God Created
Text: Isaiah 45:9-13
I. The ancient language of Hebrew contains two words for making something:
A. The word 'asah refers to what we do with our talents. We make things from what already exists.
B. But there is another word, bara, that is used in connection with God. It is the creation of something from nothing, or in another way to look at it, to create something that never existed before.
1. Romans 4:17 - God calls into being what did not exist
2. It doesn’t have to be things
a. Exodus 34:10 - God promised to do marvels never seen before (bara)
b. The earth swallowing people - Numbers 16:30
C. Notice in the creation account what was made versus what was created.
1. Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
a. Time (in the beginning)
b. Space (heavens)
c. Matter (earth)
2. Genesis 1:21 - God created living creatures (life)
3. Genesis 1:27 - God created man in his own image (a spiritual being in a physical body)
4. Everything else was a repackaging of existing things and ideas. But even that is beyond comprehension.
II. God made things to reproduce after its own kind - Genesis 1:11-12, 21, 24-25
A. Unlike the unproven claims of evolutionists, the Bible states each kind of creature reproduces to produce more of the same kind.
1. This does not eliminate variations within the kind.
2. Variation is what allows creatures to adapt to differences in environment.
3. But evidence of one kind becoming something different doesn’t exist.
B. The problem is one of design.
1. Let me illustrate it with the common loon. The loon is able to dive up to 200 feet under water to catch a fish.
a. Even ducks and geese can’t do this because they have the hollow bones all other birds have. Loons have solid bones, like mammals.
b. Evolutionists would claim that loons changed trying to reach fish. But note that other birds survive just fine without the need to dive so deep. If diving deep is required, then the other species should have died off.
c. It isn’t just the bone structure that is different. Muscles, ligaments, and other tissue have to also change because the bones are different.
d. The DNA sequence for the loon’s structure is vastly different from that of other birds. It isn’t that just a few small changes came into place.
2. Design means there is a purpose, a coordinated set of choices made to accomplish a set task.
C. In his fairy tale, "The Elephant’s Child," Rudyard Kipling fictionally describes how the elephant got its long trunk.
1. Originally, we are told, elephants had short noses, but one day a young elephant got too close to the river and was attacked by a crocodile. Biting the elephant on the nose, the crocodile tried to pull him into the river.
2. As the elephant pulled back, his nose stretched until it became the trunk we see today.
3. Of course, we see this as fiction
D. But this is how evolution is described. A need is presented and somehow organisms gain the ability to fit that need.
1. Thus, giraffes got longer necks to reach higher leaves
2. Humans got lighter or darker skin depending on how long their ancestors spent in the sun
3. In 1893, German biologist August Weismann cut off the tails of generation after generation of mice. Guess what happened? Mice were still born with tails.
E. Variation shows a flexible design, one able to handle a wide range of conditions. It is not an example of organisms changing themselves.
F. God made, not creatures self-generated.
III. Survival of the fittest?
A. Evolutionist will claim that creatures best able to survive and adapt to an environment live to produce offspring while the less fit tend to die off.
B. Hence, as mutations occur, the belief is that the changes which enhance survival remain while harmful mutations are removed from the gene pool.
C. Yet the best don’t always survive - Ecclesiastes 9:11
D. Think about the death of Abimelech in Judges 9.
1. Abimelech managed to make himself king of Israel for three years during the days of the Judges.
2. He was a brilliant warrior, winning many battles. He led a strong group of warriors and managed to squelch many rebellions.
3. But in the town of Thebez, while getting set to burn a group of rebels holed up in a tower, a woman took the upper stone used to grind flour by hand, threw it at Abimelech from the top of the tower, and managed to crush his skull.
4. Did this mean that the woman was stronger than Abimelech because she managed to kill him? Was she the better warrior? Or was it simply because she happened to get a lucky shoot at the better man (quite possibly with God’s aid).
E. Or how about another “lucky” shot.
1. The young boy David, inexperienced in war and wearing no armor, brought down a gigantic Philistine warrior with a single stone from a sling-shot - I Samuel 17:50
2. Who was the better warrior? Who had the superior strength, weapons, and armor? And yet an apparently “lucky” shot from a small boy brought him down
F. The fittest don’t always survive. It isn’t how God made this world - I Corinthians 1:27-29
IV. Evolution claims that what never existed before came about by blind random chance.
A. The Bible says that God and only God creates what never existed, in physical presence or in thought.
B. Look around you and ask yourself if this world shows evidence of random changes or of purposeful, yet flexible design - Isaiah 44:24-26
C. Isaiah 45:9-13
D. God deserves our respect and our gratitude - Isaiah 29:16
