In The Beginning, Chapter Two - What Believers Should Believe

What Believers Should Believe About Creation

There are certain things that believers should believe about the creation of the world.

Let me illustrate why this is important. Is it necessary for someone to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin to become born again? Not at all! Why? Because someone may not have heard that doctrine before or understood what it meant. But - let me be clear - once this new believer learns what the Bible says about the virgin birth, then his only option is to believe it!

Although the belief of a young earth and a literal creation isn't necessary as a prerequisite for salvation; once a believer learns what the Bible says about this topic, it then requires their faith. Not knowing what the Bible says may be excusable, but knowing it and choosing not to believe it is not!

We Believe The Bible

The Bible is the inerrant, infallible, unchanging Word of the God Who cannot lie. Everything it says is truth, from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of Revelation. In it, God's character is revealed and His acts are made known. Every believer should have complete faith in it's trustworthiness - after all, it is this very Word that brings their salvation!

Sadly, instead letting God speak for Himself on the topic of creation, too many believers are taking outside ideas and reading them into the Bible. Whenever these compromising Christians see a contradiction between the secular interpretation of the natural world and what the Bible says - they feel free to butcher the plain reading of the Bible to preserve the integrity of fallen man's opinion. What audacity! It's simple; is God's Word true or isn't it? If it is, then it's completely true - there is no gray area here!

As believers, we have the responsibility to start with the Bible and line up our world view with what it teaches. This is true of the Old Testament as well as the New. We cannot embrace the spiritual concepts of the New Testament without first accepting the natural concepts of the Old. Jesus (God in the flesh) believed in a literal Genesis and a young earth, as did Paul. Peter wrote about an actual global flood, and Jude wrote of a real person named Enoch. Can you see that a historical Genesis was a major part of what the New Testament writers believed?

It is vital to know that, when we are forming our worldview, we must start from the Word of God. When someone’s interpretation of evidence disagrees with the Bible, we as believers don't get a choice in what to believe!

Later on, we will see that no scientific evidence by itself disagrees with the the Bible - only a person's interpretation of that evidence. For example, the rock layers themselves do not disagree with the Bible, only the interpretation that those rock layers are millions of years. We, as Christians, don't deny the evidence of science - we simply have a different interpretation of that evidence!

When we start from God's Word, we can see that we won't have any problems with the real science - and this is true from the Bible's very first verse.

We Believe In God At The Very Beginning

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning, God..."

The Bible never tries to explain God's existence, it simply asserts that He is. He always has been. There has never been a time when He hasn't existed - in fact, He was the one who started the clock of time!

Genesis 21:33 "Then Abraham...called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God."

Psalm 90:2 "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."

God doesn’t need a reason to exist. He doesn’t need a cause. He is the cause of every effect. He is the eternal, pre-existent One! God was. God is. God will always be. It's just that simple!

Werner Gitt and the Law of Information

A German engineer (and a young-earth creationist) named Werner Gitt developed a scientific law known as the Law of Information. Simply put, this law states that information in general can only come from an intelligent source. When you think about it, this is a very simple concept. This law is the reason we can see the difference between an arrowhead and a pebble. It's the reason we appreciate a fine sculpture and not wind-eroded boulders. We understand and recognize when intelligent effort is used.

The law of information is seen in every part of our world. Think about this:

• The earth is exactly the right distance from the sun; not too far, not too close.
• It spins at the precise speed necessary.
• Its atmosphere is the perfect balance of elements needed to support life
• The moon is at exactly the right distance from the earth to control the tides
• Of all the planets we've seen, the earth is the only one known to have water - vital to our survival.

Earth is truly a masterpiece of engineering!

But even the life on earth is wonderfully complex and intricately designed. Life's simplest building blocks are the cells. But, as simple as these structures seem - they are incredibly complex and organized! The simplest single cell is easily as complex as any one of our major cities. They each have hundreds of systems working together in complete harmony and precise order. As if that weren't enough, each cell works together with other cells to form the intricate organs, bones, muscles and tissues of every plant and animal species - as well as our own bodies. Each of us is made from 60 trillion of these complicated structures!

The center of each cell holds something even more amazing - DNA. DNA is like the program of the body. Each strand is capable of holding massive amounts of information. Amazingly, this information is coded, written in its own language! For decades, scientists have been working to understand our own DNA, but they are still far from being able to read what is written on it.

Just how much information does our DNA hold? If you were collect a single tablespoon of DNA, that tablespoon could hold enough information to fill 15 trillion CDs! That's 1.2 quadrillion (the number after trillion) megabytes of coded information - on a spoon! Even more amazing is the fact that the very code that is needed to read the information, is also written on the DNA! Without that one code, all of the rest would just be gibberish!

So who wrote all of this? This is a major issue with the theory of evolution. According to the law of information, the complex genetic code had to come from an intelligent source. Coding like this cannot write itself, just ask any one of the thousands of programmers we hire to write our computer codes. And yet we have something vastly more complex written on every part of our bodies! Someone had to write it!

“All information comes from an intelligent source.” As believers, we have no problem with this - because we believe, "In the beginning, God.."

We Believe That Creation Was Accomplished in Six Actual Days

Whether you simply read through the creation account in Genesis 1 or you study every word of it in depth - you would always get the impression of literal, 24-hour days. You would never develop some other theory if the Bible is your only starting point. Sadly, there is a theory inside the church that isn't an interpretation of God's Word, but an attempt to harmonize the secular theory of millions of years and the biblical account of creation. This theory is known as the day-age theory.

Let's briefly examine again what the day-age theory proposes. In an attempt to make the Bible agree with the secular idea that the rock layers have recorded extremely long ages of time, a geologist named Arnold Guyot formed this theory. His taught that each day of creation wasn’t actually a 24-hour day, but a different “epoch in time.”

2 Peter 3:8 “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

Day-age theorists base their theory on this verse - claiming that this could mean that the creation week was actually six different ages of creation. They also bring out the fact that the Hebrew word for day (yom) doesn’t always apply to a 24-hour period of time. These two Biblical truths (the Hebrew word for day and 2 Peter 3:8), combine with a secular interpretation of the rock layers to form the pillars of the Day-Age Theory.

So What's Wrong With The Day-Age Theory?

We've already established that believers should always start from the Bible, and use what the Bible says to form their worldview. However, let's be clear about this - the very foundation of the Day-Age Theory (i.e. the idea that millions of years can be seen in the rock layers) is fundamentally flawed to begin with! When you see large fossils such as trees, whales, and others that are buried in several different rock layers - it's obvious that those layers could not have formed over millions of years. In fact, the very existence of a fossil implies a rapid, watery burial - covering the creature before it could decompose and decay.

It's obvious, then, that the supposed scientific argument for the Day-Age theory is unnecessary. But what about the Biblical arguments? It is true that 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that with God "one day is as a thousand years." Does this mean that the creation week was actually several long periods of time? Not at all! This verse has absolutely nothing to do with creation! Whatever ground they could have taken with the first phrase, is lost with the second: "...and a thousand years as one day." The point of this verse is that God doesn't see time same way we do - that's all!

It's also true that the Hebrew word "yom" doesn't always apply to a literal, 24-hour day. Sometimes it can mean an indeterminate amount of time. But, the Bible is always clear when it means a true day and when it means a period of time. If there is a number attached to the day ("the fourteenth day of the month" or "the spies searched the land for forty days") it is always talking about a real, 24-hour day. So when you look at Genesis 1 and see:

"the first day"

"the second day"

"the third day"

"the fourth day"

"the fifth day"

"the sixth day"

You don't have to wonder if they were real days! Using this law of interpreting "yom" we can see that these were simply "days."

But God makes this fact even more clear in Genesis chapter 1. A second rule for interpreting "yom" can also be seen in the scriptures. Any time this word is used with a time of day or a time of night - the word always carries the meaning of a 24-hour period of time. Look at these verses for example:

Exodus 18:13 "And so it was, on the next day, that Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening."

Judges 20:26 "They sat there before the LORD and fasted that day until evening."

1 Samuel 30:17 "Then David attacked them from twilight until the evening of the next day."

When we see a time of day in each of these verses, we can be sure that the word "yom" is referring to an actual day and not a period of time.

Now, there are times when the word "yom" does mean a indefinite period of time. Phrases like "the day of judges" and "the day of trouble" are not talking about literal days. How do we know? Because there is no number attached to "yom" - and there is no time of day used in connection. There is no excuse for confusion on this issue, the Bible is always clear about what definition of "yom" is being used.

So what about Genesis 1? In addition to the six specific numbers that are attached to the days, there is always a time of day connected as well!

"There was evening and morning, the first day"

"There was evening and morning, the second day"

"There was evening and morning, the third day"

Every one of the six days of creation have a number and two times of day attached to them. So there are three times in each day that God made a point to show us that they were real days! How much clearer could He have been?

Let's use a little bit of common sense. If each of these days were actually long amounts of time - hundreds of millions of years - why would God make plants on day three, the sun on day four, and pollinating insects on day five? How long was this period of that the plants had to exist without the sun? And then, did they have to wait another long period of time before they had insects to pollinate them?

We Believe That The Beginning Was Around 6,000 Years Ago

Do you remember what every believer's starting point should be? The Bible! You see, the Bible isn't vague about when creation happened. There are strings of dates and lifespans that stretch from the beginning of the Bible to the end. It is extremely simple to find out the approximate date for creation - if you take the Bible for what it clearly says!

First of all, you take the first event that we have a solid, historical date for. This happens to be the construction of the first Temple. We know from extra-biblical sources that construction began in 970 BC. Working from there, we move backwards through the Bible:

• We know that the Temple was begun 480 years after the exodus
• We know that the exodus occurred 430 years after Abram left Haran
• We know that Abram left Haran 429 years after the flood
• We know that the flood occurred 969 years after Methuselah was born
• And we know that Methuselah was born 687 years after creation

When we work the numbers, we can see that the flood of Noah’s day occurred about 4,500 years ago. We can also see that creation occurred no later than around 4,000 BC, or 6,000 years ago.

This is extremely simple. It is based on a straight-forward reading of what the Bible says, and is not in any way contradicted by a deeper study of God’s Word. The only times this has ever been confused is when simple-minded believers try to reconcile the ideas of fallen man with the truth of God’s Word. As a believer, we must start from the Bible - not a theory, opinion, or idea. As the scripture says, “Let God be true, and every man a liar.”

What about the Gap Theory?

Genesis 1:1,2 "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."

We've seen that the Gap Theory has tried to force millions of years between these two verses. Their claim that God never makes anything formless and void has led them to invent an entire mythology. A world that existed before the creation week was inhabited by, a pre-adamite race of beings. These beings were ruled by Lucifer himself for eons of time. When he got puffed up with pride, he led a rebellion from earth to Heaven to fight against God. In response, God kicked Lucifer from heaven and sent a global flood to judge the world. This, they say, accounts for Satan's fall, demons (the disembodied souls of the pre-adamite beings), and the water-covered world of Genesis 1:2. They also claim that “Lucifer’s flood” accounts for the fossil record.

Many preachers and well-meaning Christians hold to this view of creation. It's taught in Bible colleges around the world. But very few believers know that its founder (Thomas Chalmers) developed it as a compromise with Charles Lyell's godless theory of an extremely old earth. The Gap Theory is not based on the Bible, but on a secular interpretation of the earth's rock layers. One well-known theologian said this after promoting the theory, "Let the rocks say what they may." In other words, "let's interpret the Bible so that it doesn't disagree with the secular idea of millions of years."

There are two major arguments that Gap Theorists use to promote their theory:

1. "God never makes anything formless and void; therefore, something had to happen to cause it to be that way. The only other time the world was covered in water was when God judged the world in Noah's day. So the water-covered world could have been the result of judgement."

2. "God told Adam and Eve to 'replenish' the earth - meaning to fill it again. This means that the world was populated before Adam. This race of beings was probably wiped out by the flood of Genesis 1:2"

These arguments can sound convincing, but a closer look shows their flaws.

First, the state of the earth had nothing to do with judgement. The earth was formless because God hadn't formed it yet! All He did in verse one was lay its foundation! It was void (or empty) because He hadn't filled it yet!

Where I live, there was a running joke about a particular restaurant. The owner of this particular restaurant wanted to build at a new location - but do it all debt-free. So, he only built as much as he had money for. For months, the foundation and framework sat, unformed and unfilled...waiting for the next step of the project. While this attracted a lot of ridicule, it serves as a perfect example of what we see in Genesis 1:2. This verse is not talking about a judged earth, it's talking about an unfinished earth - there's a huge difference!

Secondly, God never told Adam and Eve to "refill" the earth! The King James translated the Hebrew word "male" (mal-ay) as "replenish." But this is a poor translation of "male" - this word simply means to fill! In the Hebrew, there is absolutely no indication of mankind populating the earth again! They were simply told to fill the earth and bring it under their control.

There are actually much stronger arguments against the Gap Theory than for it.

For the first argument, look at what Ezekiel 28:13 says about Lucifer: "You were in Eden, the Garden of God..." Before he fell, Lucifer had been in the Garden of Eden. This means that he couldn't have fallen between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, because God created the Garden in Genesis 2 - on day six!

Second, look at Jesus' own words in Matthew 19:4 - "And He answered and said to them, 'Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female?'" Jesus, quoting from Genesis 1, said that the creation of Adam and Eve was "at the beginning." This is easily understood if the creation of mankind occurred on day 6. But if Adam and Eve were created at the end of a long age of time (as the Gap Theory states) or during the final era of creation (as the Day-Age Theory states), then this statement doesn't make sense. Clearly, Jesus believed in a straightforward reading of Genesis, with Adam and Eve created at the beginning of the world.

Blind Dating

Too many Christians are easily swayed by the so-called "dating methods" used by secular scientists. They seem to under the impression that these dates are literally stamped on the rocks and are indisputable. The fact is, every radiometric dating method is fallible and riddled with assumptions

In simple terms, radiometric dating measures how quickly a unstable radioisotope (like carbon-14, potassium-40 and uranium 238) decays into its daughter element (nitrogen-14, argon 40, and lead 206 respectively). The theory is this; if this radioactive decay occurs at a consistent pace (and it does), we can look at how much of the daughter element is left in a rock and calculate backwards to find out when it first formed.

Think of it this way: Someone walks into a room and finds a candle already burning. At the time he entered the room it was three inches tall. After studying it for an hour, the burning candle was two inches tall - thus he determines that this candle burns at a speed of one inch-per-hour. He then uses this data to determine how long ago the candle was lit.

Can you see a problem here?

The problem is, the scientist only knows two parts to a four-part equation:

1 - How much of the daughter element (lead-206 for example) is present in the rock? [Or how tall is the candle right now?) This is one of the factors that scientists know, as it can be easily observed in the laboratory.

2 - What is the present speed that the radioisotope (uranium-238) decays into the daughter element (lead-206)? [Or how fast does the candle burn down?] Again, this is easily observable and testable; it’s the second part of the equation that scientists know for sure.

3 - Has the speed of decay been constant in the past? [Or has this candle always burned at one inch-per-hour?] Scientist can’t know this for sure. Has there been an environmental shift that caused the decay speed to slow down or speed up? Could more of the radioisotope or the daughter element have been added to the rock at some point in the past? Both of these factors could give a completely wrong date!

4 - How much of the daughter element was present to begin with? [How tall was that candle before it was lit?] This is a very important factor in this equation. Two different assumptions about how much lead-206, for example, was originally in a rock could bring two dramatically different dates for formation!

Because of these unknown factors, no scientist just sends the rock into a laboratory to be dated. They also send additional information to help “aim” the dating process. Information like what layer of rock it was found in and what fossils were around it are also sent with the fossil to the lab. This gives the technicians a minimum and maximum range of possible dates. For example, if a T-rex fossil was found in the same layer of rock, then the laboratory will already assume that the rock “must be” 67-65 million years old. Fossils like these that help with the dating process are called “index fossils.” Because their age is known (supposedly), they can help to date the different rock layers. You see, radiometric dating (supposed “proof” of the theory of evolution and an incredibly old earth) is based on their already-formed assumptions on the age of a particular fossil.

Simply put, the evolutionist’s “silver bullet” of radiometric dating doesn’t hold up to simple scientific scrutiny. So why in the world would Christians feel the need to compromise the perfect word of God to agree with it?

The Biggest Problem Of Old-Earth Compromises

Do you believe that God calls suffering and pain good?

Do you believe that He thinks diseases like arthritis and cancer are good?

Did God call predation, bloodshed and natural cruelty good?

Not at all! In fact 1 Corinthians 15:26 calls death an enemy that is going to be destroyed. God hates death because He is life! The God of life couldn't look on the world as it is today and call it "very good."

And yet, this is exactly what every old-earth compromiser is saying when they try place the formation of fossils before Adam's sin. In the fossil record, there is evidence of death, diseases, widespread violence and predation.  Romans 5:12 tells us that these things entered the world through one man's (Adam) sin. As believers, we cannot have death before sin...not if we are starting from God's Word!

Not only was there no death in the world when God called it "very good" - there was no devil yet either! Look closely at Genesis 1:31 "And God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good." Everything means everything. Lucifer was made by God - logically, this means that he was still good on day six of creation. The fall of Satan had to occur after mankind was created. We'll find out later that this order of events actually makes perfect sense and provides a stronger motive for Lucifer's pride and rebellion. For now, we can clearly see that it was six days from the first verse of Genesis 1 to the last. There just isn’t any room for us to believe something else!

Now that we see what believers should believe, let’s take a look at what happened during the first week of the world!

Between Wickedness And Godliness

1 Chronicles 3:17-18 " The sons of Jeconiah who was taken prisoner by the Babylonians, were Shealtiel, Malkiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah."

Matthew 1:12 NLT "After the Babylonian exile: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel."



We don't really know much about Shealtiel. He is mentioned eleven times in the Bible - but there are precious few details about his life. What we know about him only comes from two geneologies; 1 Chronicles 3 and Matthew 1. In fact, there are only three facts about Shealtiel that we can glean from scriptures:
One: He was the son of Jeconiah.
Two: He was born in Babylon.
Three: He was the father of Zerubbabel.

That's it. His whole life; what he did, who he married, how he served God...none of that is known to us! If it weren't for the family lists in scripture, we wouldn't have even known that Shealtiel ever existed! How depressing for him, right? However, when we take a deep look at Shealtiel's surroundings, we can see more clearly what kind of man he must have been.

First, let's look at Shealtiel's father, Jeconiah:

Jeconiah was the son of King Jehoiakim and grandson of King Josiah. Although Josiah was a righteous man, Jehoiakim was anything but. While denying the very God that made King Josiah powerful, Jehoiakim also rebelled against the most powerful empire in the world - Babylon. This was an extremely foolish move!

When Jeconiah was only eight years old, Jehoiakim made him an "associate king". He co-ruled the nation of Judah at his father's side for ten years. No doubt, during this time, Jeconiah learned the wicked ways and practices of his father and even began to follow them. 2 Chronicles 36:9 has this testimony about Jeconiah, "He did evil in the sight of the LORD." After Babylon-supported raiders killed Jehoiakim, Jeconiah became king of Judah at the age of eighteen. He never turned from his wicked ways or repented. After three short months as king, Jeconiah was captured and taken to Babylon as a prisoner.

While he was in Babylon, his uncle Zedekiah was instated as king by the Babylonian emperor. Most Jews still regarded Jeconiah as king though, and erroneously believed that God would bring him back to the throne. This led Jeremiah to announce by the Holy Spirit that none of Jeconiah's descendants would ever sit on David's throne. Jeconiah destroyed the destiny of his children by his own wickedness. Still, it wasn't all bad for him. After several years of captivity, the next Babylonian emperor had pity on this one-time king. He let Jonah out of prison and gave him a life in Babylon. It was during this time that Shealtiel was born.

Now let's look at Shealtiel's son, Zerubbabel:

We don't know much about Zerubbabel's early life. His name is actually Assyrian, not Hebrew. It means "the one conceived in Babylon." Zerubbabel never knew anything but life in captivity. He never experienced any other culture other than that of Babylon and then Persia. But somehow, this was the man that Cyrus picked to lead the first wave of returning exiles. Zerubbabel led over 40,000 Jewish people back to Jerusalem to repopulate and rebuild.

In Jerusalem, Zerubbabel was instated as governor by Cyrus and he laid the foundation of the new temple. This was a man that feared God and worked closely with Joshua the high priest. God responded to Zerubbabel's trust in Him and declared through Haggai, "On that day, says the Lord of Hosts, I will take you Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, my servant, and wear you like a signet ring; for it is you whom I have chosen."

God rejected Jeconiah and his descendants as kings because of his wickedness. But when Zerubbabel embraced Him, God worked around His own curse and brought a blessing on this family once again. Now the question is, who taught Zerubbabel to fear God? It certainly wasn't a common thing in his culture. Babylon and Persia were both god-less, immoral, and idolatrous empires. So where did this man who was "conceived in Babylon" learn about the ways of God?

 From his father.

 This is where Shealtiel comes in. He saw the wickedness of his father. He knew the stories of what God did to Judah because of the evil that his people were practicing. And he knew the prophecies of repentance and restoration for the Jewish people. So Shealtiel bridged the gap between a wicked generation and a restored generation. He was a member of a repentant generation.

Daniel was a member of that same generation. He was only a child when he was ripped out of Jerusalem. He was forced to grow up in a pagan and ungodly culture. But listen to his prayer in Daniel 8:4-11:

      "Lord, you are a great and wonderful God. You keep the covenant you made with all those who love you and obey your commands. You show them your love. We have sinned and done what is wrong. We have been evil. We have refused to obey you. We have turned away from your commands and laws. We haven’t listened to your servants the prophets. They spoke in your name to our kings and princes. They also brought your message to all of our people in the land.

      “Lord, you always do what is right. But we are covered with shame today. We are the people of Judah and Jerusalem. All of us are Israelites, no matter where we live. We are now living in many countries. You scattered us among the nations because we weren’t faithful to you. Lord, we and our kings and princes and people are covered with shame. We have sinned against you.

     “You are the Lord our God. You show us your tender love. You forgive us. But we have turned against you. You are the Lord our God. But we haven’t obeyed you. We haven’t kept the laws you gave us through your servants the prophets. All of the people of Israel have broken your law and turned away from it. They have refused to obey you."

It was a wicked generation that brought sorrow to Israel. Shealtiel's generation was raised in that sorrow and became repentant, seeking God's forgiveness for the sins that their fathers had committed. They knew that they were to be exiled for seventy years - per God's decree. So Shealtiel knew that he wouldn't see Jerusalem or the promised restoration of God's people. So what did he do? He prepared his son.

Now we can see a few powerful truths from the life of Shealtiel.

First, we can see the divine order of things. No one can move straight from wickedness to restoration. The proper order is to move through repentance. God will not restore if you won't repent. Whine about grace all you want to...but grace does not cover an immoral lifestyle! This was the message that John preached, the message that Jesus preached - this is the gospel of the Kingdom - "Repent for the Kindom of Heaven is at hand!"

Secondly, I can see a profound truth in my own life. I grew up in a generation that has been alienated from God. Our fathers sowed the seed, and now we're reaping the horrible harvest. Violence. Laziness. Perversion. Immorality. Despair. My generation seems to have no hope, and we're still only digging ourselves deeper. We've been born into captivity.

As much as I try to shield them from it...my own kids have been born into this culture too. Like Zerubbabel, they have been "conceived in Babylon." But I have learned my part from Shealtiel; I have two major responsibilities:

1 - I must push into a changed lifestyle. If you're a believer that happens to be in the Millennial generation, listen to me. We cannot afford to be passive in our Christian walk! We can't afford to lose track of where our Bibles are, go days without seeking God's face, or allow ourselves to be disconnected from our spiritual leaders. We must repent of the wickedness that infiltrated our father's generation and now runs rampant in our own. We must change!

2 - I must prepare my kids for role. My kids are going to see God's glory! My kids are going to operate in the kingdom of God, not this world's system! My kids are going to lay, once again, the right foundation in the church! They're not going to "play church"! They're not going to treat God's house like a social gathering or country club! My kids are going to lead the way back to the Kingdom of God!

In The Begining - Chapter 1 "Introduction Of Compromise In The Church"

Introduction Of Compromise In The Church

2 Corinthians 10:4-6 "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience."

Since its inception in Acts chapter 2, the church has had to confront many different compromises to true doctrine. Even before the close of the New Testament, we can see two of these destructive heresies exposed - the Judaizers and the Nicolaitans. Throughout history other compromising doctrines have come and gone. Some have denied Jesus' humanity, others have denied His deity. Some have promoted legalism and tried to bring the church under bondage to the law. Others have promoted lawlessness and try to use the grace of God as an excuse for immorality. Every time, the true church has withstood these heresies and remained strong in the faith.

Recently though, one particularly dangerous compromise has snuck into the church. Within the last 300 years, a subtle attack on the very foundation of God’s Word has been underway. I'm talking about the attack on the first book of the Bible - Genesis. No other book in the Bible is believed to be as open for interpretation as the book of Genesis. No chapter in Revelation has ever been met with as much confusion as Genesis 1. No word from Jesus’ mouth in the Gospels has ever been ridiculed in our culture as much as “In the beginning, God...” Why is that? Secular views and man-made theories have been slowly infiltrating the church and corrupting the minds of simple believers. (I'm speaking of those who don't study to show themselves approved concerning God's Word.)

Lyell, Darwin, and the Church

In 1830, a geologist named Charles Lyell published a book called Principles of Geology. This book promoted His theory of an extremely old earth and the idea of long ages of time before mankind ever existed. He suggested that the different rock layers that we see around the world were formed by natural forces over vast amounts of time. This idea of an ancient world without man was clearly and completely opposed to what the Bible teaches, that the world was around 6,000 years old and that the first man and woman were made during its first week. When faced with this clear contradiction to the Word of God, how did the church respond?

To understand the reaction of the church to Lyell's book, you have to understand the climate that the book was published in. The 19th century was the golden age of science. New disciplines were founded and new discoveries were being published every year. New inventions were becoming commonplace.

In just the previous 50 years, many major scientific advances were made:

• The known solar system was made much larger with the discovery of the planet Uranus.
• Antoine Lavoisier discovered the law of conservation of mass and founded modern chemistry.
• Georges Cuvier astonished the world by announcing his discovery that animals have gone extinct in the past. (This discovery really threw the church for a loop. For centuries, they had been teaching that God created the animals that existed then exactly as they were - no more and no less. So they had no response when it was claimed that the Bible was proven wrong by science.)
• John Dalton formulated the Atomic Theory - that is, all matter was made up of atoms.
• Both electromagnets and batteries began to be produced
• Medicine was advancing in leaps and bounds, resulting in longer life spans

All-in-all, it seemed as if science was giving mankind a greater understanding and mastery of the natural world around him. Labeling any idea as scientific was quickly becoming the highest form of argument. (You can still see this today - just think about how often products are advertised as “scientific”!)

This is the atmosphere in which the church was faced with Lyell's heresy. Not wanting to appear backwards and ignorant, the church backed away from its stand on Genesis. Instead of holding to what God's Word says, the church compromised with the old-earth ideas of Lyell. Leading this compromise was a Scottish minister named Thomas Chalmers. His compromise is still prevalent in the church today - it is known as the Gap Theory (also called the ruin/reconstruction theory). We'll discuss this theory in more detail later, but it's important to understand that this theory began as a compromise with secular, man-made ideas.

After Lyell's book was published, another attack on Genesis began to gain ground. In 1859, a close friend of Lyell's - a man named Charles Darwin - published a book promoting an even further separation from the Biblical doctrine of creation. Darwin used Lyell's ideas as a springboard into another idea: If the earth itself could slowly evolve and exist without a Creator, why couldn't the life on it do the same?

Darwin didn't actually create the idea of evolution, but his book was probably the most responsible for summarizing and promoting it. His book was entitled On The Origin Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection, Or The Preservation Of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life. Even today, this book is considered to be one of the authorities on biological evolution and the role of natural selection. He theorized that, given enough time, the little changes in plants and animals could amount to much larger changes - even to the point of changing one kind of animal into another.

Like Lyell's Theory, Darwin's book clearly opposed the plain reading of Genesis. Having already compromised on the age of the earth, how would the church respond to this new attack on the Bible? Sadly, the church compromised once again. They were more concerned about appearing ignorant to the world than they were about holding to the authority of God's Word. But this time the 19th century church compromised even further than simply accepting secular ideas. Many preachers began to promote the idea of theistic evolution - the claim that Genesis was an allegory and that God simply used evolution during the process of creation.

This reality that is far removed from society's memory today. The majority of people believe that Darwin was embraced by the scientists while being oppressed and opposed by the church. If only this were true! In actuality, the religious and scientific reception of On The Origin Of Species was completely different from what is commonly believed today.

Far from being embraced by the scientific community, Darwin's work was rejected and criticized by scientists throughout the world.

• Louis Pasteur, called the greatest scientist of the 19th century, was forcefully opposed to the theory of evolution.
• Sir Richard Owen - the founder of modern paleontology and the man who coined the term "dinosaur" - also opposed Darwin and wrote him letter after letter to present scientific objections to Darwin's theory.
• Even Darwin's own geology professor Adam Sedgewick wrote to him; "I have read your book with more pain than pleasure. Parts of it I admired greatly, parts I laughed at till by sides were almost sore; other parts I read with absolute sorrow, because I think them utterly false and grievously mischievous."
• Sir John Herschel, a famous mathematician and astronomer, called Darwin's theory "the law of higgledy-pigglety."

So you see, the scientists of Darwin's day weren't exactly open-minded about this theory that they saw to be utterly un-scientific. If this was the response of the scientific world, how did the church respond?

• An English priest named Charles Kingsley wrote a letter to Darwin to congratulate him on his book.
• The Reverend John Brodie Innes gave this testimony about Darwin before several highly-renowned clergy, “He is a man of the most perfect moral character, and his scrupulous regard for the strictest truth is above that of almost all men I know...I never saw a word in his writings which was an attack on Religion. He follows his own course as a Naturalist and leaves Moses to take care of himself.”
• Josiah Strong, another famous preacher of the 19th century, wrote and distributed a pamphlet that stated that Christianity and evolution must go hand-in-hand.
• During Darwin's funeral, preachers from around the world poured out compliments for him - emphasizing his "patience, calmness, ingenuity," and on and on...
• Believe it or not, this promoter of a godless theory was even compared to the apostle Paul!
• After all of this, his body was then buried in the floor of Westminster Abbey - the church of England.
• Writing about his funeral, a preacher from New York named Charles White Chadwick declared “The nation's grandest temple of religion opened its gates and lifted up its everlasting doors and bade the King of Science come in.”

As much as I hate to say this, Darwin would be long-forgotten by now if it weren't for the compromisers in the church.

Creation Compromises

Since the publishing of Darwin's book, the church has had no fewer than four compromises concerning the first chapter of Genesis. Although each of these compromises differ on content, they all have one thing in common - they view the secular ideas of man as being more important than the clearly revealed Word of God. Each of them demonstrate this fact when they alter the very account of the Creator to agree with the man-made idea of evolution.

Let's examine these four theories more closely. As we do, keep this question in mind: Whose words are more important - fallen man's or the Creator who never lies?

The Gap Theory

As we've already learned, the gap theory was first developed by a man named Thomas Chalmers. Attempting to reconcile the long ages of time with the Genesis account of creation, Chalmers tried to cram the geologic ages between the first two verses of Genesis 1.

Genesis 1:1-2 "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void (empty), and darkness covered the face of the deep..."

Declaring that God would never make something that is formless or empty, Chalmers suggested that verse 1 and verse 2 were separated by a vast amount of time. During this time, he proposed that the earth was filled with a pre-adamite race of beings who were ruled by the angel Lucifer. When Lucifer was lifted up in pride, he led this race of beings in a rebellion against God. The results were a fallen Lucifer and a world that was flooded in judgement.

The thousands who hold to this theory today believe that long ages of time, the millions of years contained in the theory of evolution, can be attributed to this pre-Adam time frame and the flood that brought judgement to the world. They also believe that the disembodied souls of this pre-adamite race of beings are what we call demons today.

Later on, we'll discuss the number of problems with the gap theory, both scientific and Biblical. But for now, we can see the two main issues. First, "gappers" have to invent an entire mythology that has absolutely no scriptural record! Second, let's not forget that the whole purpose of the Gap Theory, once again, is to reconcile a godless theory with God's Word.

The Day-Age Theory

Like the Gap Theory, the day-age theory tries to find room in Genesis chapter 1 for the secular idea of millions of years. The key, they say, is found in 2 Peter 3:8 "But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

The day-age theory states that the long ages of time that are supposedly in the rock layers, were in fact laid down gradually during the creation "week." Using 2 Peter 3:8, they claim that the days of creation weren't actually days, but were vast periods of time. By claiming that the Hebrew word for day doesn't always mean a literal day, proponents of this theory claim that they can reconcile the secular ages of the earth with the biblical account of creation.

Theistic Evolution

The theory of theistic evolution is a much more drastic compromise than any we've seen yet. Instead of trying to harmonize secular theories with the Bible's account of creation, theistic evolution simply discards the record of Genesis 1 as a good story that isn't literally true. The entire first chapter (indeed, the entire first book) of the Bible is simply considered to be an allegory. The point, they say, is that God made the world - exactly how He did that seems to be less clear.

"God created," they say, "but He used evolution to do it." Essentially, the theory of theistic evolution embraces every evolutionary idea - from the age of the earth to the evolution of life - and then tack on the claim that it was guided by God. In this way, they seem to be able to accept the secular theory of evolution while still claiming to believe the Bible. Sadly, every time that the evolutionist and the Bible disagree, the theistic evolutionist is quick to alter God's Word to fit the man-made ideas.

We will further discuss the problems that theistic evolutionists face - but their largest problem is this; is God's Word the authority on creation or not?

Progressive Creation

In many ways, this theory is similar to theistic evolution. They both embrace the idea of long periods of time before man when the earth was inhabited by different plants and animal species. They also believe that each of the rock layers in the earth came from different geologic ages in its history. But rather than saying that God guided the process of evolution, progressive creationists claim that the rock layers show a progressive series of creations and the destruction of those creations.

Progressive creationists believe that at various times God filled the earth with the creatures we see in the fossils, allowed them to live for thousands of years, then wiped them out and replaced them with others. After creating and destroying successively for millions of years, God finally placed the first "real" humans in the Garden of Eden.

Progressive creationists, like Hugh Ross, even believe in races of "soul-less" apemen that were created by God and then wiped out and replaced by true humans!

This theory has many problems - not the least of which is the problem of turning God into a schizophrenic who can't make up His mind! The biggest problem they have though is the fact that they believe in millions of years of death before sin - something that the Bible disagrees with.

The Consequences Of Not Being Biblically Grounded

Psalm 11:3 "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

None of these four compromises are Biblical, none of them are scientific, and none of them are necessary! We'll see later that the scientific evidence simply doesn't support the idea of millions of years. But what we need to realize now is that every believer should start from the Word Of God.

Sadly, Christians that don't know where they stand or the trustworthiness of the Bible are falling into these compromises. Most Christians don't know what God has told us about creation or how important Genesis is to our faith. Too many of us are willing to compromise on the age of the earth and the way it was created - just as long as we can hold on to Jesus. What these compromisers don't understand is that every doctrine we have is rooted in Genesis!

Think about this:

What gives God the right to set the rules?

Why is mankind different from the animals?

Why are we in charge of the earth and it's creatures?

Where did sin and death come from?

Why do we need to be redeemed?

Why is Jesus' blood sacrifice necessary?

What is the definition of marriage - and why?

The origin of every one of these doctrines is found in the first few chapters of Genesis. Any believer that doesn't know where he stands on the authority of the Bible is in danger of falling into compromise and losing their foundation.

Secular evolutionists know what it means when a believer compromises on one point in God’s Word. Have you ever noticed that compromising Christians are almost never attacked by liberals, atheists or evolutionists? Instead, they save their most relentless attacks and vitriol for believers that hold onto the literal interpretation of Genesis. Why is that the case?

Richard Bozarth (a writer for the American Atheist) is very plain about this: “Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing.”

We need to hold onto what the Word of God says and use that as the only starting point for the way we see the world. Every belief we have needs to be rooted in the Bible, not in a fallen man's ideas. Knowing this, let's take a look at what a believer should believe about the beginning of the world...

Dear Abigail...

April 16, 2013

Dear Abigail
     Hi baby girl! I can’t believe your mom is almost eight months pregnant with you already! It seems like just yesterday we were looking at three positive pregnancy tests, laughing and crying all at once. That day changed everything for us! Even though we waited for you for two long years – we still had a hard time believing it at first!

     And now you’re almost here. I’m sure you know by now how much I love your mom – you hear it all the time! And I’m sure that you also know that we argue sometimes – but that’s nothing to worry about. As much as you’re moving around right now, and as strong-willed as you already seem to be, I’m sure we’ll have our own arguments too! But I hope you’re already finding out that no one in this family goes to sleep angry!

     Sadly, I have no idea what kind of world you’re going to grow up in. Horrible things are happening all around us even now. Where this world is going to go from here, I don’t even want to know! You’ll go through some hard times. You’ll experience some things that my generation never experienced. You’ll know other kids whose families are being torn apart – or were never there in the first place. You may even experience some very dangerous situations. But I promise you this; the same God that watched over your grandpa and grandma, the same God that protected and guided your mom and dad will watch over you! We’ll teach you how to hear His voice – and if you’ll pay attention, He’ll always place you at the right place at the right time! God will bring you out of every problem on top!

     God is always faithful – and we are going to show you this from the moment you’re born. I told you before that you’ll probably have friends with destroyed or nonexistent families. But I also promise you this, you will never have to go through that! You can rest assured that you will always have your mom and your dad. I’m going to do everything I can to be an example of God’s faithfulness. I’m going to love your mom the way Jesus loves us. I promise you this – you will never have a stepmom or a stepdad…I love your mom too much for that! Besides, there’s no way I’m ever going to let some other person raise my beautiful little girl!

     You’re not going to be normal, Abigail. Why? Because normal isn’t good enough for you! It isn’t normal anymore for girls your age to live with their mom and dad. The normal right now is to have a mom and a sperm donor. (I’m trusting that it will be decades before you even know what that term means!) It isn’t normal for kids to have parents involved in their life. And it certainly isn’t normal for them to have a mom and dad who are committed to raising them up spiritually. But that’s what we’re going to do!

     Even as a girl, you’ll know the Bible better than most Christians – because we’ll be reading it every night. Before you hit your teenage years, you’ll know how to talk to God…and how to hear Him speak to you! You are going to do amazing things for the Kingdom of God, Abigail. I can’t wait to see His calling on your life start to show up!

     It’s important for you to know that I’ll do everything I can to guard that calling on your life…even if it means chasing away some of people who want to be your “friends”. If you’ll trust us, your mom and I will show you what kind of people are worth having around – and what kind of people aren’t worth the time of day! And…many, many years down the road…I know you’ll meet the righteous young man who will take you by the hand and lead you into the next level of God’s call on your life! From that day on, the two of you will walk with God together. Now, I don’t even want to think about that day! But I hope you’ll trust our input on that decision too. If you’ll pay attention to the way I treat your mom, you’ll see how your own husband (…in the very distant future…) should treat you.

     Above all, know this…I love you Abby! I’m going to do my best to teach you, to guide you, and to protect and provide for you. And when the times come that I don’t know how to help you, please let me take your hand and lead you to the One that has all the answers! After all, He loves you even more than I do!

Looking forward to seeing you for the first time,
Your Loving Dad