Did God really create everything?

In Genesis 1, the Bible opens with five world-shaping words: "In the beginning, God created." Dr. Toby Holt shows why how we understand creation shapes everything else we believe. Genesis declares God made the heavens and earth out of nothing, by His word, and made human beings in His image. This is the foundation of all right thinking about God and ourselves — "there is a God, and you are not Him." As Creator, He sets the purpose of everything; and because we bear His image, every life carries dignity.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why do people prefer theories like evolution or the Big Bang? Because they remove a Creator to whom we are accountable. Genesis insists a personal God made everything on purpose.

2. What does it mean that we are made "in God's image"? That every person carries God-given dignity and worth. This grounds the sanctity of human life.

3. Why does the doctrine of creation matter so much? Because it establishes who God is and who we are. If God is Creator, He has authority over our lives and gives them meaning.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." — Genesis 1:1 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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From its very first verse, the Bible makes it clear that all of creation has a creator.

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In today's study of Genesis 1, we'll consider some of the implications that are found in the opening words of Scripture.

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In our day, there's a tension.

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A tension that exists between people who say that I am a man of faith

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And someone right next to him saying, well, I am a man of science.

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Maybe as a Christian you've tried to express something.

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Maybe about creation.

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You've tried to express something maybe about Jesus.

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And someone has said to you, well, I'd love to believe what you do.

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I just don't have enough faith.

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And what they're implicitly saying when they say that is you're kind of a rube.

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You believe stuff that can't be proven.

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I, however, look at the facts.

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I, however, look at the science.

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We have a tension that exists, especially in our academic settings,

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between those of faith and those of science.

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Now, what I would submit to you, though,

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is that that tension has not always been the case.

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What I would say is that tension is a false dichotomy

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that's been drummed up by those who have opposition

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to that which we believe.

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However, if you were to look back at history,

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you would find that science and faith were not combatants

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in the way they are in our age,

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but rather we see that there was a synthesis

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and understanding between the two.

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If you were to go back and look at the fathers of modern science,

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one of the fathers of modern science was Galileo.

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Galileo was actually called the father of science, and he said this.

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When he looked out at the world around him, Galileo said this.

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The laws of nature are written by the hand of God using the language of mathematics.

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So Galileo, the father of science, didn't necessarily say that science and faith are at odds.

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Rather, he said that science supports faith.

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Now, Isaac Newton said roughly the same thing.

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Isaac Newton says this, the most beautiful system of the sun, the planets, and the comets

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could only proceed forth from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.

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If you were to go back to the scientific revolution, which came after the dark ages,

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the scientific revolution between roughly the 13th and the 17th centuries was inherently theological.

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The people who led the scientific revolution were inherently theological.

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And that's because they saw that science is just theology that's played out in the natural realm.

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Now, for what it's worth, that's the testimony of the Bible also.

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You see this as Psalm 119.

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The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

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Day to day, they pour out speech, and night after night, they reveal knowledge.

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Psalm 111, verse 2.

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Great are the works of the Lord, studied by those who delight in them.

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Do you see any sense there that the Bible is setting up this false dichotomy

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by which faith is to compete against science,

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or do you see that they're supposed to work together?

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What we see through a telescope, what we see through a microscope,

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both tell us the same thing, that there is a creator.

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And if we're intellectually honest, we would acknowledge that.

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However, we're not always intellectually honest,

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especially in a lot of modern academic settings.

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But what I would submit to you is that that has not been the norm

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across the centuries.

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For centuries, both biblical authors and writers and churchmen and scientists in the centuries after the time of Christ

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saw that the Bible's narrative of creation matched up with what they saw when they looked through telescopes,

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when they looked through microscopes and the like.

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They found the biblical narrative of creation that starts in Genesis 1-1, in the beginning God.

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They said that seems to match with what we see in the world around us because the alternatives are not an option.

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The alternatives to a theistic understanding of creation that says God created everything

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is to say that everything always existed.

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And we know that not to be true.

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Even Einstein and Hubble figured that out through the telescope, the Hubble telescope,

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when they saw that certain things were traveling away from one another.

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There's something called a red shift when stars and planets and galaxies

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seem to be traveling further away from one another.

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And they realized that this meant that there was an expanding universe.

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It's not a static universe that had always been the same from eternity past.

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So one view over and against a theistic understanding of creation

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is to say the universe has always been there, but that's not really what anyone believes.

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So what the secular world has adopted instead is the belief that there was a beginning.

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However, guess what the beginning was?

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It was a big bang.

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At one time, there was nothing, and then there was something.

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At one time, there was nothing.

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One time, nothing existed, but then, then, there was something.

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Now, sometimes they described as, you know, there was this point of singularity

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that everything expanded out of, right?

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Some big bang by which everything came into existence.

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And they say that's the means of existence.

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The problem is it's the most unscientific claim you can make.

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Why?

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Because it violates what we call the precepts of intelligibility.

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You cannot say that something came from nothing.

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If you see a chair, if you see a baptismal here, what's your conclusion about this?

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Did this just beam in this morning?

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Did this just appear magically on its own?

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No, you look at this and you say, no, clearly this has been fashioned and formed.

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This has been designed.

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This bears all the marks of design.

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Therefore, it is designed.

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And it is a better scientific conclusion, whether you see a baptismal, whether you see a chair,

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whether you see the human hand and all its complexity, to determine that that complexity

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was designed by a designer. If you look outside these doors, if you look inside these walls,

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you see the breadcrumbs that should trace back to a divine baker, to one who formed everything.

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However, the secular world doesn't want to bend the knee to the baker himself. The secular world

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doesn't want to bend the knee to the authority of something that transcends them, and so they don't.

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And so, what do they choose? Well, frankly, they choose anything. Anything that avoids having to

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bend the knee to a God that's external to them. If that means, big bang, something came out of

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nothing, okay, never mind, that's a blind eye to everything their scientific principles have

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underheld across the centuries. They'd rather believe that, or they'd rather trace their

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ancestry to gorillas or what have you. They'd rather do any number of things rather than to say,

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in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Why? They don't want to say it,

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because that means that this God is in charge,

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and this means that this God, if he had the ability and the will

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to decree the universe around them and even their own existence,

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then that means he has the will and the authority to tell them how to live.

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And it's far better.

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It's far better to say, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

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I'm a function of chance.

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I'm a function of macroevolution.

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I'm a function of any number of other things.

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Rather than that, because if I see that God exists,

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then I see that I find my purpose and utility through his will, and I don't want that.

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And that's why the secular world has turned its back on Genesis,

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neglects to teach it or to treat it as even a viable option.

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If you believe Genesis 1-1 in academic settings, you're the rube.

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I submit to you, the person who says that something comes from nothing is the rube.

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We'll bear that out as we go.

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All right, this morning again, we're in Genesis chapter 1.

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I'm going to work through some select verses, and I'm going to start with the first two verses.

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A whole sermon could just be done on these first two.

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We'll look at some others, but let's start with Genesis 1 and 2.

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Let me reread them, and then we'll work from there.

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Genesis 1, verse 1.

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

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And the earth was without form, and it was void.

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And darkness was on the face of the deep.

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And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

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When I went to seminary the first year,

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The most imposing and impressive theologian I've ever encountered was my first seminary instructor.

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His name was Dr. Bud Powell.

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Dr. Powell was a man of enormous stature.

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He was just a big man.

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He had a big, big white beard.

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He was an impressive figure.

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But as impressive as he was just in the space he filled, he was very impressive also in terms of what he knew

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and the way in which he could share it with the class.

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So my first class, I walk in, and I'm not knowing what to expect.

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and the professor, Dr. Bud Powell, he goes up to the whiteboard and he writes a very simple phrase.

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And yet he said that this simple phrase is a foundation for all right orthodoxy, all right

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theology. And it's this phrase. He said, there is a God and you are not him. There is a God and you

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are not him. I looked at that. Now, face value, that seems kind of intuitive. There is a God and

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you are not him. And yet, how much philosophy is undone, comes to its knees if you believe that to

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be true. There is a God and you are not him. Well, that's what we see in Genesis 1.1. In the beginning,

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God, prior to the beginning, prior to creation, there was a creator that transcended, that was

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sovereign over, that was external to that which he made. Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created

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the heavens and the earth. Now again, as we said before, the alternatives that are posited within

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the intellectual community are that something came from nothing, which as we said is a logical

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fallacy. It also is a side note. Earlier I mentioned something called the precepts for

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intelligibility. In order for life to make sense, in order for your life to make sense, certain

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things have to be true. In order for your life to make sense, there has to be laws that govern it.

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In order for your life to make sense, you have to come to terms with things like love

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and your emotions and the like.

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Well, whether you're talking about love or goodness or morality or what have you, these

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things have no value in a universe where there is no God.

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These things are just abstract things we've kind of made up to pass the time and to feel

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a little bit better if there is no God.

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But if there is a God, then suddenly all that makes sense.

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See, the precepts for intelligibility.

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your life makes sense, the things you do, the things that you don't do, the things you find

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to be good, the things you find to be legal and right and appropriate, those things only find any

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real basis outside of you if there is something greater than you who appointed those things.

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If there is no God, if there is no creator, if there's nothing outside of us, if all we are is

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goo that went through the zoo to you, if that's us, if that's who we are, morality is nothing.

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it's a facade goodness is nothing evil's nothing you see in order for your life to make sense

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in order for it to make sense when you stop at the stoplight down the road your life makes sense if

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there is a greater external source of what's right and wrong and good and bad and like a greater

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source of morality and apart from that so much life doesn't make sense with that said there is

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a god you're not him you find that there in the opening words now let's take those opening words

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at face value. Let's say there is a God. Let's say we agree that this is true. Now, what are some of

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the implications of there being a God? Well, the first one I've already mentioned. If there is a

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God, then this God is external to that which he has made. He's not part of what's been made. Now,

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that's an important distinction to make because many civilizations don't make that. Many civilizations

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look at the world around us and say, this is all God. God's not external to creation. He is creation

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to the degree it's a he at all. Everything is God. Now, that's been promulgated in virtually

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every, I don't know, it's the concept of the force in Star Wars. It's the circle of life

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and the Lion King. The idea that everything is God. We're all part of God. The rocks and

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the trees, they're all my brothers and sisters. The Bible looks at that and says, not the

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case, but that is one belief system that exists, that everything is God. With that said, Genesis

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1.1 stands overt against that. It says, in the beginning, God created everything else. Everything

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else finds its utility from something that is external to it. God is not part of creation. He's

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outside of creation. God is not part of time. He is outside of time. So that's one of the implications.

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The second implication is that if God created the world, then he also created the rules that

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govern it. If God created stars and galaxies and cosmos and water and oceans and all these

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different things, then he governed the rules by which it operates. He is the one who says that

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the oceans may come yea far and no further. He is the one who has appointed every star and exactly

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where it belongs. He's the one who has given every star a name. If God exists, this is not the God

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of the deists that just kind of created the universe by spinning a top and then ran away from

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it. Rather, this God, if he exists, he is intricately involved with all that he has made, and all the

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natural laws that govern it flow from his, his will and instruction. Thirdly, if God made the

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world, then he has authority over the people that inhabit it. This is the sticking point for so many.

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There are folks who don't mind the concept of God in the abstract. God in the abstract doesn't

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offend some folks, which is why people talk about thoughts and prayers, something bad happens,

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thoughts and prayers, you know, it's just this abstract thoughts, abstract prayers, and an

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abstract God. People really don't have a huge problem with the idea that somewhere, someplace,

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there is a divine genie of some kind that might come through for you when you need him most.

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People don't mind that. What they do mind is when this God puts his will and his laws and decrees

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right in front of us in something like the Ten Commandments, and then he says, you, the people

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I've made, are going to follow these rules. And if you don't, there's judgment. See, people don't

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mind God in the abstract. They do mind God in the particular, a God who has authority. And we see

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absolutely in the first page of God's Word that He does have authority over all that He has made,

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including the people thereof. And He gave Adam and Eve laws to begin with that we'll start to talk

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about two weeks from now. Finally, if God made the world, then every part of that world finds

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its purpose in His will and not theirs. Let's say you go home and you go to the silverware drawer.

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Now, typically, most of us have three things.

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You have a spoon, a fork, and a knife.

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Now, do you use each one interchangeably?

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If you're having a bowl of cereal, do you say, hand me the knife, please?

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Is that what you do?

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Well, of course not.

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It would be a dangerous, maybe even a deadly thing to do.

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We don't do that because the knife's utility is different from the spoon.

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And for what it's worth, the spoon is different from the fork.

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I don't eat my soup with a fork.

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Why not?

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Because its utility is not designed for that.

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In the same way, you and you and you and you and you and all of us

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are formed differently, with different utility.

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All the creatures are formed with different utility.

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The cow is not the duck, and the duck is not the cow.

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The cow could look at the duck and say,

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I wish I could fly like the duck, but he can't.

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Why not?

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Because he finds his purpose, his essence,

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in the will of the one who formed him.

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He can want all day long to be like the duck.

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It doesn't matter.

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In the same way, you and I can want whatever we might want

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to be true about ourselves, about the universe,

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about reality around us. However, we find that our purpose, our utility, not only of ourselves,

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but also of everything around us has been ordained by the one who formed us in the same way that the

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metalsmith who formed the fork formed it for a different utility than the spoon. In any case,

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the point is this. There's more implications we could draw out, but even in the first verse,

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even the first verse, you begin to see that theism, that theism posits something about our

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origins. It's a bell you can't unring. Theistic belief system that says we do not come about by

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chance, but through the will of a creator immediately means that the whole of creation

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has to bend the knee to that creator, whether it likes to or not, which is why the attack on

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Christianity, the attack on scripture has been one that has attacked Genesis more than any other

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book in the whole of the Bible. That's why our academic institutions have gone to great lengths

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to eliminate verse 1 because they know the consequences that flow from it and to everything

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else. All right, let's look at verses 3 through 10. Verse 3, then God said, let there be light,

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and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the

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darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. So the evening and

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the morning were the first day. Then God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,

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and let it divide the waters from the waters.

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Thus God made the firmament and divided the waters

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which were under the firmament from the waters

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which were above the firmament, and it was so.

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And God called the firmament heaven,

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and so the evening and the morning were the second day.

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Then God said, let the waters under the heavens

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be gathered together into one place

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and let the dry land appear, and it was so.

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You notice every time he says something, it's so.

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We call that divine fiat.

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God speaks.

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He's not waiting for anyone to validate what he says.

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He's not waiting for a consensus of the angels.

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God speaks, and it was so.

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So we see there in verse 9,

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And then God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas.

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And God saw that it was good.

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Not only does God create everything through divine fiat,

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by which he says something, he speaks, he breathes out, and then it exists.

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Not only does he do that, but that which he created was good.

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We see that repeatedly within these first number of days of creation.

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He saw that it was good.

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Now, again, I've mentioned it a couple times, but I wanted to reiterate it.

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What's the agency by which we see everything that exists in the world around us?

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The agency.

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And what I mean by that is, what was the cause?

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What is the means?

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Is it chance?

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Is it Big Bang?

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Is it something like this?

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Well, not according to Scripture.

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The agency by which God created things was not a divine erector set or chemistry

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that he kind of wove everything together in a specific way.

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Rather, we see he spoke.

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He spoke, and it was.

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He spoke and through, again, divine fiat, that's a way of saying that just through the nature of

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his decree, it came into existence. And further, not only did it come into existence, but it came

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to an orchestrated existence, an organized existence. God spoke and he created things

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in an orderly fashion to build upon one another. God is a God of order. There's a lot we can learn

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about the attributes of God just by looking at the way in which he created things. Furthermore,

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I'll add one addition.

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Not only did he create everything in order,

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not only did he create everything good,

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but he created everything just beautifully.

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When you look at the complexity of the world around us,

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let alone in the Garden of Eden,

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which must have been something else,

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God can do anything,

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and he chooses to do beautiful things

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because he is a good and loving

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and beautiful, majestic, all-powerful God.

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That which he produces is good.

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And even God said it was good.

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God looked at that which he made,

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he said, it is good. Now, how long did it take? Not a trick question. What do you think?

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If you ask people, even in some church communities, how long did creation take,

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there could be some equivocating. Well, you know, it says he took six days,

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but maybe a day doesn't mean a day, right? If you talk about how long did it take for God to

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create the heavens and the earth, how long did it take? Well, the biblical narrative says it took

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six days. It took six days and then God rested on the seventh day. However, here's something that

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happens. We look through radiometric devices, we look at carbon dating and the like, and we look

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at a rock and we say, well, that rock appears to be quite old. That rock says it's a million years

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old based on the tools that we have to understand it. That's a million-year-old rock. And if we look

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back at the history of scripture, we see a history that goes back roughly 6,000 years. And therefore,

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if God created everything at the beginning of that 6,000 years, and when it says a day is 24

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hours, that no, it's not really 24 hours. It's got to be something else. I've got to find a way

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to harmonize my understanding of how old this rock looks like it is versus the biblical narrative.

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And the way that many do that is to take the biblical narrative and just kind of say, yes,

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God created the world in six days, but a day really isn't a day. A day could be as long as

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God wants it to be. For a day is like a thousand years before the Lord. Could that be true? There's

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many wonderful Christians who are smarter than I who believe exactly that. Others insert a gap

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between days one and two. Others do different things to try to come to terms with how this rock

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can look like it's a million years old if the biblical narrative is talking about creation

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some 6,000 years ago. How do you work that through? Now, if I was to ask for different

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thoughts, we'd have a lot of different thoughts even in this room. This is certainly true in the

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broader church, and it's really, if you ask folks beyond that, you get all sorts of different

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interpretations. I'll tell you what I think for what little that's worth, but I'll tell you where

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my conviction is. I look at this text, and I take it at face value. If Scripture says that God

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created things in six days, on the seventh day he rested. I tend to look at that as six 24-hour

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days. Now the question then becomes, all right then, if that's true, then explain the rock to me.

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Explain this rock. Why does everything we know in terms of studying it make it look like it's a

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million-year-old rock? Explain that to me. If God created everything in six 24-hour days some

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6,000-odd years ago, explain that to me. So here's my explanation. It's shared by many in the Reformed

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world. I tend to find it to be the best alternative. There are other alternatives that may be plausible

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as well, but here's what I believe. When God created the heavens and the earth, when he created

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Adam and Eve, when he created the trees that gave Adam shade, that he did so in such a way is that

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the first things that were created were created at what we might call an age of maturity. There's

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no sense that Adam was created as an infant. There's no sense that Adam was created as a child.

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There's no sense that the fish in the sea were created as caviar. There's nothing like that.

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What we see is that God created a fully formed world.

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The trees that were there in the garden that Adam and Eve walked in the cool of the afternoon,

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trees that if you were to cut into them had rings that appeared older than the trees necessarily were.

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If you looked at Adam, you would say Adam was not created as a child,

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he was not created as an infant or something, an embryo or something like that, but as a mature adult.

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So we look and we say God created all manner of different things at some midway point in its existence.

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And we call this the apparent age theory.

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It suggests that there was an appearance of age.

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Adam, when he was one day old, was not a 30-year-old man,

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even though he may have had the appearance thereof.

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The same was true when Eve came from the rib.

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Eve didn't come from the rib as an embryo and then an infant and a child

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and only grew up to be his helpmate.

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Now that, what I've just said, is broadly understood within Christianity.

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It always has been that Adam was created fully formed.

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So with that said, I see that as a precedent.

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I see it as a precedent by which God created everything else.

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From the stars and the light that they shone,

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to the trees that grew up, to Adam and Eve himself,

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I see a God who is more than happy to create things

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at a point of midway maturity.

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Now, if you look to the New Testament, you'll see this again.

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Do you remember the miracle of Jesus with the water and the wine?

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What's the miracle?

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He's at a wedding, there's the water, and he turns the water into wine.

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If you were to drink the wine, it would have tasted like the best wine you'd ever drunk.

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It would have tasted like wine that had been aged and fermented

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because that's what you have to do to wine.

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And the scholars who know more about wine than I do

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say that such wine as Jesus had created

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would have had to have had at least a year and probably two years of fermentation

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in order to have that sort of taste that it had at that particular point.

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If you talk about Jesus when he created the loaves and the fish,

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think about that.

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They're all sitting around there on the hillside.

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Thousands are all hungry.

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The disciples go, all right, Jesus, everyone's hungry.

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What are we going to do?

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We should send everyone to go get food somewhere.

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And he goes, nah, we're good, we're good.

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Who's got what?

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And they said, well, this kid, he's got some loaves,

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a few loaves and a few fish.

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She says, bring it on over here.

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Now, what did he do next?

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What did he do?

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Well, we know he multiplied the food, right?

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He multiplied food.

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We don't know exactly how it happened there,

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but we know he multiplied from a little basket of food,

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enough food to satisfy everyone that was there.

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And if you were holding a piece of bread in your hand,

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it had the appearance of something much older than itself.

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If you cut into a fish, it wasn't caviar that he gave them.

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You understand this?

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Jesus himself created things with the appearance of age

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that were entertained and enjoyed by those he gave it to.

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There's biblical precept that suggests that God was more than willing and able

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to create a universe that had the appearance of age

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even if it didn't have the antiquity that comes with age.

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Even if it didn't date back a million years,

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there's nothing to say the rock couldn't look older than it was.

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And we know that to be true because he did this numerous other places

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in the Old and New Testament.

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I'm not saying that that is the only way to understand this text,

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but I'm saying it's a reasonable way.

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And the reason I like it is because it keeps Genesis 1 intact.

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It doesn't cause you to insert, you know, parenthesis and gap theories and age and do all sorts of other stuff.

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I can take it for what it says and apply its lessons, and I can point to other points of Scripture and say this is the reason why I believe this to be true.

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With that said, when we look at these days, we look at them as an orderly account by which God built and created the universe around us.

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And I'm inclined to see them as being days in the current understanding of the word.

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I'm going to skip ahead with our balance of our time.

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I'm going to look at verses 26 through 28, and then we'll wrap up for today.

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And then we'll go into chapter 2 next week.

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Next, we're going to talk about life in the garden.

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What was that like?

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But let's finish up for today by looking at verses 26 through 28 of chapter 1.

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Verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

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As a side note, this is the first proof text for the Trinity.

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Who's the our here?

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At this point, there's just God, right?

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But God says, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness,

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and let man then have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the earth,

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over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creepy thing that creeps on the earth.

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And so God created man in his own image, in the image of God.

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He created them male and female.

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He created them.

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There's a whole sermon there.

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Verse 28, then God blessed them, and God said to them,

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Be fruitful and multiply.

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Remember, he has the authority to tell them what to do.

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That's one of the implications of him being the boss, him being the creator.

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He tells them, he says, be fruitful and multiply.

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Fill the earth and subdue it.

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Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air,

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and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

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Verse 26, if you ever suffer from low esteem, verse 26 is for you.

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It says, you and I are made in God's image.

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There's nothing else in the universe that can say this.

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Something that's interesting, pagan cultures do this all the time.

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They look for the majesty of the wolf or the African lion or the elephant or fill in the blank.

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And that's why people have spirit animals.

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And this is why the pagans always bent down to animals.

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The pagans have always, you know, they were half man, half hippo, you know, half whatever.

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They would look at the created realm and they would find something about that,

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the creatures that had a greater value than the people made in the image of God.

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They would sacrifice the people made in the image of God

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to the idol dressed up like a creature,

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something that existed in the world around them.

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With that said, what you notice in these verses

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is that you and I are made in the image of God.

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You and I are made in God's image.

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And that's why we say that there's a sanctity of human life.

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Because unlike the hippo and unlike the rhino

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and unlike the giraffe and unlike the rocks

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and the mountains and the trees and the oceans

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and the breeze and all that stuff,

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you have a likeness to the God of all creation.

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And there's nothing else in creation that can claim that.

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The people who say we're all, you know, the rocks and trees are my brothers, nonsense.

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I like rocks and trees and I look at the planets through the telescope

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and the eclipse and all that's really cool, right?

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That's all really cool.

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And yet all of it is pale, pale compared to those who populate the earth

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who are made in the image of God.

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Even the most homely individual who's ever lived is made in the image of God

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and there's nothing else in the universe that can say that.

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And so we should esteem human life.

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Those supporters of abortion, euthanasia, and these other things are striking at the very core

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to what the Bible starts with. You and I are made in the image of God. That begins with the smallest

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of us through the most aged of us. We're in the image of our maker. Now, verse 28 goes on to say

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that we who are made in the image of God have a authority that he's invested in us over everything

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else in the world around us. You are made in the image of God, and you are granted dominion over

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everything else that exists. All the animals, the birds that fly, all this stuff. You have dominion

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over that. Is that dominion to be executed wisely? Yes. Are we to be good stewards of God's creation?

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Yes. However, make no mistake, we are granted dominion over that which God has made. And that's

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why one of the cruelest ironies of the pagans, which Paul addresses in Romans 1, is that they

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would trade all that in. They would trade in the image of God. They trade in God himself in order

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to bow down and worship the things that they were given dominion over. Romans 1, professing to be

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wise, they became fools. They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like

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corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. There have been men and women,

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they're probably still on the globe today or still some would do this, who would make up an image,

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an idol of a creeping thing and then bow down before it. Those made in the image of God will

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bowed down before an idol made over that which they have dominion over. It's irony that we have

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done so. In closing this morning, again, there's so much that we're going to consider when we get

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into life in the garden, then we move to the fall two weeks from now. But in closing this morning,

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you know what nihilism is? Most of us have heard nihilism. We think that's bad, right? Nihilism

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is bad. So nihil, N-I-H-I-L, it's a Latin term. What do you think it means? Nothing. I think I

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heard it over here. It means nothing. To be a nihilist is to have the view that there is

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nothing that's important, nothing that matters, no value in anything. To be nihilistic, that's

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to embrace nihilism. Now, secular humanism does that. It doesn't always recognize it as doing

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that, but that's what it does. Secular humanism, that thinks we all came from nothing, is inherently

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nihilistic. Some philosophers are just more honest with themselves that that's what they're doing.

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But if you ascribe there to be no God, no creator, no cosmic right and wrong, none of that,

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If that were true, then nihilism would be correct and nothing would matter.

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However, verse 1, chapter 1,

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posits a God who does the exact opposite of nihilism,

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but who created the world ex nihilo,

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which is what theologians say means what?

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Out of nothing.

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Ex nihilo.

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Ex nihilo.

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God created the world, the universe, the creation, the seas, the bees,

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all these different things out of nothing.

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Secular humanism, nihilism, wants to go back to the nothing.

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Find no value in anything.

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Embrace the nothingness.

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That's what nihilism does.

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Creationism, the idea of an intelligent designer.

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Christianity, faith in Jesus Christ

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is a faith in a God that looked at the nothing and said,

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I will bring something out of this,

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of my own volition, my own fiat, my own decree,

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and what I bring out of it will be good

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and will be in my image.

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The world has become nihilistic,

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and that's why we do so many of the things that God hates,

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like embrace abortion or euthanasia or whatever,

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fill in the blank, whatever weirdness is going to come next decade.

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That's why we embrace these things,

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because the culture around us is increasingly nihilistic.

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To that, we must fight by quoting Genesis 1-1,

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in the beginning, God.

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We start with that premise, which Genesis 1 begins with,

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then we work our way forward.

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But we must never give up that ground,

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not in the culture around us and certainly not in our churches.

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Let's pray.