The Death of Worldly Thinking #2

Welcome to the Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hello again, I'm Bill Wright. It is our joy to continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word. Today Don is continuing with the second part of a message we started last time.

So let's get right to it. Open your Bible as we join Don now in the Truth Pulpit. Open your Bible to 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 8. Just prior to the book of Revelation, you go back to skip over the letters of John.

As you turn back, you'll come to 2 Peter rather rapidly. One of the things that is raised against this assertion of sixth-day creation is to say, well, look at 2 Peter 3.8. The Bible itself says something that contradicts what you're saying, preacher.

Doesn't the Bible say in 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 8? But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. You see, it could be thousands of years. You could talk about a day and it's thousands of years.

Well, let me just address that briefly. Notice that Scripture does not say one day equals one thousand years. It just says that it's like that.

It's as though it were like that. And understand even more as you look at it that it specifies the perspective from which Peter is speaking. It's with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is one day.

What Peter is saying is that God is not like us. God does not perceive time like us. He does not exist in the realm of time. He created time.

He's beyond time. And so you cannot impute worldly time as though it were a control on God. And the context talks about the delay and the return of Christ. All this verse is saying is that time is irrelevant to God and that he is not subject to it and does not perceive it as you and I do as mere men. God is eternal.

He is transcendent. You and I, man and all philosophers, they're temporal. Time is precise and we are controlled by time and we are ordered by a time in a way that's not true of God. So that when the return of Christ seems delayed from our standpoint because so many years have passed, two thousand years as we speak today have passed since the ascension of Christ, God doesn't perceive it that way.

Even though we do. That's all that that's saying. That verse is not an invitation to reinterpret the plain obvious language of Genesis chapter one. Scripture comes from the same mind of God. It is internally consistent and you cannot pit one verse misinterpreted, taken out of context in order to reinterpret the entire basis upon which God has started his revelation. Peter is not reinterpreting Genesis. He's giving us a perspective on how God sees the timing of the return of Christ.

So, having dispensed with that, let me just review where we're at because we're about to go to a third subpoint here. We saw, first of all, a major point, the theological place of creation. Second major point, the biblical teaching on creation, and we're still in that realm. The biblical teaching on creation is, first of all, that creation was recent.

Secondly, that God created in six twenty-four hour days. Now we come to a third aspect of the biblical teaching on creation, which is really, really wonderful and beyond our ability to fully comprehend, and it's this, is that God created out of nothing. God created out of nothing, or to use the technical term used for this, God created ex nihilo, Latin term for out of nothing. God created out of nothing. Beloved, all that we see, whether we look into the vast expanse of space, or if we just look at the world around us, God created all of that by his mere spoken word.

It's impossible for us to contemplate what nothing was like. It's impossible, it's impossible to rightly consider the concept of utter absolute nothingness. God existing as an invisible spirit, and there's a realm of nothing, and then God speaks and says, let there be light. God speaks in Genesis and says, let there be this and that. And these things come into immediate existence because God willed them to and God spoke that it must be this way. Now scripture teaches this in multiple places.

Let me just give you a couple of verses that you can jot down, I'll read them, I won't have you turn there. But in Romans chapter 4 verse 17, we read this in the latter part of the verse, that God gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. Somehow, and we can only speak about this in the language that scripture gives us, without understanding the mechanism by which God did it, God said, let these things be. And they came into existence, not because he was working with something that previously existed and he shaped some kind of blob of matter and turned it into something else.

That's not the case. Yeah, he formed a woman from a rib in Adam's side, but the other things, the other aspects of creation, God spoke and it came to be things that did not previously exist. And you say, well, that's hard. How does that happen? How does God do that? How can you prove that scientifically? And as soon as that question's asked, rather than falling into the trap and being intimidated into silence, understand that at that point when that question's asked, we come back and we come back to the issue of authority. And we ask the question, well, what is the authority for how we know what is true? We know what is true because of scripture. We measure all truth claims by scripture. We know that scripture is true because of Jesus Christ. We know that Christ is Lord because of all that laid the groundwork for him.

And we know that God exists by the five different ways in which he's manifested himself and made himself known. All of these things, beloved, are interrelated. All of these things must be on the ready access of your Christian mind if you are to function properly in a hostile world and to think rightly after the way that God has spoken. These things come together. You cannot consider creation in isolation from all of these other matters that we're discussing here.

You can't. And successfully walk through and be consistent in your thought. And the Bible speaks to this very point. In Hebrews chapter 11, verse 3, we read this, by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. Scripture says it's a matter of revelation that we receive and accept based on the testimony of the word of God and in submission to his word, in submission to our Lord Jesus who said, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? Who says you must love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind? That your mind is to be dominated and ruled by the authority of God as he has revealed it in Scripture? That kind of faith is the basis upon which we know and understand.

We say yes, it's not subject to empirical verification by science today, but neither is it subject to empirical observation that there was some big bang out of nothing that created everything that we now see. The question is, are you going to trust God and what he said based on the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ? Or are you going to look at the risen, glorious Christ?

This is how plain and simple it gets, beloved. When you consider these matters, are you going to believe what God says or are you going to look at the Lord Jesus Christ in all of his magnificent, resurrected glory and say, uh-uh, I'm not buying what you're selling. I kind of like what this guy said in this big, thick book over here five years ago. I prefer that.

I choose that. Well, at that point, it's a matter of a conscious rejection of the authority and revelation of Christ. As we understand our own viewpoint, we accept the fact that we believe this on the testimony of God. And we believe that and we're comfortable with that and we're confident in that because we understand by what authority we believe it. And the fact that our view is twisted and distorted by others and misrepresented, that comes with the territory. We're not afraid. We're not cowed by the mocking, the misrepresentation, the slander of those who reject what we say and teach, and more importantly, what God has said in his word. We're not cowed by that because we realize that we are in the midst of a spiritual battle that requires us to choose sides and to maintain loyalty. And I would rather, beloved, based on God's word, I promise you that in the end, when you stand before Christ and give an account, you'll be very, very glad that you stood on his word rather than shifting away from it because you were embarrassed by what others were saying around you in the time. At some point, this becomes a moral matter as well as an intellectual one. In fact, it's all wrapped up together. There are moral implications to this, and Scripture says in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God.

A fool not simply being someone lacking intelligence, someone who is morally culpable for the things that he says. Now, as God created in six days, understand this, and this will help you understand and perceive things because people will say, it took many, many light years for the light from distant stars to reach the earth. How do you explain that? And things of that matter. Understand this, beloved. Understand that what God created in six days, and you'll want to write this down. God, in creation, created a mature and a fully functioning universe.

A mature and fully functioning universe. So that he created trees, not simply seeds, from which trees would grow. When he created Adam, Adam was formed as a fully functioning man who had a developed mind and was able to tend to garden and name animals. So that Adam was not an infant, an embryo when he was created, he was a mature man. The animals were fully developed creatures. Adam had a body to work a garden and a mind to name animals. And it's not, it's easy to say that God created things with an appearance of age that wasn't really true because that has a sense that God wove some kind of deception into the universe.

No, it's not like that at all. He created a mature, fully developed universe that was functioning from the very beginning. It's very critical to understand that. Now, before we leave this idea of six day creation out of nothing, recent earth, all of this, let me give you a final quotation to help process and consider those who mock or deny the biblical view of creation in favor of scientific series of big bangs and what have you. One author said this, and I quote, Listen carefully, beloved.

There's a lot hanging on what we're saying right now. To those who will inevitably complain that such a view is credulous and unsophisticated, talking about the biblical view of creation, recent, out of nothing, spoke into existence, and this author is responding to critics who say, who attack that. To those who will inevitably complain that such a view is credulous and unsophisticated, my reply is that it is certainly superior to the irrational notion that an ordered and incomprehensibly complex universe sprung by accident from nothingness and emerged by chance into the marvel that it is, end quote. Your view of biblical creation is so simplistic. Don't you know anything about sophisticated scientific theories? And don't you know that we've established a big bang and an explosion took place and it all just kind of blew out and is expanding and has expanded. You're such a dweeb.

You're such a rube. I agree with the author who said my reply is that this biblical worldview is vastly, infinitely superior to that irrational notion that an ordered universe sprung up by chance from a big explosion with nobody guiding the process in the end. What's true, beloved? Step forth and state what you believe.

Come forth and make a declaration. We cannot sit in the shadows on this and hide from the conflict and still be faithful to Christ. Because, beloved, remember the whole big series we're doing here for months now is building a Christian mind. And understand this, the Christian mind is guided and shaped by biblical truth, not by popular opinion. It's guided by biblical truth, not by popular opinion. Let every man, let every woman examine themselves and determine what it is is your authority for truth. Jesus said, if you are truly disciples of mind, then you will abide in the word. John 8, 31 and 32.

And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. If you're not abiding in the word enough to let it form your view of origins and in what sense do you even belong to Christ in the first place? Now, along with that, a fourth and final aspect of the biblical teaching on creation is simply this, is that God did not use evolution. God did not use evolution. I'm just going to generally refer to the Scriptures.

You can look them up. We won't turn there for the sake of time. But Scripture says that God created Adam from the dust of the ground in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7. He formed Adam from dust, not a pre-existing primate. Adam was the first man, he was the head of the human race without some prior creature evolving over time and giving rise to him. That is not the teaching of Scripture. And if you do away with the historical Adam, you eventually do away with the historical Christ as well. Because in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15, it makes a parallel between the first and second Adam. You destroy the first Adam, you destroy the second one.

And you've lost hope. You've lost biblical salvation. Evolution requires long ages for death and change to occur. Scripture rejects that. Scripture says specifically in Romans chapter 5 verse 12 that death entered through sin, that sin came through man. It was man, then sin, then death.

Not death, then man. You cannot put death before Adam and keep the biblical teaching. God didn't use evolution. And Martin Lloyd-Jones saw that clearly in his day and was appalled that so-called evangelicals were opening themselves up to receive evolution and rejecting biblical accounts of creation.

Beloved, and that's important for you to know and realize, not just with him but with other faithful men, we may stand as a minority in the whole world around us on this issue, but we don't stand alone. We do not stand alone. And even if we did, we would still stand on the Word of God come what may. Now, third point, third major point, the implications of biblical creationism.

Back at home, I've got like 60 pages of notes that would fit in really well right here, but I'm going to have to let that go for another time. The implications of biblical creationism, beloved, in fitting with the title that I gave to this message, biblical creationism is the death blow to worldly thinking. Biblical creationism is the death blow of worldly thinking and worldly philosophies. Biblical creationism, first of all, it refutes worldly philosophies. It refutes fundamental aspects of the thinking of unsaved, unregenerate men.

It refutes them and directly attacks them just from Genesis 1-1, just from Genesis 1-1. And in what I'm about to say, I'll gladly acknowledge my debt to S. Lewis Johnson in his message titled Creation of the World. Genesis 1-1 refutes men's philosophies about the origin and meaning of the world.

No, origin and meaning. Where did the world come from and what does it all mean? Who is the center of the universe?

Who is the pinnacle of it all? Genesis 1-1 alone is more than enough. Genesis 1-1 refutes atheism, the idea that there is no God, because it plainly says God created the heavens and the earth. It's a direct contradiction.

It's a direct collision. As I've been saying along, biblical creation refutes pantheism. Pantheism from the Greek word pan, meaning all, the idea that everything is God, everything is part of God. No, God created the heavens and the earth. There was God, there was His act, and there was the product of His act, which is distinct from the God who did it. God is separate from His creation. He is over His creation. Thirdly, biblical creation refutes atheism, it refutes pantheism, it refutes polytheism, the idea that there are many gods.

It refutes polytheism. One God created the universe, not many, not as the ancient world in the time of the biblical writers where they thought there were local deities that controlled certain geographic jurisdictions or controlled certain aspects of nature, a god of rain, a god of sun, or whatever, and separate gods who are managing different aspects of what they saw around them. No.

No. There is one God. One God created the universe, and so polytheism is rejected. Biblical creation rejects the idea of materialism, the idea that matter is eternal.

That's not true. Matter is not eternal. God is eternal, and only God is eternal. Only God existed before everything came into existence. Matter, the things that we see, the things that we touch, the things that we feel with our physical senses, the things we perceive with our physical senses, that all had a beginning. That all had a beginning. There was a time where what we see was not, and there will be a time when it is all burned up as well. That's for another time. And biblical creation refutes humanism, the idea that man's at the center of the universe, that man is the most important aspect, that man is the measure of all things.

Not true. Total satanic lie, displacing God from his throne. Beloved God, the God of the Bible more particularly, the triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that God is the original and final reality. Creation, the universe, it all belongs to him. Psalm says he owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

It's all his. It's in him that we live and move and have our being, Paul said in the book of Acts. So God, not man, is the final reality. Not just in a philosophical sense, but beloved, understand that the glory of God is the aim of your existence. Because God created all things, because God formed you in your mother's womb, God is the source and the object of your entire existence. And it's that God against whom each one of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And the majesty of his being as a creator, the majesty of his glory, the majesty of his holiness, to think that we've sinned and rebelled against that God, to think that that God is also our judge, to think that we will one day give an account to him, is to realize how desperately we need a mediator, the one whom God provided in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom alone, as sinful creatures, we can approach this majestic God. And he is to be the center of your thought and the one around whom you order your entire being.

That's what a Christian mind understands, embraces, and acts upon. You see, biblical creation refutes all those worldly philosophies, and it also establishes the purpose of our existence. Biblical creation establishes why you exist and the purpose in life. One other writer who shall remain nameless said this, a true friend to the Bible and to biblical creation said this, an origin at the hands of an all-powerful, pure, and loving God guarantees a divine purpose in history and meaning to our existence, a future in the hands of a caring God who made us and has made provision for us and our future." God, in his decree, determined everything that would happen.

God in creation launched it into being so that the ultimate goal of creation is the glory of God. For, as it says in Romans 11, verse 36, for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever.

Amen. Beloved, behold by faith your Maker. Bow low and worship.

Let's pray together. Father, such lofty themes. May you give us power by your Holy Spirit to comprehend them, to absorb them, to be shaped by them, to live for you in light of them. Yes, Father, from you and through you and to you are all things.

To you be the glory forever. And Father, as we started with such a brief word to the little children, we ask for a particular measure of your grace upon them, boys and girls alike. Father, as they're being launched into a world far more wicked than they should ever know or understand, Father, we pray for your protecting hand upon them, that your Spirit would be gracious to them. In time, draw each one to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. And from this room, Father, with little ones hardly able to toddle around, Father, from those, Father, we pray that you would raise up from our midst in what's in front of us right now, from those that you would raise up, men and women of God who would be valiant soldiers of Christ in the midst of an increasingly hostile world. Father, help us who have the privilege of parenting them.

Help those of us who are around them as adults. Help those of us with teaching and leadership authority. Father, so live in a way that we would not betray the trust of that younger upcoming generation. Let us live to your glory and proclaim the majesties of Christ until you call us home. And help us to do it in the power of your Spirit, not in the weight of our carnal flesh.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. That's Don Green here on The Truth Pulpit.

And here's Don again with some closing thoughts. Well, my friend, there is no substitute for reading the Word of God for yourself and spending the time day by day going through the Bible in a systematic way so that you have a full exposure to everything that the Word of God says. It's remarkable the way the Spirit of God works through the Word to minister to our hearts in that way. And to help you do that, we have a couple of different Bible reading plans available on our website, thetruthpulpit.com. If you would go to thetruthpulpit.com, click on the link that says About. You'll find a sublink there that takes you to two different Bible reading plans that you can choose from.

It's free. It's there available to help you in your reading. It's there available to help you in your reading of God's Word. And I know that the Spirit of God will use that in your life if you're not used to reading God's Word on a regular, systematic basis.

Make this the day that you start something new and move in that direction. And join us again next time here on The Truth Pulpit as we continue teaching God's people God's Word. My name is Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thank you so much for listening to The Truth Pulpit. Join us next time for more as we continue teaching God's people God's Word.