Now we have divided the book of Genesis into two major divisions; Chapters 1-11 and had several ways of labeling that.  One is that could be called “sin”.  And then from Chapter 12-50 you could call that the “Redeemer.”

          Now in this first section we have in the first two chapters here, the creation story.  We have the creation story succinctly and accurately stated in just one verse, and that is “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  Frankly, that’s one of the most profound statements that has ever been made, and I think that’s all you have of actual creation, with the exception as we shall see of man and animals later on, that’s recorded here in the book of Genesis. But this is the creation story.  And I’ll admit that it’s rather a very brief story. 

          Indeed, it was the late Paul Bellamy, he was city editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and he was making the rounds one night of the reporters’ desks, and he noticed that one of the men was grinding out what the newspapermen call a tape worm, and Bellamy regarded it relatively unimportant.  And he said to the fellow; he says, “Cut it down.”  He says, “After all, the story of creation was told in Genesis 1 in 282 words.”  And this reporter shot back to him; he says, “Yes, and I’ve always thought we could have been saved a lot arguments later if someone had just written another couple of hundred.”  It is interesting to note that God certainly gave us an abridged edition.  And the question arises, what did He have in mind when He gave us this particular section?  What was it?  What was the author’s purpose here?  And we want to ask the question, was the author’s purpose to teach geology?  Well, may I say there’s a great deal of argument and disagreement as we’re going to see today at this particular juncture.

          Recently [now some time ago], here in California, the State Board of Education voted to include the biblical, as they call it, theory of creation in science books.  And Dr. Ralph Girard, who is professor of biology and dean of the graduate division at the University of California at Davis, he’s reported in the press to have made the comment that it makes just about as much sense as teaching about the stork. And the exact quotes that the paper has is “Should a scientific course go on reproduction also mention the stork theory?” he asked in a statement.  Well, the very interesting thing is that for benefit of this professor the stork theory is not mentioned in the Bible at all, but the creation story is mentioned.  And his comparison is not quite warranted because the Bible deals quite literally with this matter of procreation. And if you read your Bible carefully, you never would have had the viewpoint of the stork theory at all. So that this man is certainly beside the point, and it reveals the very antagonistic attitude toward the Bible, and I’m of the opinion that this man probably knows a great deal about his particular subject, which seems to be biology, but he knows very little about the Word of God, and I think that’s quite obvious for anyone to make the type of statement that he has made.

          Now as we come here to this verse in Genesis and this first chapter, you must recognize that this problem of origins it provokes more violent controversy, wild theories, and wide disagreements that any other.  And always you have the inclusion of man’s hypotheses and, as a result, there’s a babble of voices that have drown out the clear voice of God.  Now there are actually two extreme groups who have blurred the issue, and they have muddied the waters of understanding by their dogmatic assumptions and assertions.  Now one group are the arrogant scientists who assume that biological and philosophical evolution are gospel truth.  Their assumed axiom is the assured findings of science, and we’ll see that in a moment.  Now the other group are the young and proud theologians who arrogate to themselves the super knowledge that they’ve discovered how God did it.  They write and speak learnedly about some clever theory that reconciles science and the Bible.  They look with distain upon the great giants of Bible expositors of the past as being Bible dwarfs as compared to them.       

          Well, I would say that both of these groups would do well to consider a statement that Job had made to him.  When the LORD finally appeared to him, he asked him the question, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding.”  That’s Job 38:4.  And the fact of the matter is that God says to man, “You talk about the origin of the universe; you don’t even know where you were when I laid the foundations of the earth.”  And that’s a very good question that I’m sure no man can answer. 

          Now there are these extreme theories, and I think that we should probably consider them.  And, by the way, may I say this—that you can make a division here, a two-fold division, that if you’re going to talk about origins today, you’re reduced either to speculation or to creation.  Now don’t tell me science, because, after all, evolution has many theories today, and some of the most reputable scientists of the past and the present reject evolution.  So you can’t put it down as being a scientific statement like 2+2=4. 

          And then there is the creation account in Genesis 1.  And that, by the way, you have to accept by faith.  It’s very interesting.  God made it that way.  The only way in world that you can accept it; that is the thing that the writer to the Hebrews says in the 11^th chapter, verse 1:  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  For by it the elders obtained a good report.  Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.  So that today, the great problem still remains, how did it get from nothing to something, and the only way that you will ever know that is by faith—or speculation.  And speculation is very unscientific, by the way. 

          Now I want to look at some of these theories of creation, and it’s quite interesting to note them.  There are those that tell us today that, my, what we should do is to accept the scientific answer.  And I’d like to ask you what is the scientific answer?  What science are you talking about?  Professor Lyell in the year of 1806—that far back—he said that the French Institute enumerated not less than 80 geological theories which were hostile to the Scriptures, but not one of these theories is held today.  That’s quite interesting, by the way.  I know that many of us that were in school, why we were taught theories that are not even taught today.  For instance, there was a time when tolomatic science was held.  And may I say to you it contradicted the book of Genesis, but I don’t think any reputable scientist today goes back and holds to tolomatic science.  And then there’s the Newtonian science.  And for years the scientists of the world held on to it, and said it contradicted the Bible, and it did.  And did you know that the Newtonian is ruled out today.  And then I think I started off with the Nebular hypothesis, and I was taught at one time that matter is indestructible.  That was before the atom bomb, of course.  And now all of that is out the window.  So when you say today that you want to hold a scientific viewpoint over against the Genesis account, I‘d like to ask you what science are you holding to and did you know that what is science today may not be science tomorrow.  I’m told these books change every ten years, and most of them every five years. 

          The fact of the matter is that the purpose of Moses in writing—and I think he’d smile at all this disturbance that’s been made today about the creation story—because he didn’t write it for that.  Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17,  ^“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”  Now the purpose of Scripture was for what purpose?  An instruction in righteousness.  This is not written to teach you geology or biology.  It’s not written for that at all.  It was written to show man’s relationship to God and God’s requirements that He puts down for man today and what man must do to be saved.  You can write that over this first part of the Genesis:  What must I do to be saved! 

          May I say to you, suppose God had given us a scientific statement of creation.  How many people of Moses’ day would have understood it?  And how many people even in our day could grasp it?  You must remember that the Bible was not written for learned professors, but for simple folk of every age and every land.  But may I say that it always appealed to intelligent men, and I mean intelligent men.  And for that reason, it’s not couched in that kind of language at all, and if it had been written in the scientific language of Moses’ day, it certainly would have been rejected. 

          And there are several solutions, therefore, men have come up with relative to the origin of the universe.  One is that it’s an illusion.  And, may I say to you that is certainly contrary to the facts, is it not?  And yet there are people that hold to that.  Then there are those that say that it spontaneously arose out of nothing.  Well, that’s what the Bible says in a way, but you must remember God spoke; God created it.  And then the third is that it had no origin, but has existed eternally.  And then fourth, that it was created.  And then, of course, this breaks down into many different ways that they have today of trying to explain the origin of the universe; that it came about in some very strange fashion.  And I have before me, and I’m going to share with you today, some of these theories that men have advanced down through the history of the world. 

          Now we have this statement made by Dr. Harlow Shapley, who was the director of Harvard Observatory.  He says, “We are still embedded in an abysmal ignorance of the world in which we live.  We’ve advanced very little relative to the total surmisable extent of knowledge, beyond the level of wisdom acquired by animals of long racial experience.  We are, to be sure, no longer afraid of strange squeaks in the dark nor completely superstitious abut the dead.  On many occasions, we are valiantly rational.  Nevertheless, we know how much the unknown transcends what we know.”  Now may I say to you that is without doubt a tremendous statement that has been made.

          And then it was Dr. Loren C. Eiseley, who was Office of the Provost at the University of Pennsylvania, who says, “We do not know any more about matter and how it is produced than we know about spiritual things.  Therefore, I think it is unwise to say in our present state of knowledge that the one precludes the other.  The universe seems to exist as a series of emergent levels, none of which is like the level below.  That man and all the rest of life have evolved and changed is undeniable, but what lies beneath these exterior manifestations, we do not know.”  And then he added this, “I wish I could answer your question, but to clothe my ignorance in big words would benefit neither yourself nor me.” 

          And it’s too bad that some of these men today that speak so learnedly and, I have here statements that I’ve taken out of the popular press.  One article says that man, the mystery of origin of the world, and that man is on the verge of discovering that.  That happened to be written back in 1961.  We haven’t had anything new on that since then, by the way.

          And then it was biologist Edwin Conklin, speaking of evolution, that made this statement.  “The probability of life originating by accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary originating from an explosion in a print shop.”  And that is something that, by the way, sounds very unscientific coming from an outstanding scientist.

          There are actually, I guess, three theories of the universe that even astronomy has suggested.  And it’s quite interesting to look at those different theories.  One is known as the “steady state” theory, one is the “big bang” theory, and one is the “oscillating” theory.  Now the big bang theory is the one that Dr. William A. Baum told the National Academy of Science meeting at UCLA about, by the way; that now scientists have come to the conclusion that it’s the big bang theory.  And I have the statement of Dr. R. B. Partrige of Princeton also, and the big bang is that there was a great big explosion way back yonder, oh, billions of years—I think ten billions of years was the last one, and that we’re in for another one in probably another ten billion years.  So I don’t think we need to worry about that a great deal, but it’s interesting that that is the explanation that is offered today.

          And you will find that Great Britain is actually the one that fathered this theory and, very frankly, we haven’t heard about these rocks that were brought back from the moon.  Have you noticed that many of the scientists, and certainly that’s been true here in Southern California, they just don’t get worked up over those rocks brought back from the moon.  Because they seem to disprove a theory that man has. 

          Now there was—several years ago Dr. Louis Leakey.  He was the son of a missionary, by the way, and he came up with the theory where he found out yonder in Africa a skull—he calls it the nutcracker man—I guess that he had pretty good teeth.  And that he lived there 600,000 years ago.  That’s according to Dr. Leakey.  Well, we’ve had theories like that before, and a great many men today that are scientific men that don’t fall for that. 

          Now there are other ways of explaining the origin of man.  Back in Indianapolis is Dr. Lawrence S. Dillon, an associate professor of biology at Texas A&M College.  And he says man is not an animal, but a plant which evolved from brown seaweed, this man declared.  He says all animals are in reality a type of highly modified plant life derived a billion years or so ago from a common ancestry with the brown seaweed.  Now maybe you and I been looking in the wrong place for our grandpa and grandma.  Some folk have been looking up a tree.  We should be out here pulling the seaweed out, because that’s grandpa and grandma.  May I say to you some of this really become ridiculous when you begin to put it down by the side of some other things. 

          May I say to you that “after centuries of bitter argument over how life on earth began, an awe-inspiring answer is emerging out of the shrewd and patient detective work in laboratories all over the world.”  You know, that was in Reader’s Digest a long time ago, and you would think by now we would be getting some sort of an answer or a little encouragement, but none has been forthcoming. 

          It was the practice according to Dr. J.V.N. Tallmadge that the dogma which science follow is that the archeological findings of prehistoric cultural objects must be so arranged that the cruder industries must always be dated earlier than those of a more advanced time regardless of where they’re found.  And may I say to you, today it’s been a little disconcerting that sometimes they find the advanced civilization underneath that which seem to be of prehistoric time. 

          Now there are so many other theories that are offered today about how the earth began, and it was Dr. Klaus Mampell from Germany; he says, “I don’t see any more reason for seeing us, the human race, connected with apes than with canary birds or kangaroos.”  And may I say to you that maybe that’s direction we ought to go to look for our ancestors.

          Now, as you know that even the evolutionists do not agree day to day.  They have come up with many theories, and next time we’ll be dealing with them.  I would like to close with this.  And I think this probably might answer the statement of a great many. 

You cannot put one little star in motion;

You cannot shape one single forest leaf

Nor fling a mountain up nor sink an ocean. 

Presumptuous pigmy, large with unbelief!

You cannot bring one dawn of regal splendor,

Nor bid the day to shadowy twilight fall,

Nor send the pale moon forth with radiance tender;

And dare you doubt the One who has done it all!

–Sherman A. Nagel, Sr.