Picture me on a stage with stacks and
stacks and stacks of books around me, everywhere.
Some stacks are high as my waist; some as high as my
shoulders, but most stacks far above my head. Can
your image it? This would just be a small sampling
of how many books have been written on the subject
of the origins of our universe—religious and
otherwise. Where did mankind come from? How did we
get here? It doesn’t matter how much I preach on it
or how convincing I might be, I’ll never answer
these questions in a way everyone will accept. The
debate is just too intense.
However, we need to answer it for ourselves. We need
to know where we stand and where we can and cannot
bend, because sooner or later, someone is going to
challenge our views. If the first professor you run
into at college (or online) that questions your God
or questions your bible or questions your Christian
worldview causes you to give up your faith, then all
that tells me is how
weak your foundation was from the beginning.
Christians compromise too much.
Some people just cannot bring themselves to say, “In
the beginning God . . . !” They say, “In the
beginning gases,” or “In the beginning some matter
and vapors.” The constant struggle to explain our
origin has always been here. The ancient Greeks
taught the earth was held up by a god named Atlas.
When Greek children asked, “What’s does Atlas stand
on?” They were told he stands on the back of an
elephant. “What does the elephant stand on?” A Giant
turtle! “What does the giant turtle stand on?” On
the back of bigger Turtle! Every time they asked,
the next turtle got bigger and bigger until they
concluded: “It’s easy . . . there are turtles all
the way down.” All the way down to what? Do you
really want to put your eternal destination in
something like that?
Genesis 1:2–4 reads: “Now the earth was formless and
empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was
light. God saw that the light was good, and he
separated the light from the darkness.” I love that
the first thing God did was to address darkness. The
first recorded words of God are, “Let there be
light.” This isn’t the creation of the sun . . . it
doesn’t come until later on in day four. How do we
have light before the sun, moon, and stars? We’re
told, “God dwells in unapproachable light” (I
Timothy 6:16). It was because God was there . . .
and there was light everywhere.
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Now I don’t want to be too rigid, but
I do have strong convictions here. But that doesn’t
mean we have to attend every argument we’re invited
to. Beware of people who are overly dogmatic. There
have been countless seminars on both Genesis and
Revelation. There are people who are convinced they
have it all figured out; how God made the world and
how the end of times will play out. To them, they
have the only right view and the only right
interpretation and they dogmatically fight you for
their views. Beware of people like that.
As for me, I believe! You see, if we only had an
eyewitness there at the beginning, what a difference
that eyewitness makes in a court of law when there
are conflicting opinions about what happened. If we
could find a creditable witness to creation, it
would be most helpful. Well I believe we have such a
witness. And this eyewitness has gone on record.
None of us were there . . . but the Holy Spirit was.
And the Spirit continued to lead men to write what
God wanted written. For me, we can trust our bibles
and enjoy Genesis.
[Ron Otto, preaching minister at Lincoln
Christian Church in Lincoln] |
