Voddie Baucham - In the beginning, God

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This morning. It was my responsibility as we scheduled this out,
to preach through Genesis chapter one and verse one, through
Genesis chapter one and verse twenty five, to look at
those six days of creation. Well, small problem. I'm not
going to make it past verse two. This morning, we

(00:24):
will examine Genesis chapter one, Versus one and two, and
we will answer a very simple question, A question, by
the way, that I just found out, was the number
one Google search of two thousand and seven. Google always
puts out information about it searches, you know, the top

(00:45):
celebrities searched for, and all this sort of thing, and
you know, and everybody goes and looks to see if
they won. You know that last year and none of you,
none of you won last year for the most searched celebrity.
They also put out the number one who is search,
And in two thousand and seven, the number one who
is search on Google was who is God? Number one

(01:12):
search for all of two thousand and seven. Who is God?
Inquiring minds want to know who is God. We are
unclear about who God is. Genesis Chapter one, Verses one
and two are not at all unclear about who God is.

(01:36):
There is a clear and precise proclamation of God in
Genesis chapter one, Verses one and two. There is not
a proof of God in Genesis one. That's not the
goal of the writer of Genesis to prove the existence
of God. If you are looking to proof of the
existence of God, well, you need to go to Anselm

(01:58):
and others to find philosophical proofs of the existence of God.
The writer of the Pentituch is not concerned with proving
to anyone that God exists. The writer of the Pentetuch
assumes that God exists, and that it is foolish to
assume anything other than the fact that God exists. The

(02:20):
writer of the Pedituc is far too intelligent to assume
that this world is somehow a cosmic accident. So you
will find no proof. The cosmological argument for the existence
of God not present in Genesis one. The teleological argument
for the existence of God not present in Genesis chapter one.

(02:40):
You will not find the moral argument for the existence
of God in Genesis chapter one. You will find the
proclamation of the existence of God in Genesis chapter one,
and that proclamation of God consists in the fact that
God created the heavens and the earth. The world is

(03:03):
here and as the Psalmist says, day by day, it
issues forth its speech, and it proclaims to us its creator.
That's what Genesis one, one and two is concerned with,

(03:24):
Answering that question, not is there a God, but answering
the question who is God? By the way, this is
a very pertinent question in our day, and I want
to set this out for you at the onset, this
question of who is God? Viewed from the perspective of cosmogony. Ah,

(03:47):
don't you just love that cosmology, cosmogony, all these sort
of words our understanding of the universe and the way
the universe is made, the way the universe exists. When
you look at the question of God, there are a
couple of ways to answer it. From the perspective of creation,

(04:11):
there are only a few ways to look at creation.
Free basic ways you can look at creation. Number one,
the argument that matter is eternal, the material universe is eternal.
That's number one. That's the first possibility that matter and
all of the substance that makes up this me, and

(04:33):
this table, and the tablecloth and those chairs, all of
those elements, they are eternal. They have always existed. That's
one line of argumentation, they've existed in different forms, and
perhaps you know, there are those who argue that you
know that there was once this small dense ball of matter,

(04:53):
and every bit of matter that now exists was once
condensed into this small dense ball of matter, and that
somehow there was an explosion, and as a result of
that explosion, that dense ball of matter has scattered all
over the universe, and through a process of time and chance,

(05:15):
has turned into the world that we now inhabit. But
it is eternal. There is a second possibility, and that
second possibility is that matter is not eternal, but it
generated spontaneously, generated spontaneously. There was a moment when there
was no matter, and then there was a moment when

(05:38):
there was matter. It happened spontaneously, there was no cause,
and then from there you go back to the same
starting point of what is commonly known as the Big Bang.
There is a third possibility, and that third possibility is
this that matter came into existence as the result of

(06:03):
one who stands beyond matter, who created it and called
it into existence. Those are the only three possibilities, folks.
There are no other possibilities. So if we were down
at Texas A and M, or the University of Texas,
or we were over at Rice and we were standing
in a biology class, or we were standing in a

(06:26):
chemistry class, or whatever. Whatever was being taught to us
about the universe and its origins would come from one
of those three perspectives. Either one, the professor would have
to stand there and say that matter is eternal, Two
the professor would have to stand there and say that
matter is not eternal, but it generated itself spontaneously. Or

(06:49):
three the professor would have to say that there is
someone or something outside of matter who brought matter into existence.
And that doesn't even get us to the question of
how this matter, once brought into existence, became what we
now know as the universe. It's a whole nother question
that we'll get to after we pass by verse two.

(07:12):
But those are the only three possibilities, because those are
the only three possibilities. And here's where the rubber meets
the road on today's message. When our children are taught
about the origins of the universe, they are being taught
about the existence or the non existence of God. Let

(07:34):
me say that again, When our students are being taught,
When our children are being taught about the origins of
the universe, they are being taught about the existence or
the non existence of God. If they are being taught
possibility one or two, they are being taught that atheism
is the only logical conclusion. It is only if they

(07:57):
are being taught possibility number three that theism is even possible.
And again, there are other ways to look at possibility
number three, pantheism, deism, and other things like that. That doesn't
necessarily have to be biblical theism. But whatever our children
are being taught about creation, whether we are shipping them

(08:20):
off to a school somewhere or whether we are educating
them ourselves at home and using some curriculum to teach
our children, whatever they are being taught about the origins
of the universe is laying the foundation for what they
will believe about the existence or the non existence of God.

(08:44):
So once we come to possibility number three, to this
idea that matter is not eternal, this idea that matter
was brought into existence, there are other questions that have
to be dealt with. And there are many pieces of
literature out there about the beginnings of the world. Some

(09:04):
of them come from, as I said, a pantheistic perspective
that this world basically is God, that God basically is
the world, that all of us have a spark of
the divine in us because this world itself is divine.
It's one possibility. Another possibility is the possibility of deism,

(09:26):
that somehow, yes, there was this initial creation of matter
itself and the world itself, and after that there was
this sort of big bang that randomly assimilated itself into
what we now experience. Then there's the other possibility, the
possibility of biblical theism. And that's what we see in

(09:47):
Genesis chapter one, verses one and two. It reads, in
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The
earth was without form and void, and darkness was over
the face of the deep, and the spirit of God
was hovering over the face of the waters. Simple enough, straightforward.
That's the way the Bible begins, And how else should

(10:11):
a book like this begin. Amen In the beginning, God
created the heavens and the earth. There are several things
about God inherent in this text, Inherent in these first
words in the text. In the Hebrew, there are these
three words beer, sheath, bar ah, Elohim, bever sheath. In
the beginning, that word connotes not time or space. It

(10:34):
connotes beyond time or space. So when we talk about
this beer sheath, we're not talking about a long time ago.
It's very important when we talk about God. In the
existence of God, we don't use terms like time because
God created time, space, and matter. So God exists outside
of time. The theological term for that is God is eternal.

(10:57):
God has always existed. God is not bound by time
or space. So when we talk about God, we're not
talking about a man who is very, very old. We're
not talking about a man at all. We'll see that momentarily.
We are talking about God who exists out time, outside
of time and space. Imagine it this way, if you will.
Time can basically be represented by a straight line by

(11:23):
a point here and an arrow heading out that way,
or a point here and a point there at the
beginning of time, the end of time two points and
a line connecting those two points. Now along that line,
if this line represents all of time and all of
human history, there would be this point over here, which
is the point of creation, and then over here you'd

(11:43):
have Adam and Eve, and then you could have you know,
Abraham and the patriarchs and Moses. You can put them
on there anywhere on that timeline, and then you know,
down here, somewhere there would be the cross, for you know,
the time of Christ. Down here, somewhere you have the
end of time. Now the question is where do you
put God on that line? The answer you don't. You don't.

(12:11):
God is not bound by time and space. All time
is equally accessible to God. So if the line is
this line here on the floor, God is outside of
that line and is able to look down on all
of it. God is eternal. God always has existed, and

(12:33):
God always will exist. Now here's what's ironic. What's ironic
is you stand up and say in our culture, God
is eternal, and people say, well, you know, I just
don't know that. I believe that really, But you believe
that matter and the universe are eternal. One of those

(12:55):
makes you the intellectual elite. Another one makes you a
narrow minded religious fanatic. Imagine that some thing's eternal. Amen
is it matter? That makes no sense whatsoever? And we'll
talk about that in a moment. Why it doesn't make
sense at all? That matter would be that which is eternal?

(13:17):
God is that which is eternal. By the way, here's
what's beautiful about that. There are the passages of scripture
that talk about this attribute of God being eternal. My favorite,
of course, is in John chapter one. Those first three
verses in John chapter one. In the beginning was the Word,
and the word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. Now we know

(13:38):
that John chapter one is talking about Jesus, So Jesus
is co eternal with the Father. We also know because
of here in verse two, that the Spirit is co
eternal with the Father. So when we talk about the
God who creates, we are talking about the Father. We
are talking about the Son. We are talking about the Spirit.

(13:58):
It's not like Jesus was absent during creation. Colossians chapter
one also makes that very clear. So the triune God
of the universe is the eternal God. It's very important
to realize that when Jesus came into the world through
Mary's womb, he did not come into existence through Mary's womb. Amen,

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he has always existed. He just went and got a body. Amen.
He just went and wrapped eternal God in flesh. God
is eternal. There was never a time when there was
not God. There will never be a time when there

(14:42):
is not God. God is eternal. The universe is not eternal.
Beer Sheath in the beginning, Barrah in the beginning created.
That word Barrah is only used for God. That word
does not mean to make something. That word means to

(15:03):
bring something into existence. Don't miss that this word is
only used as the prerogative of God as he creates
ex nihilo out of nothing. God is the only one
capable of doing that. Now, we have a lot of
handy people here in the room. We got a whole
lot of homeschoolers around the room, and those of you,

(15:25):
you know, one of the things that I had the
privilege of doing is being at homeschool conventions and state
conventions around you know, the United States and homeschool conventions,
the state conventions for homeschoolers. That's a place for those
of you who are not homeschoolers. The state convention is
a place where homeschoolers go to feel guilty. It is
it is because we find out all the stuff that

(15:45):
everybody's doing that we're not doing, and then you just
feel guilty and you go home and whatever. You know,
there's a conversation that happened once at the homeschool convention.
There this conversation between two homeschool children and they were
talking about their parents and what they do. Home schoolers
are very resourceful people, and they were getting into conversations

(16:06):
about the bookshelves in their house and well, you know,
my daddy made the book shelves in our house. And
well that's okay, my dad eat. My daddy built our house,
you know, by himself, his own hands, okay, whatever. They're
talking about the food as they they were getting ready
eat sandwiches, and they took out the sandwich, and you know,
one boy said, well, well, my mommy made my sandwich,
and the other boy says, well, my mommy not only
made my sandwich, my mommy made the bread that my
sandwich is on. And he goes, really, cause my mommy

(16:27):
made my bread too, but she ground her own wheat.
And then the other boy goes, well, good for your mommy.
Not only did my mommy grind her own wheat, My
mommy grew her own wheat. And then the one homeschool
boy was kind of stuck. You know, he goes, well, well, yeah, well, well,

(16:50):
well well my mo mommy, my mommy, my mommy. She
grew her own wheat. And you know the water that
we watered it with. My mommy made that too. Well,
there you went a little far. You see. Human beings
can make things, but we cannot create things. You and

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I are incapable of making matter from nothing. We can't
do that. I can take something, and I can use
that something in order to produce something else, but I
cannot in and of myself produce matter. I can't do it.

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Produce time, produce space. I can't do it. So not
only is God eternal, but God is the eternal creator
of the universe. God created the universe. He spoke the
world into existence. God did not borrow what was already

(18:00):
here and turn it into something else. Therefore, if we
believe that the universe is eternal, we cannot believe Genesis
chapter one, because if the universe is eternal, then the
wrong word is used here for what God did when
he made this world as we now know it. Because

(18:21):
if the universe is eternal, God did not create the
world out of nothing. He made the world out of
what already existed. But the Bible says that God created
the universe. Not only that, but if we deny the
fact that God created the universe, and this is what

(18:41):
people try to do. It's interesting that we try to
do this. We try to separate the world into these
two realms. You know, Oh, we have the realm of
faith over here, and then we have the realm of
science over here. And you have people who on the
one hand, claim to be Christians and on the other hand,
buy into these ideas of cosmology that are absolutely unbiblical.
Not only are they unbiblical, but they would force you

(19:06):
to deny all of scripture. If you believe in an
eternal universe, and if you believe in a God who
maybe just participated a little bit in this process of creation,
you must deny the whole Bible, not just part of
the Bible, not just Genesis. That's not just what we're

(19:27):
talking about here. Look with me, for example, and there's
a lot of verses of Scripture here, but we need
to read these. I want you to give a feel
for what we're dealing with here. Exodus, chapter twenty and
verse eleven. For in six days, the Lord made heaven
and earth, the sea and all that is in them,
and rested on the seventh day. So now we have
to reject the pentituch Job thirty eight to four. Where

(19:50):
were you when I laid the foundations of the earth.
Tell me if you have understanding. So now we got
a problem with Job. Look at Psalm chapter eight, verse three,
when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you have set in
space Psalm ninety six, verse five. For all the gods

(20:12):
of the peoples were worthless idols, but the Lord made
the heavens Psalm one o two, verse twenty five. Of
old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the
heavens are the work of your hands. Psalm one fifteen,
verse fifteen. May you be blessed by the Lord who
made heaven and earth Psalm twenty one, verse two. My
help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth

(20:34):
Psalm one thirty four, verse three. My Lord bless you
from Zion, he who made heaven and earth Psalm one
thirty six, verse five. To him who by understanding made
the heavens, for his steadfast love endures forever Psalm one
forty six, verse six. Who made heaven and earth, the

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sea and all that is in them, who keeps faith
forever Psalm one forty eight, verse four and five. Praise him,
you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens. Let
them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded
and they were created. So now not only we have
to get rid of the law, we got to get
rid of the wisdom books, because they are clear about
the fact that God created the heavens and earth. Well,

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what about the prophets? Listen to Jeremiah verse ten, chapter ten,
verse twelve. It is he who made the earth by
his power, who established the world, by his wisdom, and
by his understanding, he stretched out the heavens. Jeremiah thirty
two seventeen. Our Lord God, it is you who has
made the heavens and the earth. By your great power

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and by your outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
Jeremiah chapter fifty one and verse fifteen. It is he
who made the earth by his power, who established the world,
by his wisdom, and by his understanding, stretched out the heavens.
So now we have to get rid of the prophets. Well,
what about when we come to the New Testament Mark
chapter thirteen and verse nineteen, For in those days there

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will be such tribulation as is not been seen from
the beginning of the creation of God created until now
and never will be. John chapter one, Verses one and two.
We already read Acts chapter four and verse twenty four.
And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together
to God and said, Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven
and the earth and the sea and everything in them.

(22:20):
How about Acts Chapter seventeen, verse twenty four. The God
who made the world and everything in it, being Lord
of heaven and Earth, does not live in temples made
by hands. So now we have to get rid of
the Gospels, and we already have to get rid of Acts. Well,
we have epistles left, don't we know? We don't Romans
Chapter one, nineteen and twenty. For what can be known
about God is playing to them, because He has shown

(22:40):
it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal
power divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the
creation of the world in the things that have been
created Verse Corinthians, Chapter eight and verse six. Yet for
us there is one God, the Father, from whom all
things are and for whom we exist, and one Lord,
Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, through whom we

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exist Ephesians chapter three and verse nine. And to bring
to light for everyone. That is the plan of the
mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things.
How about Hebrews, For every house is built by someone,
but the builder of all things is God. How about

(23:24):
tewod Peter chapter three and verse five, For they delivered
or deliberately overlooked this fact that the heavens existed long ago,
and the earth was formed out of the water and
through the water by the word of God. How about
we get the revelation. Maybe we can hold on to
that and to the Angel of the Church that leaders.
Here write the words of the Amen, the faithful and

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true witness the beginning of the creation of God Revelation
chapter ten, verse six. And swore by Him who lives
forever and ever, Amen, who created heaven, And what is
in it? Revelation chapter twenty one, verse six. And he
said to me it is done. I am the Alpha
of the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty,
I will give from the spring of the water of

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life without payment twenty two to thirteen. I am the
Alpha of the Omega, the first and the last, the
beginning and the end. You give up on the idea
that God created the earth. You give up on the
whole Bible. So when people argue that when we're talking
about creation, we're just having a conversation about Genesis, they lie.

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They are deceived, and they are deceiving others. We give
up on creation, we give up on the whole Bible.
We give up on the Law, we give up on
the Wisdom books. We give up on the prophets. We
give up on the Gospels, we give up on acts,
we give up on the epistles, we give up on Revelation,
we give up on everything everything. So this is not

(25:02):
just about Genesis trying to be poetic. This is about
the clear message of the Bible, from word one to
word last, that there is an eternal God who was
the creator of all things. Not only is God eternal,

(25:24):
and not only is God the creator, but God is
also the sustainer of all things. In the beginning, God
created the heavens and the earth. Listen to this. The
earth was without form and void, and darkness was over
the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God
was hovering over the face of the water. Here here's
what's interesting. God didn't just make the complete creation in

(25:47):
a moment. He didn't just do that, and we're gonna
look at how it unfolded over six days. But God
didn't just stand up and go now and everything is there,
perfect in pristine. No. First God creates the primordial matter
from which he will create the world in that interesting.

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So the argument that somehow God just threw it all
out there and then was uninvolved goes completely out of
the window, because first God created matter, then turned matter
into what we now see, experience, live in, and are.
God was actively involved in creation and continues to be

(26:34):
actively involved in creation. So the idea of deism, the
idea of the watchmaker, goes completely out of the window,
because now we see the providence of God, as God
is intimately and intricately involved with every aspect of creation.
Nothing is done by accident. There is not one rogue

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molecule in the entire universe, not one. He is the sustainer,
Acts Chapter seventeen. Turn there with me if you will, Acts,
Chapter seventeen, beginning of verse twenty two. I love this

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passage descripture. I love this interaction Paul dealing with his
pagan culture, meeting them right where they are and arguing
philosophy with them, because God makes sense philosophically. Amen, doesn't
matter where you go. You can't run from God. You know, well,
I'll go to science. That's fine. Genesis will find you there. Well,

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I'll run the philosophy. That's cool. Paul will be waiting
for you when you get there. You know, where are
you gonna go? Well, I'll go to the Law. That's great. Leviticus,
He'll be there ahead, Exodust, Deuteronomy, They'll all be there
ahead of you. You want to run to the law
and run away from God. You can't get away from God.
There there is no discipline where you can get away
from God. You can't do it. You can't do it.

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And so here there are in philosophy. So what's Paul
gonna do? They're over there in Philosophy Acts, Chapter seventeen,
be Guinea, verse twenty two. So Paul, standing in the
midst of the Areopogust, said, men of Athens, I perceive
that in every way you are very religious. For as
I passed along and observed the objects of your worship,

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I found an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.
By the way they gather here at the areopagus, and
they're always learning and teaching something new. Now they realized
that there were gods and deities and religions out there
that they didn't know anything about, and they didn't want
to offend anybody, so they had to catch all. And

(28:57):
the catch all was this altar to the unknown God.
So somebody comes in and talks to them about the
God that they don't know, and they can just kind
of go, oh cool, we got something for him too,
right over there, Paul says to him, to them, rather,
what therefore you worship as unknown? This I proclaim to

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you the God who made the world and everything in it.
Don't miss that, the God who made the world and
everything in it, not one random molecule. There's not one
molecule that God's out searching for, not one, not one.

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Being Lord of heaven and Earth, does not live in
temples made by man, nor is he served by human
hands as though he needed anything, since He himself gives
to all mankind life and breath and everything. He gives
to who life and breath and everything all mankind, which
means that God did not divorce himself from the universe

(30:00):
thousands of years ago when he created man. He didn't
just say here, I'm going to create man. I'm going
to put within man this ability to reproduce, and these
laws of reproduction will give us future men. But I
myself will sit on my throne and I will not
have to be involved in that process. No, read it again,

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Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Whatever you have, you got it from God. He made
from one man every nation of mankind to live on
all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods

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and the boundaries of their dwelling places, that they should
seek God in hope that they might feel their way
toward Him and find him it. He is actually not
far from each one of us. God is not just
the creator of the universe. He's the sustainer of the universe.
Every people group finds its origin in God. Every nation

(31:10):
with a boundary has a boundary that was set up
by God. Every person who has life and breath and
being has it directly from the hand of Almighty God,
not as the result of a cosmic accident. God is
the eternal creator and sustainer of the universe. Not only that,

(31:33):
but we see here that God is also omnipotent. Omnipotent
God has all power. God is the one who brought
everything into existence, which means that there is nothing in
the world over which He does not have power. Listen
to this from aw Pink in the beginning. God created
the heaven and the Earth, and that argues he is

(31:57):
infinite and omnipotent. No finite being possesses the power to create,
and none but an omnipotent being could create the heavens
and the earth. Amen a w Pink. He's omnipotent. God
has all power because he creates and sustains the universe,
because every molecule of the universe was created by God.

(32:21):
God knows every molecule of the universe. God directs every
molecule of the universe. God controls every molecule of the universe.
There is nothing beyond the power of God. There has
never been, nor will they ever be a moment where
God wonders what to do. He has all power. It's

(32:42):
the beautiful statement that Jesus makes when he is resurrected.
All power has been given to me in heaven and
on earth. All power it's been given to him by
his father. All power, not some power, not a lot
of power, but all power not superhuman supernatural. God is omnipotent.

(33:06):
He has all power. There is no realm where God
is helpless, none whatsoever. Thirdly, God is necessary. God is necessary.
The fact that God is eternal and that God created
all other things means that God is inherently necessary. What

(33:30):
does that mean? I'm not necessary? The world came into existence.
I was nowhere to be found. God did not consult me.
God did not need me. Amen. As a matter of fact,
God inherently needs nothing nothing. So all this, you know,
God created the universe out of a need to create,

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or out of a need for man. Help you if
you believe that God needs nothing. We saw that Acts
Chapter seventeen. He's not served by human hands as though
he needs anything. God doesn't need you. He's going to
prove it one day because you're going to die and
the earth is going to keep on spinning. He doesn't

(34:14):
need you. He doesn't need me. By the way, That
makes his grace that much more magnificent. Amen. God does
not need me, and yet he has redeemed me and
uses me for his glory and his purposes. The almighty God,
who needs nothing, He's the only necessary being. Why Because

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He's the only thing without which there is nothing else,
Which means any student who is taught that creation is
even possible without God is being taught that God is
not a necessary being. If God is not a necessary being,
then he is inherently not God. Therefore, anyone who is
taught that God is not necessary is actually taught that

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God does not exist. So our wonderful Christian teachers who
pat themselves on the back because well, in my biology class,
I teach them what the textbook says about all that
evolution stuff. But then I teach them that there's another theory,

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another theory, here's one that's possible. So all these people
who are now fighting tooth and nail, we want creation
taught in the schools right alongside evolution. We don't want
them teaching the scriptures per se. We just want them
teaching that this is one theory and here is another. No, sir,

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according to that God is not a necessary being. If
God is not a necessary being, God is not God.
You follow me. God is God all by himself. As

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I've said before, I'll say again, God's not running for God, Amen.
In this primary season. God's not biting his nails about
the primaries, y'all. He was the only one around when
the votes were cast. There's never going to be a recount.
He's God all by himself, and he is the only

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inherently necessary being in the universe, the only one. In fact,
because of this attribute of God being necessary, anyone who
argues against the existence of God is actually arguing against
his own existence. He's the only necessary being. Not only

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is God the only necessary being and this omnipotent being,
but God is this self sustaining being. He's the only
self sustaining being, which is why we desperately need the
very providence of God. In the beginning, God created the

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heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, it
was void in the Hebrew tovu wohu bohu, one of
the favorite phrases of beginning Hebrew students. It was formless,
it was void, and it was dark. But the spirit

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of God hovers along the face of the waters doing
what you see that in verse three. He begins this
work of taking this primordial matter and forming it into
what we now know, into what we now see in

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the universe. Who is God? I'll tell you who God is.
God is the eternal creator of the universe, who is omnipotent,
who is intelligent, who is actively involved sustaining his creation,

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who is the only necessary and the only completely self
contained being that there ever was. That's who God is.
Is that all that God is. And that's just verse

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one and two, the first book in the Bible. Okay,
but I don't know about you. I can get somewhere
with that, right there, Aaron, I can get a long
way with that. Here's what I want you to see.
Here's what I want you to understand, because so many
Christians in this day and age, you know, are sort

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of caught up with this idea that somehow, because science
has proven that the world is billions of years old, well,
by the way, that's assumption number one. Science has not
proven anything about the age of the universe. Nothing about
the age of the universe. All of that is based
on assumptions. All of it is based on assumption, and

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it's all being changed constantly because the assumptions change constantly.
Scientists can't tell you how old the universe is. They
can't tell you if it's three billion years is thirty
billion years old? I don't know about you. Three billion
years old, thirty billion years old, that's a lot to

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me a man that's not being off by a decade.
So is the hear three billion years old? Or is
it thirty billion years old? Or is the earth three
billion years old? Or is it two billion years old?
And people will argue, well, you know, three billion years
ten billion years not that big of a difference. Well,
here's the deal. If you acknowledge the fact that you

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can be off by billions of years, how come the
earth can't be between six and ten thousand years old?
I mean, if you can be off by billions of years,
and you got three billion, and you could be off
by a billion or two, how come much crazy to
say six to ten thousand years. We've already acknowledged that
you can be off by billions, Right, you say one

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more thing here before we close verses one and two.
There are many who try to make the creation accountant
genesis jive with the old Earth. And what they do
is they put an undefined length of time between verse

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two and verse three. It's called the gap theory. Okay,
it's called the gap theory. What the gap theory does
is it allows people to sell. On the one hand,
I believe Genesis. And on the other hand, I'm a
scientific person because I believe that the earth is billions

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and billions of years old. And the way that I
reconcile those two is, I say, right here, you know,
the earth was without form and void, and darkness was
over the face of the deep, and the spirit of
God was hovering over the waters. And in verse three
and God said, we don't know how long it was
between hovering over the face of the waters. And God said,

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that's the gap theory. That's the gap theory. Small problem.
What does Exodus twenty and eleven say, in six days
God created the heavens and the earth, and on the
seventh day he rested. See what the gap theory does

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is the gap theory has God creating matter and in
billions of years pass by, and then God goes to
work with the matter. Problem is, the creation of matter
is part of the creation of the world. Gap theory
doesn't work. You can't get there from here. All of

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these ways of trying to make things jive with science.
Here's what's interesting to me. Science tells us that though
ninety nine percent of us here in this room were
raised with science books that said Pluto was a planet.
Now science admits that they're wrong. Pluto does not meet

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the criteria for being a planet. Pluto is not a planet.
So what has science said to us? Science has said
to us, we don't even know about our closest neighbors
and our own galaxy, but we can tell you how
old the whole thing is. Bless your spirit if you
want to trust that Pluto's not a planet. But you're

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a non scientific thinker. If you don't believe the world
is billions and billions of years old, isn't that interesting?
Science has not proven that the world has beings of
years old, but that didn't keep people from writing it.
Science hadn't proven that Pluto was a planet. Didn't keep
people from writing it, didn't keep you and me from

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believing it learning it. I got tests. I passed tests
on the Solar System with a lie I did. I
need to go back to my elementary school science and
my teacher needs to remark my exam on the Solar
System because I said Pluto was a planet. Pluto's not

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a planet. I was wrong. But we don't do that.
Why don't we do that? Because that's the nature of science. See,
here's the other thing people have tried to teach us
science is accurate and absolute, religion not so much. Really

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is science precise and absolute? Of course it's not. That's
why we continue to grow, and we continue to learn,
and we continue to discover things scientifically. All the time.
The bubonic plague, we didn't understand that. I mean, we

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didn't get it. We didn't understand viruses. We didn't get it.
We didn't understand it. Now we have a better understanding.
That's the nature of science. So the first thing I
want you to understand is you don't have to be

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held captive to this idea that somehow there is a
world over here that's scientific and then there's a world
over here that's religious. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Genesis means what it says, and says what it means,

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and where it attempts to be scientific, it is scientific
and it is accurate. And Genesis teaches that God created
the heavens and the earth, that He is the creator
and the sustainer of the universe, that He is a necessary,
intelligent being who is intricately and intimately involved with the

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world today. That's what Genesis one, one and two teaches
know that, and also know that anything that we are
holding on to that denies any aspect of that is
out of bounce. And we better be careful. If we're

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wrong about creation. We're wrong about a lot of things.
I'll give you one example and we'll close with this.
If the creation account in Genesis is not literal, and
there'll be more on this next week. The creation account
in Genesis is not literal, then we've also already demonstrated

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that the rest of the Bible is not trustworthy because
the rest of the Bible talks about the creation account
as literal. But if the creation account is not literal,
then what we read there in Acts chapter seventeen is
really off base. Because in Acts chapter seventeen, and in
Romans five and several other places, we read the same

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account that we read in Genesis one that from one
man Adam God created all men roaming. Chapter five we
read that because of the fall of one man Adam,
all of us fell in des sin Well. Newsflash, if

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we are talking about a long period of time that
was thousands, if not millions of years, then Adam is
no longer a man. Adam is now a race of men,
and the account of the Fall is a fairy tale

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and we no longer have redemption through the one man
Jesus Christ. Still think it doesn't matter. If Adam was
not a man and Eve was not a woman, we

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don't have a leg to stand on as it relates
to the definition of marriage. Think about that. How do
we define marriage as one man and one woman for
life if Adam wasn't one man and Eve wasn't one woman.
But they represent a race of men and women over

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a period of thousands or millions of years. Marriage can
be configured any number of ways. You still think it
doesn't matter, It matters. Let's pray