In this sermon, the speaker discusses the creation story as described in the book of Genesis. He emphasizes the profoundness of the statement "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The speaker acknowledges that the creation story is still a topic of controversy, even in modern times. He expresses concern about the teaching of creation in science textbooks, as he believes that many teachers lack a proper understanding of the Bible and may not be able to teach it accurately.

Now, to the first chapter of Genesis, and we can barely introduce you to this chapter. And in this chapter, we have the story of the creation of the universe. And believe me, this chapter is still causing more comment than you can possibly imagine. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That is one of the most profound statements that has ever been made. And yet we find that that is a statement that is certainly challenged in this hour in which we're living. I will be giving you the statement of a professor right here in California because now they're going to permit this creation story to be taught in science textbooks. Now, frankly, I'm not so sure that I'm happy about that. And somebody says, why, you ought to be. That's a wonderful step. No, my friend, I'll tell you why. It'll be the character of the teachers who teach it. And I'm afraid that we do not have enough with a Christian background and with a Bible background to be able to teach it properly. That would be my criticism of the fact that today, very few of our public school teachers are prepared really to teach the story of creation. And the reason is they have practically no Bible background and they've been given a background that is contrary to it. You see, already we've entered a controversial section. Creation has provoked more controversy than probably any other subject in scripture. We read the first chapter of Genesis. Will you get your Bible and read that first chapter and don't read it once? Don't read it twice. Read it a half a dozen times. Now, we have divided the book of Genesis into two major divisions, chapters 1 through 11, and several ways of labeling that. One is that could be called sin. And then from chapter 12 through 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 at the reporter's desk, and he noticed that one of the men was grinding out what the newspaper men call a tapeworm, 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 of arguments later if someone had just written another couple of hundred. And 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 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 Gerard, who's 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 the 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 a 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 than any other. And always you have the inclusion of man's hypotheses. And as a result, there's a babel of voices that have drowned out the clear voice of God. Now, there are actually two extreme groups who have blurred the issue and they've 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 disdain 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 was 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.