Some of the startling announcements of the great achievements of man in our twentieth century have conditioned the American public to believe almost anything it sees in print. Wild theories and speculations garbed in scientific language are swallowed by gullible readers. For example, the theories of evolution are taken for granted in many quarters, having found their way into the universities, high schools, and even grade schools of our day.
Perhaps we should pause and define the terms we've been using on today's broadcast. What is evolutionism? What is creationism? The evolutionist endeavors to explain the origin of our solar system and the species of animal and vegetable life on this earth by projecting what is termed "natural law" backward to some beginning in the dim, dark past. It is a belief that all things, animate and inanimate, evolved into their present complexity after billions of years.
Creationism, on the other hand, is a belief in the account of God's Holy Word concerning miraculous, instantaneous creation by an all-wise God. It is the acceptance by faith of what God says in His Word, and that faith is based on evidence that surrounds us and leaves us without excuse. A creationist accepts the simple "Thus saith the Lord" rather than trust in his own ability to reason regarding the origin of all things.
Let us now contrast the teaching of evolutionists and of creationists on the origin of this earth. To show the evolutionistic teaching on this question I quote from a textbook entitled Child's History of the World by Virgil M. Hillyer. This is a textbook used in many of the public schools of America today. I quote from this source for two reasons. First of all, because it presents the evolutionary theory in all of its simplicity without the use of scientific terms difficult to be understood. Second, to show how Satan has connived to bring the theories of evolution before the very youngest minds to corrupt and confuse their belief in God's Lord. I quote: "One of these stars is our Sun, yes, our Sun. The other stars would look the same as the Sun if we could get as close to them. But at that time, so long, long ago, our Sun was not just a big, round, white, hot ball as we see it in the sky today. It was then more like the fireworks you may have seen on the Fourth of July. It was whirling and sputtering and throwing off sparks.
"One of these sparks which the sun threw far off got cool just as a spark from the crackling log in the fireplace gets cool, and this cooled-off spark was,
"What do you suppose?
"See if you can guess,
"It was our World, yes, the World on which we now live.
"At first, however, our World or Earth was nothing but a ball of rock. This ball of rock was wrapped around with steam, like a heavy fog.
"Then the steam turned to rain, and it rained on the World, and it rained, and rained, and it rained until it had filled up the hollows and made enormously big puddles. These puddles were the oceans. The dry places were bare rock." Pages 5-9. Mind you, this is the account of the beginning of all things that our boys and girls are learning in the grade schools of America today.
Now let us turn to God's Word and discover what He Himself says about the origin of our earth. In Genesis 1:1 we read: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." And in Genesis 2:1-4: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens."
The psalmist, David of old, testified as to the origin of this world in the words of Psalm 33:6, 9: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth . . . . For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." The Bible is filled with such statements. Both Old and New Testament writers testify as to how this world came into existence. Our belief in this matter determines whether or not we accept God's authority as the Author of sacred Scripture.
Evolutionists place the age of our world into the millions, and some into the billions of years. Amazing indeed are the vast differences among the evolutionary scientists in their attempts to establish the date of the birth of our world. However, we can have confidence in Bible chronology which indicates that this earth is not yet 6,000 years of age. Many are confused by modern science in its attempts to measure the age of our world by the time it takes to develop the fossils and strata of the earth. It is well to remember that the scientist has established his own standards of measurement as to how long it has taken for these formations, once again mere theories and speculations.
I tell you friends, we ought to be really upset and concerned as we see evolutionism and its theories creeping into Christian doctrines. Deistic evolutionists and theistic evolutionists are trying to harmonize God's Word with the theories of evolution. The first puts God into the picture as the One who created the first living matter, but then permitted evolution to take over. The second teaches that God creates by the process of evolution. But as Bible-believing Christians we can be but one thing: creationistic theists, that is, those who believe that God created and sustains all things.
One of the popular theories in the Christian world today that incorporates the doctrine of evolution is that God took, through the process of evolution, six long periods of time for the creation of this world rather than six literal days, indicated in Genesis 1. A form of this theory was first promoted by Augustine in the early Christian centuries and later taught by the famous theologian, Thomas Aguinas, in the Roman Church. But in the book of Exodus, chapter 20 and verse 11, we read the fourth commandment in which the question is answered as to how long it took for the creation of our world. "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it." Here God Himself testifies as to how long it took Him to create the world.
Yes, if we do away with creation as taught in the sacred Word of God, then we must do away with all of the teachings of the Bible, for the truths of sacred Scripture are based on the authority of God as the Creator. The whole plan of salvation would be nullified, for if we had no Creator, we would have no Redeemer.
Surely it takes more faith to believe the evolutionary theory than the Bible account of the beginnings of this world. The evolutionists teach that the world came about quite by chance through a great cosmic explosion out in space, resulting in a piece of the sun breaking off and becoming our world, and that the complexity of life upon this planet also came about quite by chance.
Now, enough for the origin of our earth. Let's now turn to the question of the origin of life, that is, the beginnings of the species of animal and vegetable life upon this planet. I return again to our statement from the Child's History of the World, a textbook, you recall, used in the public schools of America, in which by simple language the evolutionary theory is taught.
"Then, after this, that is, after the evolution of our earth came the first living things, tiny plants that you could only have seen under a microscope. At first they grew only in the water, then along the water's edge, and then out on the rock.
"Then dirt or soil, as people call it, formed all over the rock and made the rock into land, and the plants grew larger and spread farther over the land.
"Then, after this, came the first tiny animals in the water. They were wee Mites like drops of jelly.
"Then, after this, came things like Insects. Some that live in the water, some on the water, some on the land, and some in the air.
"Then, after this, came Fish, that live only in the water. Then, after this, came Frogs, that live in the water and on the land too.
"Then, after this, came Snakes and huge lizards bigger than alligators, more like dragons; and they grew so big that at last they could not move and died because they could not get enough food to eat.
"Then, after this, came Birds, that lay eggs and those Animals like foxes and elephants and cows that nurse their babies when they are born.
"Then, after this, came Monkeys.
"Then, last of all, came, what do you suppose? Yes, People, men, women and children."
And then to be certain that these evolutionary ideas are drummed into the minds of these boys and girls the quotation goes on: "Here are the steps; see if you can take them: Star, Sun; Sun, Spark; Spark, World; World, Steam; Steam, Rain; Rain, Oceans; Oceans, Plants; Plants, Mites; Mites, Insects; Insects, Fish; Fish, Frogs; Frogs, Snakes; Snakes, Birds; Birds, Animals; Animals, Monkeys; Monkeys, People; And here we are! What do you suppose will be next?"
Friends, is there any wonder why our world is filled with atheists and infidels and agnostics when such teachings as this are placed in the minds of our boys and girls?
Evolutionism is a hoax. A classic example is that of the Piltdown man. Let me tell you about it. One day in 1908 a lawyer by the name of Charles Dawson was walking along a farm road close to Piltdown Common in Sussex, England. He noted that workmen had unearthed pieces of bone. So he began to dig and uncovered part of a human skull. Later he was supposed to have returned to the spot to find the jaw which had been missing from this skull. The scientific world accepted his finding as one of the missing links that they had been looking for. It was acclaimed by some of the greatest scientists of our century to be the remnants of England's earliest man who lived 300,000 years ago. However, on November 21, 1953, the British Museum announced that the jaw was not what it was claimed to be, the missing link, but it was the jaw of a modern chimpanzee about 50 years old. Chemical filings were analyzed by Dr. J. S. Weiner and Professor W. E. LeCros Clark, both of Oxford University, and Dr. K. P, Oakley of the British Museum and the hoax was uncovered.
The evolutionist claims that when proper amounts of certain elements like nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon chanced to come together under certain favorable circumstances of temperature, humidity, etc., the first living cell became a reality. They go on to explain that through the process of mutation and chance evolution, things continued to develop until the complex forms of animal life became what they are today. But the genealogy of Luke 3 traces the ancestry of Christ back to Adam and Eve and to God Himself, not to some primary form of life such as the mollusk or quadruped or to some one-celled piece of protoplasm along the water's edge.
God reveals how man became a reality in this world. In Genesis 1:26, 27: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." Again in Genesis 2:7: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."
Surely the marvels of human physiology give evidence of a divine Creator. Consider the circulatory system, the digestive system, the nervous system. Think of the human heart pumping thousands of gallons of blood each day. Think of the cooling system containing two and one-half million sweat glands that keep the body at a constant 98Ëš temperature. Think of the human ear with twenty-four thousand supersensitive sound-receiving filaments capable of detecting sound vibrations of sixteen to thirty thousand per second. Think of the human brain with fifteen million brain cells capable of retaining millions of thoughts. Think of the human eye taking thousands of Kodachrome pictures each minute in full dimension. Indeed, like David of old, we would be led to testify: "I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works." Psalm 139:14.