The Beginning of the Universe - Genesis Part 2

Hey, you know, I doubt if there's a single person that's ever lived who hasn't at some time kicked back and said to themselves, hey, where did all this stuff come from? I mean, just how did the world get here? How did it come into existence?

And how did human life end up on it? Well, this is what we're going to talk about today. Remember, we're in a series on the book of Genesis, and we're just starting. So we're in Genesis Chapter 1, where the Bible speaks directly to these issues. Now, for many Americans, especially those under the age of 40, who were brought up in the public education system of America, and who've been taught the evolutionary model of the universe as being fact, 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 this 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 possible. And so as we study Genesis Chapters 1 through 3 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 hare-brained, 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 the Bible's account makes sense. Now you say, well, Lon, wait a minute. Just before we begin, I got one question. And 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. Well, no offense taken, my friends.

It's a good question. And let me say in response to that, that when I went to the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, my undergraduate work was not in religion. It was not in theology. Actually, I have a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina that represents 60 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 am at least competent, reasonably intelligently so, to talk to you about these issues. And so with that little introduction, let's dig in today and see what does the Bible say about the creation of the universe? How did all this stuff get here? Well, Genesis chapter 1, verse 1 says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible says in the beginning, God. It doesn't say in the beginning, man, or in the beginning, protoplasm, or in the beginning, amoebas, 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 no stars, when there were no galaxies, when there were no planets, when there was no energy of any kind, 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 did this God do? Well, the Bible says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the Hebrew word that's used here for created is the Hebrew word bara. It's a very interesting Hebrew word because the Hebrew word bara, to create, is never used in the Bible with any other subject except God Himself. In other words, what the Bible is saying is that only God can bara people, never bara. You say, Lon, thank you so much for telling me that. I've always wanted to know if I could bara, and now thanks to you, I know I can. So I appreciate that. What difference does that make?

Well, it makes a lot of difference, folks. This is important because the Hebrew word bara means to create something out of nothing. When the Bible says that God bara'd 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. You followed that, yes?

Yes, you got that. So this is why the Hebrew word bara is never used with a human being as the subject because we can't do a bara, 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 bara, that He can bara, and that that's how everything God here that you and I see today, God bara'd it. So to summarize, what exactly is Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 asking you and me, calling on you and me to believe?

Well, it's calling on us to believe that God personally, that God unilaterally, that God single-handedly created the universe and everything in it, ex nihilo, which is the technical term that's used meaning from nothing. And there's more that God did it in six literal 24-hour days. Look at Genesis chapter 1 verse 5. It says, And there was evening, and there was morning, day one. Genesis chapter 1 verse 8, 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 four, day five, day six, there was evening, there was morning, another day. Now friends, the word that's used here in Genesis chapter 1 for day, the word yom, literally means a literal 24-hour day, not an epic, not an eon. And besides, one morning and one evening do not make an 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 six 24-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. End of quote. Now friends, this being true, that is considering how little they know, wouldn't you think that scientists would at least be open to the Bible's explanation of how the universe began? That they'd at least give it a fighting chance, but they don't.

They're not open. And let me tell you why. The reason is very simple. It's because if a person admits the world was created, then they have to admit that there is a Creator. And if there is a Creator of all that we see, He is obviously more powerful, and He is obviously more awesome than 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 rules, and we should plan to get to heaven His way. But these scientists are not about to do this. They're 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's rules. 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 a divine Creator in their personal life. So, they've got to come up with some other theory of creation. And no matter how cockamamie and crazy sounding it may be, 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 say, all right, Lon, I hear what you're saying. And you know what, it makes some sense, but I've still got a few questions, a few what abouts that I want to ask you about what the Bible says. Okay, let's do that.

Well, you 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 are willing to express publicly that they have serious doubts about it. Quoting from Science Digest and I quote, Scientists who utterly reject evolution may be one of our fastest growing minorities in the scientific community. And many of these scientists hold impressive credentials in science. End of quote.

They're not just nut cases. Dr. William D. Hamilton, Professor of Biology, Oxford University. All right, here we go. Not a Christian. Quote, The theological possibility that explains the origin of the universe, he says, is still certainly alive. End of quote. And a few years ago, 60 world class scientists, including 24 Nobel Prize winners, got together and produced a book entitled Cosmos, Bios and Theos.

And in this book, Yale 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. End of quote. Folks, this guy's not from Liberty University. This guy's from Yale. And isn't it wonderful to know that Yale is finally catching up with the Bible? Isn't that wonderful? Yeah?

All right. 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 its 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 overwhelming. End of quote. 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. The point, my friends, is that you and I have 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.

You say, all right, well, then I got another what about. My second what about, Islam, what about the age of the universe? I mean, what about the age of the earth? I mean, the Bible presents the picture of a very young earth created by God in six twenty four hour days. But, you know, scientists tell us that the world is billions and billions of years old.

What about that? Well, you know why scientists are committed to an earth that is billions and billions of years old, don't you? Well, it's because the odds, the mathematical probabilities of human life developing on earth through evolution are so infinitesimally small 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.

But what about this? Well, scientists use a variety of methods to date the universe and the world. But the two most common are radioactive dating and the expanding universe.

So let's talk about each of them for a moment. First of all, what about this idea of radioactive dating? That is, you measure the decay rates of carbon and uranium and other isotopes and you use that data to calculate the age of the earth.

What about that? Well, physicist Dr. Fredrik Unemann, 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 constant 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 reset 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, end of quote.

You say, what does that mean? Well, what he's saying is, if there was some kind of global disaster that changed the way the environment works, then the radioactive decay rates are invalid. Now, can you think of any global disaster possible that might have done this? Well, how about Noah's flood? You know, the little two by twos all going on the ark.

You remember that? Yeah, you know what the Bible says? The Bible says that all that water that covered the earth did not come from rain. In fact, the Bible says, Genesis 7-11, that the fountains of the great deep were opened up, that most of the water came as the result of cracks in the earth's crust. And if this is true, if the Bible's account of the flood is right and the earth's crust was broken up and all this radioactive material came up from the molten crust of the earth and everything soaked in it for a year, we must understand, as Dr. Uneman said, that radioactive decay data is invalid when it comes to establishing the age of the earth because we do not have a uniform closed 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, scientists 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 a simple calculation tells you how long it has been since the expansion started. Hey, that sounds simple, doesn't it? Ah, 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 speed? 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 to light lately to indicate that the earth is actually quite young. Dr. John Bumgardner, a geophysicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, presented evidence at a geophysics conference in 1994 where he said that the slip-sliding of the earth's plates might once have happened at thousands of times faster speed than 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 any attention to that. Today they write him off as getting it wrong. So, isn't that interesting?

He got radioactive dating right, but he's not smart enough to get the results right because they don't like the results. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? All right. Are you all still there? Okay.

You're with me, right? The bottom line is that the earth's age, my friends, is still up for grabs. There is not indisputable scientific evidence that the earth is 4 billion years old. It may indeed be very young, as Genesis says, and this is the point. If it is very young, like Genesis says, then the evolutionary model of the universe becomes mathematically impossible. You say, all right, Lon.

I got one more, what about? And that is, what about the Big Bang Theory? It seems to account pretty well for how the earth came into existence. What about that? Well, you know what? You're right.

Absolutely. And so I want you to hear what Dartmouth University astronomer Dr. Robert Jastrow 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. The scientist's pursuit of the past ends in a moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, he says, unexpected by everybody except the theologians. And then Dr. Jastrow 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. This guy's not a Christian now.

Listen, the essential elements, he says, of the astronomical model and the biblical account in Genesis are the same. End of quote. Very interesting.

You know what? I have one more what about that I discovered when I was doing work for this message. And that is, what about the fact that this planet, our 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 has bubbled up from physics is that the universe seems calibrated for life's 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 planets 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 stable for life as we know it and so on. What Time magazine is saying is that our planet and the rest of the universe seems like it's been precisely tweaked to support life here on earth. And there's a fascinating article by physicist Dr. Hugh Ross.

If you're interested in going deeper into this, I have copies of the article at the tech booth here and it loud and you can get it or you can go online and we've put it up on our website. And anyway, what he did is he listed 72 characteristics of the universe and the solar system that are so perfectly fine-tuned 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 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, doesn't it? Yeah. Now, friends, I want to tell you something. 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, too. But I got to tell you 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 too impossible. And let me read to you a closing comment by Dr. Jastrow. You remember our agnostic astronomer from Dartmouth? Here's what he said. I love this.

I love this. He said, and I quote, 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 up over the final rock, I love this, he is greeted by a band of theologians who've been sitting there for centuries and saying, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So let me summarize and say this. Have we proved that Genesis 1 is right? No. Can we prove that Genesis 1 is right?

No. May I remind you that all the scientists who believe in the evolutionary model of the universe, they can't prove that their model is right either. But what 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's account may very well be the most intelligent of all the theories, the more that we discover. And if you're here today, and this has been a huge hang up 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 who are a lot smarter than I am. Why? Because it's true.

Or at least it could be. And if you're letting 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. Well, all of that brings us in the little bit of time we got left to our final question. And so are you ready? All you people are loud.

Are you ready? Good. Okay, here we go now. Nice and loud.

One, two, three. Yeah, you say, Lon, 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?

Well, friends, let me tell you, it's like this. If there is a God, the way Genesis chapter one says there is, and if he created the world the way Genesis chapter one says he did. And if he manages and oversees his world the way Genesis one says that he does, then what this means is that we who live in his world, we are not the victims of random faith or senseless events like house says that we are.

No, no, he's wrong. To the contrary, if Genesis one 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 when we're 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 and all our comfort is to know that. You know, we're about to celebrate the one year anniversary of Jill's house.

And if some of you remember when we dedicated Jill'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 it. And when I was thinking later, Lon, that's not like you. Well, how do you explain what you did in there? 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 there, Lon, I told you so. I said, what do you mean? Well, friends, as many of you know, my daughter Jill's 19 and is severely disabled. She has a genetic disorder called Dravet 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 going to 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 your diapers and brush your teeth for the rest of her life. And so, folks, the question is, is Jill's condition just the result of some freak and cruel genetic accident? I mean, did Jill just draw a bad hand as Darwin's evolutionary model would have me believe? Because if that's the way I'm supposed to explain all of this, I got to 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, then I have an answer for that question that does bring me comfort and that does bring me hope. And the answer is, Jill is the way she is and the reason she's in my life is because an all wise, sovereign, loving, personal God with a perfect plan for my life and her life put her there. And I got to tell you, I can get comfort out of that. Jeremiah 29, 11, 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. And so, as I sat there in the Smith Center last year, seeing before my very eyes how God had taken Jill's life with all of its limitations and all of the pain and all of the suffering we've been through together He turned it into this amazing, good thing called Jill's house. As I said, I sensed the Lord saying to Milan, See there? I told you so.

I told you so. Now friends, listen, if God is big enough to create the universe and if He's big enough to keep the crab nebula from bumping into the Andromeda Galaxy or whatever, then I want to tell you as 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. And what He wants us to do is to stop trying to figure everything out and stop trying to explain things and stop impugning Him and pointing our finger at Him and telling Him how dare He do this. But what He wants us to do, friends, is 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, it doesn't matter how it looks right now, that one day, if you'll trust Him, you will hear Him tap you on the shoulder and say to you, See there? I told you so. I told you so.

Friends, trust Him. You won't be sorry you did. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we want to thank You for reminding us today of who You are, the 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're running our lives with a perfect plan for each one of us and that all You ask us to do is to hold Your hand and let You walk us through the wilderness. Lord, 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, then there's no reason for us to fear as we follow You. Father, for those of us here today who are struggling with tough times and disappointments and pain and heartache and they feel like You've let them down, I pray You would use the truth of Your word today to bring courage and hope and strength 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 and all their heartaches in the sure and certain confidence that one day they will hear You say about each one of these heartaches.

See there? I told you so. Lord, use Your word to change our lives because we were here today. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen. Amen.