"Did God Really Say...?"

Our guest teacher today was Lisa Lyons, who spoke on the creation/evolution issue following our viewing of the movie "Expelled."

The first lie recorded in the Bible, told by Satan to Eve, began with the words, "Did God really say...?" We as Christians occasionally fall to this lie in different forms. For example, when you doubt whether God cares for you, you are doubting what God has said in His Word.

When it comes to the creation issue, many Christians fall to this lie, not believing the straightforward truth God wrote in the first several chapters of Genesis. For the past hundred years or more, secular scientists (unbelievers) have been forwarding the cause of evolution. Unfortunately, many Christians have chosen to believe their claims, giving them almost equal footing with God's Word. The subsequent "Christian" theories of creation that have been formulated are nothing more than trying to make God's Word conform to the words of fallen, unregenerated mankind. Theories like Theistic Evolution, the Gap Theory, and the Day/Age Theory all fall short of accepting God at His Word. It's like asking the question, "Did God really say....?"

What God really said in the very first words of the Bible is that He created the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them in six days. The context of the word "day" clearly indicates that the days were literal, 24-hour days. The additions of the word "evening and morning," along with a number (first, second, etc.), cause the Hebrew word "yom" to be interpreted as an ordinary day. This is how the word is handled in every other place that it is found in the Bible.

In Exodus 20, when God gave the Ten Commandments, the same language is used as in Genesis. Beginning at verse 8, God says, "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.... For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day."

These words were written by God's finger on tablets of stone, using the same language structure as in Genesis. If the Genesis days were not literal days, then this verse makes no sense.

Does it matter what a person believes about the days of Genesis? What a person believes about the origins of the world becomes a crucial point when you look at Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22. In these passages, the Apostle Paul bases his argument for our redemption through Christ on the fact that sin, and subsequently death, came into the world through Adam.

If any form of evolution were true, be it Theistic Evolution, the Gap Theory, or the Day/Age Theory, then there had to have been millions of years of death before Adam was created. That means that death is not the punishment for sin, for it would have existed before Adam sinned. And if death is not the punishment for sin, then Paul's argument for life in Christ has no merit.

"For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:21-22)

Death came through a man (Adam). Life comes through Jesus Christ.

Praise Reports

Doug is doing well in Pakistan. A bomb went off just two buildings away from where he was staying. Several Pakistani police were killed. Praise God for keeping Doug safe.