Sunday School Class: Creation as Foundational Truth, Week 6

Following are some notes from week 6 of our Sunday school study of "Creation as Foundational Truth." 

 

Note:  I should mention the many 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.

 

·  Various other resources, both printed books and websites.

 

Continuation of Section 4:  Progressive Creationism

 

Following are a few of the positions of progressive creationists and brief answers to them:

 

Progressive Creationism says:  If God created a world that appears to be old when it isn’t, then He is a deceiver.

 

The appearance of age is an obvious interpretation of the evidence for those who desire the world to be old.

 

Evolutionary scientists look at things such as the Grand Canyon and think it is obvious that it took millions of years to form. They willingly ignore the after-effects of Noah’s flood (2 Peter 3:3-7). 

 

How would they, many years in the future, handle the catastrophic changes brought about by the eruption of Mount St. Helens? They would probably say it was “obvious that it took millions of years, but their bubble would be burst by the fact that pictures were taken of it while it happened. (Oh right, I forgot about Photoshop, but there were eyewitnesses to the event.) Mount St. Helens produced many changes comparable to the Grand Canyon, only on a smaller scale.

 

Much of what they call “appearance of age” is wishful thinking. As Scripture says, they are “willfully forgetting,” being “willingly ignorant,” or, as one creationist speaker said, being “dumb on purpose.” This should never be a replacement for real science, common sense, and belief in the Truth.

 

Adam was created as a man, not as a baby. That does not make God deceptive.

 

Did God create trees with or without rings? It doesn’t matter. He knows what He is doing. We can’t subject God and His ways to our human reasoning.

 

In reality, what would be deceptive of God would be to take billions of years to bring the universe into existence and then tell us in His Word that He did it in six days. “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day…” (Exodus 20:11, NKJV).

 

Progressive Creationism says:  There were man-like animals long before Adam and Eve. They did not have spirits and were not created in God’s image.

 

This is used to explain the fossil evidence for so-called “ape men” (“hominids”).

 

Imagination seems to be a big part of the idea of “ape men.” Following are just two examples:

 

Nebraska Man – It was discovered to be nothing but the tooth of a pig. From that one tooth, they built up an ape man, his wife, and his children, including the color and length of his hair. This was probably not an intentional hoax. Rather, it was the product of a strong desire for evolution to be true and wishful thinking.

 

Piltdown Man – This was a total, intentional hoax.

 

It was a human skull paired with the jawbone of an orangutan. The teeth were filed down to make them look more human, and acid was used to stain bones and make them appear to be very old.

 

Regardless of the fact that it was a hoax, it fooled the scientific community for about 40 years. Why? Because they WANTED it to be true.

 

It is interesting that evolutionists will say, "You creationists always bring up Piltdown Man." Why shouldn't we. It is the evolutionists who pushed this hoax out there in hopes that faked evidence would somehow "prove" them to be right.

 

All of the evidence can be interpreted either in light of God’s Word or in light of man’s bias.

 

Christians should never fear that any evidence will ever be discovered that will undermine God’s Word.  ALL truth is from God. Truth cannot contradict truth, especially including the Truth of God's Word.

 

Our inability to explain every new idea brought up by skeptics does not mean there is not an explanation that will yet be found.

 

The Scriptures make it very clear that Adam was the first man and Eve was the mother of all humans.

 

This Progressive Creationism idea of pre-Adam men puts the entrance of death in the world before the creation of Adam and Eve and before the fall of man into sin.

 

Death before sin destroys the penalty for sin and also destroys the gospel message.

 

We must not and cannot rely on the conclusions of sinful man based on his observations of a sin-cursed universe.

 

All such observations must be interpreted in light of the fallen nature of the entire creation and in light of the truth of God’s Word.

 

“Answers in Genesis” offers the following:

 

“This is perhaps the biggest problem created by each of the compromising views. The Bible makes it very clear that there was absolutely no death before Adam sinned … it is also clear from Romans 8 that sin affected all of creation ... Each of the old-earth views places death, bloodshed, disease, and suffering before Adam’s sin. However, the Bible teaches that all was ‘very good’ (Gen. 1:31) when God made it … Would God have called everything that He had made ‘very good’ if it were full of death and suffering? Absolutely not!”

 

Progressive Creationism says:  The flood was “universal” (meaning “local”) but not global.

 

The claim is that Noah built an ark that carried him, his family, and the animals on an inland lake that was big enough to drown all of the humans who lived at that time.

 

This is what they mean by a “universal” flood – it was just as widespread as humanity had migrated by that time, and there was no necessity for it to be any larger.

 

If the flood was local, why did Noah need to build an ark? Could he not have just moved?

 

God is neither stupid nor is He inefficient. He knows what He is doing.

 

Why take animals on the ark when there would have been large numbers of most, if not all, of the same species of animals outside the area of the flood?

 

How could a local flood cover the tops of all the mountains? (Genesis 7:19-20).

 

Would not a local flood make God a liar when He said he would never again flood the entire earth as He had done? There have been many local floods since Noah’s time, and each and every one of them would underscore God’s dishonesty if they were like Noah’s flood.

 

If Noah’s flood was only a local flood, every time we see a rainbow, we should consider that to be a sign of God’s dishonesty. “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19).

 

Both evolutionists and progressive creationists need a local flood, because a truly global flood explains the many fossil-containing rock layers without any need for millions or billions of years.

 

A global flood would make the Bible true, and we obviously can’t have that because it would destroy evolution and progressive creationism.

 

So “scientists” who are willing to accept a global flood on a planet with little or no water (Mars) are not willing to accept the possibility of a global flood on a planet that is covered 70% by water. Why will they not believe it? Because it would make the Bible true?

 

Conclusion of Section 4

 

We must place our faith in the Truth as God has revealed it in His Word rather than trusting in fallen men who observe a sin-cursed universe through eyes that have been tainted by sin.

 

Section 5:  The Lie of Satan:  Evolution

 

Six meanings of the word evolution:

 

(1)   Cosmic Evolution – The origin of time,    space, and matter from nothing but the “big bang."

(2)   Chemical Evolution – All elements evolved from Hydrogen.

(3)   Stellar Evolution – Stars and planets formed from gas clouds.

(4)   Organic Evolution – Life came from non-living matter.

(5)   Macro-evolution – Animals and plants change from one type into another. All life is related and came from a common ancestor.

(6)   Micro-evolution (variations within kinds) – This is the only one that is real science. The others are pure fantasy.

 

If it weren’t for this variation within kinds (“natural selection”), all people would look the same, all of the dog kind would look the same, etc.

 

Creationists accept “natural selection,” which is variation within kinds. They did so long before Darwin tried to say that natural selection results in macro-evolution.

 

There must be something to select. Natural selection cannot produce new information. It selects from information already present.

 

There are limits to natural selection. Example:  The mule. There is no Papa Mule and Mama Mule… only Baby Mule – the offspring of a horse and a donkey.

 

Such limits illustrate the absurdity of macro-evolution.

 

Evolution = no God = no one to whom I must answer = no absolute standards = I can do as I please.

 

Satan is the originator of the idea of evolution. He is a liar, and evolution is a LIE.

 

“…And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie…” (2 Thessalonians 2:11).

 

What is the lie?

 

It closely parallels evolution.

 

Satan first told the lie to himself.

 

“I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14;13-14).

 

The lie is that the created being can become (“evolve into”) the Creator.

 

Satan told the same lie to Eve.

 

“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’” (Genesis 3:4-5).

 

The same lie is being told today. “You have a spark of divinity within you.” “You can become a god.” “Man can evolve into something better.”  Etc., etc. and other such foolishness.

 

The anti-Christ will tell the lie during the tribulation. “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

 

Men have been and continue to be deceived by Satan’s lie, as evidenced by the blind faith people have in the idea of evolution.

 

People believe in evolution because they have been brainwashed and because they want to believe in it.

 

Click here for a video of an evolutionist college professor who finally came to grips with the Truth.

 

Continued next week with “Icons of Evolution."