Introduction: Recently, a terrorist moved into my neighborhood. Never
has anyone broken into our home. I feel safe walking in my
neighborhood at night. The terrorist, however, is trying to change
all that. She started a neighborhood watch and began regularly
sending us police reports about arrests and crime in the general
area. My eyes are now opened to the fact that crime could visit me.
We are starting a new series of “eye-opening” lessons. If you thought
that the creation debate involved dusty, largely-irrelevant issues on
which Christians could reasonably differ, this series will teach you
otherwise. It will reveal that some of the most burning issues of
today have their roots in the creation debate. If you doubted that
Satan exists and is engaged in a strategic war against God, this
series of lessons, like my neighborhood terrorist, will disabuse you
of that. Hold on to your hat as we begin to explore how the Biblical
account of the Creation impacts many other doctrines of the Bible!
- Something Out of Nothing?
- Read Genesis 1:1. Why would God start His message to
humans this way? - What does this say about the heavens and the earth?
(They had a beginning, God was there at the
beginning, and He created them.) - What does this say about God? (That He is superior to
the heavens and the earth because He was able to
create them.) - Read Hebrews 11:3 and Psalms 33:9. How did God create the
universe? (By speaking!) - When I was a child, they taught me how to print my
name using a pencil and paper. When I was in high
school, they taught me how I could form those same
letters by pushing the key on a typewriter. A great
improvement! When I first started my law practice I
would dictate what I wanted to write and someone else
would type it up. Another leap forward! Early in the
computer revolution I started using voice dictation.
That was even better when it worked right. What does
voice command for creation tell us about God when we
compare it to the way we create? - What were the building blocks of God’s creation?
(Nothing. The text in Hebrews tells us that God made
the “seen” out of the “unseen.” Humans make new
stuff out of existing stuff.) - How can we understand God’s awesome power? (Hebrews
11:3 – by faith.) - Read Genesis 1:2. Should this modify our thinking about
something being created out of nothing? How do we
reconcile this with Hebrews? (We see that something (but
not much) existed here. We could understand this to mean
that God previously created what was present, or we could
understand the “something out of nothing” to mean the
final product was nothing like the formless, empty, watery
deep.) - How is this very issue such a challenge for
evolutionists? (Evolutionists are hard pressed to
explain how something could evolve from nothing.
Either “stuff” has always existed, raising the
question of how it got here, or the supernatural
exists which can create something out of nothing.
Evolutionists, for this reason, generally start
their explanation of origins with stuff already
sitting around.) - The Witness
- Read Romans 1:18-20. What is happening to the truth?
(Wicked people are trying to suppress it.) - What problem do the truth suppressors face? (That
God’s creation is testifying about His power and His
nature.) - Read Psalms 19:1-3. How widespread is the creation’s
declaration of the glory and power of God? (Every person
can understand this.) - Read Romans 1:21-24. What follows from rejecting the plain
truth revealed by creation? (You start acting in foolish
ways. You find a substitute for God in something you
created. Once you let go of God as the anchor for your
thinking, then your sinful desires take over and you
degrade your body.) - Does this statement from Romans about the progression
of evil thinking seem true to you? (If you are going
to build a proper building, you need a firm
foundation. If you are going to build a proper theory
of life, you need a firm foundation. That foundation
is the Bible. Sin means that the foundation of our
decision-making is always selfishness. That always
creates problems.) - Okay. The creation testifies to the existence of God. How
would you logically get from the creation to accepting the
Bible as a message from God? - What do the heavens tell us? (That something was
responsible for the glory and order that we see. The
universe is expanding at the exact speed that keeps
it from exploding or imploding. That shows great
intelligence and power.) - What do gravity, animals, molecular bonds, and our
bodies tell us? (If I believed I was the only being
in the universe, and a brand new Toyota Prius showed
up at my front door, I would know that I was not the
only thinking being around. This would be absolute
proof that something capable of high level thought,
design and construction was present.) - Since the creation is absolute proof of an
extraordinary being, One who created us and our
surroundings, why would the One do this without being
in contact with us? (That is the link to the Bible.
The Bible explains the creation and God’s desire to
have a relationship with us. Genesis, by the way, is
at the root of all of the main monotheistic religions
of the world.) - The Creator One Identified
- Read Colossians 1:15-17, Hebrews 1:1-2, John 1:1-3 and
John 1:14. Who is the One who created everything out of
nothing? (Jesus! If you look at the context of all of
these texts, you will see that Jesus is being described.) - Let’s look more closely at a couple of these texts.
Look again at Hebrews 1:1-2. Was Jesus acting on His
own when He created the universe? (No. The text tells
us that God created the universe “through” Jesus.) - Let’s also look at Colossians 1:15. Is God visible?
(Thinking about this could make your head hurt!
Jesus, who is visible, is “the image of the invisible
God.” Jesus puts a face on God.) - Colossians also says something that does not,
at first, seem right. It calls Jesus the
“firstborn” over creation. What does this teach
us about Jesus’ origin? (I don’t think it
teaches us anything about it. Instead, Jesus is
the one part of the Godhead who was actually
born of a woman. Let’s turn to that next.) - Read John 9:1-7. What did the disciples seek? (Someone to
blame.) - When you see a tragedy, do you want to find someone
to blame? - What does the Creator of the Universe look for in
tragedy? (A way to bring glory to God.) - What does Jesus say about the reason for His coming
to earth as a human? (He came to bring light to the
earth.) - Consider this. Jesus’ creation testifies to
God. Jesus then did more to reveal God by
coming to earth as a human. What should be the
goal of our life? (We are part of the creation.
Our goal should be to give glory to God.) - Look again at John 9:7. Do you think washing had
anything to do with the man seeing? (Other than
showing his faith, no. He had been blind since birth.
Jesus re-created in him the defective parts of his
body. This was no big feat for the One who created
the universe.) - As you consider the creation, and the Creator coming to
earth to live among us, how does evolution fit into that
line of thinking? (It does not fit. Evolution is a “hands
off” theory for God. It denies both the power and the
personal interest of God in His creation.) - Friend, what do you think is the most basic lesson we
learn from the creation? (That a God of incredible power
and intelligence exists and cares about us. God created so
that we could understand His nature. Then, going beyond
that, God became a human to give an image to His nature so
that humans could better understand Him. Will you
acknowledge your Creator today? - Next week: Creation: Forming the World.
