life (not the union of two men or of two women, or something else). God has originated and defined marriage, and no one has the right to redefine it. Since God ordained marriage between one man and one woman, this fact forbids polygamy, adultery, non-marital sex, and homosexuality. These four practices result from disobedience to God, but are defended as human rights. Belief in evolution makes acceptance of these very easy. Evolution is a denial of God's created order, and that allows humanity to justify just about anything. 
 
If we did not have the book of Genesis how would we explain the institution of marriage?  Without it, man would simply be on the same level as animals.
 
3. Doctrine of Sin (Hamartiology)
 
With the first man came the first sin — seen in Genesis as violation of the law of God (Genesis 3:6–11), and as depravity imputed to the whole human race (Genesis 4:8; 6:5). When God created Adam and Eve, they had the ability not to sin, as well as being able to sin. They had “free will” in a way no one has it today. They had the ability to choose to be sinners or not. We don’t have that choice today. Today, “free will” must be defined as “the freedom to act according to one’s nature.” When Adam and Eve chose to reject God’s rule over them, they and mankind lost the ability not to sin; instead we have an innate sinful nature.
 
The first sin brought the first guilt (Genesis 3:8). Some today try to say that there is no real guilt, only guilt feelings, and those feelings are caused by Christians and their preaching against sin. However, guilt is real.
 
The first sin also brought the first judgment (Genesis 3:14–19). There would be enmity between Satan’s seed and the woman’s seed (Christ - the One would come into the world and defeat sin and Satan forever). Women and men would suffer in their respective roles. All humanity would now be subject to death. The result of the fall was murder, sickness, sorrow, pain, death, and separation from God.
 
Genesis also describes how mankind became increasingly wicked. “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5, NKJV). “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth” (Gen. 6:11-12, NKJV).
 
Some believe that education is than answer to all the terrible things that are present in the world today, but no amount of education can make the nature of man better. Everyone is, by nature, bent on disobeying God and His word. “The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside,  they have together become corrupt; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Psalm 14:2-3, NKJV).
 
 
Continued next week with more doctrines that have their origin in the book of Genesis, and then on to "Quotes from Evolutionists and Other Scientists." This study will conclude in two weeks with "Scientific Evidence for Creation."
 
 
Following are some of the resources, in addition to the Scriptures, that have helped me a great deal as I have studied to teach this Sunday school topic. These include the following:
 
Materials from the Institute for Creation Research, including the book The Genesis Record by Henry M. Morris.
 
Materials from the “Answers in Genesis” website, and the book The Lie: Evolution by Ken Ham.
 
Sermons by John MacArthur from the website, “Grace to You.”
 
Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, a proponent of the Intelligent Design movement.
 
The “Got Questions?" website.

The "creation.com" website, specifically http://creation.com/genesis-the-seedbed-of-all-christian-doctrine.
 
Various other resources, both printed books and websites.