Now, to the first chapter of Genesis, and
we can barely introduce you to this chapter.
And in this chapter, we have the story
of the creation of the universe.
And believe me, this chapter is still causing
more comment than you can possibly imagine.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and
the earth.
That is one of the most profound statements
that has ever been made.
And yet we find that that is a
statement that is certainly challenged in this hour
in which we're living.
I will be giving you the statement of
a professor right here in California because now
they're going to permit this creation story to
be taught in science textbooks.
Now, frankly, I'm not so sure that I'm
happy about that.
And somebody says, why, you ought to be.
That's a wonderful step.
No, my friend, I'll tell you why.
It'll be the character of the teachers who
teach it.
And I'm afraid that we do not have
enough with a Christian background and with a
Bible background to be able to teach it
properly.
That would be my criticism of the fact
that today, very few of our public school
teachers are prepared really to teach the story
of creation.
And the reason is they have practically no
Bible background and they've been given a background
that is contrary to it.
You see, already we've entered a controversial section.
Creation has provoked more controversy than probably any
other subject in scripture.
We read the first chapter of Genesis.
Will you get your Bible and read that
first chapter and don't read it once?
Don't read it twice.
Read it a half a dozen times.
Now, we have divided the book of Genesis
into two major divisions, chapters 1 through 11,
and several ways of labeling that.
One is that could be called sin.
And then from chapter 12 through 50, you
could call that the Redeemer.
Now, in this first section, we have in
the first two chapters here, the creation story.
We have the creation story succinctly and accurately
stated in just one verse.
And that is, in the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth.
Frankly, that's one of the most profound statements
that has ever been made.
And I think that's all you have of
actual creation, with the exception, as we shall
see, of man and animals later on.
That's recorded here in the book of Genesis.
But this is the creation story.
And I'll admit that it's rather a very
brief story.
Indeed, it was the late Paul Bellamy, he
was city editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer,
and he was making the rounds one night
at the reporter's desk, and he noticed that
one of the men was grinding out what
the newspaper men call a tapeworm, and Bellamy
regarded it relatively unimportant.
And he said to the fellow, he says,
cut it down.
He says, after all, the story of creation
was told in Genesis 1, in 282 words.
And this reporter shot back to him.
He says, yes, and I've always thought we
could have been saved a lot of arguments
later if someone had just written another couple
of hundred.
And it is interesting to note that God
certainly gave us an abridged edition.
And the question arises, what did he have
in mind when he gave us this particular
section?
What was it?
What was the author's purpose here?
And we want to ask the question, was
the author's purpose to teach geology?
Well, may I say there's a great deal
of argument and disagreement as we're going to
see today at this particular juncture.
Recently here in California, the State Board of
Education voted to include the biblical, as they
call it, theory of creation in science books.
And Dr. Ralph Gerard, who's Professor of Biology
and Dean of the Graduate Division at the
University of California at Davis, he's reported in
the press to have made the comment that
it makes just about as much sense as
teaching about the stork.
And the exact quotes that the paper has
is, should a scientific course go on reproduction,
also mention the stork theory, he asked in
a statement.
Well, the very interesting thing is that for
the benefit of this professor, the stork theory
is not mentioned in the Bible at all.
But the creation story is mentioned.
And his comparison is not quite warranted because
the Bible deals quite literally with this matter
of procreation.
And if you read your Bible carefully, you
never would have had the viewpoint of the
stork theory at all.
So that this man is certainly beside the
point.
And it reveals a very antagonistic attitude toward
the Bible.
And I'm of the opinion that this man
probably knows a great deal about his particular
subject, which seems to be biology, but he
knows very little about the Word of God.
And I think that's quite obvious for anyone
to make the type of statement that he
has made.
Now, as we come here to this verse
in Genesis and this first chapter, you must
recognize that this problem of origins, it provokes
more violent controversy, wild theories, and wide disagreements
than any other.
And always you have the inclusion of man's
hypotheses.
And as a result, there's a babel of
voices that have drowned out the clear voice
of God.
Now, there are actually two extreme groups who
have blurred the issue and they've muddied the
waters of understanding by their dogmatic assumptions and
assertions.
Now, one group are the arrogant scientists who
assume that biological and philosophical evolution are gospel
truth.
Their assumed axiom is the assured findings of
science.
And we'll see that in a moment.
Now, the other group are the young and
proud theologians who arrogate to themselves the super
knowledge that they've discovered how God did it.
They write and speak learnedly about some clever
theory that reconciles science and the Bible.
They look with disdain upon the great giants
of Bible expositors of the past as being
Bible dwarfs as compared to them.
Well, I would say that both of these
groups would do well to consider a statement
that Job had made to him.
When the Lord finally appeared to him, he
asked him the question, Where was thou when
I laid the foundations of the earth?
Declare if thou hast understanding.
That's Job 38.4. And the fact of
the matter is that God says to man,
You talk about the origin of the universe.
You don't even know where you were when
I laid the foundations of the earth.
And that's a very good question that I'm
sure no man can answer.