The Miracle of Creation, Genesis 1 1 — Tim Conway

Well, I honestly believe that in all the number of times that I have stepped into a pulpit or stood forth to preach in my entire Christian life, I have never before had you open to Genesis 1 .1. So let's open up our Bibles to the very first verse.

Let's pray. Father, once again, we need help. Your people for whom Your Son has shed His blood, we need help. And if You offered Him up on our behalf, then You've promised. You've promised to not withhold any other good thing.

Not one. And so, Lord, this is Your Word, and that's good. And we're here to hear it. And we pray that You would do a good thing for us. I ask in Christ's name, Amen. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1 and the Foundational Fact of Creation

When I got home last week, I was already thinking I'm going to go to Genesis 1 .1 next week. And so, I opened up the doors on the cabinet that holds our TV and I brought up some sermons on creation. And I looked at a lot of different things.

Ruby was listening throughout the week when I would have something up. I forget, maybe two different days I brought things up. Sunday and another day. Good preachers. I only have limited time. I want to try to hear the best stuff.

I brought up several messages and honestly, we heard several hours of quotes by Darwin. In the end, my wife said, that wasn't very profitable. And I felt the same way. I felt kind of empty. Honestly, I'm not going to preach to you for the next hour about Darwin.

I don't believe that's what I'm called to do. If somebody else thinks that's the best way to approach this, we all have to figure out these things for ourselves. Before the Lord and in mind of what God has set forth in His Word, you can look at Darwin.

You can look at what all these naturalistic, evolutionary, atheists believe and tout. Obviously, we live in a country where 99 of the universities reject Genesis 1 .1. We are the church of the living God.

We are the church of Jesus Christ. And Scripture, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. And it's the Scriptures that are able to sufficiently equip us. Doctrine, reproof, instruction, correction.

It comes from this Word. This is where we get our doctrine. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And it's plural in the Hebrew. It's a basic statement. Let's think about this statement.

We open up our Bibles. I mean, if anybody in the world, if you took a Bible to a Muslim and you said, start at the beginning. Oftentimes, we say, well, Ruby and I just heard the testimony of a woman who was wonderfully converted.

Muslim. And she opened her Bible and she said it happened to fall out. John 1. We might very well guide somebody there. But the Bible itself starts when God first gives His first facts of revelation. This is what we find.

And what the Bible does is it starts by simply asserting God. Men in their pride, they come along. And believe me, it's pride. And we'll see that from Scripture itself. Men in their pride come along and it's like, prove to me there is a God.

Prove it. God Himself speaks. He doesn't prove Himself. He is. When He talks to man, He says, I am that I am. He is that reality. In the beginning, God. It just asserts God. There's no proving, no arguing.

First verse of the Bible. That's the fact that is declared to us. It declares there is a beginning. Not a beginning of God. It does not say that in the beginning, God was created. There are other verses when it speaks about creation.

It sets God forth. Just listen to this. Isaiah 40 .28 The Lord is the everlasting God. The Creator of the ends of the earth. When it talks about God as the Creator, He is the One who is everlasting. He is the Eternal One.

Revelation 10 .6 Him, describes God this way, Him who lives forever and ever who created heaven and what is in it. The earth and what is in it. The sea and what is in it. What marks the beginning. You see it.

Genesis 1 .1 In the beginning. What marks this beginning is that the already existing, eternal, everlasting, living forever and ever God. That God starts a new creation. Which before this point, it didn't exist.

I mean, we often think about space, time, matter. Can you imagine none of this universe existing? Typically what we do in our minds is we empty space of everything. And now we just have space that goes on forever.

Was there anything? What was there? All I know is this, there was a beginning. There was a starting point for this universe. The heavens and the earth had a beginning and they came into existence because God made them exist.

There is cause and there is effect. And the cause is God. And the effect is this thing stood forth. The universe. Before this beginning, it didn't exist. It was not. It was uncreated. And what happened?

God acted. God acted. There was a beginning. The very first truth in Scripture about God is this. God is the Creator. And if you follow that reality through Scripture, it is everywhere. God reminds man of that over and over and over again.

The idea that God is a Creator is not insignificant at all. His revelation of Himself to us starts here and it is repeated over and over. That means it's important. That means we ought to sit up and take notice.

Now, this is set forth as fact. Listen, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That is a factual statement. There is no allegory here. There is no poetry going on here. Brethren, listen to me.

When you go to the New Testament authors, they assert this reality. They assert that God created in the beginning. John asserts that. 2 Peter, Hebrews, Revelations, Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Corinthians, that's just to name a few.

You can find passages in those books that specifically talk about God creating at the beginning. Nothing poetic, nothing allegorical here. This is set forth as a fact and the New Testament authors took it as a fact.

This is an actual historical event. We talk about history, history classes. We take American history or we take world history. History of our world began, it had a beginning point, and it starts here.

This is it. I mean, you open up your Bible, bang, there it is. This is a historical narrative by and large. Is there allegory in here? Yes. Is there symbolism in here? Yes. Do we have typology in here?

Yes. Do we have parables in here? Yes. But by and large, you know what this book is? This book is a historical narrative of God's dealings with man. By and large, that is what you find in this book. This is the book that declares Jesus Christ and His coming and rescuing man.

You open it up and that's where history starts. Listen, if anything existed before Genesis 1 -1 other than God, we are not told. You say, what do you mean? Why are you saying that? Because God is not giving us the history of other realms of existence or other spheres or other creations or other dimensions.

Listen, were the angels created before this? You can't prove that or disprove that based on this verse. What this verse is saying is these heavens and this earth were created in Genesis 1 -1. Personally, I find it hard to believe that this everlasting God who has this power to create basically sat still for all of eternity until one day He decided to create this.

But all this deals with is us. It deals with our universe. It deals with our heavens and our earth. This is where our world started. Now think about this as well. This is Scripture. You say, well, we recognize that.

Yes, but Scripture is this. Scripture is breathed out by God. We know from 2 Peter that what the Holy Spirit did was carry men like Moses and they spoke from God as they were carried along. Scripture is breathed from God.

You say, what is that? Why are you emphasizing? Just this, Genesis 1 -1 is God speaking to us. This isn't just simply a statement about God. This is a statement from God. The reason I emphasize that is because we could put it in the first person.

God is saying, I am the Creator. And the very first thing, the starting point in My revelation to you, man, is that I want you to know I made you. And I made all of this. That is the starting point of revelation.

God’s First-Person Revelation as Creator

First person. Actually, you can find verses in the Bible where God speaks to us in the first person about creation. Listen to these. By first person, I mean first person pronouns. I. Me. That's a first person pronoun where it's not just about God.

Second person, in the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. That's us seeing a fact about God. By first person, listen, I am He. I am the first and I am the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth and My right hand spread out the heavens.

That's Isaiah 48. In Isaiah 44, I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by Myself. Gather those two words. Alone. I alone. I by Myself. Nothing about big bangs.

Nothing about evolution. I stretched out the heavens like a curtain. I'm the one that did it. I called the hosts of heaven. They stood forth. I called them by name. God seems to want to dialogue with us in the first person about creation.

Listen to this. Again, this is Isaiah. To whom then will you compare Me that I should be like Him, says the Holy One. You know what happens when you have a world full of people touting evolution and basically saying that this thing happened by chance.

You're saying that all this complexity... What you're doing is you're making the universe out to be an accident. You're belittling it. You're making it a trifle. You're making it an accident. You're making it something that is the result of chance.

Impersonal, accidental randomness. Feeling purposeless. Feelingless. It's just an accident happened. Something blew up. And then at another time, primordial slime basically became... What you are doing is you're taking the absolute complexity.

I understand that in microbiology classes in universities, the professors have to keep reminding the students that there is no design. This looks like it has design. It has no design. This is so infinitely complex and it seems to be design, but there really is no design.

They have to keep saying that because there is such design. Listen, when God speaks about the creation, He says this is a reflection of My glory. He says there is something in all of this that you need to see is true about Me.

You need to recognize My understanding and My power when you look out there at the mighty mountain ranges and as you watch that sunset and you behold these great oceans and you behold the tempest and the storm and the lightning and the thunder and as you watch a bird soar through the air or you imagine how it could possibly be that a man and a woman could come together and produce a child.

Or you look at the workings of the human eyeball. Light, and it comes in and I'm able to see you and you can see Me. And we've got this eye that's self-lubricating. Cut your eyelid. It heals. This eyeball is self-lubricating.

It adjusts to light. It actually, based on the amount of light, you've got like a shutter in there that this thing is bigger, smaller. The light comes through. It's actually upside down. It goes through this optic nerve.

Your brain takes this thing, spins it upright. See, that was one of the things. I will bring Darwin in here for a second. He said the human eye, if there was one thing that he thought rattled him, made him think that the whole thing...

When we look at this, how does a worm become a cocoon and then become a butterfly? How does a worm do that? Creation is actually miraculous. The fact that you would have a tree and it knows what time of year it is and drops its leaves, and then the fact that they turn color.

Color. God painted this thing. And He gave it color and He gave us eyes. And you know what? This whole thing is so amazing. It is so miraculous. It so goes beyond our comprehension. It's like the further out we look and the further down we look, scientists just...

But you know what? It doesn't take their breath away because they've so convinced themselves this is all by accident. They've taken all the miraculous and all the marvelous out of it that it's just random.

We basically just came forth. Long periods of time. Long periods of time. You see, naturalness. It's looking at everything that's natural. It's natural laws. Everything takes a long time. And you take all the miraculous out of it.

Listen to how God speaks. This is very personal. To whom then will you compare Me? Okay, you just stop right there. This God speaks. To whom will you compare Me? Well, okay, what would we compare Him to?

Allah? What would we compare Him to? Other gods? To us? To Mary? What would we compare Him to? Okay, we've got an idea about those things. I mean, we've got an idea about us if we're going to compare ourselves to Him or our greatest minds to Him.

But who is He? I mean, He says, who are you going to compare Me to? Well, what is it about Him that He basically puts on the table that says, look at this? Who are you going to compare to that? It's creation.

You listen to how He speaks. To whom will you compare Me that I should be like Him? Says the Holy One. Listen to what He says. Lift up. Remember that eye we just talked about that He made? You know why He gave you that eye?

He says lift it up. Not like you're looking at the ground and look at the trees. You know what He means? He means, no, you're already looking horizontal. He's saying, go out into the night sky. That's exactly what He's talking about.

Because listen to what He says. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these. He's talking about the heavens. He's talking about the stars. Listen to what He says. He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of His might, and because He is strong in power, not one is missing.

You look out at that universe. You look out at those stars. You look out at the Milky Way as it crosses there. Go take your Hubble telescope and look at those pictures. Look at those spiral galaxies. Look out into the vast recesses of space.

And He says, I did that. And they stood forth by My Word and I called every one of them by name. Now who are you going to compare? To that God. He's dialoguing with us. He talks to us. Have you ever heard how Isaiah starts?

Come, let us reason together, saith the Lord. He wants to dialogue with us. He says, behold. See, He is the invisible God. But He has done something that's visible. And based on the visible, that which He created at the beginning, He says that ought to be sufficient to tell you there is none like Me.

None. Incomparable. Look at the stars. Look at it all. And you know what? He wants us to be staggered. He created it so big, so complex, He could have created it just out to the ends of our solar system.

He could have. But He didn't. He created this thing in such a way. Did He have to create a worm that becomes a butterfly? Couldn't He have just made butterflies, produced butterflies, and that's it? I mean, isn't that what people do?

I mean, people make people. Butterflies make worms. He didn't have to do that. That's a picture of salvation if there ever was one. A worm. Jacob, you worm. Have you ever heard that? But what does Jacob become?

The butterfly Israel. That's a picture of salvation. It's recreation. I mean, what's going on inside that cocoon that a monarch butterfly is now going to fly away? Listen, I grew up in Michigan. We had all these milkweed plants.

I used to see the monarch butterfly caterpillars. They're a worm. They eat milkweeds. These things were like white, yellow, and black. When that monarch butterfly came forth, how'd I know? Because I'd take the leaf off if I found it in one of those cocoons.

Take it inside, put it in a jar, and the butterfly would come out. The butterfly looked nothing like the worm. Well, what was happening inside there? It's miraculous. And what God did was He designed the miraculous all around us.

All you have to do is you go home and turn on one of these nature programs. Just one of the things about all the unusual creatures in the sea. I mean, you ever do that? And you're just blown away. It's like, I didn't know that existed.

I've lived 54 years, and I never knew that existed. When Ruby and I went to the Caribbean for our 25th wedding anniversary just a few months ago, I almost didn't scuba dive or snorkel. I almost didn't.

But we went to a place, and you had 90 minutes for free, and so I thought, yeah, let's try it. Because you know when you look across the top of the water, it looks very boring. What's out there? Yeah, it's a nice blue color, but you see kind of some dark things under there, and it just looks like nothing.

Probably like scientists used to think about the cell back in Darwin's day. It's just a blob of jelly. That's what it looked like out there. I put that face mask on, and I mean, I wasn't but in four foot of water.

And it just, I mean, you had fish of every color imaginable. And then I told some of you, I was swimming by this coral formation, and a moray eel came out. And it's like, I'm underwater, and I'm praising the Lord.

But it's like, Lord, this is phenomenal. It's like from above, but you go under, and this is all around us. I mean, this is everywhere. God has created this creation that is so staggering, and He meant it to be.

So that when we look at it, we say, there is none like Him. Just go to scientists, and say, create a machine that is, create a machine that you can put cotton candy and potatoes into, and it will grow.

The machine will grow, and be basically self-sustaining, self-repairing. If we get cut, it heals. I mean, I recognize, my wife has been struggling with this eczema, but you know what? She'll have it at one time, but it heals.

Create a machine that you can throw all sorts of different kinds of food into, and this thing will basically maintain itself. And it will repair itself if it gets damaged. And it will self-replicate.

It will make more machines just like itself. That's what God has done in designing the animal world, the plant world, designing humans. You can break a bone, and it will heal. Our dog, this dog was a stray.

Its leg, when it first came, was totally dangling. The bone was totally broke off, and we don't know what happened. If he got hit by a car, we felt bad for it. Ruby took it to the vet. It was just a stray.

They wanted a thousand dollars. We said, no, no, we're not doing it. It's a stray. The vet said, let me tell you something. She wanted her thousand dollars, but she recognized it was a stray, and so she had mercy on us.

She told Ruby, if you do nothing, it'll be fine. Do you know that leg healed straight? Those bones mended themselves. See, we become so used to it, and you get the scientific world out here telling us so often, it's just evolution.

It just all happened by chance. We were primordial soup and slime, and lightning must have struck it or something, and life came out, and survival of the fittest, and this whole thing evolved. And, you know, they pound that into heads.

Pound that into heads that there's nothing special, nothing special, nothing special, nothing special. When God is saying, oh no, this is so spectacular. And that's just My handiwork. So says Psalm 19.

But He says, it declares My glory. And you do well to lift up your eyes and look at it. Have you ever been there where you've looked up at the stars at night, and your mind begins to go out there further and further and further?

There's galaxies in there, stars. The bigger the telescope, the farther we can look, the more we see, we've never seen the end. The better our electron microscopes become and the smaller we see. In Darwin's day, they really did think that the cell was basically just this little thing of jelly.

You've seen it. If you haven't, you need to not just look at what the Hubble telescope can see, look at the inner workings of the cell. I'm sure many of you have done that. What is happening in each one of your cells is so complex.

You know what, as an engineer, I recognize this. The more difficult the task, if you were trying to design a machine to do things like replicate itself, or repair itself, you get into realms where the complexity becomes so great that it's just never going to work.

You're just going to run into such problems of complexity that nothing works. Everything has to align perfectly. Everything has to work together perfectly. Do you realize that's what has happened when God has designed us?

And not only that, He breathed life into us. We have a soul. I mean, we have an ability to think. There are such things going on. Each DNA is so marvelously complex. Have you ever seen how this little...

You've got these machines in each cell. It's like these stamping, it's these presses, and they're forming these bits of what? I'm trying to think. I mean, you've got little things that walk around. Have you seen those little things that walk?

I mean, you've got the DNA that basically is in a spiral, but you've got this little machine that comes and spins the thing straight and separates it and reads the code. And on one side, the code is written right, and on the other side, the code is written opposite.

It's written like the Hebrew, and the thing actually has to read the code on the left, and it has to spin the code. I mean, it's like the closer in we look... And you know what God is saying to us? I did that.

Who are you going to compare to Me? I did that by My greatness. I'll tell you, brethren, He has created this universe to put Himself on display. I highly commend that you look at it, because the more you look...

We have a God who's interested in beauty. We have a God who has done such great things. He is saying to us, I am like no other. Look at it all. You can't comprehend it. I mean, have you ever seen these octopuses that basically come over, and in a moment, they can change color like that on the spot.

Creation Reveals God’s Glory and Humanity’s Accountability

They can swim in front of something else and they just change color. And look with me at Romans 1. What we observe happening, 99 of the universities in the United States reject Genesis 1 .1. And more than that in Europe, likely.

Do you know what happens when you look at the vastness of all of this? The breathtaking, spectacular things that God has done. And you say, evolution did that. Big Bang did that. It's an accident. It's chance.

All proud man. Romans 1 .18 says this, the wrath of God. Listen, I want you to see where I'm going with this. More than that, I want you to see where Scripture goes with this. What God is saying right here is this, I have wrath.

And I have wrath towards man. And it has everything to do with my creation. You say, what? God's wrath to man has to do with His creation? You better believe it does. And when man looks at that creation and he says, chance did that, God burns with wrath.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Now if we just stood right there, we might say, you know, man's sexual immorality and man is a thief. Do you know what unrighteousness?

He specifically has in mind that the wrath of God is being revealed against? Who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Okay, now if we just stopped right there, oh, they suppress the truth. Okay, what truth?

Yeah, so we could deny that we're actually sinners. We could deny that truth. We could deny that Jesus is really the Savior, that He really went to the cross to die for sinners. And undoubtedly, sinners do suppress those truths.

But look at the very truth that God has in mind here. For what can be known, what man can see to be truth about God, what can be known about God is plain to them. And you know what's amazing? People in this world run around and say it's not plain.

They say, it isn't. None of this is plain. But isn't it interesting, God says it is plain. Men say, no, it's not plain. God says it is plain. Because God has shown it to them. You know why it's plain?

Because God did do such a thing in creation that it reveals things to man that make it plain. For you to say chance did this, that is so utterly foolish. That is purposely being blind. Do you know what suppressing the truth means?

It means you're putting your own eyes out. It means you won't see. You don't want to see. That's what suppressing the truth is. God has shown it to them. Where has He shown it to them? Not specifically at the cross.

Yes, God shows things to us at the cross. But what's amazing here is God goes back to the beginning. This is Genesis 1 .1. For His invisible attributes. In other words, God is invisible. We can't see Him.

That's true. We cannot see Him. Man, by his first sin, put those eyes out. He's invisible. His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature. So His power, eternal power, infinite power, power that He's had everlastingly, His divine nature, who He is like.

They have been clearly perceived. You get this. What can be known about God is plain. God has shown them. It's been clearly perceived. Where? Ever since the creation of the world. Well, you might say, well, ever since the creation of the world.

But see, He gets even more specific. The reason He alludes to creation of the world is because at the creation of the world, God created the heavens and the earth. Those are the things that have been made.

And see, it's those things that have been made. You see, this is what He says in Isaiah. He says, look up. The heavens declare My glory. You know what it says? It says there's speech day to day. It's speaking to us all around us.

It speaks. It's saying something to us about who God is. It's saying something to us about His greatness. And then it says this, they're without excuse. God's wrath is burning for this reason. This creation.

Man can look at himself in the mirror and just see... Some things that we so simply take for granted. A child has teeth. And all the teeth fall out. Why? Because their head grew. And they need bigger teeth.

If you kept the small teeth in there, you know what it would look like if they spread out? You'd just have these little daggers. But God has them all fall out. And He gives a whole new set. That doesn't happen three, four, five times.

Why? Because you're a child once and then you grow up and then you're an adult. And then you don't grow anymore. We just take, oh, that just evolved. We can smell. And not everything smells nasty. I mean, we can smell.

We can see. And God forms a rose. And it's beautiful and you can smell it. I mean, if you think, we sleep. God designed rest into this thing. Where'd that come from? So many things we take for granted.

And God says you don't have any excuse. Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God. You see that? Although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking.

Their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. And these people are running around claiming to be wise. They got all their degrees. They're professors at what university? And you have a PhD in what?

Oh yeah, they'll rattle those off. They're very wise in their own eyes. But God says they're fools. And they've suppressed the truth and the wrath of God is abiding on them. And it has to do with what God created.

And I'll tell you this, and you know this, you can deduce this, but if God made it all, He owns it all. And Scripture says, the heavens are yours, the earth also is yours, the world and all that is in it.

You have founded them. It's a very simple logic. You made them. You founded them. You own them. God says, if I were hungry, I wouldn't tell you. The world and its fullness are Mine. I don't need you. In fact, Scripture tells us we are His.

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. You see, we belong to Him. And He's got a right to tell us how to live. And we know full well, the doctrine of evolution is meant to kill God.

But it is so suicidal. I mean, think about it. You're standing on the train tracks. A train's coming behind you. You plug your ears and you say there's no train there. The thing's blowing its whistles and even then, those air horns get through your fingers plugging your ears.

So you basically take screwdrivers and you just rip your eardrums out. And you can still feel the vibration. So you put tennis shoes on so you can't feel it. It's stupid. It's suicidal. And yet, we know what 2 Thessalonians says.

Men love to believe a lie. But how foolish is that when death is coming? It's like Charles Leiter said at the Denton Conference this year. You have a test, and it seems like it's way off in the distance, and bang!

It's there before you know it. And I remember when graduating in 1983, it seemed like, oh, that's so far away! And now I'm so far beyond it. It's like death is going to take men. And it is so foolish to suppress this truth.

Creation, Miracle, and Faith in the Creator

But in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There's one person here. God created. You aren't there. I'm not there. Job wasn't there. You remember what He said to Job? Job, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me if you have understanding. And I find that very interesting. God is not asking Job if Job laid the foundation of the earth. He's simply asking Job, Job, where were you when I laid the foundation?

And I think we could ask anybody that. We can ask all these folks that run around, these dogmatic, natural, humanistic evolutionists. Where were you? You know what's so important about that question? Science requires observation.

Where were the scientists? Where were they? Job, where were you when I laid the foundation? Scientists! Professors! Biology professors at the universities that so dogmatically declare, where were you?

You see, none of us. We were nowhere. Science, if it's legitimate science, has to observe. But you know the thing about creation? It was a miracle. And even if the scientist is there when a miracle takes place and he's got all of his instruments, it doesn't work.

Why? Because what is the nature of a miracle? It transcends the physical laws. That's basically what a miracle is. It's supernatural. You have what's natural, the natural laws, the natural way things work.

Supernatural means outside that realm, beyond, above. Creation was a massive miracle. I'm just going to say this as we wrap up today. There's much more about this verse that I want to say. But Scripture says this, by faith, Hebrews 11 .3, by faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Did you catch that? By faith. It's not by science. It's by faith. Science has nothing to say about creation because no scientist was there. And creation is a massive supernatural miracle. And science has no answer for that.

Science has no more answer for that than it has for the Red Sea party. Do you know that in the days of Joshua, God stopped the sun? What can science say about that? Science can say, well, we know the laws of physics.