In The Beginning
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 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.
3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
In today’s culture, we are challenged by two worldviews. The evolution worldview says that we are products of chance and are not a part of God’s divine plan. The biblical worldview says that God has created us for a purpose. The Bible says that we must trust Christ by faith, walk by faith and live every part of our life by faith in our God and His purpose for our lives. Does faith mean that we have to be blind to the evidence or should the evidence all around us build our faith? I heard one Christian defend her faith to an atheist by saying, "are you going to believe the evidence, or are you going to believe God?" Do we have to make that choice, or does the evidence point to God? I stand on the fact that the evidence points to God and because I know that what God has said is true, I can be confident that He is trustworthy to direct my future. You can’t exempt faith, but you can support it. My point is that God does not demand that we deny reality, but that we acknowledge the work of His hands and based on what He has done, we are to have confidence in Him in the things we can’t see with our eyes. This universe is a testimony to our God. What I plan to do is show that both evolution and creation require faith, but the evidence points toward creation and those who hold to evolution or a godless worldview are the ones who live by blind faith.
We read the first 5 verses of Genesis discussing the first day of creation. The
remainder of creation follows:
Day 2 verses 6-8, God created the firmament (or expanse).
Day 3 God created the dry land and separated from the seas, and the plants. 9-13
Day 4 God created light, stars, moon and sun. 14-19
Day 5 God created life in the waters, birds 20-23
Day 6 God created animals on the land and the beasts of the field 24-25
Also on day 6, God created the crown of His creation. Man was created in the image of God.
Day 7 God rested to give man a day of rest.
Was man created by God and if so, Why?
Let’s first break this study into two parts as the above question suggests. We’ll look at the creation question first and then we will turn our eyes toward the spiritual application of the beginning as revealed in Genesis.
Part I. Was man created by God?
If God did not create man but instead we are products of random chance, then the purpose
of man is meaningless and any further discussion of living for God is irrelevant.
Obviously, the debate of creation verses evolution can’t be adequately addressed in a
short study such as this. Many volumes have been written on this subject and many more
volumes more will be written. When I approach a study such as this, I base it on the
principle Jesus used in John chapter 10:
25 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father's name, they bear witness of Me.
26 "But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you.
27 "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
Those who belong to God will hear His voice and the evidence will draw us toward Him. Those who do not believe have rejected God and no amount of evidence will convince them. God has not called me to be a debater and my goal is not to overpower those who reject creation. What God has called me to do is present the truth and provide reasonable evidence that allows faith to stand or fall based on what we choose to believe. I am absolutely confident that the evidence is overwhelmingly in support of the Biblical account of creation. However, what position we are seeking to validate is what we will ultimately choose. If an evolutionist sets out to prove evolution, he or she will be more than willing to ignore the facts that contradict this presupposition and cling to anything that can be forced into the evolution model. Watch any nature show and you will see this clearly this. I listened to this comment the other day, "Laying eggs is usually reserved for birds and reptiles. Only two mammals lay eggs instead of giving live birth, the platypus and the spiny anteater. It is a mystery as to how evolution preserved this trait when these mammals descended from their reptilian ancestors". Anything that can’t be explained is called a mystery and credited to the intelligence of evolution. Evolution is given attributes as though it is intelligent and the word ‘design’ pops up inevitably. Evolution documentaries do not deny the fact of amazing design, but they attribute it to the intelligence of the evolutionary process. This focus of this study will be on the beginning of Genesis. In our present culture, it would be a mistake to examine creation without acknowledging the challenge that evolution has presented.
One thing I will mention in passing is the erroneous concept of ‘Theistic Evolution’. Many have taught that there is a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 where evolution occurred. This clearly falls under the repeated warning of scripture not to add or take away from God’s revelation of scripture. Science once believed in common spontaneous generation. This was the belief that life frequently evolved from the materials present. For example, how did weevils get into sealed bags of wheat? How did fruit flies appear in a closed jar? How did small animals appear in a jug of water? Before the knowledge of microscopic life, these were great mysteries. When Darwin first became a mainstream contender in the science world, he seemed to answer a lot of the unknowns. Darwin filled in many gaps that science had not been able to answer. Because of a lack of knowledge, Darwin’s ideas made sense to a lot of people. In what I believe was an attempt to save credibility, many theologians tried to marry the biblical account with the evolution account. There are two main flaws with theistic evolution. First, evolution was born out of an attempt to find atheistic response to our origins. It is also used by the pagan world that denies the existence of a personal God. It was a clear attempt to explain our origins without God. If there is a God and He created us, then there is a moral law and we are subject to Him. If there is no God or if there is but He had nothing to do with our origins and we are products of random chance, then we are only subject to our own ideas and our environment. Evolution is and always has been a rebellion against the God of the Bible.
The second flaw is that there is no evidence for it. In Darwin’s time, these theories seemed to answer many of these questions. However, Darwin himself admitted that his theory could only hold up if future scientific findings would support his theories. Science has not proven Darwin to be true. Today there is nothing that is observed by science that contradicts the Bible. It is not the observations of science that create the points of contention; it is the assumptions that are not observed in science or the real world that are areas of debate. Evolutionists balk at the notion that God could have created the world from out of nothing. But we should note that evolution, taken back to its ‘logical’ beginning, starts at the exact same point. Both worldviews begin with something being created from nothing. The ultimate difference is that the Christian worldview has an explanation. The God who created this universe does have the power and is able to create. If we follow creation all the way back, we find God. If we follow evolution all the way back, we find a gaping whole that is ‘a great mystery’. Evolution says a single ‘super-dense’ molecule was responsible for exploding and creating countless stars and now scientists say billions of galaxies (some say hundreds of billions) that are beyond our home galaxy. We either serve an infinite God who holds all things together or we are products of the infinite expanse of a single molecule. Evolution can never step all the way back to the beginning. They must stop at the molecule. To ask where the molecule originated is avoided in the ‘big bang’ theory.
More and more Christians are adopting evolution as a compatible doctrine with the creation story. So is evolution compatible with the Bible? Could God have used evolution to complete creation? No. Evolution is 100% incompatible with the Bible. The Bible tells us that death came by sin. Sin did not enter into the world until after Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Evolution requires death in order to arrive to Adam. Therefore, for a Christian who believes in evolution (even theistic evolution, the 'GAP theory' or progressive evolution) by default, must believe the Bible to be false. Not only do you have to discredit the first 11 chapters of Genesis, but also the New Testament. The foundation of the New Testament is that sin entered through death and Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin (Romans 5:12). The Bible says,
16 ...For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation
17 For if by the one man's offense death reigned ... much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ
You cannot believe Geneses or these passages and believe in evolution. If evolution exists, then the Bible is false. Evolution proclaims that death did not come by sin but existed millions or billions of years before man arrived. Salvation through Christ is built on the need of salvation that began with Adam in Genesis. Romans builds the Christian faith on this principle. If this is wrong, so is the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no middle ground provided by scripture.
I don’t want to turn this into an evolution rebuttal study, but I do see the need to address a few key points. My goal is not to answer all the questions, but to show that it takes more faith to believe in the godless world of evolution than to believe in the biblical account. I am going to address some of the proofs that are used to declare evolution as a ‘proven fact’.
Carbon dating
Lets begin by looking at carbon dating. Willard Libby developed this process of testing
the age of materials in the early 1950’s. Carbon dating works by measuring the amount
of carbon 14 in the atmosphere and comparing it to the amount found in a dead and buried
plant or animal. Carbon 14 forms as the result of the sun’s radiation hitting the
atmosphere. It is radioactive which means it is unstable and decays relatively quickly as
compared to more stable molecules. When C14 encounters oxygen it forms carbon dioxide.
Plants breathe it in and it becomes part of the plant tissue. The amount in plants is
usually very close to the amount in the atmosphere since this is the air they are using.
Animals eat the plants and C14 becomes part of their tissue. The premise of carbon dating
is to measure the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and comparing it to the amount found
in buried plants and animals. The break down of C14 is measured in half-lives. A half-life
cycle is the premise that half of the C14 molecules will break down in 5,700 years. C14
will be measurable up to 5 half lives which is roughly 30,000 years. Beyond that it is
immeasurable. So if a plant or animal is found, and it has lost half its C14 molecules, it
is just under 6,000 years old. If it has ¼, then it is assumed to be 12,000 years and so
on up to 30,000 years. Anything beyond 30,000 years cannot be measured by carbon dating.
There are two major assumptions used in the carbon dating method. First, the rate of decay is constant throughout the C14’s lifecycle. Scientists are assuming that it didn’t begin to decay rapidly and slow down or vise-versa. The second assumption is that the atmosphere contained the same C14 content when the specimen died as it does today. We know that this is not the case. Each time the atmosphere is measured, the carbon 14 ratio goes up. This completely contradicts the evolutionary model and here is why. Evolution assumes that C14 has hit the equilibrium rate. Equilibrium is the point where the rate of decay is equal to the rate it is produced by the sun. If sunlight were to hit the earth today for the first time, C14 would immediately begin to be produced. It would be around 6,000 years before significant decay would occur. As the C14 supply slowly decays, and new molecules are produced, the C14 rate will continue to rise until equilibrium.
To put it into perspective, picture a barrel full of small holes. You are going to fill the barrel with water. As the water rises, it comes to the first set of holes and begins to leak. As the barrel continues to fill it encounters more holes. The rate of the water rising continues at a slower and slower pace as it encounters new holes until it is leaking out as fast as it is filling. That is the point of equilibrium. Picture the holes as the decay of C14 molecules. The quantity in our atmosphere will rise until there are as many decaying as there are being produced. This will occur in approximately 30,000 years (the maximum number of half-lives measurable). So if our C14 rate is still rising, this shatters the theory that the world is 4.5 billion years old but instead it dates the world between 6,000 and 30,000 years. We can’t know exactly until we hit equilibrium.
Another interesting fact about carbon dating is that of the 21,000 specimens submitted for carbon dating, 19,000 were rejected as inaccurate. If 19,000 were rejected, why were the other 2,000 considered to be accurate? They fit the evolutionary model. One of the primary gauges for validating the age of a fossil is by the age of the geologic column. The geologic column dating was established in the middle of the 1800’s. This dating system is the established system and can’t be challenged even if the evidence is compelling. Good science is to develop a theory, seek out data and see if it validates or refutes the theory. Evolution does just the opposite. The theory is declared as a fact and all the evidence is accepted or discredited based on whether it supports the evolutionary model. Instead of validating the theory by the evidence, they validate the evidence by the theory. That simply is not good science. This is founded solely on blind faith.
Speed of light
Another sited piece of evidence for the earth being billions of years old is the distance
of stars from the earth. Many stars are estimated as being as far away as 5 billion light
years. If the light of those stars takes 5 billion years to reach us, it stands to reason
that the earth must be at least 5 billion years old. However, there is no accurate way of
measuring the distance of stars from the earth. It is a completely theoretical science.
One of the most common ways used to measure a distance to a star is by parallax
trigonometry. In layman’s terms this is the calculation between two fixed points of
reference and the angle to the third point. In other words, if you have two fixed points,
you can calculate the distance to a third point without having to reach it by using a
geometric formula and using the angle as a reference for the third point. The problem with
this method is that the two fixed points must be far enough apart to get different
readings so a triangle can be measured to a distant object. If two surveyors stand side by
side and try to calculate the distance to an object, it won’t work because they are
both using the same fixed point as a reference. The farther an object is, the harder it is
to get a triangle.
Astronomers use the earth’s rotation around the sun to get a larger triangle. An astronomer will take a reading in June and then again in December to get two fixed points at 186 million miles apart – or one point of reference on each side of the earth’s path around the sun. This may seem like a long distance, but in light distances, it is only 16 minutes. The sun is 8 light minutes away and the earth’s path on the other side of the sun is 8 light minutes beyond the sun. There is over 525,000 minutes in a year, so 1 light year compared to our two reference points 16 minutes apart would only give an angle of .017 which is barely beyond a straight line (and there are no stars as close as 1 light year). To put this into perspective, imagine two surveyors standing 16 inches apart measuring the distance to a point that is 525,000 inches away or 8.3 miles. Scientists claim they can accurately measure the distance of a star up to 20 light years away but make no claims of accuracy beyond this distance. 20 light years is equal to two surveyors standing 16" apart and trying to measure the angle of a dot 1,992.3 miles away. If you began at the tip of Florida you would have to go 500 miles into Canada to equal that 1,900 miles. Accuracy would be a stretch at 20 light years, but the star in question is not 20 light years away, it is 5 billion light years away. You have only gotten 1/250,000,000th of the way there. If we can only claim accuracy for 20 light years, how can we claim it to be a fact that we receive light from a star that is 5,000,000,000 light years from us? That is a huge leap of faith.
Red shift
Another scientific theory to the big bang theory is the red shift. Simply put, the red
shift is the evidence that the universe is expanding away from the explosion point of the
big bang. The red shift is a fact; it is the conclusion of what the red shift tells us
that is in dispute. The red shift also known as the Doppler Effect. When an object is
stationary it sends out wave fronts evenly. When an object is moving, it has different
wave lengths. If a star is moving toward earth, the star will have a blue shift because
the front of the light source will shorter wave lengths. If a star is moving away, the
wave lengths will be longer or will have a red shift. This is the same effect that we get
from radar. The speed of a cloud or even cars can be measured by how it reflects back to
the radar. Short waves is movement toward the radar, long waves is moving away.
There are some problems with the red shift theory. The first problem is that some galaxies that should be moving away from us are showing a blue shift indicating that it is moving toward us. This blue shift alone defeats the big bang model.
It is clear that the ‘facts’ stated by the evolution model are not as solid as they lead people to believe. If anything, science (true science) points away from the evolution model. Evolution can’t compromise their ‘facts’ for fear of pointing toward the Creator. In all other sciences, when experiments prove a theory or even part of a theory to be false, researchers have to go back to the point of failure or even to the beginning of their hypothesis and re-think their model. In evolution, this is not so. Because evolution – by design – excludes God from any part of science, anything that points to God must be rejected instead of analyzed. Anything that points away from evolution points toward a designer. So it is easy to see why they are so dogmatic about anything that challenges their beliefs.
A common response against creation is the claim that evolutionists and atheists are intellectuals and elite thinkers. I have repeatedly heard comments like, "I don’t let superstitions and petty religious views cloud my reasoning. You keep your religion in your little world, and I will stick to science." The evidence against creation is that it is religion and not science. Anything that is attributed to creation is immediately classified as religious in nature and does not have to be addressed. It does not matter what evidence that supports it, it belongs in the religious file and can’t be mixed into science. That is why you have scientists that were once respected that are now completely ignored and discredited on the basis of religion. If findings support creation or contradicts evolution, it is labeled as religious and rejected from the scientific community. It matters little that the evidence is compelling. Today science can only be measured against the evolutionary model. That is just not good science. It hasn’t always been this way. Creation scientists founded most of the major scientific fields of study. But today, creation evidence is a big no-no and anyone who ignores that line will be discredited. A case in point is Robert Gentry.
Gentry is a prominent researcher and has been published in Science, Nature, Journal of Geophysical Research and other scientific journals. He fell from the ranks of mainstream science when he published his research on Primordial Polonium Haloes. Polonium is very radioactive, which means that it is extremely unstable and decays very quickly. The half-life for the isotope of polonium 214 is .000164th of one second. When these particles explode outward they form a microscopic ring or what is called the polonium radio halo.
In order for these haloes to form, the rock had to be solid at the time the polonium broke apart or within the same instant. Evolution says that the earth was a hot molten mass that cooled slowly over millions of years. If this were true, the polonium would have disintegrated almost immediately and disappeared long before the rock could form. To put into a visual image, if you explode a hand grenade in a lake and freeze it at the moment of the explosion, all the particles would be captured and preserved. Granite is the foundation of the earth, so the formation of granite gives insight to the formation of the earth. Robert Gentry studied granite from all over the earth and found that these polonium haloes were throughout the granite indicating that either the rock was a solid mass at the time the polonium broke apart or it had to have formed within .001148th of a second after the polonium breakup. To get a mental image of this, our eyes blink at around .3 seconds (or 3/10th ) of a second. To preserve the halo, it would have to solidify hundreds of times faster than you can blink immediately after the earth formed. The polonium decays within 3 minutes max and could have been within seconds. The scientific implication is clear. The evolutionary model does not fit the evidence. The earth was not a molten rock when it formed, but a solid mass. Because polonium is extremely unstable it usually survives only a few seconds before the molecules begin to disintegrate. Therefore, the evidence points to a sudden formation of the earth in a cooled state. This finding has angered the scientific community because it points directly to creation. Genesis 1:2 says that the earth was covered by water at the time of creation. The science fits the biblical model but contradicts evolution; therefore it has been rejected and placed in the ‘religious file’. There is no other explanation offered by evolutionist other than these are religious in nature.
I added this information to this study so to make sure that when we here these terms we understand what they mean. We don’t have to know all the details, but it is important that we are not drawing a blank and unable to stand in defense of what we believe. I was also compelled to study this because I know that our culture has been echoing these terms as proofs for evolution. If we feel like the truth is against us, how will our faith stand? We don’t serve a God of contradictions. We don’t have to choose between faith and reality. God created all things and everything points back to God. The facts have to be re-shaped or discounted to keep them from pointing to our Creator.
Part II. Why did God create us?
Why does it matter whether God used evolution or creation to form man?
There are two major reasons this is a foundational issue. We are created in the image of God. Because we are the reflection of God, we have been created for the purpose of glorifying God. Unlike the beast of the field, we are stamped with the image of the Creator and given attributes of our Creator. If we are not in God’s image, then we are not accountable to God. A dog will not be judged for his choices, but we are all accountable to God. We were also created to have fellowship with God. Sin has created a breach between our Creator and us. Because God formed us by His image and created us for a purpose, He has the right to expect us to live within the glory He has created us to reflect. We are not gods, but we are the image of God. What we do reflects upon Him.
The other factor is the issue of sin. If all men did not descend from Adam, then we did not all inherit his sinful nature. Without sin, there is no need for a redeemer and Jesus did not have to die on the cross. Jesus referenced Adam and Eve as historical figures. He used God’s creation of male and female as the foundation of how God expected marriage to become a union. Without Adam and Eve, who has the right to say how marriage was to work? Jesus pointed back to God’s ordained union as the basis for marriage. Jesus pointed back to the first man and woman as the beginning of God’s plan through creation. If Jesus presented creation as the foundation of scriptural truth, how can we depart from that foundation and call it just a ‘moral story’?
The Original Sin
1 Corinthians 15
21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
It was Adam that introduced sin into the world. Lets look at the original sin given in Genesis 3.
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"
2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden;
3 "but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.' "
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.
5 "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?"
10 So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself."
11 And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?"
12 Then the man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate."
13 And the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
The original sin was not the fruit; it was what the fruit represented. All temptation works the same way. We are lured by the luster after the devil convinces us that there are no consequences to our actions. Absolutely nothing has changed since the first sin. The temptation process is the same and our reasoning is the same. Lets break down this passage and see how it is applicable today. There are three processes that we see in this passage. Satan’s deception, the process of temptation, and denying responsibility for sin.
Satan’s Deception
Let’s begin with the deception. Satan always begins by attacking our position. His
first question to Eve was "what did God say?". Those who are ignorant of the
word of God are easy prey. The next easiest prey is the one who knows the word, but do not
take ownership. We can’t ride the coattail of someone else’s vision. Adam heard
the word and passed it down to Eve. Eve clearly understood the command of God, but it was
not a conviction. Because of this, her understanding quickly fell to doubt when satan
began to twist the word. Satan immediately followed up Eve’s testimony of God’s
command by questioning her knowledge of what God really said. Eve confessed that God said,
"You shall not eat it nor touch it or you will die" but satan added one word
– ‘not’. "You shall not surely die". The implication is that the
word delivered to Eve was not true. She will not die but will gain from this fruit. The
first step toward temptation is to doubt the word of the Lord.
The second step in satan’s deception is to appeal to our pride. All sin and every anti-God doctrine hangs on central phrase of verse 5, "You will be like God". What does the ‘Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints’ teach? Follow our path and you will be like God. That is the ultimate goal of every dedicated Mormon. They believe the promise satan made at the beginning. You can be a god. What does Buddhism teach? Through enlightenment, you can achieve godhood. Re-incarnation teaches that you keep going around until you build up enough karma to achieve oneness with God (or their form of God). The New Age movement’s central theme is the god within you. Every cult and every sin is founded on the premise that I am a god. I know good and evil and I know better than anyone including the commands given by God. We become blinded to the consequences of sin by pride and our arrogance. Each sin does have consequence. Each time we willfully sin, our actions proclaim our arrogance and that we believe our ways to be wiser than God’s. He knows the physical and the spiritual consequences of sin. God created us and designed us to fit perfectly into His plan. He sees plainly what is on the path ahead of us. We can only see the moment before us but not the future or the application of our actions. In spite of this, we are easily deceived into thinking that we have wisdom beyond God’s. To be the god of our own destiny is the sin of pride and it will always lure us away from God’s perfect plan. Did Adam and Eve’s ways gain the greater benefit? When they departed from God’s plan, they also forfeited God’s best blessings that were a part of that plan.
The third step in satan’s deception is to question God’s motive. "God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." This is the biggest hurdle between us and temptation. Once we cross over this obstacle, it is a slippery slope the rest of the way down. It is hard to obey God when we think God is keeping us from what is good. When I think that God is a cosmic killjoy, I can’t trust Him. I have got to understand the love that God has for me. It is easy to say that God loves me, but until this becomes a personal conviction, I will not trust God completely. I must understand that God has a plan that He fashioned especially for me so that I will one day stand before God complete and fulfilled. God’s plan goes far beyond my immediate circumstances and into eternity. I am absolutely convinced that if there is any way to gain what God has without trials or suffering, God would do it. But we are ‘here and now’ thinkers. We mistake hard times as a negative. In reality, we can’t see the benefit God is working out for our good. Some may not understand until they stand before God. It is a fact that no one will stand before God and say that His plan was not right. But many will look back and regret they did not trust Him when the going was tough.
The same holds true for ‘missing out’. If we believe the lie and think that we are missing out because God is depriving us, we will not trust him either. The Bible says just the opposite. We deny ourselves so that God can fulfill us. I don’t deny myself so that I can be miserable; it is a matter of trust. The Bible says,
Luke 9:23 Then He said to them all, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
24 "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
25 "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and is himself destroyed or lost?
And the Bible also says:
Psalm 16:11 You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
God told Abraham "I am your exceedingly great reward" and instructed him to leave his life behind and go to a place that God will show him. As we study the word and live it, we see the plan of God begin to immerge. It is a matter of walking by faith. I believe God, I trust Him, and I rest in the confidence of His love for me. Therefore, I am able to deny myself and take up my cross and follow Him. I know that I deny myself because I trust in His promises. God can’t give to me when I am clinging to what separates me from His will. God also can’t fill the arms that are already full. I lay down what I have believing that God is better. I can either pursue my life and gain all this world has to offer and find out it is a complete loss; or I can deny myself and trust God to fulfill me and to provide my satisfaction and fulfillment. His satisfaction enriches my life now, and stores up treasure in heaven as well. That is what the devil does not want you to see. He lures our eyes off God’s plan and points us to our immediate circumstances or immediate gratification.
The Process of Temptation
Deception is only effective if we respond to it. No one fools us; we choose what we will
submit our minds and hearts to. There is always selfish motivation before deception. Have
you noticed that the people are always swindled by thieves that appeal to greed or
promising to fulfill self centered desires? If you put a prize on an advertisement, plenty
of people will send their money in. A recent scam has taken and continues to bilk
thousands of people each year. The scam is simple. A person is notified that they have won
a large sum of money. Before they can collect on that money, they must first pay the taxes
up front. They pay out the bogus tax bill and the thief disappears with the money. There
are countless similar scams with different flavors. Some require a purchase, some require
a checking account number to ‘wire the funds’ and the variations are
innumerable. Why do the scams work so effectively? Because they target the greedy. If you
promise someone what they desire, they will often lower their defenses.
That is how satan deceives. He appeals to our desires. We are not tricked, we are lured. Eve’s choice was a basic decision. God gave this command and its consequence, satan countered with promises to gratify her desires with the stipulation that she break the command. Who does Eve view as the most credible? Beware of any promise that centers around desire and bypasses responsibility.
Look at the steps Eve took and you will see that they are no different than temptation today. The process began by an appeal to Eve’s desires. Even then stopped and looked at the temptation. She imagined its benefits and lust took hold. She then took the fruit and once it was in her hands, the battle was lost. She did not have the strength to resist at this point.
The battle of temptation is not won or lost at the point of the temptation. It is won or lost at the moment we set the direction of our course. It is the moment of the first compromise that almost always wins or loses the battle. I go into the compromising process having already decided what my desire will be directed toward. If I can’t resist the first compromise, I will rarely have the will to resist when my momentum and desire is racing toward sin. We begin the same process as Eve. Satan appeals to our desires and we look. One thing I frequently mention is that where our eyes are, our feet will follow. If we recognize temptation and turn away, we will not be drawn. To resisting is to not be in situations that tempt. Almost all of us would agree that it would be foolish for alcoholic to go into a liquor store and try to resist the urge to drink. But we often are just as foolish. We usually fall to the same types of sin, but instead of making lifestyle changes, we keep doing the same things and expecting different results.
Proverbs 22:3 tells us that a sensible man sees evil and hides himself, but the simple minded (or short sighted) continue on and are punished. We usually find that there are many warning signs that we pass by before we reap the consequences. James 4 tells us that the process of resisting is to submit to God. We resist by drawing near to Him and He promises to draw near to us. It is a complete change of focus. When I am tempted or see what I know will tempt me, I am not to just resist, but must turn and focus on Jesus. It is hard to focus on temptation and resist. My strength will only carry me so far. I must turn and draw near to God and put my trust in His promise to draw me near to Him. Satan flees from God, not me or my resistance.
The alternative is to see temptation and be drawn toward it. In this case, we have already made our decision, but we have not gotten to the point of justifying it in our minds. We are masters of self-deception. The process is that we see, we want, but we are too ashamed to jump right it. So we give in with baby steps. The devil will gladly take us by the hand and walk us down that road. After we begin to look, we begin to imagine the benefits and soon question the reasons why we should resist. Then we begin to lust in our heart and take another step closer. Once temptation is in our grasp, it is almost impossible to resist and we will bite. Where was the battle lost? When we took the fruit of temptation? I believe that we can clearly see that the battle was lost long before we committed the action. James 1:4 tells us that we are tempted when we are drawn by our own desires and enticed. We resist by turning toward God and putting our focus on Christ, but we give in by turning toward temptation and being drawn away from God. You can maintain fellowship with God and pursue sin at the same time.
One point I should make is that gratifying our desires will not and cannot satisfy us. There is a big difference between gratification and satisfaction. We can gratify ourselves, but only God can satisfy. Gratification is when we fill our desire to the saturation point. It is when we have quenched our desires to the point when we no longer desire and sometimes we are sick of the very thing we desired. As the pleasure fades, the longing for fulfillment returns. Trying to find fulfillment through gratification is like forcing a square peg into a round hole. You can make it fit, but you can’t fill in the gaps. God has created us and we are designed to be fulfilled by Him. Only God and His plan can fit perfectly into the missing part of our life. We can temporarily cover it, but the gaps will always rise to the surface.
Satisfaction is different. God is our reward and He satisfies completely. The Bible says that when God gives pleasure, He adds no sorrow with it. When God becomes our desire and we place our hope in Him, He satisfies and fulfills. God does not offer instant gratification. God requires us to walk by faith. We obey because we love and trust Him. God’s promises are fulfilled through faith and patience. To gain the blessings of God, we go where God is blessing. Blessings are a natural outflow given to those who are faithful to Him. It is also important to understand that the blessings of God do not fulfill. It is the relationship with Him that is our exceedingly great reward. His blessings can’t replace the One who blesses. God may not give instant gratification, but He does give immediate satisfaction and fulfillment.
It is when we believe the deception that there is something God is keeping from us, that we will grow discontented and take our eyes off of God. When we take our eyes off God, we will lose focus and miss the fulfillment He gives. Satan’s goal is to get your focus off of Christ. He is willing to concede church and religious activities if he can get your focus. How far off does our aim need to be to miss the target? When I was in the military, we had to qualify with our rifles so that we were always battle ready. Before qualifying, we would adjust the sites on our rifles. We did this by shooting a paper target with grid lines. We would then adjust our sights based on where the bullet hit the target. We would test fire again until we were consistently hitting the center of the target. Then we could confidently go out on the qualifying range knowing that our sites were perfectly lined. That is exactly what the word of God does. It is the guide that aligns us with the will of God so that we can be absolutely confident that we are aiming and hitting the plan He has for our lives. Without His word, we have no way of knowing if we are truly in line. How far off target do you have to be to miss the mark?
Whose to Blame?
Have you ever been around people who were living contrary to your values? When someone is
openly living a sinful lifestyle, they can’t tolerate those who are not doing the
same. A moral life speaks volumes and those living contrary fall under conviction. Several
years ago I read an article about a golf game Billy Graham played with a group of men. At
the end of the outing, one of the men slammed down his golf clubs and in a rage he
protested that he was sick of Billy preaching at him. Everyone was shocked because the
topic of conversation was never on religion or anyone’s lifestyle. It was not the
words of Billy Graham that was preaching, it was his lifestyle. Misery loves company. Why
are the radical groups attacking the Boy Scouts? Why are Bible believing Christians and
organizations demonized? Because when we see someone living godly and we are not, we will
feel convicted about our lifestyle. We must either reject them, convince them to live as
we are, or make changes in our life. There is a reason why our religious liberties are
under a constant threat; people who love the dark, hate the light. Jesus put it this way,
"For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest
his deeds should be exposed." (John 3:20). Philippians 2:15 tells us that we are
lights to the world. We reflect the grace and love of God. Because of this, we need to
understand that if God’s light is unwelcomed, we who carry that light will be
rejected as well.
Eve immediately tempted Adam with the same sin. This is another powerful tool satan uses – the power of influence. Just because everyone is doing it, does not make it ok. Many fall to temptation because those around them don’t seem to be bothered by it. God does not grade on a curve. God’s measurement is His word. The world calls the Bible a 2,000 year old outdated book. The world measures right and wrong based on the culture around it. As the culture declines, everyone following it will slide as well without even realizing it. When abortion was legalized, most of the culture was appalled. Now most are apathetic. When prayer was banished from school, Madalyn Murray O'Hair was called the most hated woman in America. Now, thirty years later the culture has slid to the point where those who promote prayer in public are considered the offenders.
Just because the culture says that abortion is ok does not change the evil that is being committed. Just because the culture says that the traditional family is no longer valid does not change the fact that God designed the family in the beginning of Genesis and He has not changed the standard. The culture has moved the lines of honesty, integrity, morality and every value established by the Bible. These values have not changed, but our culture has. The world now demands that our values reflect the moral state of the culture or we will be labeled as intolerant and evil. The Bible warns us not to follow this trend. Look at the warning found in Isaiah 5:20: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Do we see this today? I think it is self-evident. Larry Flint (the publisher for the pornographic magazine Hustler) is called a hero and a defender of free speech and James Dobson is called Hitler because of his stance on family values. It is important that we are aware of the influence of others or we will subtly adopt their viewpoints without thinking about what worldview these ideas are based upon.
The next thing we can draw from this passage is our response to sin once we have committed it. If we don’t understand that God’s first choice is grace and forgiveness then we will run from God. We find Adam and Eve hiding from God when only God can redeem them. We often do the same thing. When we know that we have let God down, we often react by hiding from Him in shame. We recognize our unworthiness and feel like God has rejected us and is far from us. In reality, He has not moved, we have; and God is never shocked at our sin. He knew beforehand the path we would choose. We may miss out on God’s desire to bless us fully, but God still provides restoration and healing for our sins. The Bible says, "He redeems the soul of His servants". God does not condemn us, but redeems us. There are still consequences to sin. Adam and Eve lost the privileges that were taken for granted. They lost the benefit of God’s first choice for them but God still loved them and provided the option of forgiveness.
Denial of Responsibility
The final part of the process is finger pointing and denial of responsibility. Adam began
by blaming God and Eve. "The woman that you gave me to be with deceived me".
What is the implication? If God hadn’t blessed my life, this temptation would not
have been here? When I was going to school, I worked part time for a credit card company.
When people charged their credit line to the maximum, they would call in and request more
credit. Many times, we would need to check their financial information before we could
authorize more purchasing. When additional credit was declined, inevitably they would say,
"who are you to tell me how much I can afford to charge on my card?" Ironically,
when people fall behind on their payments and fall so far into debt that they can’t
keep up, they would take the opposite approach. I was frequently told, "If you
hadn’t given me so much credit, I would not be in debt. It’s your fault".
Denial of responsibility is a common human reaction. Eve responded by blaming the serpent.
Finger pointing and dodging ownership of our actions is tactic satan uses to keep us from
repentance.
I can’t recognize God’s mercy and His gift of forgiveness until I recognize I am a sinner, I am responsible for my own actions and there is nothing I can do to cover my own sin. I am 100% dependent on the redemption provided through Jesus Christ for my redemption. Ducking responsibility will not cleanse my sin. Making up for it in works will not cleanse my sin. Only God has the power to forgive because only God had paid the price of the debt created by my sins. We have all descended from Adam and are all sinful by nature. Anyone who doesn’t believe we are born into sin should just observe a child. I did not have to teach my children how to be greedy, stingy, selfish, how to hit, how to throw fits or how to disobey. By nature my kids knew how to do these things and many other misbehaviors. We learn to mask our behavior with manners, but we can’t change our nature. There must be a new nature. This new nature is born when we become a child of God in Christ Jesus. The rest of our life here is learning to live by the new nature (living spiritually) and departing from our old nature. It is a growing process and a life-long mission. Which nature we invest our lives is a vital decision. What is invested in this life will be lost, but what is invested in the spirit will benefit now and last for all eternity.
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Eddie Snipes
Exchanged Life Outreach
http://www.exchangedlife.com
Other resources:
If you are interested in the differences
between micro and macro evolution and how these fit into the biblical world view, click
here.
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