The Beginning of the Universe - Genesis Part 2

You know I doubt if there's a single person that's ever live. Who hasn't at some time kicked back and said to themselves.

Where did all this golf come from. I mean just how did the world get here how to become into existence and how did human life and the on it. Well, this is what were going to talk about today remember wearing a series on the book of Genesis and were just darting so were in Genesis chapter 1 where the Bible be direct only to these issues that for many Americans, especially those under the age of 40 who were brought up in the public education system of America who been taught the evolutionary model of the universe as being back what the Bible says about how the world came into being represents a major obstacle for these folks coming to faith in Christ. Perhaps some of us here today are in the situation well. Because of this we as followers of Jesus must be able to show that the Bible's explanation for how the world began and how life got here is at least plausible. It is at least a possible and so as we study Genesis chapters 1 through three. Over the next several weeks. My goal is to show you that the Bible's account of creation is not as far-fetched. It is not as harebrained and it is not as crazy as your science teacher in high school told you, but to the contrary, I want you to see that the more we learn, the more of the Bible's account makes sense nice and will always be to just before we begin I got one question my question is what makes you competent to talk to us about these very complex scientific issues. I mean no offense Lon but you're just a preacher will no offense taken my friends. It's good question and let me say in response to that, that when I went to the University North Carolina in Chapel Hill. My undergraduate work was not in religion. It was not in theology. Actually, I have a bachelors degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina that represents the hours of college chemistry and over 30 hours of college math and physics. So even though I've never won a Nobel Prize or anything. I feel that I'm at least competent, reasonably intelligently, so to talk to you about these issues and so with that little introduction let's see again today and see what does the Bible say about the creation of the universe, how did all this golf get here. Well, Genesis chapter 1 verse one says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible says in the beginning God doesn't say in the beginning man or in the beginning protoplasm or in the beginning amoeba was or in the beginning, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and a lucky bolt of lightning. No, no.

The Bible says in the beginning, when there were no living creatures anywhere when there was no earth for them to live on anyway when there were notes bars where there were no galaxies when there were no planets when there was no energy of any time when there was no matter of any kind, no molecules, no atoms, no protons, no neutrons, no electrons, no leptons, no mesons, no bosons, no gluons and no quarks. I mean nothing, absolutely nothing. The Bible says there was God and what it does God do what the Bible says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the Hebrew word used here for created is the Hebrew word bar rots a very interesting Hebrew word because the Hebrew word bar to create is never used in the Bible with any other subject that God himself. In other words, what the Bible is saying is that only God can baccarat people never baccarat you say long.

Thank you so much. Tell me that I've always wanted no if I could baccarat. And now, thanks to you I know I can so I appreciate that. What difference does that make well it makes a lot of different folks. This is important because the Hebrew word baccarat means to create something out of nothing when the Bible says that God baccarat the heavens and the earth what it means is that God took nothing, and he made it into everything we see today, and everything that exists today.

Now this is something that you and I as human beings cannot do.

We can take something and make something out of something, but we cannot take nothing and make something out of nothing.

Do you follow that. Yes yes you got that okay so this is why the Hebrew word baccarat is never used with a human being is the subject because we can't do about only God can. But the Bible declares to us that God is so awesome he's so majestic. He's so unlimited in his power that he did baccarat that he can baccarat ended that sell everything God hear that you and I see today, God will rot it. So to summarize what exactly is Genesis chapter 1 verse one asking you and me calling on you and me to believe well is calling on us to believe that God personally that God unilaterally that God's single-handedly created the universe and everything in it X new hello which is the technical term the choose meaning from nothing and there's more that God did it in six literal 24 hour day book of Genesis chapter 1 verse five it says, and there was evening and there was morning. Day one Genesis chapter 1 verse eight and there was evening and there was morning, day two. And if you follow Genesis chapter 1 through you'll find this phraseology continues for day three day for day five day six that was evening there was morning, another day, not friends. The word that used here in Genesis chapter 1 per day. The word your home literally means a literal 24 our day, not an epic nodding eon emphasize one morning and one evening do not make any eon they make a single 24 hour day and this is the declaration of Genesis chapter 1 God made all of this stuff out of nothing and he did it in 624 hour days. Time magazine an article entitled unraveling the universe, and I quote time says the experts don't know for sure how old or how big the universe is they don't know for sure what most of it is made of. They don't know for sure. In any detail about how it began or how it will end and beyond our local cosmic neighbors.

They don't know for sure very much about what it looks like." Not friends. This being true, that is, considering how little they know. Wouldn't you think that scientist would at least be open to the Bible's explanation of how the universe began the table. He is given a fighting chance well but they don't. They're not open and let me tell you why day. The reason is very simple. If because if a person admits the world was created than they have to admit that there is they create tour and if there is the create tour of all that we see he is obviously more powerful and he is obviously more awesome that you and I are and if he is that awesome and if he is that powerful, then we should be subject to him we should be humble before him. We should seek his will for our life, we should run our society by his roles and we should plan to get to heaven.

His way. But these scientists are not about to do this, they are not going to serve anybody. They're not going to let anybody tell them what to do or how to run their world and they're not going to run their personal lives by anybody else. We in other words, listen carefully, these scientists can't accept any theory that involves divine creation.

Listen because they're not willing to deal with the divine creator in their personal life so they got to come up with some of the theory of creation in the matter how cockamamie and crazy sounding and maybe the one thing that must be true of it above everything else is that it has no divine personal creator God in it because they don't want to deal with the implications of that in their private lives you start long, I hear what you say and you know what makes some sense. But I've still got a few questions a few.

What about that I want to ask you about what the Bible says okay let's do that. We say number one my first one is okay so what about the fact that almost no scientists in the world think that the Bible's account of creation can be right.

What about that well friends that's simply not true. There are a lot more scientists than most of us realize who either reject the evolutionary model of the universe in toto completely or who at least willing to express publicly that they have serious doubts about quoting from science digest, and I quote science. This utterly reject evolution. Maybe one of our fastest growing my minorities in the scientific community and many of these scientists hold impressive credentials in science."

They're not just not cases Dr. William D. Hamilton Prof. of biology ox Florida University are here we go, not a Christian quote the theological possibility that explains the origin of the universe. He says, is still certainly alive." And a few years ago 60 world-class scientists, including 24 Nobel prize winners got together and produced a book entitled Cosmo's bios and feels and in this book Gail physicist Dr. Henry Morgan now said and I quote there is only one convincing answer for the intricate laws that exist in the natural world and that is creation by an omnipotent, all wise God." Folks disguise not from Liberty University disguise for me to go and isn't it wonderful to know that he had a old is finally catching up with the Bible is the now wonderful yeah are Dr. Paul Davies, a physicist at Arizona State University, said the very fact that the universe is creative and that it has permitted complex structures to emerge and develop to the point of consciousness.

In other words, he says the very fact that the universe has organized his own self-awareness is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all, Dr. Davies, a physicist says the impression of design is over well me." And last of all, historian Ronald Numbers who teaches at the University of Wisconsin and who studies the whole debate between evolutionists and creationists he said and I quote, published scientists with creationist beliefs are not uncommon point, my friends, is that you and I've been duped into believing that every scientist in the world has bought into the evolutionary model of the universe and that they all totally agree with it and they all totally endorse it and this is simply not true is I will not out another one about my second what about Islam.

What about the age of the universe by me. What about what about the age of the earth. I mean, the Bible presents the picture of a very young earth created by God in six 24-hour days, but you know scientists tell us that the world is billions and billions of years old. What about that what you know why scientists are committed to an earth that is billions and billions of years old on June well is because the odds. The mathematical probabilities of human life developing on earth to evolution are so infinitesimally all that the only way to make this even remotely possible, is to give it billions and billions of years to happen in with any shorter time frame, my friends, it's mathematically impossible. And this is why evolutionists must argue so vehemently for an old age of the earth.

It's not just happenstance. There is a bias behind it that we must understand what about this well. Scientists use a variety of methods to date the universe in the world, but the two most common are radioactive dating and he asked banding universe. Let's talk about each of them for moment.

First of all, what about this idea of radioactive dating. That is, you measure the decay rates of carbon uranium and other isotopes and you use that data to calculate the age of the earth. What about them well. Physicist Dr. Frederick you Norman listen to what he says and I quote he says the age of our globe is presently thought to be some 4.5 billion years old. Based upon radioactive decay rates of uranium and thorium. He says there has been in recent years the horrible realization that radioactive decay rates are not as common as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences, and what this means he says is that the atomic clocks may have to be Reese that when you consider that there may have been some global disaster and that actually the events that brought the Mesozoic age to a close, may not have been 65 million years ago, but within the age and memory of man."

You say was all I mean what what he saying is if there was some kind of global disaster that changed the did the way the environment works. Then the thought of the radioactive decay rates are invalid now. Can you think of any global disaster possible. That might've done this well how about Noah's flood in a little two by twos all going on. Our new member that yeah you know what the Bible says. The Bible says that all that water that covered the earth did not come from rainy. In fact, the Bible says Genesis 711, that the fountains of the great deep were open.that most of the water came as the result of cracks in the earth crust and if this is true with the Bible's account of the flood is right and the Earth's crust was broken up and ever all this radioactive material came up from the molten crust of the earth and everything in it for a year.

We must understand is Dr. Hugh Newman said that radioactive decay data is invalid when it comes to establishing the age of the earth because we do not have a uniform close system going all the way back to the origin of the earth.

We have polluted data. What about the expanding universe model for dating the earth well scientist give us the impression that this is a very finely tuned scientific exercise and that the results are airtight.

But back to Time magazine unraveling the universe, and I quote the magazine says astronomers have known since Hubble's heyday in the 1920s that you only need two pieces of information to deduce the age of the universe. You need to know how fast the galaxies are flying apart and how far away they are. The ratio of these two numbers tells you how fast the cosmos is expanding and us ample calculation tells you how long it has been since the expansion started hat sounds simple.net but here's the rest of the story. Time magazine says there are these two loopholes, though notes University of Oklahoma astrophysicist Dr. David branch. What is the right distance and what is the right fee and as time magazine notes. These loopholes are big enough to drive the starship enterprise through end of quote. The point friends is that measuring the expansion of the universe to get the age of the earth is far from an exact science. And what's more, there's a lot of evidence coming alight lately to indicate that the earth is actually quite young. Dr. John Baumgardner, a geophysicist at the Los Alamos National laboratory presented evidence that a geophysics conference in 1994 where he said that the lips lighting of the earth plates might once have happened at thousands of times faster speed that it happens today and if that is true, then the earth is actually quite young and here's an amazing fact for you.

The man who devised the radioactive dating method, the guy who invented it in 1946 Walter Libby used it the very method he created to calculate the age of the earth.

And you know what age he came up with. He came up with the fact that the earth was 30,000 years old, but nobody pays the attention of that today they writable office get it wrong so in that interesting to got radioactive dating right but he's not smart enough to get the results right because I don't like the results you understand what I'm saying to you are y'all still there okay with me right. The bottom line is that the earth age.

My friends is still up for grabs.

There is not indisputable scientific evidence that the earth is 4 billion years old may indeed be very young, as Genesis says and this is the point if it is very young. Like Genesis says that the evolutionary model of the universe becomes mathematically impossible is dialogue. I got one more. What about and that is what about the Big Bang theory seems to account pretty well for how the earth came into existence.

What about that well you know what to write.

Absolutely. So I want you to hear what Dartmouth University astronomer Dr. Robert Castro had to say and I quote he said astronomers now find that they have painted themselves into a corner. They have proven that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet and every living thing in the cosmos and on earth. Scientists first root of the past ends in a moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development.

He says unexpected by every body except the theologians and then Dr. Castro went on to conclude by saying what we see is that the evidence from astronomy leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world is God is not a Christian.

Now listen the essential elements he says of the astronomical model and the biblical account in Genesis are the same." Then the entire last you know what I have one more. What about that I discovered when I was doing work for this offer. This message and that is what about the fact that this planet Earth is so perfectly suited for life that even a few tiny little changes would mean that life on earth could never even exist. Time magazine again quote one intriguing observation that is bubbled up from physics is that the universe seems calibrated for life very existence. For example, if the force of gravity were pushed upward. Just a tiny bit. Stars would burn out faster and leave little time for life to evolve on planet circling them if the relative masses of protons and neutrons were changed by a hair.

Stars would never be born since the hydrogen they eat wouldn't exist if at the Big Bang. Some basic numbers in the initial conditions had been jiggled just a tiny bit matter and energy would never have coagulated into stars, planets and other platforms. Table for life as we know it, and so on.

What time magazine is saying is that our planets and the rest of the universe seems like it's been pursued nicely tweaked to support life here on earth and is a fascinating article by physicist Dr. Hugh Ross. If you're interested it in there in going deeper into this. I have copies of the article at the tech booth here and it loud you can get it or you can go online and will and I we put it up on our website. And anyway, what he did you see listed 72 characteristics of the universe and the solar system that are so perfectly fine tune that if any one of them were just slightly off life on earth would be impossible. 72 of these and then he went on to calculate that the probability of all 72 of these occurring at on one single planet like ours, the probability is one chance in 10 to the 65th power.

That's one chance in 10 million trillion trillion trillion.

Sounds like the national debt done here. The friends I want to.

It takes faith to believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

You know what it also takes faith to believe the evolutionary model to but I gotta say the truth, in light of these probability numbers that we just heard about. I'm sorry but I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Those numbers are two impossible. Let me read to you a closing comment by Dr. Jack Stroh your member are agnostic astronomer from Dartmouth. Here's what he said I love this. I love this, he said and I quote for the astronomer who is lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.

He has scaled the mountains of ignorance.

He is about to conquer the highest peak and as he pulled himself up over the final rock.

I love this. He is greeted by a band of theologians who Vince sitting there for centuries and saying in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, so let me summarize this if we remove the Genesis 1 is right no. Can we prove that Genesis 1 is right. No mail remind you that all the scientists who believe in the evolutionary model universe.

They can't prove that their model is right either. But what will I hope we have done today is to convince you that Genesis 1 is not as wrong. It's not as implausible. And it's not as impossible as everybody's been telling you it is, but that in fact, Genesis 1 account may very well be the most intelligent of all the theories, the more that we discover and if you're here today and it's been a huge hangup for you in coming to faith in Christ. I'm here to tell you that you're hung up over something you shouldn't be hung up over my friends. Let me tell you the Bible's account makes a lot of sense to a lot of scientists were a lot smarter than I am.

Why because it's true or least it could be if you let that stop you from coming to faith in Jesus Christ. You need to retire that objection because it's not real and it's not valid and I hope you will will all of that brings us a little bit of time we got left to our final question and so are you ready are you people allowed. Are you ready good okay here we go down.

I smiled want to pray you use a lawn. So what you say holy smokes okay that was wonderful. I appreciate all that information but you know I mean really. So how does that change my life. How does that affect my life with friends. Let me tell you it's like this. If there is a God. The way Genesis chapter 1 says there is if he created the world the way Genesis chapter 1 says he did. And if he manages and oversees his world the way Genesis 1 says that he does and what this means is that we live in his world. We are not the victims of random faith or senseless events like house, says that we are no know he's wrong.

To the contrary, if Genesis 1 is right it means there is a sovereign, supernatural, all-knowing, all powerful, all wise, merciful, caring, personal God who is running this whole show and we were going through tough times. My friends as we all do. This is not just a nice intellectual theory. This is the foundation of all our hope in all our comfort is to know that you know more about to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Joe South and if some of you remember when we dedicated Joe's house a year ago down in the Smith Center. Some of you were there. I wept like a baby. I mean I was an absolute wreck. It was embarrassing what a wreck I was. I mean I just completely lost and when I was thinking later lawn. That's not like you. While how do you explain what you did in their I'll tell you why. It's because sitting there at that dedication. It was almost as though the Lord was saying to me see their lawn.

I told you so. Silly me.

Well friends. As many of you know my daughter Joe's 19 is severely disabled. She has a genetic disorder called survey syndrome.

She has the mental capacity of a one-year-old. The doctors tell us that apart from a miracle. We have no reason to think that she'll ever get better friends. I'm never gonna walk my daughter down the aisle. I'm never going to go to my daughter's graduation. I'm never going to hold my daughter's children in my arms. I'm going to fix her meals and change her diapers and a brush or tease for the rest of her life so folks, the question is this Joe's condition.

Just the result of some freaking cruel genetic accident.

I mean, did Jill just draw a bad hand is Darwin's evolutionary model would have me believe.

Because if that's the way I'm supposed to explain all of this, I gotta tell you that doesn't give me a lot of comfort and it doesn't give me a lot of hope. But if Genesis 1 is telling me the truth, and it is that I have an answer for that question does bring me comfort in the does bring me hope. And the answer is.

Jill is the way she is and the reason she's in my life is because in all wise sovereign loving personal God with a perfect plan for my life and her life put herds there. I gotta tell you I get comfort out of that. Jeremiah 2911 for I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans for good, not for evil to give you a future and a hope.

So as I sat there in the Smith Center last year seeing before my very eyes. How God had taken Joe's life with all of its limitations in all of the pain and all of this offering.

We been through together and how he turned it into this amazing good thing called Joe's house. As I said I sense the Lord saying to me lawn see their coaches so I told you so friends, listen, if God is big enough to create the universe and if you speak enough to keep the crab nebula from bumping into the grommet a galaxy or whatever and I want to tell you is a follower of Jesus Christ.

When you face tough times like we all do God is big enough to take care of you and me what he wants us to do is to stop trying to figure everything out trot stop trying to explain things and stop impugning him and pointing her finger at him and telling him how dare he do this, but what he wants us to do friends to trust him, that he knows what's going on that he's running the show and that he has a plan for our life for good and not for evil, and that no matter how it looks right now doesn't matter how it looks right now that one day if you trust you will hear him tap you on the shoulder say to you see their told you so told you so friends trust you won't be sorry you did spring were Jesus we want to thank you for reminding us today of who you are mighty awesome sovereign creator of the universe, and I pray that you would encourage our hearts with the so what from that that our lives are not random and they're not coincidental.

They're not senseless and out of control, but rather that you are running our lives with a perfect plan for each one of us in the all you ask us to do is to hold your hand and let you walk us through the wilderness landlord. Thank you for that old hymn that says my Lord knows the way through the wilderness. All I have to do is follow Lord if you're who. Genesis 1 says you are and you are and there's no reason for us to fear. As we follow you father for those of us here today were struggling with tough times, disappointments, pain and heartache and they feel like you let them down. I pray you would use the truth of your word today to for encourage and hope and Frank's to their lives. Father I pray you would use the truth of your word to reaffirm their faith in you and to help them be able to trust you with all their troubles in all their heart aches in the sure and certain confidence that one day they will hear you say about each one of these heart aches see their told you so.

Lord, use your word to change our lives because we were here today we pray these things in Jesus name. And God's people said a man