Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Revolution Against Evolution*

*/Genesis 1:1/*

 

        It is the ultimate question of all questions - Where did the universe come from?

Why does it exist?

Genesis 1:1 simply states,

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

(Genesis 1:1, NASB) So the very beginning of God's word to man says man had a beginning, a divine beginning, a supernatural beginning.

Believe it or not, the Christian message does not begin with "Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior."

It begins with /"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."/

The Bible plainly states that behind the entire creative order is God's divine hand.

No natural forces exist on their own.

Nothing receives its nature or existence from any other source.

If that is true, then God's word is not only the source of the laws of physical nature which we study with science.

It is the source of the laws of human nature, which tell us how we ought to live.

I don't have to tell you that there is a debate raging hot and heavy in our culture today that will not go away.

Entangled in its web are scientists, doctors, lawyers, judges, teachers and politicians.

As you know, just recently a Federal Judge ruled that Cobb County's School Board could not put stickers on their science textbook with the following statement.

"This textbook contains material on evolution.

Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things.

This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered."

That one statement is the catalyst that has ignited a war that is being fought hot and heavy in many different battlefronts all over this nation.

I want you to know up front there is no way in one message that I can either disprove evolution or prove creation.

In fact, neither one can definitively be proved or disproved.

You can never prove or disprove any event that took place in the past.

All you can do is present the evidence which is exactly what I intend to do today and then let you decide.

We are going to ask and answer six very simple, but key questions that will totally help us put our arms around this great debate and understand the "Revolution Against Evolution".

*I.

What Is The Definition Of The Theory Of Evolution?*

The very first problem in discussing evolution is defining evolution.

Depending on the definition, there may or may not be a problem with the word "evolution".

When textbooks say something like, "evolution has occurred" sometimes they just mean that "change sometimes happens."

When that is the case, nobody has any disagreement with it.

Certain kinds of limited change do occur in nature.

There are really two meanings to the word "evolution".

Sometimes the word refers to what is known as "micro-evolution".

Micro evolution simply states that change does take place within certain kinds of plants and animals and that there are certain varieties within different species.

This goes exactly with what the Bible says in the Book of Genesis.

/"And God said, 'Let the earth bring forth every kind of animal - livestock, small animals and wildlife.'

And so it was.

God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock and small animals each able to reproduce more of its own kind."

/(Genesis 1:24 - 25, NLT)

        The second type of evolution is called "macro-evolution" and this is where the wheels begin to fall off.

This is the theory that made Charles Darwin famous.

In essence, he not only said that living matter evolved from dead matter through a random process plus time, but that all animals and plants and people evolved from a common ancestor, through a random process of natural selection that ensures the survival of the fittest.

To quote Carl Sagan, the 20th Century high priest of the religion of evolution, /"All living things arise by blind physical and chemical forces over eons from slime..." /and /..."human beings/ [and all the other species] /have slowly evolved by natural processes from a succession of more ancient beings with no divine intervention needed along the way."/

Let me make this real simple so everybody can understand it.

In essence, evolution says, "Explosions-R-Us."

Understand the word "evolution" is used in two ways.

One word applies to "limited variation with an existing species" which nobody denies.

The second word refers to "unlimited change leading to the existence of new groups from one species to another" which, as you will see in a moment, has absolutely no scientific verification whatsoever and is totally speculative.

The great debate is over macro-evolution, not micro-evolution.

*II.

Why Is The Debate Of The Theory Of Evolution So Important?*

To recap - nobody disagrees that natural selection can turn small horses into big horses and small bird beaks into longer bird beaks, but a lot of people disagree that it can turn fish into frogs and frogs into princes.

Furthermore, not everyone agrees that life can come from non-life.

Here and now is where one myth about the creation~/design versus evolution debate must be destroyed once and for all.

The common thought is that evolution is scientific while creation~/design is religion.

The truth is both evolutionary theory and design theory are not about different subjects; it is not science versus religion.

Instead, they are both trying to give an answer to the same question: how did life arise in the universe?

The truth of the matter is this - Genesis 1:1 which plainly states that behind this universe is a divine designer deserves to be put to the test by examining the evidence just as much as the theory of evolution.

Get this down.

The debate is not between fact and faith.

The debate is not between science and religion.

The debate is between their science and our science.

The debate is between their faith and our faith.

This is not what I am saying.

This is what they are saying.

Dr.

L. Harrison Matthews, a noted evolutionist, who wrote the introduction to the 1971 edition of Darwin's famous book, /Origin of the Species/ said, /"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory - is it then a science or faith?

Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation - both are concepts which believers know to be true, but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof."

/

        Dr.

Arthur Field points out that evolution is based upon belief in the reality of things never seen or scientifically verified - belief in fossils that cannot be produced, belief in embryological evidence that does not exist, and belief in breeding experiments that have never worked.

Any objective observer has to conclude that whether you believe in the biblical worldview of creation or the evolutionary worldview of creation, you have to have faith.

The issue is not science versus faith.

The issue is science~/evolution versus science~/design - all based on scientific evidence.

I do want to brag on the evolutionist for a moment, because it takes far more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in divine design, as you are going to see in a moment.

It is just this simple.

If scientists can demonstrate, based on the evidence, that life has emerged purely through natural chemical processes, then there is no need for God.

However, if the evidence points to a divine design, then the evolutionary house of cards collapses.

If you don't think the debate is important let me put it this way.

Whether you were created for a purpose or you have no purpose, whether there is a plan for your life or no plan for your life, whether some things are right and some things are wrong (and God tells us which is which) or right and wrong are simply up for majority vote, all depend on this debate.

*III.

What Is The Deficiency Of The Theory Of Evolution?*

There are really two basic questions to ask about evolution.

(1)  Could evolution happen?

(2)  Did evolution happen?

I want to take the second question first and I am only going to give you two major problems with the theory, though I could give you many more.

*"Did evolution happen?"*

The first problem is what I call the */"fossil flaw"./*

If every living being descended from a common ancestor and people and animals were not separately created then what you would expect to find in ancient fossils would be thousands of intermediate forms of creatures that have some characteristics of one species and some characteristics of another species.

For example, if it is indeed true that a fish eventually turned into a bird, then you would expect to find half fish~/half bird fossils.

But this is exactly where Darwin himself saw the biggest problem.

He said, "Innumerable transitional forms must have existed, but why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers of the crust of the earth?"

Darwin himself was hoping that in due time these fossils would be found.

As of the 21st century, the fossil record is so anti-Darwinian that the evolutionists have now had to conjecture that evolution occurs in small groups that evidently were never fossilized.

One leading fossil expert put it this way, "Evolution always seems to happen somewhere else."

You see, when I was growing up, people use to talk about the "missing link".

Now we know that it is not the links that are missing, most of the chain is gone!

Everybody is waiting for the gap to be filled.

The only GAP that I have ever seen filled is the clothing store chain down at the mall that caters to baby-boomers and baby-busters!