Genesis One Essentials (1/21)
Mark Barbee

If Creation is true then we would expect an intricately designed universe spoken into existence by an eternal, all powerful being in a flash of creation.  True science bears this out: intricacy, design, flash of beginning!  If you want to call it a big bang, fine.  God spoke, and bang, it happened!  Regardless, there was a time before the universe, and then a beginning. 

            If the Creator is personal, then we would expect to find creatures created in his image- male and female.  No need for gender studies or confusion.  But if Genesis 3-6 is true, then we would also expect to find fallen, rebellious people and a broken, unstable planet.  That is exactly what we find.  True geology shows tectonic plates of crustal material riding on magma and mantle.  The evidence shows that they move, collide, thrust mountains up and valleys down.  The flood was caused by the breaking up of the fountains of the deep and huge cataclysms on the earth’s surface.  As a result there are huge fossil graveyards of animal and plant life resulting from rapid burial.  That is exactly what we find.

            The point is that the God who can do all this has no difficulty doing miracles.  This God needs no evolution.  This God reveals himself in Creation and then spoke to his people through prophets and Scripture.  This God ultimately sent his Son into the world and into human flesh.  Jesus affirmed all these truths.  This God sent his Holy Spirit to empower the followers of his Son and to complete the Bible by writing the New Testament.  Hebrews puts it this way: In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.  Heb. 1:1-3

            And how does this God communicate that his Son has come?  Everything necessary for our faith is in the Bible.  For example, the very first gospel, Matthew, communicates these truths.  Matthew affirms that God chose the Jewish nation to bring Christ into the world.  Jesus proved everything he said through miracles.  He gradually revealed his deity through his teachings and miracles.  He began using the phrase “Son of Man” to reveal that he was, indeed that he was the promised Messiah.  But he taught the disciples that he was also the Son of God.  He took his followers from Son of Man to Son of God; from Messiah to Miracles; from Death to Resurrection; he took them from absolute monotheism to believing in one God that is a tri-unity of Father, Son and Spirit.  He took three years to do it.  But by the time he rose from the dead they had no further doubts. 

            The disciples traveled the nations proclaiming that Jesus was fully God and fully man.  They gave their lives, never once wavering or recanting.  They were the “eyewitnesses of his majesty” (II Pet 1:16).  They left some of their old traditions behind to embrace the new meaning that Christ had given them.  Their faith in Jesus eventually won over the Roman Empire.  Their teaching became the foundation of Western Civilization. 

            Today these very principles on which our civilization was built are being questioned and abandoned by some.  No wonder we are a people at odds with our past and our founding. 

Lord, “listen to your people prayin’.”  Hear our intercession for a society that has gone off the rails.  Forgive us where we have abandoned truths such as Creation and Scriptural truth.  Forgive us for abandoning Life itself by taking the lives of innocents.  Forgive us for yielding to the gods of science instead of practicing true science.  Forgive us for allowing godless men to rewrite our history.

Thank you Lord for revealing your Son to us and for all the prophecies he fulfilled.  Help us to be better students of your Word in 2021.  Many have died for the sake of your Word, help us to not take it for granted.  Forgive us for settling for sound bites instead of applying ourselves to your Word.

Thank you that the church is here to teach us your ways.  Help us to live in the light of Jesus.  May the church this year come roaring back in the power of the Holy Spirit!    In Jesus’ Name, Amen.