Let me begin with a quick review of the material we covered last week. The key idea of the verse is that God has given us as the primary example of real faith, belief in the description of His own creative power for the existence of the universe. It is not just belief in a creation. True biblical faith receives all of what God has said as accurate. Believing that God created the world without believing in how He created the world is not believing God. It is in essence telling God what He can and cannot do. “God, you can create the world but you cannot create it in this way.”
We noted last week that by faith we have understanding of how God created the world. He created it by simply speaking and He created it from nothing.
Then we began to show why God uses creation as a litmus test for faith. If a person understands what the Scripture says about creation and rejects it they do not possess true biblical faith. Why is this? First, we saw that creation is what separates the true God from idols. Psalm 96 says, “The gods of the nations are idols but the Lord made the heavens.” If your God didn’t create the world in six days He isn’t the God of the Bible. Also God uses creation as a litmus test for faith because creation is the definitive and accurate marking point for the work of God in the world. Human history falls apart at its very beginning if we follow some other scheme than the Genesis accounts. Now we come to the third reason God makes creation a litmus test of faith.
C. The rejection of creation brings the wrath of God.
The third reason God makes creation a litmus test of faith is that the rejection of creation brings the wrath of God. We can see this clearly from Romans 1:18-32. Verse 18 describes the entrance into this wrath. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The truth suppressed, of which Paul speaks, is the truth of God’s creative work. In this passage we note three distinct aspects of the rejection of creation and the accompanying wrath of God.
1. There is evidence given (19-20)
First, we see that there is evidence given. Look at verses 19-20. “Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” The evidence of creation that God gave to man is both internal and external. First the Scripture says, “God made it evident within them.” God placed in every person the knowledge of God and His law. It was placed in there so that people don’t have to “learn” it to find out there is a God but have to suppress to deny that there is One. The conscience is evangelist’s friend. As a Christian begins to allow the weight of the Law to work upon a person they will either agree with it or have to suppress it. Suppressing the truth is a dangerous place on account of the wrath of God that awaits those who it.
But not only is the evidence of creation internal it is also external. “God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes…have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse.” I think we could say that the power of God is seen in His creation because of the order, complexity and magnitude of the universe. Look at the order of the universe. There is a sense of orderliness in the creation Even taking into account the chaos that has occurred because of the curse there is great order in our universe. The dependence of various parts of the ecosystem upon one another shows order. When you have two completely different kinds of animals that rely upon each other for care this shows order not evolution.
There is a small fish that swims around certain kinds of coral to protect itself from larger predators. And yet when a specific type of predator fish parks itself outside the coral and opens its mouth this little fish comes out and swims (without anxiety) into the mouth of this larger fish. The small fish then cleans the teeth of the other fish, removing particles from its all-day excursion of eating small fish, like the one currently swimming around in its mouth. How did the small fish “evolve” or learn to go into the mouth of this fish? How many of these fish did the big fish eat before it learned to keep its mouth open? Where did these two fish first meet? At a singles’ sand bar? Was it love at first bite or did they make this relationship work by the skin of their teeth? OK Dave, enough with the fishy jokes. But where, except in the mind of a gracious Creator could this have been engineered?
Then there is complexity. Creation abounds with awesome examples of complexity. When you examine a human eye you find a great degree of complexity. This again speaks of a Creator. The human eye has 40,000,000 nerve endings, the focusing muscles move an estimated 100,000 times a day, and the retina contains 137,000,000 light sensitive cells. I remember my physics professor in college said that the human eye can recognize just two photons of light coming into a completely dark room. And Charles Darwin said (not one of my college professors however), “To suppose that the eye could have been formed by natural selection, seems I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” Friends this is one simple example of the great complexity of the universe. To say it occurred by chance is, and I confess with Darwin, absurd.
But the universe also shows an amazing magnitude. John Piper in His book, “The Pleasures of God,” describes an amazing astronomical discovery discussed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (When we lived in Minnesota we called it the Red Star Tribune). Piper says this: “It seems in recent decades that God is enjoying keeping the astronomers on the edge of their seats with new glimpses of his power. In the fall of 1989, newspapers reported the discovery by two Harvard astronomers of a “Great Wall” of galaxies stretching hundreds of millions of light years across the known universe. The wall is supposedly some 500 million light years long, 200 million light years wide and 15 million light years thick… this Great Wall consists of more than 15,000 galaxies, each with millions of stars, and was described as the “largest single coherent structure seen so far in nature.”
Piper continues, “I say “was described” because three months later in February 1990, God opened another little window for tiny man to marvel again, and the newspapers reported that astronomers have discovered more than a dozen evenly distributed clumps of galaxies stretching across vast expenses of the heavens, suggesting a structure to the universe that is so regular and immense that it defies current theories of cosmic origins. The newly found pattern of galactic matter dwarfs the extremely long sheet of galaxies dubbed the great wall… that was reported in November 1989 to be the largest structure in the universe. They now say the great wall is, in fact, merely one of the closest of these clumps, or regions, that contain very high concentrations of galaxies.”
Do you see what Piper is describing? The scientists have found these, “boxes,” if you will, filled with galaxies aligned in patterns at the edge of our universe. God’s holiness causes His glory to be seen throughout creation. The whole earth is replete with the wonder of God and His greatness. The magnitude of the creation cries out that an awesome Creator has made the world as He has seen fit.
His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. There is evidence given.
2. There is evidence rejected (21ff)
Secondly, we see that there is evidence rejected in verses 21ff. What do we notice about this evidence rejected? In verse 21 we see that there is light extinguished. Paul says, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” When people refuse to honor God as He has revealed Himself they are plunged into darkness about Him. They begin to make all kinds of wild speculations, such as “millions of years of evolution.” The Gospel of John says they do this for “they loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.”
And when the light is extinguished in their hearts Paul next says that their minds become corrupted. He notes, “Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” These people have such darkness that their minds become corrupted. They are professing to be wise but are merely fools. There is such a temptation in today’s world to acquiesce to such foolishness. After all these men have degrees from large institutions. I think we can become intimidated by those who have these credentials. But the Scripture says that their thinking has become darkened. They are grasping at straws to try to put God out of the picture. Right becomes wrong and wrong, right. You have people, like Darwin, who say, “Why this seems absurd, but I will believe it any way.” Come on people, their common sense dropped out of their briefcase on their way up the education ladder. Again as I said last week I am not against education or science but let us not lose sight of why we should have an education. G.K. Chesterton, said, and I think it hits this nail right on the head, “The evolutionists seem to know everything about the missing link except the fact that it is missing.” And their own people recognize the dearth of material to prove evolution. I think it was the eminent scientist, Dr. Richard Leakey, who said that enough time has gone by to fill in the fossil record to prove evolution but it just hasn’t materialized. The foolishness of denying God’s creative work shows itself when we see all the evidence we don’t have for evolution and yet it is clung to by those who have no other god. Their minds have been corrupted.
What happens to them then? Their bodies are dishonored. Verse 24 says, “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.” God gave them over to have no self-control. So thy freely indulge in behavior that even their monkey’s uncles would be ashamed of.
3. There is an exchange enacted
We have seen that there is evidence given, evidence rejected. And the third aspect of this is that there is an exchange enacted. Let me just mention these quickly. There is an exchange that takes place in these individuals who are reduced to an animal nature they never possessed before. Though they were made in the image of God, broken as it might be from the fall, they are now given over completely to a mind that could be called subhuman. In verse 25 Paul says that rejecting God’s Creatorship exchanges the truth of God for a lie. In verse 25, Paul says that this exchanges Creator worship for creature worship. We are worshipping nature. Earth Day is nature’s celebration and worship. People are staying up in trees to prevent them from being cut down but will go and have the baby in their womb butchered. People are kicked out of their homes because of the endangered California gnatcatcher or the Delhi-Sands flower loving fly that they find on their property. Now I am not saying we ought to go out and destroy the creation but to take Jesus’ words about the Sabbath into this context, “The creation was made for man not man for the creation.” God made this world that we might take care of it but not worship it. And it was made to serve us. We do not worship mother earth but Father God.
To continue, in verse 26, Paul says that natural sexual function was exchanged for deviant sexual function. Perversity becomes rampant in a society that rejects God as Creator. Why? If there is no Creator then no created order and no responsibility for our actions. And so do whatever you want to do as sick as it may seem to a right mind. And finally we see that there is an exchange of right conduct for wrong conduct. Verses 29-32 outline every kind of wickedness that takes place among a people who have rejected God as the Creator.
This is why you see such vile behavior in pagan societies that have long left off the worship of the Creator. This is well documented in Don Richardson’s book, “Eternity in Their Hearts.” This is why in one culture, missionaries were shocked to find that as they explained the Gospel story Judas became the village’s hero. They were so corrupt that right became wrong and wrong right. This is why wicked practices and voodoo take place freely and as a norm instead of perversion. That is why nakedness reigns in these cultures.
But friends, this is what is happening in our own culture. As people are being indoctrinated into paganism here in America, as we are turning away from the truth of God and rejecting God as Creator, people are seeing right as wrong and wrong as right. This is why there is no modesty. This is why people are wearing less clothing with pride. This is why people are wearing low ride jeans and high ride shirts or clothing that has writing on it where people ought not be reading. This is why people are defiling their bodies in all kinds of bizarre ways. We are falling into the same pattern that every culture, that has fallen before us, has taken.
And what goes on in this kind of society? Those doing wrong are adamant about their rights to do wrong. This is how Paul ends this passage. He says, “Although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.” The freedom to sin becomes a right and it becomes a flaunted right.
All of this stems from a rejection of the truth of God’s creative work that brings wrath upon an individual and a society.
D. The rejection of creation invalidates portions of the Word of God.
The fourth reason God makes creation a litmus test of faith is that the rejection of creation invalidates portions of the Word of God. Literally hundreds of passages are invalidated by a rejection of the creation account but I want to touch on a couple of key ones.
The first one at which we should look is Romans 5:12. Here the apostle Paul speaks of Adam’s role in the fall. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men.” Think about this for a moment. This completely contradicts any kind of evolutionary paradigm (or model). The reason is that Paul says death entered the world through Adam’s sin. If this is the case then there could not have been millions of years of death and decay prior to man’s arrival on the scene. The Scripture says man’s sin was the cause of death and destruction upon the earth. If evolution were true then God would have been the cause of death and destruction upon the earth. Evolution would invalidate this passage of Scripture that declares death was not present in the creation until the Adam sinned.
Genesis 1-2 is another portion of Scripture completely overturned by an acceptance of an evolutionary view. Genesis 1-2 cannot even be squeezed into an evolutionary framework because it doesn’t fit the contrived flow of evolution. Some would seek to make this theistic evolution, that is, God has His hand in the process and moved it along the way. The days of Genesis were millions of years. But this cannot work. How can vegetation that comes along on day three be provided with sun light that comes along millions of years later on day four. Or how can these same plants pollinate and reproduce without the birds, bees and bears that come along millions of years later on days five and six. It won’t work. It is simply calling God a liar.
A third passage we need to consider is Matthew 19:3ff. In this passage, Jesus discusses the sinful implications of divorce with the Pharisees who are once again trying to trap Him. But where does He go with His discussion of marriage? He goes right back to Genesis 1-2. He says, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female?” Jesus speaks about this as if it were an actual event as the authority for the precious sanctity of the marriage relationship. Some would say, “Jesus just spoke on their level. The people at that time believed it was a true account so He spoke like that.” So let me understand the argument. Jesus knowingly lied to people as if an event had really taken place when it had not. So then we must go back to the question, “Can we trust anything the Bible says if we cannot trust Jesus’ words on this matter?” Or we could ask, “At what point do we take God seriously?” And we have still another question, “Why then did Jesus call Himself the truth, if not all He said was true?” Should He have called Himself, “the mostly true?” It boils down to whether we can trust the Scripture or not. We are either going to be consistent or we are going to be hypocrites.
E. It raises man from the similitude of apes into the image of
God.
The fifth reason God makes creation a litmus test of faith is it raises man from the similitude of apes into the image of God. The Scripture says that God made us in His image. The Scripture declares that He made us in His image. We have the ability to think and communicate and worship God. We have emotions and a will. And God made us as the crowning achievement of His creation so that we would know Him and have fellowship with Him.
As believers in Christ, the recognition that we have been made in the image of God should cause us to stop despising other people in our hearts or speaking evil of them with our tongues. James says in the third chapter of his letter, “With (our tongue) we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.” If we truly understand that we have been created in the image of God and not from the evolutionary scale then it should cause us, as believers, to repent of the unkind things we have declared about others. And it should cause us to pray diligently for those who have never come to know the Savior and have had the image of God recreated in their hearts.
If we understand the account of the creation and the fall we can understand that the image of God was marred by Adam’s sin. But we also understand that all who come to faith in Christ have been given a restored nature in the person of Christ. “Behold, if any man be in Christ He is a new creation, the old has passed away the new has come.” This is what Christianity is about. Those who recognize they have offended God in the likeness of their Father Adam can be given new life in Jesus Christ.
Understanding where we came from helps us to understand how far we have fallen. If you teach your children they came from monkeys expect them to act like monkeys. Actually monkeys might be offended when we blame them for the way some people act.
What you must understand if you are to be restored to God is that because of Adam’s sin you have been cut off from God. But don’t be mad at Adam because you would have done the same thing. As a matter of fact you show it every day when you do that which the Law says is wrong. You are an eternal being. God created you to exist forever. But you have been cut off from God and if you die in this condition you will be separated from God forever and suffer eternal torment from the wrath of a holy and just God. But in God’s love He provided the sacrifice of Himself, in the person of His Son, upon the cross to die in your place. And if you would repent of your sin, turn from it and place your trust in Jesus’ death on your behalf you will be saved.
Come to the Savior. He is the Creator. Let Him be your Recreator.