14 Sep 9/17/23 Genesis1-9 “This I Know, for the Bible Tells Me So!”
9/17/23 Genesis1-9 “This I Know, for the Bible Tells Me So!”
As we begin this series of sermons, I am reminded of the times when our children were much younger and we used to read stories to them. There was a time before I met Sharon when I was raising our two youngest by myself. I was working at the Post Office and I had to work until 9 PM. I would just get home with the kids and they would have to go to bed. They were generally too tired to hear a story. I knew this was important so I came up with a plan that they still remember today. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not but that is another story. Anyway, we would get up and have a leisurely morning because I didn’t have to be at work until 12:30 PM. Every morning at breakfast, I would read them a story from their Uncle Wiggly books. We also had the usual Dr. Seuss books. I remember one book called ‘Hop on Pop.’ The girls could finish the words on each page if I said the first word. They had this book and others memorized. I’m sure many of you have had the same thing happen in your families. These things are good for the kids and they make good memories. Anyway, today we are going to start on our journey through the Bible in 31 weeks or I hope. I have done this before and it was fun and useful. Many of these stories will be familiar but I’m pretty sure that we can learn more from each of them. I know I sure can. Today, we will be looking at the story of creation and Noah’s ark. Let’s see if there is anything new there.
There is the old story told by Robert Collins of a little girl asking her mother, “How did the human race start?” The mother answered, “God made Adam and Eve and they had children, and so mankind was made.” That seemed to satisfy the little girl and she was on her way.
Two days later, the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, “Many years ago, there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.” Now the girl was confused and she returned to her mother and said, “Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?” The wise mother answered, “Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his.”
I think that this story shows in a humorous way the divisiveness that we find in modern Christianity because of this topic. I’m not going to go too far into this today because it would just take up too much time. I have not seen any evidence anywhere that tells me that we have evolved from anything. Every evolution theory I have ever read about is full of circular reasoning, jumping to conclusions that haven’t been proven or faulty logic and just plain bad science. My only conclusion, and I have read several books on the topic, is that we were definitely created by God. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a Creator, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Now I’m sure that there might be people who disagree with me today and that is ok. You have the right to be wrong. Get in touch with me if you want places to find evidence. But I’m going to leave this by asking you one question. If you consider yourself to be a Christian and you don’t believe in the first two chapters of the Bible, what other parts of the Bible do you want to throw out? This is an important question!
So, we are beginning with God making everything. He took six days and He created this masterpiece, the world we live in. And when He got done, He said this is good. This is real good. If we take a look around at nature, we find that everything is in perfect balance to this day, thousands of years later. God made perfection in that everything in the world is in balance with everything else. Sometimes there are temporary imbalances like when we have too many coyotes or fox or rabbits. But in a few years, there won’t be so many because God has put in place something that will take care of this problem. God has put in so many checks and balances in our eco systems that I cannot even begin to tell you about them. But I will tell you this much. We are here today because of these balances. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Adam and Eve lived in Eden where everything was perfect. There was no killing, no lying, no cheating because they had not eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Everything was perfect. I have always thought that this is God giving us a glimpse of heaven. I think that heaven and the Garden of Eden are very similar. Then the serpent came and tempted them to eat of this tree. They ate of this tree and were cast out into our world we know today.
Most of the time we look at this as the true story creation and how sin came into the world, and this is a right way of looking at it. However, there is more here and it applies to all of us today. How many of us have been cruising along in life and suddenly something happens or you do something that sends our whole world into a tailspin? What I’m talking about here is the death of someone near and dear to you. I’m talking about a divorce or some sort of family breakup. I’m talking about saying something by mistake and losing a best friend. These are the types of things that we cannot undo. Once they are done, it is over. Once we lived in our personal Eden and suddenly we have been cast out to a different life.
In other words, you are cruising along in life and suddenly it gets turned upside down and it will never be the same. Notice what God does in our story. The first thing God does is He gets Adam and Eve some clothes. God is forced to put them out of the Garden because God is a just God and does what He says. But He is also a loving God and He is with them all the time even when they are out of the Garden. Nowhere in this story does it say that God abandons Adam and Eve. As a matter of fact just the opposite happens.
It is the same way with us today. When your world gets turned upside down, God does not leave you even if whatever happened is your fault. Jesus will still be there and He will love you and help you to carry on in a new life. Things may never be the same again except for the fact, the fact that Jesus loves you and He will not leave you. You can take that to the bank. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Now I would like us to turn to the story of Noah. I remember sometime in the first couple years of being in ministry, I preached a sermon on Noah. I had absolutely nothing to do with it but it rained the whole next week. Someone told me that maybe I shouldn’t preach on that again. Today I’m only going to talk about general principals and not the actual story that we all know so well.
God made this wonderful world of ours and then watched as we set about to destroy ourselves. God gave us free will and we abused it by rejecting Him. We not only rejected Him, but everyone in the world did except for Noah and his family. So once again we force God to do something because of sin. The Garden of Eden was a perfect place and there was no room for sin. The world had become a terrible place because everyone joined in on the sin bandwagon and once again God has to intervene. Only this time, He wipes out the world so that He can start over with Noah and his family.
There are a couple of principles at work here. First, we have God, once again, being a just God. In other words, what He says is the way it is. After Adam and Eve ate the apple, it was too late. Once the whole world was in a continuous sinful state, it was too late. Once someone dies, it is too late. Many things that turn our worlds upside down can be undone to some degree. But when we die, it is too late to repent.
So, I just want you to imagine yourself in a world like Noah’s. Or imagine that these people of Noah’s time are our friends and family who don’t come to church and don’t believe in God. Imagine that you or these people are all having a huge party. There are all kinds of bad things at this party that the people want. There is every kind of lewdness, fornication, and every sin imaginable happening right in your yard and your neighbor’s yard and the next yard and so on. You think you are having a great time. Then the rain begins. Naturally you move the party inside and it continues to rain. By the next morning you realize that you have had about a foot of rain and the water also seems to be seeping up from the earth. Suddenly in your party haze, you begin to realize that it is starting to flood. Before long everyone is in a panic and flash floods are carrying people away. No one believes in God so the panic begins until all are lost. It is too late
This is the way things are today. God has promised us that He will not send a flood again. However, He has also told us that we will get so bad, so riddled with sin that He will end our world as we know it. This is prophecy. This is what will happen. Are we close to this? I don’t know, probably. I do know that we are trying to leave God out of everything we do. This can be seen in our national politics. This can be seen by how we treat each other. This can be seen in our own churches. We have decided in our not very smart human condition, that we are far smarter and better than God. It is everywhere. If this whole thing starts tomorrow, it will be too late for many, many people.
What we should not do is sit in a corner and cringe because the end is coming. God didn’t make us to do things like this. Also, there is nothing to be gained by running around telling everyone, “The world is ending! The world is ending!” What we need to be doing is finding better ways of inviting people to church and knowing Jesus. With so many non-believers in this country, we need to be inviting all the time. I have told you before that I would like nothing better than to have to have thousands of people tuned into this. People’s eternal lives depend on us. Think about how many people have been lost eternally to the enemy just because people like you have not invited people to know Jesus. There is a wonderful story of a pilot, Bob, in the area we served, about when he flew to New York City. Bob parked his plane next to a man who was also just arriving. Bob struck up a conversation with the man and they became friends. Finally, Bob said that he had to go to church and he invited the other man. The other man said, “No, I really don’t want to go. I don’t have much faith.” Bob replied, “Well, get some!” This happened years ago and this man credits Bob for his deep faith today. It doesn’t take much to show just how wonderful and kind our God really is. Now you may be thinking, how can I say that when we have just seen the ejection from Eden and the great flood that killed almost all the people on earth?
It’s easy to say. First, we have just seen that God is a just God and what He says will happen. God will not put up with sin forever. Once again, look what God does for his people who have been faithful. He tells them ahead of time what will happen. The world is totally pagan and believes nothing when Noah warns them. Our world today is almost totally pagan and no one believes a word we tell them either. God then tells Noah what to do so that he and his family will be saved. If I’m not mistaken, this is almost like the remnant that keeps getting saved in the rest of the Bible. God loves His people so much that He will save them from the flood and He will save them from the sin that is running wild about them. In both stories, God does not abandon His people. He is always there and always loving and always looking for us to come back to Him.
The main point of both of these stories is that God loves us. He also wants us to spread this story. There are many people who will doubt us. I was reading an article a while back that said that there are something like 35 stories from different ancient cultures and religions around the world that talk about the great flood. As I said in the beginning, these events really happened.
They happened because God wants you to have a perfect place just like where He is. We began in the Garden of Eden. Then it was us who decided that we were, again, smarter and better than God. What we find is that we have a loving God who will do whatever it takes to care for His people. Think about the disaster there would be if He had let Adam and Eve stay in the Garden for eternity filled with the sin that came from eating the apple or disobeying God. It would have destroyed that perfect place.
If God doesn’t come along and mix up our languages at Babel, then we would have been in for disaster at that time. If God doesn’t save Noah through the flood, then the world would have been doomed at that time. Everything that has happened and everything that will happen is because of the love that Jesus has for us.
I found this quote and unfortunately, there was no author to give credit. “The being we call God is unique. His name is I AM. It is not God. The astrologer worships his footstool. The sun worshiper loves just one small star. The Satanist prays to a created lesser being. Before time was, He is. When time ends, He will still be one day old. Mother Nature and Father Time are his children. He is I AM, self-starting and self-contained. He is life. If He ceased to exist, so would everything. He is bigger, smarter and more powerful than we will ever know. He owns and manages everything in the universe from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. You can’t go someplace where He is not already there. You can’t metabolize one calorie, enjoy one heartbeat or breathe one breath without his permission. Sooner or later every knee will bow and tongue confess that He alone is worthy of worship.”
I don’t know where you are at in your walk with Jesus Christ but I do know that this describes a little about God as I know Him. He is the greatest thing that has ever happened in my life and He wants that for everyone. This I know, for the Bible tells me so. This first chapter of our new study is all about the love of God. As you become aware of this love, put yourself in the position to accept it unconditionally. Jesus loves you, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.
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