Introduction:
Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Why I Believe in Creation (Genesis 1:1):
- The alternative is clearly
False .
Hasn't science proven evolution?
But what about the cavemen?
Mark 10:6 - But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.'
But what about fossils?
What about genetic mutations?
- Science Confirms creation.
Psalm 14:1 - The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.
- God Said He created the heavens and the earth in six literal days. (2 Thes 3:13-15)
- Jesus Believed and Taught creation.
Matthew 19:4 - He answered, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female..."
Why it Matters
- It Determines How We View God's Word .
2 Timothy 3:16 - All Scripture is breathed out by God...
- It Determines How We View God .
Psalm 100:3 - Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
- It Determines How We View Salvation .
Romans 5:15 - But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:54-00:58
Open up your Bibles with me please to Genesis 1.
01:03-01:05
Father, we believe Your Word does Your work.
01:07-01:17
And as we kick off not just this message, but this series, I pray Father that You would just renew an excitement in Your people over Your Word.
01:20-01:27
that You would bring many people to come to know You through Your Word.
01:30-01:31
Give us understanding.
01:32-01:32
Give us discernment.
01:34-01:37
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
01:39-01:41
Genesis 1. This is where we are starting.
01:42-01:52
We're beginning a series called "Foundations." And I guess a series about basic foundational Christian doctrine has to start here.
01:53-01:55
Today, we're going to talk about creation.
01:57-01:59
You're like, Pastor Jeff, do you believe in creation?
02:01-02:02
Yes, I do.
02:03-02:04
You're like, well, why do you believe in creation?
02:04-02:06
I'll tell you why I believe in creation.
02:06-02:09
It's just simply because of this.
02:12-02:25
If you were walking through the woods, If you came across a rock, you could make up some sort of naturalistic explanation about how that rock got there, right?
02:27-03:37
Whatever, you could say, "Okay, so there was like an earthquake and it like crumbled pieces of the mountain, and then like the rains and the winds came and washed it, and I don't know, maybe a bear was walking through and he kind of kicked this rock, and eventually right here right I mean is that possible yeah that's right James that's possible that's I mean it's doable right yes we can we can work with that that's a naturalistic story about how the rock got there right but if you were walking through the woods and instead of a rock you came across a watch you can't make up a story about how that watch got there without ultimately tracing it back to the truth that somebody had to design and build this, right? Because this is full of just intricate little pieces that are designed and built in such a way so that it's able to keep the time. This didn't happen by accident. There's no naturalistic explanation about how this was put together.
03:40-03:44
Without saying design demands a designer, right?
03:45-03:53
You realize every cell in your body is infinitely more intricate than this.
03:54-03:59
Every cell in your body makes this look more like this, actually.
04:01-04:05
So design demands a designer.
04:08-04:09
That's why I believe in creation.
04:12-04:13
Maybe that's not enough for some of you.
04:14-04:16
If that is, you're free to go.
04:16-04:19
I would encourage you to stick around until they get the roads cleared off.
04:21-04:29
Or if you want me to justify getting paid because this is the one day a week that I do that, let's dig a little deeper.
04:31-04:32
Let's go to Genesis.
04:33-04:40
You're like, "Well, what does Genesis have to do with anything?" Genesis has to do with everything.
04:42-04:52
The origin and purpose of man, understanding the world, the universe, marriage, and sin, and salvation.
04:54-05:03
Everything from government, to religion, to languages, to the nation of Israel, to why we wear clothes.
05:05-05:15
Literally everything pertaining to our worldview and our spiritual beliefs find their foundation in Genesis.
05:17-05:22
You can't fully understand your purpose apart from Genesis.
05:23-05:31
You can't understand, I guess more accurately, God's purpose for you, apart from what it says in Genesis.
05:31-05:39
And you really can't make sense of God's Word as a whole without understanding the book of Genesis.
05:41-05:45
That's why Satan has systematically attacked these truths.
05:48-05:50
And it is right in front of your face.
05:50-05:53
You see this all the time.
05:54-05:55
What does Satan go after?
05:55-05:56
We've seen it for decades.
05:57-06:05
You know, the Bible says God created the heavens and the earth and Satan's like, nah, no he didn't, and gets the world to go with that.
06:05-06:08
No he didn't, no he didn't, evolution, right?
06:11-06:14
More recent years, we've seen the attacks ramp up, right?
06:15-06:19
Where God's word says, marriage is between a man and a woman.
06:20-06:21
The world says, no, it's not.
06:22-06:24
Marriage can be between two men.
06:24-06:26
Marriage can be between two women.
06:29-06:33
Genesis says that God created them male and female.
06:34-06:35
And what does the world say?
06:36-06:37
No, he didn't.
06:39-06:43
A woman can be a man, and a man can be a woman.
06:45-06:47
It's right in front of your face, right?
06:49-07:06
Like we, especially here in Pennsylvania, we followed the story of Richard Levine or Rachel Levine, who was appointed this position, not because of qualification, but because of orientation, you could say.
07:07-07:11
Even last week, did you see the NCAA swimming?
07:11-07:12
You follow that story?
07:12-07:16
Where the dude beat all the women swimming?
07:18-07:19
And we're all so very proud of him, right?
07:20-07:22
obnoxious and ridiculous.
07:24-07:28
But you don't dare say anything because then you're unenlightened, you're not woke.
07:30-07:35
All I know is the Bible says in the beginning, God created the male and female.
07:36-07:41
So we're getting back to the foundations because everything in Harvest Bible Chapel rests on this.
07:41-07:43
And it all starts here, Genesis 1.1.
07:43-07:46
We're only looking at one verse today, all right?
07:46-07:47
And this is it.
07:49-07:55
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
07:58-08:04
So on your outline, if you're taking notes, I'm just gonna cover two things today, why I believe in creation and why it matters, that's it.
08:06-08:08
Why I believe in creation and why it matters.
08:09-08:16
So first of all, why I believe in creation, you mean aside from like your watch and your rock thing, right?
08:16-08:23
I'm gonna give you a lot of information and we make sure that these messages are on our website.
08:23-08:25
So I encourage you to listen again.
08:25-08:32
I encourage you to do your research and I encourage you to share this with somebody that couldn't join us today, but needs to hear this.
08:33-08:35
But here's why I believe in creation.
08:36-08:38
And if you're not there yet, that's okay.
08:38-08:39
We love you.
08:40-08:45
But maybe some of these reasons that have been convincing to me will be convincing to you.
08:45-08:48
All right, so number one, write this down.
08:48-08:50
The alternative is clearly false.
08:51-08:52
Why do I believe in creation?
08:53-08:57
Because the alternative is clearly false.
08:58-09:00
The alternative, the lie is evolution.
09:01-09:08
And just to be clear, we're talking about macro evolution, the belief that over millions of years, here's how life evolved.
09:09-09:24
We've gone from amino acids to proteins, to cells, to fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and eventually, over the course of millions of years, comes us, right?
09:24-09:26
That's the belief in evolution.
09:28-09:30
And this belief permeates everything.
09:32-09:33
Be looking for it.
09:34-09:35
It's everywhere.
09:37-09:38
It's taught in schools.
09:40-09:42
I was a car in city gremlin and we were taught evolution.
09:43-09:58
It's all through media, TV, movies, everything from SpongeBob to the X-Men to Jurassic Park, to the Discovery Channel, to Animal Planet, to children's books.
09:58-10:11
You can't turn anywhere without some statement promoting this idea of, isn't it amazing how we evolved to But here's where the objections come.
10:12-10:14
Somebody's going to say, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, Pastor Jeff.
10:14-10:14
Hang on a second.
10:15-10:24
Okay, you're talking about preachery stuff here at church, but isn't this science you're talking about now, right?
10:24-10:33
Maybe we shouldn't marry the two, because hasn't science proven evolution?" The answer is no.
10:33-10:34
It sure hasn't.
10:35-10:36
And I encourage you to do your homework.
10:37-10:40
And what I'm going to do today will simply get you started.
10:43-10:44
But here's the truth, church.
10:47-10:51
Science is what we can observe and measure and repeat.
10:51-10:52
That's science.
10:53-10:54
Observe, measure, repeat.
10:55-11:07
So when we talk about creation and we talk about evolution, neither of those are really Both of them are actually faiths.
11:09-11:11
One of those faiths is supported by science.
11:14-11:18
The other one is not supported by science at all.
11:19-11:24
One faith says that we came from nothing, we're cosmic accidents, and we're heading nowhere.
11:25-11:30
So your few years that you have on earth, soak it in baby, because this is it.
11:33-11:37
The other faith says that we were specially created for a purpose and ultimately we're heading somewhere.
11:39-11:41
Science hasn't proven evolution.
11:41-11:44
And then at this point, somebody's like, well, hang on a second, Jeff, hang on a second, Jeff.
11:45-11:46
What about the cavemen?
11:47-11:49
All right, what about the cavemen?
11:53-11:55
Well, I have volumes of material on this.
11:55-11:56
I'm gonna give you the short version, okay?
11:59-12:05
Every caveman that has ever been discovered falls under one of four categories.
12:05-12:07
And they all begin with M, if you wanna write them down.
12:08-12:10
Every caveman falls, you know what I'm talking about, right?
12:11-12:22
They find like a couple of bones in the ground, and then they get some artist to draw this picture of some big, hairy, like knuckle-dragging, big-browed thing.
12:23-12:27
And they get that picture because they found a couple of bones in the ground, right?
12:30-12:31
That's what we've been told.
12:32-12:33
They don't tell you the rest of the story.
12:33-12:35
Do your research, look this up.
12:37-12:40
Because every one of these cavemen, they're one of four things.
12:41-12:42
First, write down man.
12:42-12:43
Some of them are just a man.
12:44-12:49
They find a couple of bones and they draw the big, you know, the big hairy knuckle dragging thing.
12:50-12:53
And the reality is they're just bones of a dude.
12:53-12:56
And if he was walking down the street today, you wouldn't look twice at him.
12:56-12:58
He just looks like every other person.
12:59-13:02
Some are man, some of the fossils are monkey.
13:03-13:05
They're just a monkey, right?
13:07-13:15
They find a couple of bones and immediately, we want them to be the missing link because nobody gets famous for finding a monkey fossil.
13:16-13:22
But if I found the missing link, if I found some half ape, half human thing, then I'm gonna be famous, right?
13:23-13:24
So we automatically jump to that nonsense.
13:25-13:27
But some of the fossils, they're just monkeys.
13:28-13:30
They're just monkeys, all right?
13:30-13:32
But here's where we get into some problems.
13:33-13:39
Because some of the fossils, some are men, some are monkeys, some are just a mistake.
13:41-13:42
Like, have you ever heard of Nebraska Man?
13:44-13:51
I remember in school hearing about Nebraska Man, I'd see in the pictures, big Nebraska man, like, man, I wish Nebraska man played for the Steelers.
13:51-13:54
He looks like he'd be a good lineman.
13:57-14:05
Do you know how many fossils they found to put the picture together that is Nebraska man?
14:06-14:11
They found one fossil actually, and it was a tooth.
14:13-14:23
Now, let me ask you, if for some reason you get one of your teeth knocked out and I found it underground, but do you think I'd be able to draw a picture of you based on just finding that tooth?
14:24-14:36
Oh, but there's another problem with Nebraska Man because they didn't tell you this in school, but they did some more digging in that area and they found some more teeth and the teeth actually belong to a pig.
14:39-14:39
Our bad.
14:40-14:43
Why is it that like they still promote this stuff?
14:45-14:52
Instead of coming out and saying, boy, we, okay, we dropped the ball here, we still hear about Nebraska man.
14:53-14:54
So that's a mistake.
14:54-15:00
And then, okay, so we have man, monkey, mistake, and then some are just an intentional misdirection.
15:02-15:02
Misdirection.
15:03-15:04
Like piltdown man.
15:06-15:07
You heard of piltdown man?
15:10-15:14
Well, they found out that there were some shenanigans regarding piltdown man's fossils.
15:17-15:33
That they were actually just monkey bones, but somebody stained them to make them look older than they were, and they filed down the big monkey teeth to make them look more like human teeth.
15:34-15:35
Just misdirection.
15:37-15:38
We could go on and on.
15:39-15:41
Again, do your research, this is just to get you started.
15:45-15:48
But there are no pre-humans, alright?
15:49-15:58
At least not according to Jesus, because Jesus said in Mark 10.6, "From the beginning of creation God made them male and female." If his word means anything.
16:00-16:02
Like, well hang on a second, you're talking about fossils.
16:03-16:05
Don't fossils prove evolution?
16:05-16:09
Actually, the fossils prove the Bible.
16:10-16:12
You're like, well, how can that be?
16:14-16:17
Well, we find fossils of animals bigger than your car.
16:19-16:27
And the only way something becomes fossilized is if it is quickly buried and preserved in mud and earth.
16:28-16:37
And it has to be one doozy of a rainstorm to quickly bury and preserve an animal bigger than your car, right?
16:37-16:39
like these dinosaur fossils we found.
16:42-16:50
Does the Bible talk about a certain kind of rainstorm that happened that might've been of the magnitude to completely fossilize an animal that large?
16:51-16:52
Yeah, Genesis 6.
16:54-16:57
Talks about the flood in Noah's day.
17:00-17:03
Look at, go back to Genesis here, look at verse 21.
17:05-17:09
We're going to play, see if you spot the recurring theme.
17:10-17:22
It says, "So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
17:22-17:25
And God saw that it was good." Jump down to verse 24.
17:26-17:37
"And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds.
17:38-17:38
And it was so.
17:39-17:42
And God made the beasts of the earth, according to their kinds.
17:43-17:45
And the livestock, according to their kinds.
17:46-17:49
And everything that creeps on the ground, according to its kind.
17:50-17:51
God saw that it was good.
17:51-17:55
Now, did you notice a theme there at all?
17:57-17:58
I can read it again.
17:58-17:59
Did you notice a theme?
18:00-18:01
What's the theme?
18:01-18:01
Shout it out.
18:03-18:04
according to his kind, right?
18:05-18:10
That God created things to reproduce according to their kinds, all right?
18:11-18:14
Like, man, I didn't know there was gonna be like science lessons today.
18:15-18:16
Well, here we go.
18:18-18:23
If you put two cats together, a male and a female cat, what are you gonna get?
18:25-18:29
You're like, I don't know, I'm not a biologist.
18:30-18:30
(congregation laughing)
18:34-18:36
Yeah, you get kittens, right?
18:37-18:40
And if you put two dogs together, what do you get?
18:41-18:41
Puppies.
18:42-18:45
And if you put a dog and a cat together, what do you get?
18:45-18:46
A fight, right?
18:47-18:50
But you're not going to get some hybrid animal.
18:51-18:52
Dogs only make dogs.
18:52-18:53
Cats only make cats.
18:54-18:56
Humans only make humans, right?
18:59-19:08
And that's a big problem for the fossil record, because there are no transitional forms at all in the fossil record.
19:08-19:15
You're like, "What's a transitional form?" Every fossil we find in the fossil record is one kind of animal or another.
19:16-20:01
And if evolution was true, if over millions of years, like for example, a reptile evolves into a bird, that means over millions of years that reptile should start, you know, things changing like growing beaks and wings and feathers and we should have billions of fossils of creatures that are somewhere between a reptile and a bird right we should have billions of them and you know how many we have none there has never been found one fossil of a transitional form of anything well I take that back there was there was one going back a couple of generations they But they did find a fossil that was half monkey and half fish.
20:03-20:08
And it was put on display, and people lined up and paid a lot of money to see this thing.
20:09-20:12
It was put on display by a man named P.T. Barnum.
20:13-20:22
And he was famous for saying, "A fool and his money are soon parted." So, I guess there was one.
20:25-20:28
The fossils prove the Bible.
20:31-20:47
For the reptile to turn into the bird, the question is, "Well, where does all of the genetic information come from that's eventually going to form beaks and hollow bones and wings and feathers and all of that?" Well, evolution's answer is genetic mutations, right?
20:47-20:48
What about genetic mutations?
20:48-20:56
You know, things sort of mutate on the cellular level, and that's how the information changes to go from one species of animal to another.
20:56-20:58
But there's a big problem with that.
20:58-21:00
If we're gonna be scientific, there's a big problem with that.
21:02-21:06
It's that mutations always result in a loss of information.
21:07-21:11
Mutations never result in gaining new information.
21:15-21:19
So everything we found is one thing or another in the fossil record.
21:20-21:23
and we observe animals reproduce according to their kinds.
21:25-21:26
That's what the Bible says.
21:26-21:29
So the alternative is clearly false.
21:29-21:30
We could go on and on.
21:32-21:35
But I would say on number two, science confirms creation.
21:35-21:36
Why do I believe in creation?
21:36-21:38
I would say, well, science confirms it.
21:40-21:53
A straightforward literal belief in Genesis, looking at the genealogies like in Genesis 5, would say that the earth is relatively young, somewhere between six and 10,000 years old.
21:53-21:58
And I know right now I'm saying that some of you might be rolling your eyes.
21:58-22:00
Oh, you believe that Pastor Jeff?
22:01-22:01
I do.
22:02-22:04
They're like, do you even science?
22:05-22:07
And I'm like, do you even science?
22:09-22:10
Because there's some evidences.
22:12-22:16
There's some evidences that the earth is young from science.
22:17-22:18
I'm gonna give you a couple.
22:21-22:22
One is the recession of the moon.
22:23-22:34
Did you know, did you know, scientists discovered that every year, the moon gets one and a half inches further away from the earth.
22:36-22:37
Every year.
22:39-22:49
And you're like, "You know what, Pastor Jeff, now that you say that, I have noticed that but the moon looks a little, a little further away this year than it did last year.
22:50-22:51
That makes sense.
22:53-22:59
Well, it's the result of a gravitational phenomenon called tidal bulge, that's what it's called.
23:00-23:14
So if the Bible's true, we do the math, that means 6,000 years ago, the moon would have been 750 feet closer to the earth, which is no big deal.
23:16-23:35
But if evolution's true, that the earth is 4 billion years old and the moon is over 4 billion years old, we don't even have to go back to 4 billion years, we just have to go back to 1.4 billion years ago, the moon literally would have been touching the earth.
23:38-23:42
So the biblical model makes more sense, scientifically is what I'm saying.
23:42-23:46
Also with salt in the sea, do you know that oceans get saltier every year?
23:46-23:47
Did you know that?
23:48-23:50
And you're like, "Pastor Jeff, I did notice that.
23:51-23:55
Went to the ocean on vacation, got a mouthful of the dirty fish water.
23:57-24:01
That's a little saltier than it was last year." It's true.
24:03-24:11
And the point is, it is getting saltier every year, but it's not salty enough for the earth to have been around for billions of years.
24:12-24:30
In fact, I read one scientist said, "If the earth was around for the billions of years that some say it is, the ocean would be so salty that you could literally walk across the top of it." So that doesn't fit into the old earth theory, but it certainly fits into the young earth theory. Here's another one.
24:31-24:43
Human population. You know you can calculate the years of humans being in existence by doubling human population every 150 years.
24:45-24:46
That's what people who study this thing say.
24:46-24:53
They say about every...this is a conservative number, by the way, about every 150 years the population doubles.
24:56-25:04
Well the biblical age of the earth, again, if we're going with 6,000 years, is consistent with the numbers that's yielded by such a calculation.
25:04-25:04
What?
25:08-25:09
I'm not even gonna go back billions of years.
25:10-25:12
We'll be very conservative here for the evolutionists.
25:13-25:16
We'll only go back 50,000 years, okay?
25:18-25:25
If the earth was even just 50,000 years old, according to this population model, do you know how many people there would be in the earth?
25:26-25:28
10 to the 99th power.
25:30-25:31
You're like, is that a lot?
25:33-25:36
Well, that's more than the number of atoms in the universe.
25:39-25:40
Yeah, it's a lot.
25:41-25:42
You thought your house was crowded.
25:45-25:46
Again, I could go on and on.
25:46-25:51
I have volumes of information, but here's the bottom line.
25:51-25:54
Look, here's the bottom line.
25:56-26:12
When people embrace evolution, it's not because they were looking at the science and they were like, "Oh, the science of evolution makes so much more sense than the creation of young earth science." So that has nothing to do with it.
26:14-26:22
The reason people embrace evolution is, in their minds, it helps create a worldview where there isn't a God.
26:23-26:24
That means there's no authority.
26:25-26:28
There's nobody to whom I'm accountable. There's no moral standard.
26:29-26:34
I can do what I want when I want because I'm God. Right?
26:36-26:39
And there's no salvation, there's not even a need for salvation.
26:39-26:41
That's why somebody embraces evolution.
26:42-26:46
I'd just rather not deal with the ramifications of a God to whom I am accountable.
26:47-26:51
You know, the Bible talks about that in Psalm 14.
26:52-27:04
It says, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" "How did you come up with that, fool?" "Science class?" "No." He says, "Here's exactly why they say that, "because they're corrupt.
27:05-27:07
"They do abominable deeds.
27:07-27:08
"There's none who does good.
27:08-27:09
"That's why.
27:10-27:16
"I'd just rather not deal with the fact that God exists." Science confirms creation.
27:19-27:21
Number three, why believe in creation?
27:25-27:28
Because God said he created the heavens and the earth in six literal days.
27:31-27:33
That's why. Because God said it.
27:35-27:38
God said he created the heavens and the earth in six literal days.
27:38-27:42
Like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, how do we know that God didn't use evolution?
27:43-27:48
How do we know that?" And that is the great compromise that the church has made.
27:50-27:53
That the church has said, "Hey, look, look, look, we're all about that Bible, right?
27:54-27:57
But we don't want to look unscientific.
27:59-28:16
So, I guess if the science community, who doesn't know or love God or have any regard for His Word, but if they're saying there's millions of years, then we need to try to fit those millions of years into the creation story.
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Look, we can all be friends here, right?
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We can all get along. We're all saying the same thing, aren't we?
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And then they try to put the millions of years between Genesis 1-1 and Genesis 1-2.
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That's called the "gap theory." Maybe you've heard of that.
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It's just an effort to appease evolutionists.
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Like, "Oh yeah, we believe in millions of years. We believe it happened right after verse 1." And you're like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, please don't tell me there's a problem with that." Well, there's a problem with that.
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Because Genesis says that the days of creation were literal 24-hour days.
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Meaning this, if you get an expert in the Hebrew language, and I'm not, but I've read a lot, if you get an expert in the Hebrew language and say, "What does the text actually say?" Every Hebrew language expert would say, without a shadow of a doubt, But it's clearly saying that these are 24-hour days in which God created.
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Because the Hebrew word is yom.
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And when the word yom is used with a numeric qualifier, first, second, third, it always refers to a 24-hour day, even in other places in the Old Testament.
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And when the word yom is used with the phrases morning and evening, it always refers to a 24-hour day.
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That's what the Hebrew language says.
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And in the book of Genesis, you have all of that, numerical qualifier, evening and morning.
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It was like God was like, "I'm going to make this as clear as I can." That's what the language says, that it's a 24-hour day.
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But there's an even bigger reason for me as to why these have to be literal 24-hour days, of why evolution can't fit in to the creation model.
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And it's just simply this.
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If Christians are going to try to shove millions of years into the story, then it has to look something like this.
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We're gonna do a couple timelines here.
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Then in this timeline, we're like, okay, there were like millions of years, we're gonna put Adam here, right?
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And there were millions of years of things evolving and changing, we talked about that, like amino acids to proteins to reptiles, birds, mammals, all millions of years of that.
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And then eventually we get human beings as we see them in their modern form, right?
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So this is where the millions of years are back here.
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And then eventually we get Adam.
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But what that means is this, over those millions of years, there were things evolving and changing and dying, right?
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So let's put a symbol for death.
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What would be a good symbol for death?
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Like a skull, right?
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Like, you don't wanna make it too, okay.
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There.
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So that means, is that not good?
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Is that okay? Thank you. Darren says it's great. We're going with great.
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All right. So that means there was millions of years of death before Adam, right?
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You're all with me so far? Okay.
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That's if we're going to try to put the millions of years thing into the creation story.
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But the Bible says...
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We're going to use a different color.
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So here's the biblical model though.
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The Bible says in the beginning God created, right?
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And then God created in the first creation week, Adam and Eve, right?
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And then Adam sinned and as a result of Adam's sin, part of the curse is what?
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All right.
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So do you see a problem?
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If we're gonna try to force millions of years into the creation story, you have death occurring before Adam came around, right?
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But if you look at the Bible straightforwardly, you don't have death until after Adam brought sin into the world.
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See the problem?
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Death is before Adam.
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Death is after Adam.
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It can't be both.
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So which is it?
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See, this has a lot of theological ramifications, doesn't it?
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Because when Adam and Eve sin, we're gonna talk about that in a couple of weeks, God's like, "Don't eat off that tree, or dying, you will die.
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The penalty is going to be death." If there was millions of years of death already, Adam would have been like, "The penalty is death, so what?
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We've been dealing with this for millions of years.
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Why does it matter if the penalty is death?
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And God was like, no, no, no, your sin's going to bring something into the world that was not into the world before, and it's death.
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You see the problem.
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Where does death fit in?
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Then finally, number four, Jesus believed and taught creation.
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Why do I believe in creation?
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Jesus believed and taught creation.
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Matthew 19, Jesus was asked about marriage.
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Specifically, he was asked about divorce.
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And he taught from Genesis and he taught from Genesis as if Genesis were literally true.
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When he said, he answered, "Have you not read "that he who created them from the beginning "made them male and female?" Jesus said Genesis was literally true.
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He taught that way.
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I'm just of the persuasion we should always go with Jesus' opinion on things.
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So, okay.
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Those are just a couple of reasons why I believe Genesis.
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A couple of reasons.
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And you're like, okay, Jeff, good for you.
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You have reasons to believe in the creation story, young earth, Genesis being true, good for you, Jeff.
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But the question is, so what?
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I thought we were like Jesus people.
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Like, does it really matter?
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So that's how I want to wrap this up today.
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I want to tell you why it matters.
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Does this matter?
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It does.
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It absolutely matters.
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Because God's not an abstract concept.
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God is connected to reality.
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So when Genesis talks about these things, it's not some kind of fairy tale.
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It's like, hey, God is attached here.
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God is connected here.
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He's personal.
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You're not this product of millions of years of random chances and mutations and ta-da, here we are.
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Like, no, you were personally created by God.
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So it matters.
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Creation is foundational to everything that we believe.
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Literally everything.
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But here's the big ones.
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Jot these down.
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Why it matters, letter eight determines how we view God's word.
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It determines how we view God's word.
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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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I love that the Bible doesn't explain creation or defend it.
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It just proclaims it right out of the gate.
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Well, I'm not making any apology for this.
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Look, here's how it went down.
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as Steve Zell's neck would say.
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Here's how it went down.
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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
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And as we said in the beginning, this has become the most denied verse and denied doctrine in the Bible.
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And that's Satan's strategy, because if he can get you to doubt the very first verse, maybe we'll doubt the rest of it too, right?
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Like, well, maybe creation isn't exactly the way God said it is.
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So maybe marriage isn't exactly what God said it is either.
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Maybe prayer isn't what God said it is.
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What about salvation?
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What about heaven?
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What about hell?
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I mean, maybe there's a lot of suspicious things in God's word here.
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Maybe they're not exactly as...
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Well, 2 Timothy 3.16 says, "All scripture is breathed out by God." And that's a true false question there.
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All scripture is breathed up by God.
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Is that true or is that false?
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I believe that's true.
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And if you're like, well, I kind of believe that's true too, Jeff, but you're like, really, creation?
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Really, Jeff, creation?
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If that's you, I just want to ask you, like in your Bible, at what point do you think God started telling the truth?
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Right, if you don't believe Genesis 1, did he start telling the truth in Genesis 3?
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You're like, "Oh no, I don't believe that either.
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You know, with the talking snake and, you know, the Adam and Eve and all that, I don't believe." Oh, okay, well, do you believe the flood in Genesis 6?
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I'm not sure about, okay, what about the Tower of Babel?
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Like, at what point did God start telling the truth here?
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Because according to God's word, he started telling the truth from the very first verse of his word.
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And ironically, when you read your creation account, it's nothing but statements the whole time.
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Statement, statement, statement, statement.
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Do you know what the first question is in the Bible?
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The very first question is when Satan shows up and he says, "Did God really say?
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Did God really say?" And look, Satan is crafty and he's been using that same strategy for all of human history.
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Do you know why?
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because it works.
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Just a shadow of doubt over the Word of God.
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Did God really say that?
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Did God really say that?
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So it matters because it determines how we view God's work.
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It matters because letter B, it determines how we view God.
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It determines how we view God.
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Creation is all through your Bible.
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from Genesis 1.1, I think the last reference is like Revelation 14.7.
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But every page in between, every reference to creation in between, there's an obvious point to creation, and it's this.
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It's ownership.
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Psalm 100.3 says, "Know that the Lord, He is God.
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It is He who made us.
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We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
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You see, we have this fatal flaw tied into our sinfulness that we think that we're in control.
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We think that we call the shots.
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And all of these reminders in God's Word that He created us serve to keep things into perspective.
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To say, "He is God, And I am not.
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He made us, which means we're here for Him.
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You know what matters?
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It's God's plan.
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You know what matters for my life?
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God's will matters for my life.
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Do you know what matters?
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God's wisdom is what matters.
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Because He is God and I am not.
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That's what matters.
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That's the point of creation.
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And if Christians doubt or even deem insignificant the first verse of the Bible, you're going to view the whole Bible differently.
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And you're going to view God differently.
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And you're going to view the work of Jesus differently.
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And that's a real problem.
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That's why finally, letter C, it determines how we view salvation.
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It determines how we view salvation.
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Your eternity hinges on Genesis being literally true.
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Because your theology hinges on Genesis being literally true.
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It has to be.
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It has to be.
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Or your faith has no substance.
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Well, wow, how can that be?
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Do you know Jesus is called the second Adam in the Bible?
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Did you know that?
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1 Corinthians 15, Romans 5, he's called the second Adam.
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Why?
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Because the first Adam, he was sort of a representative of us all.
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But he rebelled against God, and as a result, he brought sin and death into the world.
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Literally, he brought sin and death into the world.
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The Bible says Jesus, the second Adam, he also represented man.
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But instead of rebelling against God, he perfectly obeyed God.
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He brought forgiveness in life.
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Romans 5.15 says, "But the free gift is not like the trespass.
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For if many died through the one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many." So if the first Adam wasn't literal, and he didn't literally bring sin and death into the world, how can we make sense out of what the second Adam did?
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See this, this is the foundation for everything that follows over the next several weeks.
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I'm really sure it's just the foundation for everything that follows in your belief in the Lord, who He is, and everything He's done, it starts right here, in the beginning.
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God created the heavens and the earth.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I feel like we barely scratched the surface today, but I just ask, Father, that this is enough to get us going.
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I'm sure there are people watching this, or sitting here listening to this, that they're not on board with this.
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But I pray, Father, that You would let them do some honest research as to what Your Word actually says.
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Do some honest research as to what science actually supports.
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Because Father, at the end of the day, all that matters is what you said.
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So Father, if we're going to dig deep as to what your Word says about your Son, I pray that you would give us understanding, even from the very first verse of your Word.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Genesis 1:1
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
How would you respond to a fellow Christian saying, “It doesn't really matter if Christians believe in creation. That's just a secondary issue.”?
Why can't Christians believe God used evolution/millions of years to create? Why is that inconsistent with the Bible?
How is creation tied into our salvation? Read 1 Corinthians 15:45.
Breakout
Pray for one another.
