Jump Start # 1673

Genesis 1:29-30 “Then God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of al the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food.’”

Genesis one is God’s story of how every thing started. He alone was there. He alone knows. Moses wrote this, as inspired by God, before Israel entered the promise land. They were moving into a land filled with people and gods. Jehovah wanted Israel to know that He alone is the one true God. It was Jehovah that not only chose them and made them a nation, but it was He alone that started the universe. There is no God but Jehovah.

Today, moderns find it hard to believe Genesis 1. Most put their stock in the claims of atheistic scientists who proudly state that the earth is billions of years old and everything is a gradual evolutionary process of naturalism. No design. No order. No God. Museums teach this. Kids books about dinosaurs teach this, by claiming, “no human ever saw a living dinosaur.” TV shows about nature include evolutionary statements. Visits to caves, canyons and mountains all emphasize that naturalistic, long time theory of how things were made. No God. No evidence for God, even though PS 19 and Romans 1 declare that the works of His hands are visible. Moderns today will dismiss the front part of Genesis as allegory at best and at worst a collection of local stories that have been blended into this ancient tale. God is removed from even writing the Bible.

I for one believe in Genesis 1. I believe it is intended to be taken just the way it was written. It is not presented as a “story” or a piece of fiction. It is stated as this is the way it happened. I’m bothered by those who claim to be Christians who cannot accept Genesis 1 as literal. If a person cannot believe the first page of the Bible, can they believe the last page of the Bible? Can they believe any page of the Bible? If this is not how the world was made, even though the Bible says God made it, how can I trust this book about salvation, Heaven, death or any other topic? This is not one of those things that “it really doesn’t matter which way you believe.” Yes, it does. The foundation blocks of life and our relationship with God are established in that first page of the Bible. If I didn’t come from God, then why should I do what the Bible says? If there is no God, why not live for today, have a great time and squeeze all the pleasure that I can out of life, because when I die, that’s it?

I believe in Genesis 1 because of the Bible. The proof of the Bible points to God. If God didn’t write the book, then who did? It’s an old book that took a long time to come together. Why are there no other books like this book? Why is there a defined unity that covers hundreds of years? Why did the writers talk about things that were not common knowledge? How do you account for fulfilled prophecy? All over the Bible, God is given credit for creating the world. Not just on the first page, but throughout the book. If God didn’t write the book, who did?

I believe in Genesis 1 because there are footprints of evidence all over the world today. There are dozens and dozens of visible evidences of man and dinosaurs existing at the same time. This is counter to the evolutionary theories. They say that dinosaurs died out millions of years before man appeared. Yet, in medieval art and stories that are accounts of knights slaying dragons. Those dragons were dinosaurs. There are cave drawings throughout the world showing men and dinosaurs. There are columns carved in stones of known animals. Among them are dinosaurs. The is art on old tombs in Europe that show known animals, among them are dinosaurs. Why include dinosaurs with known animals? How would these long ago people know what to draw if they had never seen a dinosaur before? Proof is there, not just for dinosaurs and man’s existence, but for the flood. The sudden appearance of major fossil families in the Cambrian layer points to a sudden creation, not a gradual evolving. Simple and complex fossils all together. The complexity of DNA does not allow time and chance to develop the sophisticated systems necessary for life. God has left his footprints in nature.

I believe in Genesis 1 because there is no evidence for naturalism. Today, there are millions of primates or monkeys. There are millions of humans. Logic would tell you that there ought to be millions of intermediate stages between monkey and man. There are not millions. There is not even one. If monkeys are alive today and man is alive today, why is no living intermediate state today? We are told that it takes millions of years to make a fossil, yet in different mines throughout the world, the remains of the miners have become fossilized. It takes water and pressure to make a fossil, not millions of years. Our own bodies challenge the theories of evolution. We are not getting better and stronger. As we get older, we fall apart. We can’t do at 50, what we could do at 20. We are not progressing and advancing, we are going the other direction. Where’s the proof for atheistic evolution?

Arrogant college professors can ridicule faith in God, but they can’t prove what they claim. They can’t answer simple questions such as, if there was a big bang, then who was the big banger? How does life come from non-life? How does order come from chaos? How does intelligence come from non-intelligence?

Our verse today, from the end of Genesis 1, reminds us that our world has changed. Originally, from the first week, man and animals were all vegetarians. God gave plants and fruit for both man and beast to eat. Before the sin of Genesis 3, nothing died. Death had not been introduced. The first to die was the animals that God used to cover Adam and Eve. So, originally, all animals were vegetarians. That’s not the way it is today. Lions in the zoo don’t eat salads. They want and need meat. There has been a change. It’s hard to look at our world today and try to make sense of the first world because we have all of these changes. We age. We die. We fight weeds, pain and death. We have storms. We have crime. We have sin. Our world is broken. Looking at our world and trying to figure out the perfect first world, is a lost project. Things have changed. The flood reshaped things. The age of man was reduced after the flood. Relationships are broken because of sin. We are broken because of sin. Our world is not paradise.

Could there have been millions of years between each day of creation? Where would you get that idea? Not from the Bible. There is nothing in Genesis one that you drive you to that conclusion. How would plants survive, being made on day 3, if there were millions of years between day 3 and day 4? The sun was created on day 4. I don’t see it.

Could God have used evolution as the process of making the world? You don’t get that from Genesis. God defines a day, “there was evening and there was morning.” God distinguished between day, days, seasons and years (v. 14). God knew what one day was. Stop trying to marry atheistic science and Biblical faith. It’s a bad marriage. It won’t work. Biblical faith usually gets kicked out.

A better question to ask is, could Genesis one be the way it happened? Can you accept that? Can you believe that? Can you be content with that?

This is more than just an interesting topic. This is everything. Your kids are being bombarded in school and especially the universities with atheistic evolution. Too many preachers dismiss Genesis ones.

I believe in Genesis one. Do you?

Roger