MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX
A. From time to time during the next few months I’m going to draw our attention back to the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis. I think there is a need to do so because some people say that these chapters are myths, fairy tales told by the Children of Israel to each other as they wandered in the wilderness. “They contain interesting stories,” some say, “but they certainly are not to be believed.”
Is that true? Are the Biblical accounts of Creation, of Adam & Eve, of Noah & the flood, just myths? Or are they factual? That’s a good question, & it deserves to be answered.
Now, you need to understand that, as Bible-believing Christians, we believe the whole Bible. We believe that it is the Word of God in that He guided & inspired its writing & preserved it for our use today. And we do believe that these first 11 chapters or so of the Book of Genesis are divinely inspired & factually true.
It is important to understand that because if they’re not true, if there was no Adam & Eve, if there was no flood, then Jesus was a liar because He taught them as truth. Not only would He be a liar, but He would have died for a lie. So that’s one reason, but not the only one, that causes us to believe the Bible to be true.
ILL. G.K. Chesterton said, “It is often supposed that when people stop believing in God, they believe in nothing. Alas, it is worse than that. When they stop believing in God, they can believe in anything.”
APPL. I think that is exactly the situation we find ourselves in today. We have come to a time in history when there is a concerted attempt to exclude the recognition, & even the very mention of God from our schools & our government, & our public consciousness. And I think we, as a country, are paying a terrible price as a result.
B. Let me remind you of the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, & mention some of the details & comments which you may or may not have heard. I think they are pertinent to our subject today.
ILL. The media coverage has centered on the killers’ hostility toward racial minorities & athletes, but there was another group the pair hated every bit as much, if not more: Christians. At least 8 of the 12 students killed were active, witnessing Christians.
One of them was Cassie Bernall. Eyewitnesses tell of one of the assailants pointing a shotgun at Cassie, taunting her, asking her, “Do you believe in God?” She answered, “Yes, I believe in God.” “Why?”, he demanded. Then shot her dead without giving her a chance to answer.
Of the 21 who were wounded, one of the most critically wounded survivors, with 9 bullet & shrapnel wounds, is Valeen Schnurr. She was in the library crouching under a table with her friend, Lauren Townsend, when the killers entered, throwing a pipe bomb & firing their weapons. One of them fired repeatedly under the tables.
“Oh my God!” Valeen cried as a bullet entered her abdomen. “God?”, the gunman taunted. “Do you believe in God?” “Yes,” Valeen replied. “Why?”, he asked as he paused to reload his gun. Desperately, Valeen tried to crawl away under the tables – but more bullets tore into her body before he moved on to other targets.
On the day of the shootings, a number of ministers & other church workers rushed to the elementary school & the community library where students were being taken to await reunion with their parents. They helped with counseling & keeping order.
Many churches opened their doors for those seeking refuge & prayer & counseling. Several churches reported hundreds staying all night long, & then 1,000 or more showing up the next day & all through the week. “Mostly it was a matter of listening as teens spoke with, consoled, & witnessed to each other,” ministers & youth workers said.
A day after the rampage, the county began sending mental health workers to the churches to be available for counseling. “Frankly,” one minister confided, “some of those people needed help, & our kids ended up counseling them.”
That Sunday, a memorial service organized by the Governor of Colorado was held in a mall parking lot. Despite a chilly mist, 70,000 people came. Billy Graham had been invited to bring the message, but he was unable to come. So his son, Franklin Graham, delivered the sermon instead. In it he urged his listeners to “trust Christ as Savior,” to be like Cassie – “for she was ready to meet Almighty God.”
In his message, even though it was a solemn memorial service, one of his remarks sparked strong applause. He said, “It is time for this nation to recognize that when we empty the public schools of the moral teachings & the standards of our holy God, they are very dangerous places indeed.”
Although hundreds of reporters were on the scene, many daily newspapers omitted mention of this remark & the unusual applause. The ”Rocky Mountain News” & “The Washington Post,” which sent 6 reporters to Littleton, forgot to mention that Mr. Graham even spoke at all. I wonder why?
ILL. William Bennett, former Cabinet Secretary of the Department of Education, wrote: “If these kids were walking around that school in black trench coats, saying ‘Heil Hitler,’ why didn’t somebody pay attention? I guarantee you if…Cassie Bernall…& her friends had been walking through that school carrying Bibles & saying, ‘Hail the Prince of Peace, King of Kings,’ they would have been hauled into the principal’s office.”
APPL. Folks, the result of the last 35 years or so is not that we have a society that is atheistic. We have a society that is polytheistic, that believes in almost anything & everything. New Ageism, eastern mysticism, & all kinds of things have flooded into our culture. So it is important for us to understand the basics of our faith.
PROP. As we look at Genesis 1-2 this morning, I want you to see that: “We are created for a purpose.” And to show that, let’s note 3 very special truths that come from these first two chapters.
I. WE ARE UNIQUELY SHAPED BY GOD
A. The first truth is this, “We are uniquely shaped by God.” Job 10:8 says, “Your hands shaped me & made me.” Now when I read that I get a mental image of God as a Potter bending over a potter’s wheel. He takes a lump of clay & begins to form & fashion it into whatever He chooses. Usually, a Potter would be making a bowl, or perhaps a pitcher.
But God is making people, molding & fashioning us. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male & female He created them.” And because He created us in His own image we are not only like Him, but we are capable of thinking & feeling like Him, & our emotions are similar to His.
Genesis 2:7 says, “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground & breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, & the man became a living being.” So the very breath of God is in each of us.
The Psalmist said that God formed & knitted us together while we were still in our mother’s womb. He fit the bones into the joints, & put blood vessels & muscles into place. He created & shaped each of us to be unique. That is what the Bible teaches.
B. Now that is very different from what the theory of evolution teaches. It teaches that we’re all just accidents, we just happened. There was a big bang or explosion in the universe, & the earth spun off & became a little planet where the atmosphere was just right for life to happen.
Soon there were little cells swimming around in the ocean. Then they came out of the ocean, & then pretty soon here we are. And even though we’re at the peak of this evolutionary process, we’re still just an accident that happened.
ILL. Maybe you’ve heard about the gorilla in a zoo holding a Bible in one hand & a book about evolution in the other. He was looking confused, so someone asked, “What are you doing?” The gorilla answered, “Well, I’m trying to decide if I’m my brother’s keeper or my keeper’s brother.”
Evolution says that you’re your keeper’s brother - you just evolved into who you are. But the Bible says you’re uniquely shaped by God, & therefore your brother’s keeper.
C. Now I have several problems with evolution that I want to share with you. Let me begin by saying, “Evolution is a belief system, a religion. It’s not science.” You need to understand that. Science is when you can prove something with facts beyond any reasonable doubt. And evolution cannot be proven. So it is a religious belief, just as creationism is a religious belief. And you can decide which religion you’ll follow.
1. Here are my problems with evolution: first of all, it’s unbiblical. Now you may say, “That’s not a problem with me because I don’t believe the Bible anyway.” A lot of people, we’re told, do not believe in absolute truth. But if you don’t believe in absolute truth, you do believe in absolute truth because your belief in the lack of absolute truth is your absolute truth.
Everybody has some basis of truth in life. You can choose whatever basis of truth you want, but my basis of truth is the Bible. If it doesn’t agree with the Bible, then I have difficulty with it. So because it’s unbiblical I cannot accept it.
Some who believe in creationism have tried to water it down to make it a little more politically correct by coming up with what is called “theistic evolution.” This idea is that God is the creator of all things, but God, in His wisdom, decided that life forms would evolve from one form of life to another.
I don’t believe that because Jesus said, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male & female’…?” [Matthew 19:4]. The Bible says that God created the world & created human beings fully developed, & that we did not evolve from some lower form of life.
ILL. Louis Moore, scientist & evolutionist, said, “The more one studies the fossil remains, the more certain he becomes that evolution is based on faith alone.” So you decide where you want to place your faith. For me, the theory of evolution is unacceptable because it is unbiblical.
2. Secondly, it is unsubstantiated. It simply cannot be substantiated.
ILL. Roger Oakland, a biologist & former evolutionist co-authored a book entitled, “The Evolutionary Conspiracy.” He wrote, “What if someone said, ‘Take a look at this worm, & in an hour it will become a man’? He would be laughed out of the classroom. But when someone says, ‘Take a look a this worm, & in 2 million years it will become a man,’ then he is called a credible scientist, one to be believed. That’s totally ridiculous.”
ILL. Duane Gibbs, biologist, said, “Evolution is a fairy tale for adults. Children’s fairy tales say, ‘Kiss the frog & it will become a prince.’ Evolution says, ‘Kiss the frog & in 2 million years it becomes a prince.’” It’s an adult fairy tale. It’s unsubstantiated. It simply cannot be proven as fact.
There are 3 major gaps, missing links, in the evolutionary theory. First, there is a gap between nothing & matter. How did we get from nothing to matter? Evolutionists say, “Well, there is a gap there, but it will be filled in someday when we know the whole truth.”
Secondly, there is a gap between matter & life. They say, “We’re not sure how we got from matter to life, but one of these days we’ll know.”
Thirdly, there is a gap between life & human life. “We’re not sure how we got there, but we have a lot of theories,” they say.
Interestingly, the Bible deals with all of those gap problems. “How did we get from nothing to matter?” The Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens & the earth.” And that’s the most logical explanation you’re ever going to find of how we got from nothing to something.
Then, when you ask how we got from matter to life, the Bible says, “So God created…every living & moving thing…” [Genesis 1:21].
And how did we get from life to human life? “So God created man in his own image” [Genesis 1:27]. The Bible answers all those gap problems that evolution simply cannot answer.
3. Thirdly, I have trouble with evolution because it defies common logic. It just doesn’t make sense. Think about it. Kissing a frog & him becoming a prince, a worm evolving into a man – none of that makes any sense. And at a time when young people are struggling with self-image, when teenage suicide is on the increase, when kids are killing kids, when life is filled with purposelessness & meaninglessness, evolution just doesn’t make any sense.
SUM. In the Book of Job God asks, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the world?” “You weren’t here. I was,” He says. “I gave the commands. The world came into being. I created you in my image.” So first of all, we are uniquely shaped by God.
II. WE ARE UNIQUELY SACRED TO GOD
The secondly truth is, “We are uniquely sacred to God.” It says that ”the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground & breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, & the man became a living being.”
Now I think God feels that it doesn’t matter who you are, you’re very special to Him. No matter your status in life, no matter what things you have achieved or not achieved, no matter what your appearance is, whether you’re handsome or beautiful or ugly or homely, no matter your nationality, what race you might be, God loves you.
We need to learn that because there are lots of feelings of superiority in our country. But God says, “I’m no respecter of persons. You’re all the same in my sight.” No matter who you are, there should be no feelings of superiority in our country, in our world, nor in our church. You are no less valuable to God if you’re handicapped or sick or of another race. God loves us all. We all have the same skin, just a little different pigmentation, but we all have the same skin.
That’s very different from evolutionism. Darwin wrote a book called “On The Origin of Species.” Did you know that the sub-title of that book is “The preservation of favored races in the struggle for human life”?
Darwin believed that the white race evolved separately from the other races, & that we are a superior people. Darwin was a racist. God is not. God says, “One race is as precious as another,” that we are all His children, created in His image. So we’re all uniquely sacred to almighty God.
III. WE ARE UNIQUELY SATISFIED IN GOD
A. Finally, we’re uniquely satisfied in God. Listen to Genesis 2:15-20, “The Lord God took the man & put him in the Garden of Eden to work it & take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’
“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’ Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field & all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; & whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air & all the beasts of the field.”
Now I want you to note a couple of things in those verses. First of all, after God created man He put him in a perfect environment, the Garden of Eden. And He gave him work to do. He said, “I want you to work the garden & take care of it.”
Now if you like gardening you’ll appreciate this because this was gardening before there were problems with gardening. There were no weeds in this garden. There were no bugs to eat the fruit of the plants you planted. There was nothing to impair growth in the garden. So this is a very fruitful, productive garden.
We can picture Adam standing there, totally fulfilled, completely satisfied in what he’s doing because Adam is doing exactly what God wanted him to do.
B. Then God says, “There’s another job I have for you.” So He calls all the animals, all the beasts of the field. And God says to Adam, “What are you going to call them?”
Adam looks at the elephant – a huge animal with a long trunk, big floppy ears, & a little tiny tail. Adam turns to God & says, “What in the world are we going to call that?” God says, “It’s up to you. What do you want to call him?”
Adam says, “Why I can’t think of a name.” “No, you do it. What do you want to call him?” “Well, the only thing I can think of is elephant.” “That’s it! That’s the name! We’ll call it an elephant.”
The giraffe walks up with its long skinny neck that reaches up into the trees for food. “What are we going to call that?” “Whatever you say.” “Well, we’ll call him a giraffe.” “You’re doing well,” God says. “You’re doing exactly what I want you to do.”
And all the way through the naming process, as he names the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, & the beasts of the field, God is saying, “You’re doing it just right, Adam. You’re doing exactly what I want you to do.” And there is complete fulfillment & satisfaction in everything that Adam does.
C. But everything is not perfect. So God pauses for a moment & says, “There is no helper suitable for Adam.” Vs’s 21-23 tell us, “So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; & while he was sleeping, He took one of the man’s ribs & closed up the place with flesh.
“Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, & He brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones & flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’”
ILL. Now I can’t find this in the Bible, but perhaps you’ve heard the story that before Eve was created, God was talking with Adam. He said, “You really need a helper, don’t you?” And Adam answered, “Yeah, I really do.”
So God said, “What if I make a woman? She’ll be perfect for you. She’ll be beautiful. She’ll rub your back at night, & your feet in the morning. She’ll plop grapes into your mouth. She’ll prepare all your favorite meals without fail. She’ll clean up the kitchen & take care of the kids. You’ll never have to do a thing, just sit around & be the king of your household.”
Adam said, “Boy, that sounds great, but how much is this going to cost?” God said, “Well, it’s pretty expensive. It will cost you an arm & a leg.” Adam thought for a moment & then asked, “How much can I get for a rib?”
CONCL. Can you imagine what it must have been like in the Garden of Eden? A perfect relationship - Adam & Eve walking in the cool of the garden with God beside them. Everything is absolutely right until sin rears its ugly head. And from that day on, God has been trying to lead us back to perfect relationships, to fulfilling His will, to accomplishing His purpose for our lives.
One day in heaven, if Jesus is our Savior, we’ll experience Paradise again with Him. Can you imagine being able to come into His presence before His throne, seeing the lightning & thunder & the brilliance & light of His glory? We’ll hear the singing of angels & all the music of heavenly choirs. Oh, the wonder of it all! And I am just going to be there, amazed by it all. Intimidated for sure, on my face before a Holy God.
But then I imagine that somehow, out of the clouds & brilliance of the throne, God is going to reach down & cup my face in His hands. And He’s going to say, “Whose son are you anyway?” And because of Jesus I will be able to look in His eyes & say, “I am your son. You created me in your image.”
And He’s going say, “Yeah, I remember when I looked in the mirror & then made you. I put the little dent there & those grin lines. And I pulled out your nose. I see the family resemblance. In fact you look a lot like Jesus. Come on home. I know you’ll enjoy what I have prepared for you. It is yours for all eternity. It’s been a long, dusty road but you’re home now. Come on in & enjoy the joy of the Lord.”
That’s what I imagine it will be like. God has created you & me for a very special purpose. I hope that you never think that you’re just an accident. just something that happened. I hope you’ll always realize that God shaped you, & that you are sacred to Him.
God has some exciting things for us to do. We extend this invitation. Will you come as we stand & sing?
