Creation: How old? |
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Elder
Phillip Conley |
II Peter
3:3-4, "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the
last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And
saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from
the beginning of the creation."
This
morning, foundation points that are building blocks to other
principles are eroded or taken away. The family is attacked
today by the constant onslaught of what marriage really is.
Religion is hammered by constant attacks on the truth. The
church is ostracized by culture as being out of touch and
antiquated. Though these attacks may trouble the household
of faith, the real affront in these onslaughts is towards
God Himself. When the children of Israel wanted a king in
the days of Samuel, the Lord told him that the rejection was
not of Samuel's judgeship but rather the Lord's Kingship.
Today, people's attack on principles and institutions is not
a rejection of God's people as much as it is a rejection of
God Himself. Perhaps the most fundamental truth is that of
creation itself. Without the starting point that God is the
creator of the material universe, failure is inevitable.
However, many today claim to believe in God's existence and
role as Creator, but they deny the simplicity of truth as
enumerated in the Scriptures.
As Peter
wends home to the close of his second epistle, he will
discuss in glorious terms the second coming of Christ.
Before doing so, he will speak of things preceding that day
that opens his discussion into the subject of the second
coming. Before Christ comes back, scoffers will manifest
themselves denying the coming of Christ. As proof of their
denials, they will foolishly point to the predictable
occurrence of things and say that all things have done this
since the beginning. What is interesting is that these
people are not necessarily evolutionists that deny the
existence of God. They admit to a creation, but their idea
of creation is faulty. Today, we see this mindset all around
us.
In my
secular life, I work in the engineering world and in the
fields of science. The people that I most associate with
professionally are learned in advanced mathematics and
sciences. Though I am thankful that many of my colleagues
are God-fearing men and women, it is disturbing to see how
so many have fallen victim to the incessant barrage that has
been unleashed in the science fields. Again, they do not
subscribe to evolution in that there is no God. Rather, they
take all the scientific data that we have available and try
to somehow make it "jive" with the idea of Creator God.
Since the data being given points to an "old earth," they
must find a way to make things fit with what science tells
us is fact.
Without
going too deep into technical weeds, the "old earth theory"
is much more popular today than it was in centuries past.
Due to testing in science fields, many materials seem to be
millions or more years old. This conclusion is reached based
on what we know of material decay through certain composite
materials. Therefore, if something has decayed so much over
the last 50-100 years, the conclusion is that it must be X
million years old to decay to the point it is today. That
very simplified explanation of what the data shows is why so
many creation believing people subscribe to the old earth
theory. Therefore, they take the Genesis 1 account to be
allegorical wherein every day of the creation week is really
just vast indeterminate periods of time. In this way, they
"marry" creation through some long evolutionary cycle to
claim that both the data conclusions and the Bible are both
true.
Though I
am not alone, people in my field that subscribe to a "young
earth" (6000-7000 years old) have been ridiculed as blindly
dumb. However, no matter what someone's worldview is,
assumptions must be made beforehand. The problem with the
old earth worldview is that the assumption is plainly
refuted by Scripture. The assumption from the data points is
that there is a linear scale and that the decay of isotopes
has followed a predictable pattern from the beginning. Peter
asserts in our study verses that this mindset is exactly
what the scoffers believe. He will go on in subsequent
verses to talk of their willing ignorance to the worldwide
flood and its ramifications. Because of what happened in
Noah's day, we cannot really comprehend the fullness of what
life was like pre-flood. It was obviously different as men
lived 900+ years. Certain species whose fossils have been
unearthed lived then but not today. Such a cataclysmic
change as the flood produced altered the scale of which
things like decay took place. To say that the linear
regression points to a creation that is millions or billions
of years old is a scoffer's mentality.
However,
something much more sinister lurks behind this theory. Based
on the fossil record and things that are yet being
unearthed, we see something very evidently. Fossil grounds
are a cemetery of sorts that displays death. If we accept
the notion that the data points to an old earth and that
Genesis 1 must be allegorical, then we must accept that
these fossils lived and died centuries, millennia, or longer
before Adam was formed upon the earth. If that be the case,
then why did they die? The Bible unequivocally points out
the fact that death exists and reigns in the earth due to
man's actions. (Romans 5:12) Death not only passed upon Adam
and his posterity, but death affects natural life as well.
Before the fall in the Garden of Eden, death was
non-existent. Animals and anything else would not have died.
To say that life forms lived and died before and not
subsequent to man's decision is to deny the basic foundation
point of why death is here in the first place. If that
foundation stone is taken away, what about the inverse?
James says in his epistle that sin "when it is finished"
bringeth forth death. The inverse of that is that grace
"when it is finished" bringeth forth life. If the starting
place for death is moved from its rightful slot, then the
starting point for grace gets altered as well. Without
believing that God created all things exactly as He says He
did, we end up with a myriad of unexpected problems in the
building blocks of theology as it pertains to salvation and
redemption.
Brethren, our adversary is very crafty and many of the
arguments arising in my lifetime have caused a great many
people to slip. One of my colleagues asked me one time,
"With all the evidence that we have, how can you be so dumb
as to deny it?"
Though I
do not deny the data, I do deny the assumptions that must be
made to make the conclusions that people make with them. Our
children need to know that the simple model of 6 days of
creative work a few thousand years ago is the starting
point. To move from that point leads us to slippery places
wherein our belief of depravity, grace, sin, righteousness,
life, and death will not be able to stand. Furthermore, it
could ultimately lead to scoffing at the idea of His return.
Beloved, His return is just as sure as His creation stands
today. As real as the judgment of the flood in Noah's day
is, so real is the judgment of the fire in the Lord's day.
He is coming. The knowledge that His return will be swift,
certain, and glorious sustains us today through hope. To
keep that hope fresh and vibrant, let us look at the
creation now that is kept in store to that day of judgment
with the knowledge that it was framed by God's word just as
He said it was in the beginning. Over and over, "And God
said...," "And God said....," "And God said...." All it took
in the beginning was for God to say, and it was done. All it
will take in the end is for God to say, and it is done. Even
so come Lord Jesus!
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