How Should We Interpret the Creation Account

Genesis 1, I think my sermon to you meets us right where we are, though maybe it doesn't feel like it in the first few minutes. I think you'll see as we wrap the sermon up. Genesis 1, verse 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Next year, I will be 30 years old in the Lord. Somewhere in these 29 years, the Lord called me to preach His Word. And that calling was distinct. And I remember one of the greatest convictions that I felt was this utter fear of standing before God's people and setting forth systems, even reform systems, or traditions, or opinions, convictions of men. And actually, the one time I especially felt gripped was when I was contemplating talking to the church about the Lord's Day slash Christian Sabbath. And I had listened. And I had read dissertation. And I had looked at the preachers. And all these men were saying all these things. But I recognized when I came to the Word of God and I asked, what does Scripture say? I was gripped. As long as God gives me the grace, I'm going to seek to stand up before God's people and show God's people what God's Word says. And I'm in the same place when it comes to Genesis 1-1 through 2-4. And to be faithful, to interpret God's Word is what I want to strive for. Interpreting God's Word has to do with hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the science of Bible interpretation. And so when you're confronted by Scripture, you consider things like am I dealing with an analogy or an allegory or a parable? Is there typology here? Shadows. What's the genre of Scripture? Is this a historical narrative? Or is this the Song of Solomon? Is this a psalm? Is this Revelation? What am I dealing with here? Who's the author? How does the author speak? How does he use words? How does he use concepts? Comparing Scripture with Scripture. Examining the context. Examining clear portions of Scripture before you try to deal with very difficult portions of Scripture. See, these are hermeneutical principles. But do you know one of the most... maybe it seems basic, but I think one of the principles that struck me as the foundational hermeneutic is simply this. When you read Scripture, ask yourself this question. What is it saying? What does it sound like it's saying? Start by putting the most basic, the most apparent, the most obvious meaning on Scripture. Do you know Scripture does say that we have a God who... Scripture says it's the glory of God to conceal a matter. Have you ever read that in the Proverbs? There's a reality that God has buried things in here that even after 30 years of searching, I'm just now finding. Yeah, there's a place in Scripture where we need to dig and pray and examine and pray and examine. There are hidden things. Undoubtedly, there are. But you know what's interesting? You ever notice how many times the Lord Jesus Himself said, have you never read? They came to Him and they were asking Him about divorce. And one of the places He refers to is right back here in Genesis 1. And He says, have you never read that in the beginning God created the male and female? Did you never read that? In other words, you know what Jesus is saying to them? Well, you can never figure Scripture out because there's so many hidden meanings. No, He was implying by that statement, if you guys just would have gone back there and read Genesis 1.27, you'd know the answer to the question. Haven't you read? And that's not the only place He says that. He says that on repeated accounts. The Lord expected people to read Scripture and be able to understand it. Anybody know what the perspicuity of Scripture means? Clear. Yeah, does God like to hide things? Yes. Yes, and there are hidden things. But we do recognize that this is one of the characteristics of Scripture is there is a basic clarity to it. There is the assumption that this is not written in some strange code that you have to go through and find the number sequence to really figure out what it means. Listen, there are keys. There are places in Scripture where say, John the Baptist must first come and Jesus says, well, if God eyes to see it. You know, this guy John the Baptist was... Did I say that right? Elijah must first come. And that was John the Baptist. I mean, are there parables in Scripture? Yes, there are those things. But even there, the basic understanding is that when we handle Scripture, we ought to be able to understand it. And here's the thing, you're all going to go through this with me. And this is my question to you. We are going to read Genesis 1.1-2.4 right now. We're going to all read it together. And I simply want you to ask yourself this question. Are there millions and millions and billions of years in this passage? Cloaked? Hidden? Secretive? Are there strange gaps? I mean, I just want you to ask the question. Just the most basic, literal meaning of what you read here. I want you to tell me, are there billions of years hidden in this passage? So let's read. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Okay. The earth was without form and void. Now, I'll tell you this, the Jews, the Hebrew language doesn't have a word for universe. When the Hebrew wanted to express the entire universe, this is the language they used. The heavens and the earth. That's how you sum the whole thing up. You'll never find universe here in the Old Testament. This is the Hebrew concept of everything. The whole physical creation around us. The earth was without form and void. And I like this, in the Hebrew, it's Tohu and Bohu. It's just a nice... The earth was Tohu and Bohu. Without form and void. Darkness was over the face of the deep. The darkness was over the face of the deep. It's like the whole planet. It's without this form. It's covered by water, the deep. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. So that's what it looked like when God first created it. And God said, let there be light, and it sprang into being. There was light. He didn't say let there be a sun. At this point in time, you have the earth and you have without form and void and you have light. That's what Scripture says. Light. And there was light. God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. And you watch what just happened. You have this planet, this earth. It's covered by the deep. And poof! There's light. And then, poof! It's now half the earth is light and half the earth is dark. He separated it. And God called the light day and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning the first day. Evening and morning. Now, you know, that's backwards to our Western mind. Spurgeon didn't write a book called Evening and Morning, did he? Morning and Evening. But you know, if you ask our young folks who went and evangelized in the Jewish community here in San Antonio, they went on a Friday. And they went in the afternoon. And you know what they found? They found the people were preparing for the Sabbath day. Guess when the Sabbath day starts? 6 p.m. In Scripture it does. I can show you. It's from evening to evening. And that's how they observe it. Because that is the Hebrew day. So we think a little bit differently. We're more Roman-Greek minded in many things. But this is the Hebrew day. God called the light day and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning the first day. And God said, let there be an expanse or a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters. Now this isn't land in the midst of the ocean that covered the earth. This is God separating water from water with an expanse. Basically, the expanse or the firmament is a way to describe heaven. We have the first heaven. We can look at this that's right here above us where the birds fly. We can talk about the second heaven maybe out there where the stars are. We can talk about the third heaven where God's throne is. But there's an expanse. This is the first heaven apparently in the midst of the waters. And let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse and separated. Notice this. This is a separation of waters under and waters above. Separated the waters that were under the expanse. What are the waters under the expanse? Well, obviously, the ocean from the waters that were above the expanse. Well, okay, what's this? If it turns out it's the clouds, you can't argue with that. They're up there and there's this expanse between and the clouds are there and the clouds are water. You can't argue with that. Now there is a theory that there is a canopy of water out there. Some of the theories say, well, that was out there until the time of the flood and all the water came out of there and that's where the floodwaters came from. At least some of them. Anyway, what we see is on the second day, God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse and it was so. And God called the expanse heaven. So you see that. It's the heaven or it's the sky. And so was there a pre-flood canopy out there? Perhaps. But we do know that the clouds are separating. There is a separation between the clouds above and the oceans underneath. We know that reality. And there was evening and there was morning the second day. And God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear. So in day 2 and day 3, what you have is the water being separated and moved around and you've got the expanse between and on this third day, the earth, the dry land. Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear. And it was so. God called the dry land earth. And the waters that were gathered together He called seas and God saw that it was good. And God said, let the earth sprout vegetation. Plants yielding seeds. Notice that. Let the earth sprout vegetation. It's like this stuff sprouted up. I know that Answers in Genesis I think them in cooperation with Living Waters, they've created a video of the creation and they basically show the trees just instantaneously rising up and plants coming up. And it seems they sprang forward. They came out. And every indication is that this happened in a day. This happened during the third day. Let the earth sprout vegetation. Plants yielding seed. Notice, let the earth sprout vegetation. Not just create seeds to throw around on the ground, but God is creating plants that yield seeds and fruit trees that bear fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth. And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation when? The third day. The earth brought forth vegetation. Plants yielding seed according to their own kinds. Trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening. And there was morning. The third day. And God said, let there be lights in the expanse. This is really problematic for a lot of the theories that people bombard Genesis 1 with. The fourth day before we get the sun and the moon and the stars. And God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. And you know what's interesting? You know what's not in there? And for weeks. Because there's no astronomical observation to be made that dictates a week. Months? Where's a month come from? The moon. Where's the day come from? The sun. Where's the year come from? Yeah, the earth going all the way around the sun one time. So basically, you don't have a week here. You know why you don't have a week? Because there's nothing to look at out there. There's no astronomical body to look at that dictates the week. Where does the week come from? Right here. It's the one time observation, basic time observation that's based on God's creating in six days and resting the seventh. And you know the number seven has very unique significance throughout Scripture, especially when you get to the book of Revelation. In other places as well. It's God's number. It's a number that nature doesn't dictate to us. God Himself dictates to us. Notice, on this fourth day, verse 15, "...and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens." Now this is interesting too because now we get an expanse or a firmament again. But I believe there's various heavens that can be identified. That's the reality with the word expanse. God set the sun and the moon and the stars in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness, and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning the fourth day. And God said, let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures. Not just let's put eggs there. God is developing this world mature. Let birds fly. Not just let's make an egg. Let's make flying birds above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, be fruitful and multiply. Well, who's He saying being fruitful and multiply to? Obviously, full-grown animals, sea creatures, and birds that are capable of being fruitful and multiplying. Just like with man. How old was Adam on the seventh day? A day old. How old did he look? Did he look like a day old baby? Like the garrows have a day old baby. Is that what he looked like? That's not what Eve looked like. He's creating a full-grown, mature earth here. V. 21, so God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, be fruitful and multiply. And fill the waters and the seas. And let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning the fifth day. And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds. Livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let us make man or Adam in our image after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them. And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. Again, He made them with apparent age. He made them mature. He made Adam and Eve ready to bear fruit, to have children. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed. Now here's one thing that you need to recognize. It is very consistent with Scripture. You'll recognize that the whole creation groans when that curse came in. Before the curse, before the fall, there was no eating animals. Animals didn't eat animals and man didn't eat animals. You know why? There was no death. God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and every bird of the heavens and everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life, I have given every green plant for food and it was so. Animals did not eat animals. This is very problematic for theistic evolution. Many of these, where does the fossil record come from? Oh, millions and millions and billions. But wait a second, nothing died then. We weren't under a curse. You have real problems. Verse 31, God saw everything that He had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done. And He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all His work that He had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. So God has spoken here. And my question to you again is this, what does it sound like that is saying? Does it sound like that's saying God created it all in six literal days and on the seventh day He rested? God has spoken here. But you know, there are many voices speaking today. There are many people shouting and screaming that the universe took millions and billions of years to get to where it is now. And this thought has captivated the world. It's everywhere. So suppose the earth is young. It's preposterous. You can't be taken seriously. It's anti-science. It's anti-academic. Even Christians, many Christians who take the Bible seriously, you know what's happening? They're busy coming up and inventing theories in order to accomplish one thing. You know what it is? It's to somehow develop a theory to find millions and millions and billions of years in Genesis 1. There is the gap theory. There is the day-age theory. There is theistic evolution. There is the day-gap theory. Progressive creation. The framework hypothesis. The cosmic time theory. And I don't know if I'm going to say anything more about those other than to say this. All those theories. For one, I would ask, why so many? Because none of them is overly convincing. So everybody's trying to come up with a new one. Well, there's more. That's not exhaustive, but those are some of the more well-known ones. Know this, every one of these theories has one thing in common. Each is an attempt to find millions or billions of years somewhere in Genesis 1. But I come back to this. Be honest with Scripture. What does it sound like it's saying? Let me give you some statistics. I think David and Della and family, you guys went to Answers in Genesis, right? You saw the ark. Did you go to the museum? Okay, so they've been there. I have not been there. I would like to make that journey one day. I want to see a life-size ark, honestly. Answers in Genesis has put forth these statistics. You may find them interesting. I do. 56% of Papa's generation go to church. 44% of my mother's generation go to church. 32% of Jeff's... he's in a different one from me. He called me a young whippersnapper the other day or something. But 32% Jeff's age, 27% my age. I'm right there at the beginning of generation X. It starts at 1965 and I just slipped in. I think it goes all the way to 80. But millennials, basically those from 1980, 18% attend church. So, what you're watching is from Papa's age, 56%, down to 18%. What's happening? Scripture talks about there may be a great falling away before the end. What's happening in America? Well, just listen to this, because the statistics go further. Notice what they found. Of millennials who grew up in the church, 61% leave the church by the time they hit college age. Why? Common answer, evolution. We heard millions of years. This is what they recognize. We hear millions of years taught in high school, elementary school, middle school, high school, but not only that. You know what else they're saying? And we heard it taught by many preachers. And you know why it's such a battle for their faith? Because they're being honest. The preacher says, well, it's okay to think this took millions of years. But you know what the problem is? These millennials read Genesis 1 and guess what they think they're hearing it say? That it was all done in seven days. See, that is the problem. It sounds like it is saying something and anybody that wants to take it seriously... You know what? Richard Dawkins says these sophisticated theologians who want to try to find evolution in here, he says they're deluded. He says these creationists that are holding to what I am going to espouse, he said they're the ones, he said they're right. He's saying these other guys that are trying to find this there, they're deluded. Now you see, he thinks he's goddess then, because he thinks that there's such irrefutable evidence for evolution, he calls it. Evil-lution. Yeah, the Brits say it right. But, see, he thinks he's goddess. It's like, you can't argue it. But he says at least the creationists have it right. These guys that are trying to toe the line between both, he says they're deluded, you can't do that. And he recognizes that. And you know what, the millennials recognize that too. Listen to what else. He said of millennials who leave church, most heard the preacher teach that it's okay to believe in billions of years, which caused them to doubt the Bible. Of millennials still in the church that haven't left, when asked what, if anything, causes them to ever doubt the Bible the most, answer the age of the earth is by far the biggest issue. Say millennials, when asked if they have had their Christianity challenged, and said yes, they were asked at what point? Two points were about even. The age of the earth and why bad things happen. I tell you, these young people are being honest, and see, they recognize it. And you know what, this is the very thing Andy Stanley sees, and he's trying to come up with an answer for. He recognizes people are bailing out, because scientific evidence, so-called science, is supposedly undermining this account. And what happens is, you see, too many people recognize the reality of this. You start having the dominoes fall, and click, click, click, click, they go right down the line until you start taking out the New Testament. You see, you get guys like Andy Stanley who come along and say, well, we've got to unhitch this, so that when those dominoes fall, they don't take out the New Testament too. So we've got to unhitch the Old Testament. We've got to basically say, okay, it's myth, we all recognize that. That's not the way you defend it, because people aren't buying it. You want to encourage people's faith. What we want to do is we want to defend this book in its entirety. And that's where the problem is. The reality is this, if millennials were looking at this account and saying, oh yeah, I see billions of years in here. Well, guess what? When they go into their college course, and the professor stands up and he says, this has all taken billions of years, what are they going to say? Well, they're going to say, yeah, my faith is consistent with what you're teaching. We've seen that all along right here in Genesis. But they don't see it. That's why it is such a challenge to their faith. So, back to hermeneutics. Somebody's going to come along and suggest, hey, day doesn't mean a literal 24-hour day. It's really billions of years. Now again, day four, problematic. Right? You've got billions of years. Each of these is an age. Each of these is very problematic. What, you get the sun? This doesn't work. But listen to me. Hermeneutics. One of the things we want to do in hermeneutics is we want to study word meanings. We want to look at the word meanings in the original. We want to cross-reference where those words are used in different places. We want to get an idea. We want to get a feel. So, how do we interpret what day means? Okay, day in the Hebrew, many of you know, it's the Hebrew word yom. Now, the interesting thing about and a helpful thing to recognize is the Hebrew word for day, yom, and our English word day, they are basically used identically in both languages. What I mean is they both have several meanings. If I say, in Papa's day, what do I mean? In his time. In Papa's day, big band music was the thing. And he's nodding because he loves that. Jazz, right? By Papa's day, I'm probably using it that way. I mean, back when he was in the military, back when he was in high school, back when he was a young man. He still feels young. If I said to my children, I've seen some scary people out in this field over here lately. I said, you know, if you're ever going to go out there, go out there in the day, not at night. Now how did I use the word right then? I'm using it when it's light. Opposite of night. And if I said, hey, seven days from now, Javier's going to be here. I mean, how did I just use it there? Twenty-four hour periods. And see, context basically dictates to you how I'm using it. That's the way. We recognize it holds different meanings. And you know one of the interesting things is that right here in Genesis 1.1-2.4, it's used all these ways. Did you notice that while we were going through it? Let me show you. V. 5, God called the light day and the darkness He called night. Now how is day being used there? The light. Not 24 hours. Not back in somebody's time. It's being used of day over against night. Look at v. 14. God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. Again, we've got day as opposed to night. Let them be for signs, seasons, and for days. Now there, it's a 24-hour day. That means that basically you have these great lights that are being given to separate days and we know that the sun is that which establishes a full day for us just like a full year is established for us. In Genesis 1.16, God made the two great lights. The greater light to rule the day. The lesser light to rule the night. Again, day there is the time of day that's light. Genesis 1.17, God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on earth to rule over the day and over the night. Again, day and night, day and night. We keep seeing that to separate the light from the darkness. So you have light and darkness. Day and night. We see obviously how it's being used. Now look in Genesis 2.4. Now we see it used the third way. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day. That would be at the time. At the time that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. The reality is we see He just got done saying it was all done in six days, and now He uses day in the singular. He doesn't say in the days, which we would take to mean 24-hour days, but in the day. At the time. In the time. That brings up the other nine times the Hebrew word yom is used here. Notice 1.5. There was evening. There was morning. The first day. Okay, how is it being used there? That's the huge question. How is it being used there? Notice verse 8. The second day. Verse 13. The third day. Verse 19. The fourth day. 23rd verse. The fifth day. 31. The sixth day. Genesis 2.2. The seventh day. 2.3. The seventh day. I mean, when does day actually mean day? Does it mean millions and billions of years? I mean, even when we say back in Papa's time, do I likely mean billions of years? I mean, when do we ever use it that way? Somebody could say, well, back in the dinosaurs' time. Yeah, I guess so, but that's only because you bought in to the so-called scientific. I mean, the reality is, do you know what the reality is? You do the research. They have found human footprints in dinosaur footprints. They have now found tissue in the fossils of dinosaurs. Blood cells. They can't be millions of years old. They have found human manufactured goods inside coal. All we have to do is open our eyes. But here's the question. What does it mean in all these cases? Yam is found 2,304 times in the Old Testament, at least according to my BibleWorks program. And you know what's interesting? I've never heard anybody debate what day means anywhere else in the Old Testament outside of Genesis. Have you? There's no debate. I mean, when it says that the rain fell for 40 days during the time of the flood, does anybody say, well, I think that's 40 ages? I think that's millions of years? No, no, nobody says that. When they marched around Jericho for seven days, does anybody say, well, that's a really long time? No, nobody doubts that. Three days in the belly of the whale, Jonah. Nobody's thinking that that means something different than a literal day. But, you know, when it comes to Genesis 1-1, we can't be certain if a day is a day. And I would ask, is that really because there's all sorts of linguistic markers and grammatical indicators that point to this not being an actual literal 24-hour day? Or is it because Christians are buckling to pressures from outside the Bible? Well, now, what does it sound like it's saying? These days have evenings and mornings. You say, well, yeah, that does make it sound like it's perhaps a 24-hour day. But maybe you didn't know this. When you leave Genesis 1, every single place in the rest of the Old Testament where a day is referred to that has either a morning or an evening, it is always a 24-hour day. And there's no exception at all. Let me tell you another thing. Every single place outside of Genesis 1 where a day is given a number, like until the first day, or from the eighth day onward, or the 27th day of the ninth year, every single place in the Old Testament outside of Genesis 1 where a day is given a number, every single time, it is a literal 24-hour day. Now, I would say that is a great key to unlocking Genesis 1 because you know what God has done? He's not only given the six days of creation a number, He's also identified each of them as having a morning and an evening. I mean, if you're looking for hermeneutical, if you're looking for a proper Bible interpretive method, and you're going to say the exception to those rules is found in Genesis, I would say prove it. The burden of proof is on you because that is a faulty hermeneutic to approach Scripture that way. Faulty. In fact, listen, I went through and found every single passage in the Old Testament outside of Genesis 1 where a day is called by number and is said to have a morning or an evening. Listen to these verses. Exodus 19.16 On the morning of the third day. See, what I'm asking you this, is there any possibility that these are figurative of long ages? Or is this a literal 24-hour day? On the morning of the third day, there were thunders and lightnings and thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Judges 19.5 On the fourth day, they arose early in the morning, and He prepared to go. But the girl's father said to his son-in-law, and there's that account, on the fifth day, He arose early in the morning to depart. And the girl's father said, strengthen your heart and wait until the day declines. Exodus 12.18 In the first month from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. Leviticus 23.32 It shall be to you a Sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict yourselves on the ninth day of the month beginning at evening from evening to evening. Anyway, you get the idea. Anywhere in Scripture where you have a number called out attached to the day, an adjective to the day, and you have that day specifically said to have a morning or an evening, it is a literal 24-hour day and there is no exception. There's no exception when a day is called by a number. There's no exception when a day is said to have a morning or an evening, and God puts them all together in Genesis 1. Like to say, here is a rule that's been established all other places and so that you may have no doubt that I'm actually speaking about literal days here. I am going to give you sufficient proof. And then you know another proper hermeneutic is to compare Scripture with Scripture. And I would just have you look at two verses really quickly. Exodus chapter 20. Again, I want to ask you what this sounds like it's saying. Exodus 20 verse 9. And something very similar is said in Exodus 31. This isn't the only place where Scripture speaks this way. But six days you shall labor. Six days. How do you take that? Should I labor for six eons? Six ages? Six days you shall labor and do all your work. None of us doubt what that means. Six out of the seven days of the week, we are to work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven." Now notice this. For in six days. Now are we supposed to believe that in verse 9 it means one thing, but the very reason that there is that cycle now in verse 11 where it's explained to us, suddenly we're not supposed to take day for day, but day for an age. There's no indicator that that would be the case. If we take this, nobody would think that. Nobody, unless you're being hit by outside pressures from outside Scripture. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Now, I know that we started everything late today, but I also know we have a meal now and I'm asking everybody to be patient because I want you to think with me here. Six literal days. Adam was created on the fifth. Guess what? We have a genealogy. Or Adam was created on the sixth. We have a genealogy of Adam. Have you ever seen the genealogy? We know his number of years and that's worked out all the way down. You see it. We come up on the flood and Noah. And these genealogies are worked out in Scripture. And you know what? You can connect the dots and people have. And if you do that, basically assuming that Adam is five days older than the rest of this world, you know you can figure out that this world is about 6,000 years old if you put all the genealogical record together. And I'll tell you this, brethren, don't buckle to the pressure to force billions of years in here. Don't buckle to the pressure to unhitch the Old Testament from Christianity. And don't buckle to the pressure to where you're embarrassed to tell somebody that you believe the Bible and that you believe the world is approximately 6,000 years old because the same authority behind that reality is the same authority behind Christ being the way, the truth, and the life. Don't abandon this. Don't abandon. And I'll tell you, you start letting the dominoes of Scripture fall and you start saying this can't be believed at face value. And you know what? If you start talking like Andy Stanley where you're unhitching it, you have a big problem. Now you're denying Scripture and you're lying about the apostles basing what they taught and believed on the Old Testament. But you know what? If you start telling people, you start teaching people, well, you can't take Scripture at face value. There's all these hidden meanings to where you never can really understand it. It's got these meanings that, well, we really need science to help us out to figure out what this really means because it doesn't mean what it sounds like it's saying. Now you're on dangerous grounds too because you leave the whole thing open for people just to invent whatever meanings they want for Scripture and read these secretive and bizarre meanings all over the Scripture and people do that all the time. Brethren, do you know who it was that created? And I'm going to wrap up with this, but you think with me here. When you go to Hebrews 1 and verse 2, we are told, listen to the way this reads, it says, "...In these last days, God has spoken to us by His Son whom He appointed the heir of all things through whom also He created the world." Now think with me. God the Father created the world through Christ. That is a very interesting way to say that. But you know that is the same way that Scripture speaks about the way Jesus healed, did many mighty miracles? Listen to it. In Acts 2.22, it says, "...Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs..." Listen, "...that God did through Him in your midst." As you yourselves know. You know what Scripture does? It shows us Christ like saying Lazarus. Come forth. And He came forth. That's God working through Christ. Scripture says specifically, "...By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made." It says that He spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm. God is working through Christ also to create. And when you begin to compare these, think with me. Did it take millions of years for Lazarus to come out of that grave? Well, we have to wait for the primordial soup in there to cook before He can come out. God worked through Him and He spoke the Word. Lazarus, come forth. So, okay, God created through Christ. God raised Lazarus through Christ. Do you know how old they believed the world was back in 1950? Anybody take a guess? Two billion years old. How old do they say the world is today? I'm hearing 20. For a while it was 14. I'm hearing 20 now. And you know what happens? The Christians that want to read the millions and billions of years into Genesis 1, you know what number they want to read in? The number that for the most part the atheistic world is presently setting forward. You know what's happening? They're slowing God down. Have you ever noticed that? Well, two billion years, well, that's somewhat impressive if God made it all in that time. I mean, after all, who can create in any time? Whether it's six days or whether it's two billion years. But let's stretch it out to 20 billion. You know why? You know why they keep going longer and longer? Because they keep seeing more and more and more and recognizing their answer for everything, more time, more time. They think more time fixes everything. But you see what they're doing when they do that? Is if we're going to suck up to their invented times and we're going to walk alongside them, you know what we're constantly doing? We're slowing God down. Slowing... I don't know about you, but I don't need a slow God. And I don't need to be slowing God down. When I look at the majesty and the beauty of Christ, simply saying, God working through Him, and saying, Lazarus, come forth. And in miraculous fashion, He came forth. Brethren, I need the God who can create all this. And why seven days? Well, to lay down the pattern of the week. To lay down this God number. Could God have done it all in a day? He could have done it all in a day. But we don't want to slow God down. We need to believe in God. And that is the real issue. God worked through His Son and did these things. But people say, well, I can't understand how it can be. I can't understand how the rocks look so old. I can't understand the fossil record. I can't understand why the mountains look old. I can't understand how light could have gotten here to our earth from a star that's a million or trillion light years away and how in only 6,000 years it could have gotten here. And you know what men say? And men have always been saying, I can't understand it, so it can't be. But I'll tell you this, you look at the science books from a generation ago. Are they the same as they are now? They're not the same. You know why they're not the same? Because man can never figure out what's right. Because man only has a little bit of the knowledge. And man at every point in time thinks he's got all the knowledge. But he doesn't have all the knowledge. And he's never had all the knowledge. And science books are changing because men are gaining a little bit more. But in their puny little bit of knowledge, they're always so filled with pride to think they've got all the knowledge. And they're always quick to say, we've got it figured out and God's not right. Brethren, you can't figure it out so it can't be. You can't figure out how Lazarus came forth. Can you imagine that dread silence out there on the Sea of Galilee? Be still. The waters just stopped. The winds stopped. And those men looked at each other. Whoa! Who is this? You can't explain that. To say, God couldn't have done this in six days. I would just ask you, what does Scripture sound like it's saying? Brethren, there is One behind all of this, whether He's working through His Son to do the miracles that He did. How does an ear appear healed on Malchus' head? I don't know. But He could do those things with a word. Lazarus, come forth. Light, come forth. Brethren, I need the God of instantaneous miracle. I don't need to be slowing God down. Slowing Him down. Influenced by so-called science and by higher learning and often by people who are simply leaning, even Christians, simply leaning on their own understanding from all these influences that are outside the Bible. We don't need a God who is less miraculous and who is slow and ever slowing down. And you know what happens? The church looks at it. We say, they're just slowing God down all the time. Slowing down. You know what they're doing? They're demiraculizing everything. Make it longer. Make it longer. Make it less incredible. Because that's what they need. See, they think time fixes it because of the complexity. And we don't have to do that. We can bring it right down and say God's able to do all that complexity in a moment. And He makes it spring forth. And we don't need all... Brethren, what happens in the church, we get used to this idea. Slow God down. Slow God down. The God who doesn't act. The God who's not instantaneous. The God who is so slow. And so what happens? We get to the place in the church where we've got to do everything because God is so slow. We can't wait for Him, so we make everything happen. We don't feel anything. Nothing supernatural happens. We make the preaching happen. We make the singing happen. We make the praying happen. We basically coordinate it all. And so we come into the meetings. We go out of the meetings. And it's all about what we did. We need the God who calls forth universes in six days to come in here. Do we not? And do things instantaneous. The reality is, yes, yes, sanctification might be a process. But do we not need the God to come in among us who can do the miraculous and recreate instantaneously? Do we not find what I want is life like in the book of Mark? Have you ever seen how many times the word immediately shows up? Immediately! Jesus put out His hand and touched that leper. Immediately the leprosy left Him. Brethren, we need that in the church. We need some immediacy. Lord, where is the immediacy? The miracle-working God who will put His hand on people and rather than us as a church having to put them out the door, they're radically changed immediately. We need it. Have the saints of old not cried out to God, Do not tarry! We need the God that moves. We need the God that's quick. This whole atheistic mindset out here. Slow God down. Slow Him down. Because what happens is they deny God altogether, but the Christian comes along and they say, well, we've got to fit the latest theories in here. We've got to fit the latest scientific ideas in here. So it's not 2 billion, it must be 20 billion years that God did this theistic evolution in day age and we've got to stretch these days out. We don't need to be doing that. We need to take Scripture at face value. And you don't have to be ashamed when you come across people who laugh at you. You're unacademic. How high is your IQ? Yeah, they're going to look at you and they're going to laugh, but you can hold your head high because you know there's a judgment day coming. And you know what? Jesus said if you deny Me, I'm going to deny you before My Father. And He talks about His Word. And I'll tell you where I want to be. I want to be in the place where I say, Lord, I read Genesis. I could hear what you were saying there. There was no indication this was billions of years. And I believed. I believed there is a God who can create everything in six days and that is a God we needed in the church. And Lord, please move faster. We don't have forever. Our lives are short. And we need miracles among us. And we need transformation among us. And we need help among us. We need victories among us. We need God to break the power of sin and not just some future time and not ages from now. We need help now. We need it as a church. Lord, please, we cry out to You, the God of immediacy. We don't want dead religion. We don't want slow religion. We need breakthroughs. Lord, we need repentance now where there's none. And we need miraculous deliverances and deliverances from the power of sin. And we need them immediately. Immediate help. Immediate transformation. Immediate deliverances and victories and visitations. Immediately. We need the God who arises. Immediately Jesus did this. Mark loved that. Father, please, we need the God of the Gospel of Mark. We need things to immediately happen. Come, Lord. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.