Can the Bible Stand the Test - Part 1 - Creation

You know, I was talking to a friend not too long ago, a guy that I've been trying to edge towards the Kingdom of God, and here's what he said to me. He said, Lon, the problem with this whole thing is that the Bible is just a bunch of myths and legends. It's historically unreliable. It is scientifically unreliable. And therefore, if it's historically unreliable and scientifically unreliable, then why in the world do you think I'd be willing to say that it is theologically reliable?

It makes no sense. Now, you know, the man points out a very important truth, and that is that everything in the Christian faith rises and falls on the Bible. It all rises and falls on the trustworthiness, the integrity, and the veracity of the written Word of God. Now, that being true, I wanted to come in here and do a three-part series with you called, Can the Bible Stand the Test? And what I want to do tonight is start by talking with you about the Bible's account of creation. And the reason I want to start there is because I believe the Bible's claims about how the world was created represent one of the major stumbling blocks for people in terms of giving their life to Christ here in the United States of America. Particularly, this is true for young adults under the age of 40 who've grown up in the public education system of America and who have been taught that the Bible's claims about how the world came into being are absolutely stupid, are absolutely nonsensical, they're nutty, they're prehistoric.

Now, many of you were trained in that kind of an environment. And what I want to do tonight is I want to try to show you that indeed you've been sold a bill of goods. Now, can I prove to you tonight that the Bible's claims, the Bible's representation of how the world was created, can I prove to you beyond any shadow of a doubt that that's correct?

No, I can't. May I point out to you that the people who believe in the evolutionary model of the universe, they cannot prove that their account of how creation happened is absolutely correct either. All I want to do tonight is I want to show you that the Bible's account is not nearly as nutty and as crazy and as nonsensical as many high school science teachers you had told you it was.

Many college professors told you it was. As a matter of fact, I want to show you tonight that the Bible's account actually makes a lot more scientific sense than the evolutionary model makes when you really look at the evidence from an unbiased point of view. Now, you say, well, Lon, just before we get into that, let me ask you a question. And that is, I mean, what credentials do you have whatsoever to come in here and talk about a subject like this? I mean, you're a preacher. I mean, no offense, but you're just a preacher.

Well, friends, no offense taken. May I point out to you that when I went to undergraduate school, I did not train in preaching. I didn't major in religion or theology. I went to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and my undergraduate degree is actually in chemistry.

I have a BS in chemistry, and that means over 60 hours of college chemistry, 30 hours of college math and physics, and I've never won a Nobel Prize or anything, you know. But I believe that I can talk to you in at least an intelligent way about some of the scientific issues that are involved in all of this. And so with that little bit of an introduction, let's open your Bible, if you brought it with you, to Genesis chapter 1. And that's on page 1, folks. That's easy.

That's not hard to find. Genesis chapter 1, and let's see what the Bible says about the way the world was created. The Bible starts off and says, in the beginning, God.

Now let's stop right there for a minute. Not in the beginning man, or in the beginning protoplasm, or in the beginning amoebas, or in the beginning primeval sludge, or in the beginning quarks, or in the beginning dark matter, or in the beginning nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and lightning, but in the beginning, God. The Bible starts off by saying that when there was no living creatures anywhere, when there was no earth for them to live on even if they had been here, when there were no atoms, no electrons, no protons, no neutrons, no energy, no light, no sound, no heat, nothing of any kind, there was God. And what did this God do? Well the Bible goes on to say, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the word that's used here for created is a very important word. It's the Hebrew word bara, and the Hebrew word bara, very interestingly enough, is never used in the Bible with anyone else as its subject but God. In other words, God can bara, you and I cannot.

You say, well Lon, that's very interesting and I appreciate you telling me that. I always wanted to know if I could bara, and now I know I can't, so thank you for clearing that up. No, that's important friends, because the word bara means to create something out of nothing. What the Bible is telling us is that everything in this world that we see, God created out of nothing. Now this is not something you and I can do. As human beings we can take something and make something out of something, but we can't take nothing and make something out of nothing. You followed that, right?

Okay. And therefore, the word bara is only used of God, and the Bible says that God bara'd everything we see, the planets, the galaxies, the stars, the living creatures here on this earth, the trees, the sky, the sun, and the moon. He bara'd it all out of nothing. Now this is the clear, simple, definitive explanation of how the universe came into being, that the Bible gives us. Time Magazine had an interesting article called Unraveling the Universe.

Here's what it said, and I quote. It said the experts don't know for sure how old or how big the universe is. They don't know what most of it is made of. They don't know in any detail how it began or how it will end. And beyond our local cosmic neighbors, they don't know much about what it looks like. Now, in light of all that they don't know, wouldn't you think the scientists of this world would be at least open to considering as an option the account of how all of this happened that the Bible gives us?

Well friends, the answer is no. They're not the slightest bit open, and may I tell you why? It's not because the Bible's account is illogical or nonsensical. There is a theological bias as to why they're not open to all of this, and here's what it is. Friends, if we admit that the world was created, then we have to admit that there is a creator, and a creator who's obviously more powerful than we are, who's obviously more majestic than we are. I mean, just look at all this stuff that's in our world. Now if there's a creator like that, then it only makes sense that we should humble ourselves in front of this creator, that we should submit our lives to this creator, that we should seek his will as to how we run our life, that we should seek his will as to how we run our society, that we should ask him advice as to how we make choices in our life, that we should even ask him how to get to heaven his way. Friends, this is a level of capitulation that the scientists of our world are not prepared to make in their personal lives.

This is a level of surrender and submission that they are not prepared to give in their personal lives. There is a personal lifestyle bias behind why most scientists in this world are not the slightest bit open to a creation model of the universe, and what they're forced to do, if they don't want a creator, and they don't want what comes with a creator, friends, they are forced to accept and look for the most cockamamie excuses for how in the world the world came into being, the only thing that an explanation has to have, no matter how crazy it might be, the only thing it has to have is no creator God in it. And that's what you see in our world today. Don't think that this is all a matter of science, friends.

There is enormous bias in why the creationist model is not even given a fair hearing in our world today. What does God think of all these crazy theories that people have come up with to explain the world? Listen to what he says in the Bible. Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of who? God. That's right, just look around, God says.

The skies proclaim his handiwork. Day after day, creation pours forth speech about God. Night after night, it reveals knowledge about God.

As creation's voice rings out to the whole earth, there is no culture or language where its voice is not heard. God says, what do I think of all these crazy theories that people have come up with to explain the universe? What I think, God says, is that those people must have come up with those theories with their eyes shut. How in the world can you look around, God says, at creation and not see me?

How can you do that? That's why he says, Psalm 14, verse 1, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Now folks, listen, it is a fairly serious thing for the God of the universe to call you a fool. And yet God says, anybody who looks at all of this created majesty and doesn't see him, they're a fool.

They say, okay, Lon, I hear what you're saying, but you know, I got some what abouts that I want to ask you. You say, well, here's my first one. What about the fact that almost no scientist in the world agrees with the Bible's account and agrees that it might be right? Well, let me just say to you, that's not true. There are a lot more scientists than most of us realize who either reject or at least they express serious doubts about the evolutionary model of the universe.

I've got just a few of them here that I've written down. For example, Science Digest, quoting from Science Digest, and here's a quote. Scientists who utterly reject evolution may be one of our fastest growing minorities. Many of these scientists hold impressive credentials in science. William D. Hamilton, Oxford University, a biologist, not a Christian.

The theological possibility, he says, that is of how the universe came into being, the Bible's explanation is still certainly alive. Now, several years ago, 60 world-class scientists, including 24 Nobel Prize winners, got together and they produced a book called Cosmos, Bios, and Theos. And in that book, Yale physicist Dr. Henry Morgan now said this, and I quote. He said there is only one convincing answer for the intricate laws that exist in the natural world, creation by an omnipotent, all-wise God, end of quote. Now, folks, this guy is not from Jerry Falwell's place.

You understand what I'm saying to you? This guy teaches at Yale University. He's a published scientist.

He's not a Christian, but you saw what he just said. In that same book, Paul Davies, a physicist, writes, 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, the fact that the universe has organized its own self-awareness is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all.

The impression of design is overwhelming. And finally, historian Ronald Numbers of the University of Wisconsin. This guy is not a scientist. He's a historian who keeps track of the creation versus evolution debate. He says, and I quote, published scientists with creationist beliefs are not uncommon. Friends, the truth of the matter is we've been duped into thinking that every scientist and that every thinking person has bought into the evolutionary model of the universe 100% and that there's nobody out there except us crazy Christians who even have the slightest bit of doubt about it. May I say to you, that's not at all true. Didn't you hear what we just all read? That's not true at all. You say, okay, okay, I got another what about.

My second what about, Lon, is this. What about the age of the universe? I mean, the Bible presents the picture of a very young earth while all these scientists say that the earth is billions and billions of years old. You remember old Carl Sagan?

Now, he knows the truth now, but anyway, we'll move on from that. Well, anyway, now, you say, Lon, why is it important about the age of the earth? I mean, why do we even care how old the earth is? Well, let me tell you why. It's because the mathematical probabilities of the evolutionary model working are so astronomical, they are so infinitesimally small that the only way a thinking scientist could ever imagine that the evolutionary model could work is that the person's got to give it billions and billions of years to even have a chance of happening.

But what about this? Is the earth really billions and billions of years old? Well, there's two ways we use to date the earth. The first is from carbon-14 dating and other radioisotope dating. This is by measuring the decay rates of uranium and thorium and radium and carbon and some of these other isotopes. And people say, well, you know, that's a pretty good scientific way to do it, you know, well, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Evolutionist Frederick Unemann, Dr. Frederick Unemann, not a believer, listen to what he says. He says the age of our globe is presently thought to be some 4.5 billion years old based on radio decay rates of uranium and thorium. However, there has been in recent years the horrible realization, for him that is, that radio decay rates are not as constant as previously thought.

Wait a minute, stop a second. You understand how this works? This says, the whole radioactive dating says, that the decay rates of every single one of these isotopes and the concentration of every single one of these isotopes in every living thing and in every non-living thing has always remained the same. If for any reason there's been a change in those concentrations or a change in those decay rates, then radioactive dating is bogus.

Okay, so look what he says. There has been in recent years the horrible realization that radio decay rates are not as constant as previously thought, nor are they immune to environmental influences. And this could mean that the atomic clocks have to be reset during some global disaster and events which brought the Mesozoic age to a close may not be 65 million years ago, but within the age and the memory of man. Now friends, can we think of any, as he says it, global disaster that might have possibly reset the atomic clocks in this world? Well how about, can you think of one? How about Noah leading the two by twos on the little boat?

You remember that one? Where the Bible says that everything soaked in water for a year, and oh by the way, that water did not come from rain. You cannot rain enough on the earth, although this weekend is a challenge, but you cannot rain enough on the earth to fill it with that much water.

If you read Genesis chapter 6, you will find out the Bible says that the fountains of the deep were opened up, that the earth's crust actually split wide open, and whether it was subterranean water or whether it was condensation from the magma that came up from the earth's crust or some combination of the two, most of that water came from under the earth's surface, not from above it. And that water that came and soaked everything for a year was full of radioactive isotopes that soaked everything for a year. There is no way in the world radioactive dating can possibly be accurate if Noah's flood really happened. It reset all the atomic clocks. Well you say, alright, then the other way we tell the date of the age of the earth is by the expanding universe, right?

Well that's true. We're given the impression that this is a very finely tuned scientific exercise, that the results are airtight, but could I read to you from Time magazine again the article Unraveling the Universe, and I quote, Astronomers have known since Hubble's heyday in the 1920s that you need only two pieces of information to deduce the age of the universe. Number one, you need to know how fast the galaxies are flying apart, and number two, you need to know how far away they are. The ratio of these two numbers tells us how fast the cosmos is expanding.

A simple calculation then tells you how long it's been since the expansion started. Now then they quote University of Oklahoma astrophysicist David Branch. Here's what he says. He says, there are these two loopholes though.

What is the right distance and what is the right speed? These loopholes, he says, are big enough to drive the starship enterprise through, end of quote. The point is, friends, this is not a precise science measuring the age of the earth, and in fact some of the evidence actually goes the other way.

There was a Newsweek article where John Baumgartner, who's a geophysicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico, he gave a report in 1994 at a geological convention where he said that he has found evidence that the slip-sliding of the geological plates here on this earth actually used to happen at a rate thousands of times faster than they happen today, and if true, he said, it means that the earth is actually very young. He said, wait a minute, I got one more what about, okay? Because we're running out of time here, so this is about all the what abouts we got time for, friends.

He said, well, all right, here's my last what about. What about the Big Bang? I mean, everybody seems to admit the Big Bang kind of explains everything, right?

That it kind of works? Well, yeah, that's true. And you know the interesting thing about the Big Bang is the Big Bang is a horrible problem for scientists.

You know why? Because the Big Bang theory admits that there was an absolute beginning to the universe. There was someday somewhere in time where everything absolutely started from nothing. Well, gee, do you recognize any other explanation of the universe that says that?

I do. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. You know, I have a quote here from Dr. Robert Jastrow. He is an astronomer, definitely not a Christian. He's an outspoken agnostic and here's what he says. He says, astronomers now find that they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven by their own methods that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in the cosmos and on earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. Dr. Jastrow continues, the scientist's pursuit of the past ends in a moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development unexpected by everybody except the theologians. Then he says, what we see is that the evidence from astronomy leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world.

Can I repeat that? That is an exact quote. What we see is that the evidence from astronomy leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world.

The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomy model and the biblical account of Genesis are the same. Very interesting. This guy's not a believer.

Now I have one more what about that I want to ask you as we close and that's this. What about the fact, friends, that our world seems so precisely calibrated to support human life? I don't know if you realize this, but our world has an unbelievable calibration that seems designed for one purpose and one purpose only and that's so that human life could exist here. Listen now, quoting from Time magazine an article entitled Science, God and Man and I quote, one intriguing observation that is bubbled up from physics is that the universe seems calibrated for life's existence.

If the force of gravity were pushed upward a bit, stars would burn out faster, leaving little time for life to evolve on the planets, circling them. If the relative masses of protons and neutrons were changed by a hair, stars might never be born since the hydrogen they burn wouldn't exist. If at the Big Bang some basic numbers had been jiggled, matter and energy would never have coagulated into galaxies, stars, planets, or any other platform stable enough for life as we know it and so on. In fact, Dr. Hugh Ross wrote an interesting article in which he listed 72 characteristics of the universe that if any one of them was just a tiny bit different, life on this earth would be impossible. For example, he noted if there was 4% more oxygen or 6% less oxygen here in our atmosphere, life would be impossible. If gravity, the force of gravity, were altered by one part in 10 to the 40th power, the sun would not exist and all life would be impossible.

If Jupiter were not in the exact orbit that it's in, life on this earth would be impossible and on and on and on. If the thickness of the earth's crust was a little bit thicker or thinner, if the length of a day was different, if the amount of seismic activity was different and on and on and on, the truth is our universe has been precisely tweaked to support life here on earth. Now, that being true, do you know what the probability is of all 72 of these things that have to be in the way they are to support life? Do you know what the probability is of all 72 of them happening? It is one chance in 10 to the 65th power, Dr. Ross calculated. That is one chance in 10 million trillion trillion trillion. Now, you know what? It takes faith to believe either model of the universe, but I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

I'm sorry. 10 to 65 zeros, I don't have that much faith. And I don't know about you, maybe you do, but I don't know.

I think that if you went to Las Vegas with those odds, you'd be a poor man. That's all I got to say. Now, Dr. Jastrow, let me close with our agnostic astronomer friend. Here's what he says when closing the article that I quoted from earlier. He said, for the astronomer who has 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 pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries saying, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

I love that quote. And that's kind of the way it is. Now, have I proven to you tonight that the creationist model, that God creating the heaven and the earth is right? No. Can I prove that to you? I said earlier, I can't.

But what I hope I've done tonight is show you a couple things. Number one, the evolutionary model that you've been taught as being such established with that fact, with every scientist in the world buying into it, friends, you've been sold a bill of good. That's not true. As a matter of fact, the mathematical odds of the evolutionary model working are so astronomical that even with billions and billions of years to give it a chance, there are people who don't believe it, and they're not believers, they're just good scientists and they don't believe it. And the Big Bang Theory, oh yeah, that sounds like a wonderful theory to me because you know why? As Dr. Jastrow said, all it does is agree with what the Bible's been saying for thousands of years, that at some absolute beginning, we say God.

Dr. Jastrow says, I don't have a clue who, but something created everything that we see. So friends, let me just suggest to you, the Bible is not as scientifically stupid as people have led you to believe. As a matter of fact, the Bible makes a lot more scientific sense than a bunch of this other gobbledygook that you've been taught in high school and college makes, a lot more mathematical in probability sense than a lot of this gobbledygook you've been taught. And I don't know about you, but I'll just tell you, I'm going to take my chances sticking with the Bible.

I think in the end, I'm going to come out just fine. Now, let me close by saying this, that all of this is not just theoretical, this is all not just intellectual plague that we're doing here. There is some enormous practicality to all of this truth. Remember what we said earlier, if there is a creator God, then he is an awful powerful being. If there is a creator God, then everything we see around us is being sustained, run and organized by him.

And if that's true, you know what that means friends? That means that you and I in our lives here on earth, we are not the victims of random fate, we are not the victims of senseless events, but rather there is a sovereign in control God who's running this whole show. Now that's important for us to know, because you know things don't always go the way you want them to go. Sometimes things go tragically, sometimes things go disappointingly, sometimes things happen that we don't like and we don't understand. And we have one of two choices, we can curse the sky and say, how could random fate do this to me? And I'll tell you, that's a pretty depressing situation to be in. Or we can go to a supernatural sovereign God running the universe and say, God, thank you for telling me in Jeremiah 29, 11, I know the plans I have for you, say the Lord. Plans for good and not for evil to give you a future and a hope. That gives me encouragement.

Many of you know I have a severely disabled little girl, she's ten years old. Her name is Jill. And you know what, it's been a long, hard ten years with Jill. There's been many a time that I've been tempted to sit down and say, God, what in the world are you doing? I mean, I'm serving you with my life. Why would you send something like this to me? I mean, you know, you ought to send something like this to Saddam Hussein. Why you send this to me? This doesn't make any sense. Because you know what, I'm okay with this.

Even though it's been hard and it's been extremely painful, and even though it has really challenged me in a number of different areas in my life, I'm okay with this. You know why? Because I believe what the Bible says about God. I believe he's really in charge of this universe. I really believe Jeremiah 29, 11.

He has a plan for me and Jill and my wife and my family that is higher and better than any plan that I could ever think of. And if I don't understand it, that doesn't matter. If I can't figure it out, that doesn't matter. I mean, I don't know how God made the planets and the nebula and the galaxies, so if I don't know exactly how God's running my life, well, that doesn't matter all that much right now. What matters is that I have the confidence that God is running my life.

That's what matters. And I know there's a lot of you here who've had a lot of things happen in your life that you don't understand. Why your parents broke up, you don't understand that. Why somebody you really loved and cared about died at such a young and early age, you don't understand that. Why you may have a disability, you don't understand that.

Why some friend of yours may have been injured and damaged physically in some kind of an accident, you know. Why you're single at this point in your life. And you've done everything but hang a sign around your neck that says, marry me.

And nobody has. And you say, what is this deal? Let me just tell you, you need to have the confidence that I've got when it comes to my daughter. And that is, I have a plan for you, says the Lord. A plan for good and not for evil.

To give you a future and a hope. Now if I can run the universe, if I can create the universe, if I can keep the crab nebula from bumping into the milky way, then I can take care of you. So trust me, will you?

Trust me. I'm powerful enough to make the world, I'm powerful enough to take care of you. And I'm powerful enough to get you where you need to go.

And I've got a plan, just trust me. Friends, it's a wonderful thing to know we've got a God who has this kind of majesty. Who has this kind of power. And then not only is he running the universe, that's wonderful. But far better to have the confidence he's running our lives. My advice to you is with a God like this, our job is not to figure it all out, because we can't. It's just to trust him. And I promise you, if you do, I promise you, God will do exactly what he said.

He will work all things together for good, for you, if you'll trust him. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thanks for talking to us tonight about science. Now, we haven't proved Genesis 1, but we've certainly given some information to indicate that at least it's possible, it's plausible. If there are people here tonight whose big hang-up has always been science versus the Bible, I really pray tonight would be one small little kick the can down the road thing that we did, just to kind of help them get over that.

We're going to talk next week about the creation of the human race and about Darwin and evolution. And Lord, as we talk about these things and present a case that the Bible's claim for how it happened is not that crazy, I pray that you would help those of us here who already believe you to have our faith strengthened, and help those of us here who haven't believed in you to see and realize that things are not as airtight against the Bible as we've been told. Most of all tonight, encourage our faith, Lord, by reminding us that you as the Creator God are running this world, and that even if we can't figure out exactly how you're running it, there's confidence that you're running it, as you've said, in a way that is good and has a plan for our lives. Lord, help us to trust you, because if you're powerful enough to make everything we see, you're powerful enough to run our lives in a way that's good and wholesome and rewarding. So God, help us trust you tonight, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. .