WWUTT 1857 By Faith We Believe God Made the World (Hebrews 11:3)

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By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the

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Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

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When we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .tpt .com. Hey, once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. Back to our study in the book of Hebrews. We are in chapter 11 this week, and I'm going to start off here by reading verses 1 -7 out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

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For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the

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Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

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By faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he was approved as being righteous,

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God approving his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.

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By faith, Enoch was taken up, that he would not see death, and he was not found, because God took him up, for prior to being taken up, he was approved as being pleasing to God.

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And without faith, it is impossible to please him, for he who draws near to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

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By faith, Noah, being warned about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

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Such a great chapter. If there's ever more you wanted to know about faith, you really need to start in Hebrews 11, because this is the chapter of faith, not just the hall of faith, not just talking about those heroes of the faith from the

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Old Testament, but telling us what faith means, what it is, and the importance of having it.

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You're not saved if you don't have faith, because as we read in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, it is by grace you are saved through faith.

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Faith is the mechanism that God has appointed, that he has assigned, that he has chosen, through which he will bestow on us the blessings of his grace.

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We are justified by faith, as said in Romans 4 and 5. We are declared innocent before God, because we believe in Jesus.

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John 3, 16, that verse that we consider to be the summary of the gospel,

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God so loved the world that he gave his only son, and whoever believes in him, whoever has faith in him, will not perish, but have everlasting life.

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Now, faith, even as it's talked about here in Hebrews 11, is not just believing or not just having a state of mind about something.

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Well, I believe God exists. I believe that Jesus really existed. He really died. He really rose again. The demons believe all of that, and yet they're not saved.

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There is a transformation that happens in the heart of a person who has faith.

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They no longer are for their sin. They're no longer oriented in the direction of going after their sin.

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They desire to please God, and it drives them to obedience.

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Genuine faith is going to—we're going to see obedience in a person who says that they have faith.

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That's even here in Hebrews 11. Those who have faith desire to please

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God. They're approved by God. They are blessed by God. And so we must consider that even as we read through this.

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It's not merely saying that Abel was converted, Noah was converted, Abraham believed, but then he went along in his life of paganism and never did anything else in obedience to God.

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Absolutely not. We see in the lives of these men and women that are given to us here as examples that they lived their lives according to what they believed.

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They finished their lives in faith, and that's why they're spoken about here as those who were approved by God.

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Jesus said to his own disciples in Matthew 10, it is the one who endures to the end who will be saved.

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Certainly by believing in Jesus now, we have salvation. Absolutely. If you were to die right now, you would go to heaven because you have faith in Christ.

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But the salvation we talk about there, the one who endures to the end will be saved is being able to enter into that heavenly kingdom, which is ultimately our hope.

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It's the reason why we have faith, so we can escape from death. We're saved from the wrath of God that burns against the unrighteousness of men, and we're able to enter into his eternal kingdom.

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So let's come back to this here. We consider these examples that are given to us. Yesterday, we just got through verses 1 and 2.

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Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it, the men of old gained their approval.

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And then here's our examples. The first one that we have, all of these come from Genesis right at the very start, where you have the reference to creation, verse 3.

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And then you have Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph.

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And then we get to Moses in verse 23. So we're going to be here in the Genesis portion for a little while.

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We begin with creation in verse 3. And as I mentioned to you yesterday, at least I think

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I said this yesterday at the end of the lesson, but there was no one there to witness creation happen.

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So everything that we read about on those first six days of creation, from Genesis 1 into Genesis 2, we have to take

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God's word on, by faith, because none of us were there to see any of this happen.

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So verse 3, by faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

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Everything that we can see, God made just by speaking a word and bringing it into existence.

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And all of these things came into existence out of nothing. In the

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Latin, it's ex nihilo. God created out of nothing something. Now, the

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Darwinist or the, I don't know, what would you call it? Every time I use that term, when

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I refer to somebody who's a Darwinist as a Darwinist, they will say, well, calling a person a

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Darwinist doesn't speak to the origin of the universe. It's just talking about the origin of the species or how one animal transformed into another species or something like that.

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But yeah, okay, so get my meaning here. When I use the term Darwinist, we're going back to the beginning of time.

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The Darwinist will say that all things came into existence from something.

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They can't tell you where that something came from. There was, you know, the speck, the singularity that existed in eternity past, whatever they consider eternity past to be.

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There was that singularity and then it exploded and became the universe as we know it or rather the universe as we really don't know it.

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We know a very infinitesimal amount of knowledge about the universe, but anyway, so they believe there was this singularity exploded, became everything.

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What caused it to explode? What sort of physical reaction happened there that this point of all matter just decided one day to become everything that we see all around us or where did that something come from?

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If there was nothing and now there is something, where did it come from? I remember listening to a debate with Lawrence Krauss, the atheist, who kept making claims about we have looked into nothing and we found out that there's something there.

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Well, that's absurd. Then there's something, not nothing. He'll say that, you know, we've explored nothingness and there's actually something in the nothing.

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Well, then it's something. All those arguments, everything about where everything came from, from the naturalistic perspective, they're all senseless.

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They don't make any sense. You can never get back to the beginning of all things and have a valid rational explanation for it, even from a naturalist point of view, almost at a nationalist point of view, even from the naturalist point of view, you can't come up with a reasonable argument for how all things came to be.

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The most reasonable argument is that all of these things came into existence by an outside force, an outside intelligence that is uncaused and eternal.

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God doesn't have to have an origin story. He's uncaused and eternal and he made everything that exists in nature just by speaking it into existence because he's all powerful and he can do that.

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He could have snapped his fingers and brought everything to existence. You know, whatever, whatever, whatever fingers

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God has, whatever we would call fingers. God is spirit. He doesn't look like us, but, you know, just snap and there it all is.

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Augustine actually believed that God brought everything into existence in a single moment. He didn't believe that it was over six literal days either.

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Kind of like the the Darwinian creationists believe God created it, but still brought it into existence through Darwinian processes or the old earth creation model as it's sometimes termed.

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They believe that the the period of days that we read about in Genesis one is actually just long periods of time.

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And sometimes to rationalize that point of view, they'll refer back to Augustine. Well, Augustine didn't believe that that the six days in Genesis were literal days.

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Right. But he didn't think they were millions and millions of years either. He thought the six days were figurative and God created everything in a moment.

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In an instant, just boom, there it all was. God could have created everything that way. He could have done it.

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He's all powerful. Just suddenly there's nothing. And then suddenly there's something. But that's not the way he chose to do it.

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He chose to do it through six days. And there's no reason for us to argue with that. There were six days of creation, six literal 24 hour days.

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By the way, God determines how long a day is not us. God decided that there was evening and there was morning the first day.

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God is the one that declares that I've heard some argue, well, the sun, moon and stars didn't even exist yet.

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So how could you determine that that one day was actually one day? Because God said it was. That's the answer.

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He created the sun, moon and stars for our benefit to mark times and seasons and days.

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When you read about that in Genesis one, that that's for our benefit. We don't know how long to mark a day according to God's definition of it.

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He's the one that gave it definition and then gave us an ability or gave us the instruments, the tools to be able to measure it.

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But it's all as God has defined it. And by the way, when God says, let there be light and there was light, there can be light without the sun, moon and stars because God declares it.

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And it's so we read about at the end of Revelation, how when we dwell with God forever in glory, there won't be a need for sun, moon and stars because he's the light that illuminates the city, which is the church dwelling with God forever in his heavenly place.

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So the sun, moon and stars are given to us for natural means of being able to track these days in which we live here on this earth to provide us light by day and even a little bit of light at night.

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But we're not going to need those things in heaven because Jesus is our light. He is the light that shines forever.

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They're standing at the beginning of all time and space. When God says, let there be light, he's declaring that his own light comes in and infiltrates this natural space in which he placed us, in which he created us.

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Augustine also argued that the creation of matter was the beginning of time because the moment that God created something that existed in a natural sphere, immediately time is starting to be marked because there's substance to it.

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Even light has substance to it. There are physical properties to light. So with the creation of light, we got the creation of time and then

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God giving us an ability to mark that time by containing the light within the sun, moon and stars.

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They would become the origin of the light that would provide us with the light we needed during the day and even during the night.

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So by faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God. Now, even a person who believes in day age creationism, they believe that every one of those days in Genesis 1 is a long period of time.

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It's not literally a 24 hour day. It's symbolic of something else. But even a day age creationist who believes

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God created everything over millions and millions of years of time, they have faith.

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But I would challenge that faith because I would say that their faith is inconsistent. If you're going to believe that God created everything over millions and millions of years of time, then how are you going to take that argument and be able to pair it with the rest of scripture?

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Because there are other things in the Bible, other doctrines, that view of creation doesn't work with.

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You just think of the doctrine of sin and the consequences of sin, the wages of sin, which is death.

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Romans 623. We sin against a holy God. Adam sinned. Everyone who is born of Adam is born into Adam's sin nature.

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That's the argument made in Romans five. So from our conception, we have a sin nature having inherited it from Adam.

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This is why the virgin birth is so significant, because Jesus was born conceived of the Holy Spirit, not of the seed of man.

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So he is conceived without sin, truly the only sinless man who never lived because he's the only man who was ever virgin born.

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All the rest of us, we are born by natural generation. And so we are born inheriting the sin nature that Adam had, that he was cursed with after he sinned and rebelled against God.

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So we're all born with a sin nature. Therefore, all die. Paul goes on to argue in Romans five and death comes into the world as a consequence of that sin.

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Romans 512. Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin.

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And so death spread to all men because all sinned. We understand just by that one verse by Romans 512, that sin comes into the world through one man and death through sin.

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Again, Romans 623, the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. So before sin came into the world, there was no death. Death is the consequence for sin.

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Not even animals died until Adam sinned. The first death was God sacrificing an animal because of Adam and Eve sin, where it says in Genesis three that he clothed them with skins.

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The inference is made there, then that God killed an animal. He shed the blood of an animal to atone for, in a certain sense, the sin of Adam and Eve.

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Now, again, as we've read in Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats never had the power to forgive anyone of sins, but it demonstrates to us the consequence of sins.

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There had to be a death to cover the shame and cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve after they had disobeyed

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God. And so with all of us, there's a shame upon all of us because all of us, by our nature, rebel against God.

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This is why all of us die. Every single person dies because we have all sinned against God except Christ.

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And when he died, Second Corinthians 521 explains that he became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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Jesus was without sin, but he gave his life as an atoning sacrifice for us.

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Our sins imputed to him, his righteousness imputed to us. And again, we have that salvation and we have that righteousness by faith in him, that righteousness by faith.

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But there's a problem with one's homardiology. That's the study of sin. There's a problem with one's homardiology.

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If they believe in the creation story, that everything happened over millions and millions of years of time, because then you would have to argue that animals died.

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One species died off, another one came into existence, so on and so forth. How do you square that circle when we understand, according to Romans five, that sin comes into the world or death comes into the world rather through sin?

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There was no death in the world until Adam sinned. So, again, even though a person who might be an old earth creationist, even though they have faith, there's an inconsistency with that faith.

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So I would challenge you to work on that faith as we are instructed in Philippians two, verses 13 and 14, or it might be 12 and 13, where it says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is

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God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So we work out our salvation, we work out those things we know, our sanctification, our growing in holiness, be challenged by some of these things and come to understand the word of God more deeply.

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Why do you doubt that Genesis one means what it says it means? I don't understand how anyone comes out of Genesis one and thinks that what is being described there is anything but actual literal days.

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There was evening and there was morning the first day, the second day on and on it goes.

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It is qualified by evening and morning and day. How do you come away from that seeing anything other than 24 hour days?

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Why would you think that God has to make all this in millions and millions of years? And sure, he could have done that if that was the way that God had chosen to do it.

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He could have made everything over millions and millions of years of time, but he didn't. Genesis one states plainly, how is your life better or changed in any way?

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Because you believe God did it over a Darwinian process instead of the way that Genesis one says that he did it.

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Is your view not being influenced by the quote unquote science?

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And I say that in just as a it's the the popular opinion, rather not actual science, but based on the science of the day, you have shaped your view and understanding of the

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Bible. Shouldn't your understanding of the Bible instead be how you interpret the times?

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We interpret things that are happening in the world through God's word, not God's word through the world.

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And this is our exercise of faith. Do we believe what God has said in the

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Bible? Do we believe it? Every word of it. Keep in mind that if you doubt this word means what it says it means.

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What did I tell you yesterday from James chapter one about doubt? The person who doubts is a double minded man, unstable in all of his ways.

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So if you're willing to have a certain opinion about the Bible because the world tells you that's the opinion that you're supposed to have.

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Then are you not being double minded? Are you being influenced by the world or are you being influenced by the word?

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And I'm not saying a person that thinks or that reads Genesis one another way that reads Genesis one the

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Darwinian way is an unbeliever or a heretic. But you're letting yourself be influenced by the world.

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So how much more of your understanding of scripture is going to be influenced that way? That's what you have to work out.

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That's what you have to continue to work out as you read scripture and you put faith in this, knowing this is

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God's word. What we read here in the Bible is what the Holy spirit means for us to understand about God, about his way, about his will, about his promises.

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By faith, we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen, what we see all around us was not made out of those things which are visible.

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And as we pick this up tomorrow, we'll get to the next part talking about Abel and then

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Enoch and as time allows us also Noah. Maybe we don't get into Abraham until next week, but it's wonderful to read this word and consider these things with you.

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And I thank you for being along with me for the podcast. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we've read and I pray these things do challenge us to listen to God's word and obey what you have said.

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We desire to know what you've said and what you mean for us to understand, not what the world tells us that we're supposed to understand by this, but plainly what your word says.

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We believe, according to what Peter said in second Peter chapter one, that the Holy Spirit guided men to write down exactly what you wanted us to know.

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So may we conform our thoughts to this desiring to have the mind of Christ growing in godliness in this present age, holding firm to the word of Christ, not being not not being filled with doubt because of the way that the world thinks of us.

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It doesn't matter what the world thinks of us. We desire God and we know

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God through this word. Grow us in our faith and may we teach others of this faith, giving an answer for the hope that lies within us, but doing this with gentleness and respect, as said in first Peter 315.

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Guide us in our way today in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for listening to when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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