Introduction
A. The reason I am teaching on the topic of evolution verses creation is so that you can get access to scientific research that the public schools are censoring for fear that it might show how foolish the teaching of evolution really is. The educational elite today will do whatever it takes to prevent people from hearing anything that challenges evolution. They will make fun of scientists or teachers who teach creation, try to intimate people who say they believe in creation, and even seek to legally keep it out of the schools. So much for being ‘open minded!’
B. I am not a scientist but I am a person who can think and I feel I should be allowed to ask questions and challenge theories that I am taught. This material we shall look at today is presented to you not so much that you can remember all of it and use it in an argument with an evolutionist. It is presented with the hope that you will see that the Biblical teaching of creationism is good science and that you will get this truth settled in your heart once and for all.
C. If you get into a discussion with an evolutionists rather than trying to remember all this material it might be better to approach it this way. “I know there is good scientific research available for anyone who is ‘open minded’ enough to challenge the theory of evolution. I can get it for you if you are really interested in educating yourself.”
D. This coming Saturday, April 18th, we will be caravanning down to see the Creation museum in Cincinnati. If you truly are interested in educating yourself and getting good scientific research done by brilliant scientists, geologists, nuclear physicists, molecular biologists, cosmologist, I invite you to come along. I can promise you that you will not regret it and it will change your life if you have any questions at all about evolution or creationism.
Is it really that important that we believe in creation? Mark 10:6
A. Some people say, what is the big deal, so long as I believe in Jesus what does it matter if I believe in evolution or creation? Well it does matter and let me show you why.
1st Jesus believed in the story of creation. In Mark 10:6 we find Jesus making reference to the story of creation as He taught about marriage between a man and a woman. He declared that marriage is to be between a man and a woman because “from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.” It is clear that Jesus believed in the creation story and He used it as a basis for His teaching for marriage. If we reject creation we make Jesus a “false teacher.”
2nd If we can reject the plain teaching of Genesis, why can’t we reject the plain teaching of other scriptures? If we reject Bible teaching just because it is hard to believe or science says it is impossible, then why not reject Jesus’ virgin birth and His resurrection from the dead, or His miracles, since science says they are not possible? Either the Bible can be trusted or it cannot. Either it is divinely inspired or it is written by men. If it is divinely inspired then we can trust what it says to be true.
3rd The creation story gives us the entire foundation for the salvation of man. If there was death, disease, and destruction before man sinned then the whole concept of sin and its curse is now without any basis and the need for salvation is no longer necessary. According to the creation story, everything was created good, without death, disease, and destruction. It was not until Adam and Eve sinned that these things came upon the earth. Jesus came to pay the price for this sin by His sacrifice on the cross. His death and resurrection have broken the curse of sin and have brought the gospel or the spreading of God’s kingdom on this earth. Without the creation story as we read it in Genesis we have no plan of salvation. Our only hope is that someday man will evolve and be good. But with six thousand years of history filled with wars and corruption we don’t have much hope.
B. The belief in the teaching of creation is not really optional. If we reject creationism we make Jesus a false teacher, we destroy the entire plan of salvation and we make the Bible a book written by men. Creation is not simply something that Christians can take or leave. It is a foundation upon we build our entire believe system. Today we are going to answer a common question that people ask when you talk about creation, “Well where did all the races come from?” We are going to start in the Book of Acts but before we do…
The evolutionary view of the origin of the ‘races’ and racism
A. According to the evolutionary view of races, humans came from apelike creatures many millions of years ago. Somewhere along the way, the line of apes branched out into four main racial groups:
1. Negroid (dark skinned people originating from Africa)
2. Caucasian (light skinned people from Europe)
3. Mongoloid (Yellowish skinned people from Asia) The American Indian is usually classed with this division
4. Australoid (the dark skinned Aboriginal from Australia).
B. In the 1800s, before Darwinian evolution was popularized, most people, when talking about “races,” would be referring to such groups as the “English race,” “Irish race,” and so on. However, this all changed in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his book “On the Origin of Species”
C. Darwinian evolution was, and still is , inherently a racist philosophy, teaching that different people groups or “races” evolved at different times and rates, so some groups are more like their apelike ancestors than others.
D. This evolution-based idea has been used to justify racist attitudes and actions. History has been witness to wars, murders and acts of slavery carried out under the evolutionary-based concept of cleansing the gene pool, eliminating the ‘unfit’ from society, hastening natural selection in selecting against those less evolved, etc. The most hideous example was provided by Hitler’s Germany.
E. The late Stephen Jay Gould, who was an ardent evolutionist from Harvard University, admitted, “Biological arguments for racism were around before Darwin (1859,) but they greatly multiplied following the acceptance of evolutionary theory.”
F. The Australian Aborigines, for instance, were considered the missing links between the apelike ancestor and the rest of mankind. This resulted in terrible prejudices and injustices towards the Australian Aborigines.
G. Here is a typical quote from evolutionists of the late 1800’s. “At the lowest stage of human mental development are the Australian Aborigines, some tribes of the Polynesians, Bushmen, and some of the Negro tribes, and some of the wildest tribes in southern Asia. They have no trace whatsoever of the first foundations of all human civilization, of family life, and marriage. They live together in herds, like apes.
H. Racist attitudes fueled by evolutionary thinking were largely responsible for an African pygmy named Ota Benga being displayed at the 1904 World’s Fair, along with an orangutan, and eventually put in a cage in the Bronx zoo as the ‘missing link!’
I. As a result of Darwinian evolution, many people started thinking in terms of the different people groups around the world representing different “races.” This has resulted in many people today, consciously or unconsciously, having ingrained prejudices against certain other groups of people.
What does God’s Word say? Acts 17:26
A. The Bible does not even use the word race in reference to people, but it does describe all human beings as being of “one blood” In Acts 17:26 it says: ‘And God hath made of one blood, i.e. from one original ancestor, Adam and his wife, Eve all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.” This of course emphasizes that we are all related, as all humans are descendants of the first man, Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), who we are told in Genesis 1:26-27 was created in the image of God.
B. There is only one race. There are many people groups but one race. So the first thing we need to do is stop using the word ‘race’ and start referring to people in ‘different people groups.’
C. So what if a Chinese person were to marry a Polynesian, or an African with black skin were to marry a Japanese, or a person from India were to marry a person from America with white skin, would these marriages be in agreement with biblical principles?
D. A significant number of Christians would claim that such “interracial” marriages directly violate God’s principles in the Bible and should not be allowed. But God’s word teaches that there is only one race. There is no such thing as ‘interracial’ marriages.
E. According to the Bible then, the only ‘mixed’ marriage that God counsels against entering into is mentioned in 2 Corinthians 6:14. “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” A Christian should marry only a Christian. Sadly, there are some Christian homes where the parents are more concerned about their children not marrying someone from another “race” than whether or not they are marrying a Christian. When Christians marry non-Christians, it negates the spiritual oneness in marriage, resulting in negative consequences for the couple and their children.
F. Some may read this and think that it is saying that God separates people into groups so that they will not mix. This is not at all what this is saying. This passage is talking about how God is sovereign over all of mankind. If this were saying that people groups were not to intermarry, then what people groups is He referring to? How many different people groups did God form and how many people groups does He want to remain distinct? The answer is, there is only one race, many, many people groups. The Bible does not forbid people from marrying people from different people groups.
True science supports God’s Word
A. Today’s science and research is beginning to challenge the whole idea of different races. All human beings in the world today are classified as Homo sapiens. Many scientists today will now admit that, biologically,there really is only one race of humans. For instance, a scientist at the Advancement of Science Convention in Atlanta stated, “Race is a social invention derived from perceptions conditioned by events of history, and it has no basic biological reality.”
B. Reporting on research conducted on the concept of race, ABC News stated, “More and more scientists find that the differences that set us apart are cultural, not racial. Some even say that the word race should be abandoned because it’s meaningless.” The article went on to say that “we accept the idea of race because it’s a convenient way of putting people into broad categories, frequently to suppress them.”
C. More recently, scientist working on mapping the human genome announced “that they had put together a draft of the entire sequence of the human genome, and the researchers had unanimously declared, there is only one race the human race.”
D. In fact, modern molecular biology confirms the biblical view that all the peoples of the world are astonishingly close genetically. For example, it is common knowledge in the medical profession that, when looking for someone as an organ donor for a transplant, the person whose tissue type is most suitable for you, whether you are black or white, for example, may very well be someone of the ‘opposite color’. In reality, all of us have the same brown-black pigment, melanin, in our skin. We simply making more or less of that pigment.
What about Racial Differences?
A. But some people think there must be different races of people because there appear to be major differences between various groups, such as skin color and eye shape.
B. The truth, though, is that these so-called “racial characteristics” are only minor variations among people groups. If one were to take any two people anywhere in the world, scientists have found that the basic genetic differences between these two people would typically be around 0.2 percent, even within the same people groups. But these so-called “racial” characteristics that people think are major differences such as skin color, eye shape, etc. “account for only 0.012 percent of human biological variation.”
C. In other words, the so-called “racial” differences are absolutely trivial, overall, there is more variation within any people group than there is between one group and another. What the facts show is that there are differences among us, but they stem from culture, not race.”
D. The only reason many people think these differences are major is because they’ve been brought up in a culture that has taught them to see the differences this way. Dr. Douglas C. Wallace, professor of molecular genetics at Emory University School of Medicine, stated, “The criteria that people use for race are based entirely on external features that we are programmed to recognize.” Simply put, using the term races is just not good science. There is only one race, the human race.
E. If the Bible teaches and good science confirms that all are of the same human race and all are related as descendants of Adam, then why are there such seemingly great differences between us, for example, in skin color? The answer, again, comes with a biblically informed understanding of science.
Where did the different people groups come from? (Gen 11)
A. In Genesis chapter 11 we read of the rebellion at the Tower of Babel. God judged this rebellion by giving each family group a different language. This made it impossible for the groups to understand each other, and so they split apart, each extended family going its own way, and finding a different place to live. The result was that the people were scattered over the earth.
B. Because of the new language and geographic barriers, the groups no longer freely mixed with other groups, and the result was a splitting of the gene pool. Different cultures formed, with certain features becoming predominant within each group. The characteristics of each people group became more and more prominent as they only married within their people group. Some of these characteristics such as skin color, eye shape, and so on became general characteristics of each particular people group.
C. Up to the time of Babel, since there was only one language, all of mankind formed only one culture or
