Oaklea Chapel




For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them - Matthew 18:20
MENU
God's creation of the Heavens and the Earth (Part One) by Gordon Wilson (20 December 2008)
The following is a copy of Mr Gordon Wilson's talk on God's creation of the Heavens and the Earth.

We are going to focus particularly on the phrase “God created” which occurs three times in the chapter.

First of all in verse 1.

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

Scientists say that in the beginning there was a big bang . Now you would think that such an explosive event would produce a lot of assorted fragments with no two pieces the same. What in fact came into being were vast quantities of molecules and atoms which are not only exactly the right size, but behave in such a precise way that they conform to so called "laws of nature". Now the only plausible explanation for such an outcome is that these particles of matter were designed and created by God with absolute accuracy in order to provide the building blocks for life itself .

And so we come to the second occurrence of the phrase “God created”' in verse 21

"So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind . And God saw that it was good."

Scientists say that great creatures evolved by themselves over a very long period of time and today this process of evolution is presented as the factual explanation for the origin of life . However if challenged in a court of law, the case for evolution could certainly not be proved beyond reasonable doubt and would simply collapse and be dismissed on grounds of insufficient evidence. So, does the proposition that “God created” constitute a credible alternative to the theory of evolution. Well, the truth is that the events described in Genesis chapter 1 are not actually at variance with any proven SCIENTIFIC FACT. The creation account is a perfectly valid explanation for the origin of life. That may surprise you, but even more remarkable is the extraordinary beauty and infinite variety of living things. Their design is amazing, God's imagination and flair in creating them is boundless, but the best is yet to come as we read in verse 27.

"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him , male and female he created them "

Scientists say that man is merely an advanced form of ape . Now why does a proud creature like man consider himself to be an ape; there are two reasons:
1) It allows him to deny the existence of God
2) It excuses him from accountability to God for what he does with his life.
But the verse says that God made us like Himself. The most important way in which we are like God and unlike any other creature is that like God we are creative beings. The reason that we are creative is that God has given us a special kind of brain. Our brain makes us absolutely unique among the creatures of this world and vastly superior to them all. This is because of our capacity to think .Now how could a mindless and unthinking process like evolution ever give rise to a thinking and creative being such as man? Surely it takes a being who can think to make a being who can think and the only other being who can think apart from man is God himself. So what are we all thinking about just now? Hands up anyone who is listening to what I am saying.

Well, your brain is very active. It is accessing memory, comparing facts, making judgements forming opinions, raising questions. Now if you are not listening to me you are thinking about something else or you are fast asleep. Let’s just marvel for a moment at the creative power of the human brain. A simple example; it can devise a game like chess which is so complicated that hardly anyone can play it. It can design a chess playing computer which is so good that hardly anyone can beat it. What about the memory function of the brain? A goldfish supposedly has a second or two of memory, if that, so as it swims round and round its bowl each circuit is like a brand new experience.

But God designed our brain with phenomenal memory and so that it would not literally blow our minds he organised our memory on two levels, the conscious and the subconscious. It is a bit like the internet. Just as www.oakleachapel.co.uk plucks out our particular website, a reminder of some sort will recall a particular subconscious memory and bring it up to the conscious level. For example when we watch a TV programme our brain archives it in our subconscious memory along with the first episode of Dr Who and every other programme we have ever watched . This is why we dislike repeats because our subconscious memory keeps telling us what happens next. This small round object in our head contains the accumulated knowledge and experiences of our entire life hence the expression “been there, done that, bought the T shirt”. God certainly excelled Himself when he designed the human brain.

However our brains contain something far more serious. Something which was not given to us by God but taken by us from God against God's will. This is the knowledge of good and evil. You can read about this in Genesis chapters 2 and 3. God gave us free will but He did not give us the knowledge of good and evil because He knew that as free will beings we would not be able to control it. However we made a free will decision to steal the knowledge of good and evil from God and we have been living with the consequences ever since, and even having the audacity to blame God for our folly. You don't need me to tell you what a mess we are in.

Now God could just have left us to it, but instead, at enormous cost to Himself, He has provided the solution to our problem of uncontrolled evil. However, as we created the problem so we must take the decision as to whether or not to accept God's solution. The question is what is the solution?

We all need to know the answer because every one of us is fighting a battle in our minds between good and evil. Some are losing more than others and wreaking havoc in the world. The good news is that God has already fought that battle for us and won, but we need to claim our share of His victory in order to put our lives back on track.
© 2004-2024, Oaklea Chapel, All Rights Reserved.