Water, Earth & Sky, Part 1

This is now being taught at Stanford and other top schools. This explanation of the beginning of the universe, this article says, bears haunting similarity to the traditional theological notion of creation out of nothing. Listen, this article quoted one of the world's foremost astronomers, Alan Sandage, of the observatories of the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena. He recently proposed that the Big Bang could only be understood as, quote, a miracle, end quote, in which some higher force must have played a role. There has to be an explanation for how the universe got here and who or what caused it.

Where the disagreement lies is what is that cause? As Christians, we understand that there was an eyewitness to the creation. Someone was there when it happened, and that was God.

He was there, and He was the cause. We're learning about creation today, but not from Genesis. Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey takes us to a passage of scripture in Job. He's going to show you with clarity that God is the creator of water, earth, and sky.

Keep listening. Perhaps the best known scientific celebrity of the past couple of decades was Carl Sagan. He was a renowned astronomer and a rather antagonistic atheist who seemed bent on destroying any belief in biblical creationism and theism. He became the leading voice of a naturalism, that everything is a natural cause and a natural explanation.

His tribe has certainly increased over the years. In fact, if I can take an aside to this introduction, I recently read one religious leader within the church, his attempt to explain away the miracle of Jesus walking on the water by postulating that Christ was walking on floating pieces of ice. How do you suggest that to keep a straight face is my question, but that's naturalism. Its relative is evolution, that all there is can be explained by natural processes. Listen to what Carl Sagan repeated on every show that aired on television each week and I quote, the universe is all that is or ever was or ever will be. In other words, he gave to the universe divine attributes.

Listen, all the scientists in the world along with Sagan could never scientifically measure all that was and all that is and all that ever shall be or is to come. That's a profound statement of faith. They take the leap of faith in attribute or attribute, I should say omniscience and omnipotence, these attributes of God to the universe or the mother nature so that she gives birth. She sustains all it is. She orders life. She created all there is. It's nothing less than the religion of nature. This is the deification of the universe and it really doesn't get rid of an omniscient eternal being. It just changes who that being happens to be. Sagan looked at the universe and all those like him and came to the conclusion that there is nothing greater than what they can see, that it is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.

It occurred to me as I was researching for this study today that if you fell asleep, not now, wait 30 minutes. If you fell asleep 75 years ago and woke up today to learn of our politically correct views regarding origins and the evolution of man and the deification of nature, you would be convinced that our intelligence is not moving or developing forward. It is moving backward. It's true. Paul said it would be a sign of intellectual digression in any culture to cast off the creator and elevate or deify creation. Paul wrote in Romans 1.22, professing to be wise, they literally digressed to becoming fools or foolish.

So today, for people in our world to consider a tree or the sun to be a self-conscious, self-aware relative of the human race is simply one more step downward and away from true wisdom. Let me give you a couple of examples. Two recent transcripts that came across NPR National Public Radio. These were related to a journalistic contest I had read about and so I went online and found several of these articles.

They invited people to express their values and beliefs. One elderly woman who grew up just like you did and I did in a mainline Protestant church most of her life, now retired, wrote and I quote, I am sitting on our small deck knitting and resting old legs entertained by my spiritual sister nearby an equally old pine tree. She is at least as old as I am.

She leans a bit and so do I. We both soak in the sun and the air and try our best to live lightly in our worlds. One day in the not too distant future she will fall and fertilize the earth and so will I. It's a consoling thought. What exactly was consoling about that thought?

I do not know. She writes, I have lost my traditional heaven and hell beliefs. There are those who want to give my life more importance than the tree but I don't believe them. Nevermind she's sitting on a wooden deck writing this. They think that there is a special place for me somewhere in eternity but I don't believe them. I believe my tree and all other living things believe and feel in their particular living way.

75 years ago you would have said, are you kidding? Today it's ho hum. Another this author, a published poet and professor at the University of New Mexico writes in her article dated July 8th, 2007. I believe in the sun, S-U-N. In the tangle of human failures of fear, greed and forgetfulness, the sun gives me clarity. The sun is our relative and illuminates our path on this earth. Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of earth and sun.

Do you hear how creation has given divine attributes? Humans rely on the kindnesses of the earth and the sun. She writes, one day recently I walked out of a hotel room I was in just off Times Square at dawn to find the sun. It was the fourth morning since the birth of my fourth granddaughter.

I had bundled her up and carried her outside. I held her up and presented her to the sun so that she would be recognized as a relative so that she wouldn't forget this connection, this promise so that we all remember the sacredness of life. How tragic to not understand that to give the sun the attributes of God is to void the sacredness of life.

Mankind to the naturalist and the evolutionist is nothing more than an animal with no more dignity and personal worth than a pine tree. Paul wrote of this in Romans 1. The unbeliever becomes futile in their speculations. Their foolish heart is darkened.

Why? They suppress the truth of a creator and they elevate creation. Romans 1 21 to 23. In 1996 Carl Sagan died. Less than three weeks before he died he was interviewed by Ted Koppel on Nightline. Sagan by the way knew he was dying. He knew it. And Ted Koppel asked him, Dr. Sagan do you have any pearls of wisdom that you would like to give to the human race? To which Sagan responded bleakly and I quote him, we live on a hunk of rock and metal circling a humdrum star that is one of four hundred billion other stars in the Milky Way. This is well worth pondering end quote. Is that it?

Yes it is. Because the religion of naturalism and the faith in evolution and even the mystical reaches of pantheism lead ultimately to the utter insignificance of humanity which ultimately leads to despair. All you and those trees are going to die is eventually fall over and rot and fertilize some plot of ground. I want you to listen to the despair and the sense of insignificance and a little bit of panic from a book published written by Sagan published near the end of his life. By the way this doesn't get any press you probably never heard this before. Hear it now. I quote. Our planet is a speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity in all this vastness there is no hint that help will come to save us from ourselves.

End quote. If only he had read Job. There is help. There is hope. Because there is a creator God. Let's rejoin our study in Chapter 38 where God eventually speaks to Job.

This encounter we have longed for and fully expected because we probably looked ahead. The amazing thing is as we began last Lord's Day I believe it was that God begins not by giving Job a lesson on suffering but by giving Job a lesson on creationism. Instead of answering Job's questions and ours about why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people. God reveals his power and his providence over everything that he has created evidently to the mind of of God understanding that he alone is the creator of all that is brings a person back from the edge of despair and utter insignificance and bitterness and breathes new perspective and fresh faith into his heart. Which leads me to say and I need to say that these chapters here are for believers not unbelievers. These chapters this response by God won't breathe faith into the unredeemed.

In fact all they'll do is look at it and come up with more skepticism. But for those of us who believe like Job this tour around God's creation bolsters our faith and gives us fresh new joy in the greatness and glory of God which has a way then of settling our our fears and and quieting our hearts because God said that he would keep us in perfect peace that is to the ones whose minds are stayed anchored on him as a twenty six thirty. So God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind. Let's go back at verse four.

Where were you Job. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth. Would you notice that God doesn't begin four chapters of his response by proving to Job that he was the one who created the earth. He simply starts by reminding Job that he wasn't there when he did it just as all the way back to Genesis chapter one verse one we have no proof of God. We simply are introduced to him. We are introduced to what he does and who he is. God is the eyewitness to the beginning. And because of what we call special revelation that is this inspired book you hold I trust in your lap that you're looking at the the inspired scriptures have given us the only eyewitness accounts of the very beginning the origins of time from the creator himself. God just simply starts by saying Job were you there when it started. No he doesn't expect job to say well I think I could pull off that stuff if you give me billions of years. That was just a simple No I wasn't there.

I didn't see you do it. This is the eyewitness account of origins. It was by the way a man by the name of Herbert Spencer who was an early enthusiastic supporter of Darwin who outlined the five scientific ideas that are certainly true that he believed categorized everything that science could investigate time force action space and matter. He believed that everything that could be known could fit into one of these five categories. However as with all naturalistic dead end theories he had to give at least one of those five eternality the evolutionists cannot account for the origin of any of these five.

So one of them had to have been eternal in order to spawn the other four. So to speak even though he couldn't account for the origin of time force action space and matter he believed correctly that these five can categorize everything. So you go all the way back to what God tells Job he didn't see happen and you have a fully described or just enough for us to understand here they were in the beginning. That's time in the beginning God that's force in the beginning God created its action in the beginning God created the heavens. That's space in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth that's matter in those few opening words God reveals the origin that provide the categories for everything that is so that Nehemiah centuries later the rebuilder of Jerusalem would would pray in Chapter 9 you alone are Yahweh you made the heavens even the highest heavens and all their starry hosts the earth and all that is on it the sea is and all that is in them you give life to everything.

Now in these first 15 verses of Job 38 God is going to quiz job on the origins and workings of earth sea and sky first earth job asks or is asked by God back in verse four. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth. Tell me if you have understanding who said its measurements since I'm sure you know or who stretched the line on it on what were its bases or its foundations sunk who laid its cornerstone. See God is speaking in the language of an architect and a builder. I know just enough to be amazed as I have watched these buildings go up I have watched as this language was fulfilled on this particular plot of about 40 acres of land I have watched the surveyors line it out trace it a measuring line God refers to here the call on the Hebrew language is stretched out to ensure the exact measurements are followed. Well who made Job is asked sure that the foundations are dug correctly I've watched the guys out here it's amazing what they can do with that backhoe lay them out and then they're poured. Well who did it here Job.

Were you there did you see it when the cornerstone was was placed squarely. In other words what God is asking Job is did you check the blueprints to make sure that all of this occurred with such precision that that life could be sustained. Of course Job has already delivered to us the staggering truth relative to creation in chapter twenty six verse seven where he said that God stretches out the north over the empty space and hangs the earth on nothing not on the back of a huge turtle as millions believe not on the back of an elephant as even more millions believe not on the shoulders of Atlas as former empires believed nothing. Job is revealing amazing scientific truth that we now have been able to substantiate that the north pointing axis of the earth is extended indefinitely beyond the boundaries of Earth's surface pointing to the polar star and orienting both the geography of earth with the stellar heavens one believing scientists writes Job is telling us not only that the earth was suspended in space but also that it rotates about its north projecting axis maintained in its orbit by this what we still know to be a mysterious force called the law of what gravity which could just as rationally be called nothing or better yet for the believer the will of God. Since no human being was there to see God do it you either believe the record of God or you come up with your own manmade theory it is interesting however to live long enough to hear that theories such as the rock solid theory the Big Bang has developed over time in fact in our generation cracks not that it was ever easy to believe in one particular book that I'm reading called the battle for the beginning as John MacArthur cataloged a lot of this he writes of the scientists who hold the Big Bang theory have to explain of course how a universe full of matter appeared out of nowhere in an instant he quotes from an article in the Los Angeles Times that was fascinating and I quote the Big Bang theory is looking more supernatural all the time. About 20 years ago the late Carl Sagan famously said that the Big Bang science would eventually show that the universe was created without a creator. Since then the picture has changed quite a bit now there is a growing theory within Big Bang thinking called cosmic inflation this holds that the entire universe popped out of a point with no content no dimensions expanding instantaneously first quickly then it slowed somewhat miraculously to its current size this is now being taught at Stanford the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other top schools this explanation of the beginning of the universe this article says bears haunting similarity to the traditional theological notion of creation out of nothing listen this article quoted one of the world's foremost astronomers Alan Sandage of the observatories of the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena he recently proposed that the Big Bang could only be understood as quote a miracle end quote in which some higher force must have played a role isn't that great but can you imagine being Carl Sagan you've only been dead 11 years and they're already coming up now they're teaching at MIT and the Carnegie Institute is saying the Big Bang didn't remove the necessity of a divine being it's proving the necessity of an original cause that it poofed out of nowhere at a point in time by some creator if you want to know how the world began you must get the information from the only source that tells us no human observed the process no human can repeat the process now a little later on in this creative handiwork there are other eyewitnesses look at verse seven when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy in Job chapter one the sons of God are a reference to two angels who came to present themselves and Satan was among them this is poetic parallelism the morning stars are the same individuals as the sons of God in this text in fact according to the account given in Genesis one physical stars you see in the sky were not created into the fourth day so the angels had to have been created prior to that in order to observe it and to sing to the glory of God when it occurred in Exodus 20 we're told there's there's addition to the testimony of Genesis one that everything that was created was created within the six days of creation so angels weren't created eons before the creation of Earth they then we believe were created perhaps on the first day so that they could have been around to sing glory to God during the creation of Earth that would occur a few days later the hosts of heaven the angels created mature fully capable able to sing glory to God there's no more stretch of the imagination in that than Adam and Eve being created fully mature that is little babies that grew up who learned how to walk who learned how to talk no they immediately were able to communicate and worship God they were able to carry on their God given assignment and so also the angels were created fully capable to sing and communicate and do their creators bidding it's interesting John Hartley wrote in his new international commentary on job in ancient times the laying of a foundation stone for a temple was a high occasion it was commemorated by singing and music and praise so God here informs job and us that on the occasion of laying the cornerstone of Earth of creating matter the angels were assembled in an angelic chorus to sing praise to God at this high moment to sing to his glory for the creation of his world job you weren't there were you you can believe the record of my eyewitness account I was there now God quizzes job he moves from the origin of Earth to questions regarding the sea look at verse eight job who is enclosed the sea with doors when bursting forth it went from the womb when I made a cloud it's garment and thick darkness it's swaddling band I placed boundaries on it set a bolt and doors and I said thus far you shall come but no further and here shall your proud waves stop wow several ancient Near Eastern myths that attempt to explain the origin of the sea the oceans of our world such as the Enuma Elish from the Babylonian Chronicles or the bail cycle from the Ugarit they recount this fierce battle the different they are similar in that they talk about the gods battling for control over the sea the oceans of the world and epic battles took place for the gods and and goddesses to control this massive body of water in total contrast to mythical thought you notice the sea here in job thirty eight is spoken of as a newborn baby an infant verse eight God put up put a diaper of darkness on it clothes that with pajamas made of clouds verse nine verse ten put him in a playpen put up the baby gate locked it verse eleven place restrictions that the the sea immediately submitted to for God said thus verse eleven you shall come but no further and here shall your proud waves stop no epic battle God won he's the creator this infinite or seemingly to us body of water is under his control and he determines how it acts he has instituted all the necessary causes and secondary causes to keep the tides of these bodies of water within his plan to care for the ecosystems of our our planet it's interesting now science is catching up with what God is describing to job Steven's gonna stop here because we're running up against the end of our broadcast for today but if you join us again next time you'll hear the conclusion to this lesson called water earth and sky you've tuned in to wisdom for the heart with Stephen Davey you might want to visit our website because you can go back and listen to anything you missed we post all of Stephen's messages there and you can access them anytime at wisdom online dot org while you're there we have a resource especially for moms Stephen has a booklet called motherhood in a variety of settings mothers are consistently underpaid often undervalued and many times taken for granted this booklet offers words of encouragement to moms visit wisdom online dot org forward slash mom to get your copy and join us next time on wisdom for the heart