Jump Start # 3400

Genesis 1:31 “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

Our verse today ends the first chapter of the Bible. It also is a conclusion to the creative world that the Lord made. Out of nothing, came everything. God said and it was. The world God made was sustaining, reproducing and a delight. We can only imagine how pure the waters were, and, how clean the air was. No graffiti. No names carved into trees. No pollution. No trash left behind. Pure, as God is. Clean, as God is. Perfect, as God is. That’s the world God created.

One of the most difficult issues in life that one faces is why does the innocent suffer? It’s one thing for a criminal to get shot down doing wrong, but why do children die? Why do kids get cancer? Why do good people suffer? Those are all tough questions.

And, when those questions become personal, and we can put names to those situations, then our faith often takes a hit. Those questions are the reason why some have no faith. In their minds, if God was all that He claims to be, then only the guilty would suffer. The perfection of creation ought to continue on, at least, for the innocent. But our world is cruel and harsh. Young children are shot and killed in schools. Children get diseases and die. And, crushed parents are left with empty memories and a whole lot of questions. Where was God? Why did God allow this? If God is good, how can He see this and do nothing?

The recovery from these tragic pains is long and hard. Some in hopelessness, turn to pills and the bottle. It destroys some marriages. And, often those angry questions are tossed in our laps and we are left without knowing what to say. We sing, “God is so good,” but for some in that Sunday audience, they are not so sure about that. They look around and see happy families and realize that they are not one of them. Either God is punishing me for something or God simply doesn’t like me, or worse, maybe God isn’t there at all.

Here are some thoughts:

First, it takes just two more pages in your Bible to realize that the goodness of creation was wrecked by the sin of man. It wasn’t God’s choice to have guilt, misery and sorrow in the world. You don’t find that in the first chapter. But by chapters three and four, there is disobedience, fear, death, and punishment. God didn’t create that. That wasn’t the way God intended things to be. That was man’s choice. That was the consequences of man looking away from God. The freewill which we all richly enjoy, allows wrong choices. It allows bad choices. It allows ungodly and sinful choices.

What God created was perfect. What God has prepared, Heaven, is perfect. In between, is our world. In between are the choices we make. Influenced by wrong, we will choose wrong. Tempted by evil, we will do evil.

Second, we must realize that even among our fellowship on a Sunday morning, are those with serious questions, fearful doubts, and struggles with making sense of things that do not make sense. When we sing, “I’m happy today, oh, yes, I’m happy today,” not everyone in that room is happy. Some are grieving. Some are angry. Some feel that God has left them alone. This is why it is so important to point all of us to the Scriptures.

King David had a baby that died. The mothers of Bethlehem had baby boys that died. The Hebrews had children that died during the days of Egypt. The tears and sorrows that those families felt and the questions why these things were allowed to happen can be answered technically in a Bible class. But when it’s your family, your child, those answers often do not seem like answers.

We need to be patient with those who are struggling. We need to be supportive. We need to help them see that God has not left them. Let’s remember that God saw His only Son die upon a cross after He was cruelly tortured and beaten. No one stopped it. No one stood up for Him. Heaven saw. Heaven realized. God understands.

Third, there is a strong pull to bring Heaven down to us. We want fairness in a land which is unfair. We want crime punished, yet, the criminal dances to his freedom. We want suffering to end, but it grows. We want children to be safe, yet often they are not. Why doesn’t God do something? He has. He has sent Jesus. Maybe God is expecting us to do something through Jesus. It’s not better laws that we need, it’s righteous people that we need. And, even if all of that were to happen, it is appointed unto man once to die, the letter to Hebrews tells us. Death is a part of this world. Death doesn’t care if you are young, loved and needed. Death doesn’t care if you are busy. Death doesn’t wait for you to finish what you have started.

There is a world of perfection. There is a world where death won’t enter. There is a world where everything is right. And, that world is called Heaven. It’s not here. It’s not now.

The suffering of this world ought to make us long for that Heavenly home.

Roger

Jump Start # 2956

Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

I have been teaching a class that revolves around questions—tough questions. Questions that we have but are much too afraid to ask. Questions that our family and friends ask us. Questions such as, “What if we are wrong?” Another was, “How do we know that God wrote the Bible?” which led to, “How do we know that we have all of God’s word?”

This week the question was about naturalism. Is naturalism possible? By naturalism, I mean organic or macro-evolution. It’s hard to cover the topic of creation/evolution in one setting. There are so many things to consider and look at. And, at stake is so much more than how did we get here. Our values systems, purpose all come from either a secular worldview or a Biblical worldview. Hot topic subjects such as gender, climate change, same-sex marriage are built around which worldview one holds.

We need to remember that origins is not a matter of faith or science. In fact, creationists and evolutionist look at the same material. It’s not that one has all the evidence and the other side doesn’t. Preconceived ideas and prejudices color how one looks at the material. Where one starts determines where one ends up. Having said that, one must remember that evolution has not been proven factual and true. It has not. It remains a theory and it’s a theory that has a lot of questions to answer, such as how does life come from non-life?

Our verse today ends the first chapter of Genesis. On the sixth day land animals and humans were created by God. Now, there are some conclusions that we can pull from this passage. Hold on. Some of this may shock you.

First, there is no such thing as pre-historic. History is about life, human life. So at the most, pre-historic covers five days before Adam was created. That’s certainly not the way it is presented in museums.

Second, man and animals are not connected. Humans are not part of the animal kingdom. We are made separate and distinct from animals. We are made in the image of God.

Third, man from the beginning was intelligent and able to function. He was not a caveman that grunted and pulled his woman by her hair. Adam is the first man. That’s what Corinthians calls him. There was no human before Adam. Java man, Neanderthal man, Fred Flintstone—just the imagination of others. Adam could name all the animals. Adam could tend the garden. Within the first few pages of Genesis you read about metal tools and musical instruments.

Fourth, man and dinosaurs co-existed. They had to. Death didn’t enter the world until Adam sinned. So, the idea that no man ever saw a living dinosaur is not true. One would think then that there ought to be examples or evidence of man and dinosaurs. And, there is. Worldwide evidence. In the middle ages, there are numerous accounts of dragons being slayed. Why weren’t they called dinosaurs? The word ‘dinosaur’ was not developed until the late 1800’s. There is a stone column in Cambodia which has a picture of a dinosaur among other animals. The tomb of Bishop Bell in Europe is outlined in brass with carvings of animals. Some of those animals are distinctly dinosaur in appearance. Cave drawings throughout the world show stick figure people shooting arrows at dinosaurs. An eight mile long carved mural in Amazon rainforest has many images of mastodons and other dinosaur like animals. Now, where did all of these come from if no one ever saw one?

Fifth, the first animals were all vegetarian. That includes lions. That includes T-Rex. The end of Genesis one declares that God gave fruit for you and to every beast of the earth. Every green plant was food. So, when did animals begin to eat meat? When did man begin to eat meat? Abel offered a lamb to God. After the flood, God gave a green light to eat “every moving things that is alive” (Gen 9:3).

Sixth, death came into the world as a form of punishment. The first to die physically must have been the animals that God used to provide garments of skin for Adam and Eve. I like to think it was leopard print, but that’s just me. So the extinction of animals took place after the appearance of man, not before.

Seventh, the color scheme of dinosaurs is strictly the imagination of the artist. Skin is tissue. It’s the first to go after death. What we have are the bones of dinosaurs, not the skin. So when you see replicas that are green, stripped, dotted, with a touch of red here and there, that is just how one person dreams it up. We don’t know. No one knows.

All of this tells us that you and I have been fed a bunch of ideas that are not necessarily true. From school, children’s books, museums, to shows on TV. Let’s be bold and stick with what the Bible teaches. And, of course, the question will be asked, “What happened to the dinosaurs?” Some died in the flood. Some, as other species of animals, have become extinct because of hunting, growing population of cities, and the changes that took place after the flood. Now, I have not touched the topic of fossils. Evolutionists want us to believe that fossils are their ace that they hold in their hand. It’s not. The fossil record doesn’t follow the theory of evolution. But that’s for another time.

Aren’t you glad that you know. You know where you came from. You know why you are here. You know what you are supposed to do. And, most importantly, you know where you are going. The theory of evolution has no hope, help or future beyond the grave.

In the beginning God…that’s how it all starts.

Roger