A Matter of Days - Young Earth Creationism

Genesis 1 and the Meaning of “Day”

Take out your Bibles with me and turn to Genesis chapter 1 and go to verse 1. We're going to read verses 1 to 5. I want to invite you to stand as we give honor and reverence to the Word of God. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.

God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Father, thank you for your Word. Lord, may you write its eternal truth on our heart.

In Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. I'm glad to see you all here today. And as we have been over the last several weeks going through this subject, hopefully not to the point that I have driven you mad by staying in one spot for so long.

That is never my intention. I want to mention that what we have been doing is simply building a case for the position that we teach here at the church. If you look at the back of your bulletin, you will see the outline that I have provided in which I have tried to be fair with the different positions.

We have looked at three of the four positions and this morning we are going to begin looking at the fourth. The first position, oh by the way, for those who haven't been here and I think most of you have, but if you haven't, the positions we are referring to is the question of the day, the question of what, how do we interpret the word day in the book of Genesis, whether or not that word day is to be interpreted in a strictly literal sense of 24 hours, day and night, the way that we would think of days in that sense or whether it has more of a figurative meaning referring to a long period of time or a particular epoch of time such as if I said in my father's day or something like that, that's a different way of using the word day.

The Gap Theory and the Framework Hypothesis

And those types of that word are used in the Bible. If you read Genesis, even later, you will see the word day is used in different contexts in different ways and so we have to concede the point that the word day doesn't always refer to the 24 hour period that we think of as a single day.

In fact, as I mentioned before, if I said in my father's day, you could drive across Florida in one day during the day, each one of those ways of using the word day are different. One refers to a time period, one refers to day as in 24 hour period, one refers to day as opposed to night during the day.

If I said we did something during the day, you would know that would mean when it was daylight and so that's a different way of using the word. So I concede from the very beginning that the word day has several different ways that it can be used and as I've tried to make these sermonic messages, I know that they may be coming across a bit like one of my seminary classes in that they are more theological lectures than they have been necessarily sermonic in nature and so I still want you to understand that each one of these messages intends to push us to what we would call the sermonic thesis or the response.

That's the difference between a sermon and a lesson if you didn't know that. A lesson doesn't necessarily push for a response, but a sermon should always be pushing you to and now do this and now respond with this.

That's the difference. In a sermon, you can learn a lot in a lesson and never have a point where you go and now do and now move forward and now go and that's the goal in the sermon is that we be moved to action and so keep that in mind that that's still the goal in this because the action of all these messages is that we would trust the word of God and that we would live in light of what the word of God says.

That's the goal and that's always the sermonic thrust in messages like these that we would have a deeper trust in the word and live in light of that trust. The three positions we have looked at so far have been one, the gap theory that simply proposes the idea that between Genesis 1 .1 and Genesis 1 .2, there is a gap of time of undetermined length.

No one has tried that I know of to try to measure that length, but it certainly can encapsulate billions of years if necessary and that is called the gap theory. The problem as I mentioned with the gap theory as I was teaching on it several weeks ago is that it simply is not in the text.

It's imposed on the text, but it's not there. There is nothing indicating in the text that there would be a time period between Genesis 1 .1 and Genesis 1 .2. There's nothing there that would indicate that.

So I don't accept it simply based on the fact that I believe it's a tremendous example of eisegesis, reading something into the text that simply isn't there. The framework hypothesis you'll remember was that the whole chapter of Genesis 1 is not intended to be a chronological explanation of creation at all.

You'll remember that the framework hypothesis says that day 1, 2, and 3 and day 4, 5, and 6 happen concurrently, that they has nothing to do with chronology. It has to do with the understanding that God created the world and it uses the literary device of poetry and figurative language to describe God creating the world.

So the framework hypothesis essentially is saying that Genesis 1 more functions as a parable than it does as a literal understanding of how the words are to be understood. And my response to that, my biggest issue is that it makes Genesis 1 .1 a parable without any real structure of meaning that would help us to understand how we came to be.

I don't accept it, and I mentioned this when I taught on it. The framework hypothesis proposes an open door where essentially we can interpret creation almost any way we want to, and it opens the door to evolution as the way man came to be.

In fact, many people who teach, like Biologos, which is a nationwide Christian evolutionist group, I use their quotes for that because I have difficulty even believing that they are Christian, but they believe that mankind evolved from single cell organisms over a long period of time, and they often use the framework hypothesis for their foundation because in any sense they don't take Genesis 1 in any literal or chronological sense.

So the gap theory and the framework hypothesis, though I taught on them, I don't think that either one of them really passes muster for interpretation. Now last week we looked at progressive creationism, and if you were not here and didn't get a chance to listen to the message, I really have tried to be very fair with this position because this position does hold to some things that are very good.

One, it holds to the Bible as the unerring word of God. Dr. Hugh Ross, who is the main proponent of this position, at least the most modern main proponent of this position, he believes in the inerrancy of the Bible.

He believes the Bible is true. That is wonderful, and I'm thankful for that. And he believes that it's chronological in that he believes that Genesis 1 gives a chronology of creation. That's good too.

The difference is he would say that the chronology simply spans longer periods of time than simply the 24-hour day. That is where the position makes its boldest claim, is that he's saying that the position is it's not creation in six 24-hour days.

It's creation in epochs of time that were long and stretched out periods of time in indeterminate length, depending on which day depends on how long it was. The time of the creation of the animals is shorter than the time of going back to the more primordial point at which the earth was being formed, and that took a longer period of time.

So it isn't as if it's six equal time periods. It's six different time periods, and each one has its sort of individual lengths. And as I said last week, I believe Dr. Ross is a brother. I don't think he's a heretic.

And I do think that this is what we would describe as an intramural debate. And what that means is I believe this is a debate among brothers, not, you know, we don't kick people out of the kingdom. It's sort of the same issue I take with somebody who takes a different view of baptism, right?

Dr. R .C. Sproul was by far one of my favorite teachers in my growing and learning, and still is. I listen to his tapes. I listen to his MP3s now, and yet he and I would have come to great odds on the issue of baptism, because I believe that a believer is the only right candidate for baptism, and he would believe that children of believers are also right candidates for baptism, and therefore we would divide on that issue.

But neither one of us would kick each other out of the kingdom over that divide. And I think that this issue of the age of the earth, while important, and while I do think it touches other areas, which we will see, I do think that we can have a disagreement on this, and this would not cause someone to be a heretic, or to be someone who was teaching false teaching.

Here are my two problems with progressive creationism. I mentioned them last week, but again, if you weren't here, these are my main two issues. Progressive creationism, or long periods of time, teaches, number one, that prior to the fall, you have death, destruction, and disease in the world.

Prior to the fall, you have death, destruction, and disease in the world. Now, this is not among humans. Dr. Ross would say there was no death for human beings. There was no disease for human beings. And human beings were perfectly safe and comfortable prior to the fall.

However, outside of the human race, there was tremendous death, destruction, and disease, which precluded the fall. It's necessary in the old age paradigm, because the old age paradigm would say you had the age of the dinosaur 65 billion years ago.

All of those dinosaurs lived, ate each other, died, were destroyed, became the oil that we now use in our automobiles. You know, that's a pretty standard position. That was all, that death, destruction, and disease all occurred prior to the fall.

And the objection that I have heard, and again, I listen. Oh, by the way, I said there was two things. One is death, destruction, and disease before the fall. That is an issue I take. The other issue is the denial of the worldwide flood.

Dr. Ross clearly states that the flood was not worldwide, was not a worldwide cataclysmic event, but that it was a localized event. It killed everyone. He does say that all human beings died, but that it was not worldwide.

His argument is simply this. You know, there was no people in Antarctica at that time. So why flood Antarctica? You know, there was no people in Greenland. Why flood Greenland? People only lived at that time.

They hadn't expanded really out past the Mesopotamian region, and therefore, you didn't need to flood the whole world. Just flood that area, and you got them. And you know, makes sense. That's the argument.

I mean, I'm simplifying it, but the point is everybody still died. There is no, Dr. Ross would not say there's anyone today who survived the flood outside of those people who were on the ark. So again, though, for me, those are two issues that I take.

One is the issue of death, disease and destruction before the fall. Two is the denial of the flood. And I want to I want to answer quickly, and I know I feel like I'm being an apologist this morning, but that's really what it is, is giving answers.

I want to answer one of the objections. I listened to Dr. William Lane Craig. Dr. William Lane Craig is a Christian speaker, philosopher, teacher, and he is an old earth proponent. And one of the arguments that he made was that the Bible never says that there was no death before the fall.

The Bible never says there was no destruction before the fall. And he says, here's here's how we know there was death before the fall, he says, because plants died. Plants are alive, at least in the sense of they are growing living creatures.

And the Bible says that in the garden, Adam and Eve ate plants. That was the whole problem for the sin. That's how sin came into the world. So he makes the category of death and he says death did happen before the fall because plants died before the fall and they were destroyed as they went into the body and were, of course, used for fuel for the human body.

So his argument was, yes, there was death before the fall. And his second argument is that animal death is never explicitly stated as a result of the fall. And that is true. That is true. The animal death is never stated as one of the reasons or one of the results of the fall.

Death, Disease, and the Fall

So how would I respond to this? Well, I've given this a lot of thought because I wanted to bring it up. Plants and animals are qualitatively different. And that's not my opinion. Plants and animals are qualitatively different in the Bible.

In the Bible, animals are called living creatures and the word living is the word nephesh. It means breathing or living creatures. Plants are never called nephesh. They're never described as living in the way an animal lives.

You can't find anywhere in the Bible where it talks about the the plants having a life like an animal has a life. They are two different qualities. And we know this by nature, because if you went out into the woods and you saw a tree that had fallen, you'd sit on the tree.

But if you saw a bear carcass, you're probably not going to sit on the bear carcass because it's a different quality of being. The Bible does describe animals and plants as two different qualities of being.

Animals are nephesh. They're soulish. They're living. They don't have souls like we have souls. But animals certainly respond and act differently than plants. You would agree? I hope you would agree. So the question becomes, well, did animals die prior to the fall?

I want to this. This is a difficult question. Did animals die prior to the fall? The Bible doesn't say that they didn't. But the Bible also doesn't say that they did. So we have to extrapolate some information based upon what the word of God does say.

I want you to go in Genesis one down to verse twenty nine. The very last part of the chapter, God is describing the diet of all living things. I just want you to notice what it says here in verse twenty nine.

This is God first speaking to human beings. And God said, behold, I have given every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.

Now, right there, he's talking to human beings. And this is the most unhappy verse in my Bible, because this says that when man was created, he was a vegetarian. And I can't dig that. I really can't love it.

But I think if I was there, I could have loved it because I would have had a much different body and a much different understanding. But this tells me that the land or the seeds were given for the food.

Verse 30. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life. By the way, there's the idea of the animals have breath of life, which is different than the plants.

I have given every green plant for food. So I can based on simply looking at what's here, I can come to the conclusion that when animals and man were created, there was not the need for killing and death to provide a diet.

Because God provided in the earth plants for food for all of the beasts, everything that creeps on the ground had these plants for food. Now, the immediate response is, well, pastor, we got some animals out here that are that really don't fit that.

I mean, you're telling me that an animal with sharp teeth ate plants. You ever seen a koala bear? They eat bamboo and they have sharp teeth. Just throwing that out there as a thought, but I want to show you another verse that I think is equally as important.

Go to Isaiah 65, Isaiah 65 is the prophets explanation of the new heaven and the new earth. This is very similar to the passage that we have in Revelation. So go to Isaiah 65, this is discussing what we have to look forward to.

I will concede immediately, you don't have to tell me, I know this is not talking about the creation, this is talking about the new heaven and the new earth. So I understand, I'm discussing two different things, but my point is simply this, what do we look at, what do we look forward to in heaven?

A restoration, this is what Romans 8 told us, we looked at it last week, the restoration. What do we have to look forward to in heaven? Chapter 65, verses 17 and 18, it says, For behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create.

For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness. Now, stopping right there because it goes on, but I want to jump down very quickly to verse 25, because verse 25 says this. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together.

The lion shall eat straw like the ox, the dust shall be the serpent's food, they shall not hurt or destroy. And all my holy mountain. Again, I'm not proving, I'm simply building the case for the idea that there's coming a time where the wolf is not going to attack the lamb anymore.

But they're going to share a diet. Somebody says, well, this is just figurative language. I don't think so. I think there's going to be animals in heaven. Now, I don't know if Toto, your little dog, people ask me all the time, is Toto going to make it to heaven?

I don't know if you're going to have Toto in heaven, but I do believe there's going to be animals in heaven. Because every time you see a picture of the new heavens and the new earth, it's associated with animal like creatures.

As Jesus comes riding on a white horse, you know, these are these are pictures that we see in the scriptures. So the idea that the lion would lay down with the lamb, the idea that the little child would be able to guide the lion.

These are pictures of restoration. So could they not also function as pictures of what was in the original creation? A world which did not have death and carnivorous activity among the creatures. You say, well, you're not proving your point.

No, I'm not proving my point. I'm making an argument. You take it for what it's worth. My argument is this. I do not believe that before the fall, there was death and destruction. But even if there were, let me say this.

If animals died before the fall and there was destruction before the fall, was there disease before the fall? If you're an old earth person, you have to believe there was disease before the fall. I take real issue with that.

Again, dinosaurs have been found with cancer in the bones, plants get plant type diseases. I don't think the plants had diseases before the fall. I think the world was radically changed after the fall.

And again, Romans 8, we can read it again if you want to. But Romans 8, what does the creation yearn for? Restoration. It's groaning like a woman in labor. For what? Fix this. Those of you who have had a wife in labor, you understand she's ready for that to be done.

She's waited nine months and now the baby's coming and all she wants is that baby to come out because she's ready for that change to happen. The Bible says the creation groans like a woman in childbirth, just ready for that change to happen, that ready for that restoration to come.

If the world was simply as it is today, death, destruction and disease prior to the fall, what do we have to look forward to in the restoration? The fall, the fall is such an important event, such a world changing event, world, world destroying event.

It did not just affect Adam and Eve. I believe it affected everything. And as we go through Genesis, as we get to the study of the ark in Genesis 6 to 9, I'm going to expound a little bit more on why I believe the flood was not just a local event.

I'll ask this question, though. If you if you think the flood was local, is there how could God have described it any other way to prove to you that it was global? It says over and over and over and over again, every high hill and every mountain on the face of the earth was underwater.

It really if he was if it was if it was global, how else could he have said it? So. Those are my two positions that I again, I feel like I'm just tagging on the last week's message, but it felt like it needed to be said.

Why the Earth Is Young

But now I want to I want to move into this week's lesson. Slowly, as don't worry, I'm not going to this is a twofer, you're going to get more next week, it's got to be right. But I want to say this because I'm telling you, I take the fourth position, but I'm telling you with fear and trembling because I do believe that the position that I stand on is the most radical position because every one of the other positions allows for the billions of years of time, which is accepted and not even discussed or debated among secular scientists.

It is not up for debate. It's not up for questioning. It just is the law of the land that the world has been here for four and a half billion years. The universe has been here for 13 .8 billion years or some number like that.

And that is the law of the land. There's really no debate. And so if you take the gap theory, you can have that because you don't know how long that period of time was between Genesis one, one, two. You got the time.

If you take the framework hypothesis, it's all up for grabs anyway, because it's all, it's parable. It doesn't matter. In fact, we read last week the quote or two weeks ago where the guy said, we don't care how long the earth has been around.

That's not our point. So the framework hypothesis doesn't matter. And progressive creationism does fit in line with the standard, what we would call the standard geological timeline that's given in most scientific exploration.

So progressive creationism, that's the benefit of it. If you take that position, the benefit of it is that it does follow generally the timeline. Not exactly. Hugh Ross takes some issues with some of the timeline.

But in general, it's the same timeline as what you see in your modern textbooks. So that being said, the position I'm taking is the only one that doesn't offer that as an option. The position I'm taking is the only one that doesn't allow for billions of years.

Modern science would date the earth four and a half billion years old. If you take the position I take, and again, it's a radical position. And if you go home today disagreeing with me, I will still love you and I hope you still love me.

But the position I take is the earth is relatively young. And by that, I mean thousands, not millions or billions. Now, I don't know how many thousands, and I'm not going to let anybody nail me down. If you take the Bible strictly and you don't allow for any gaps in the genealogies, then we're looking about 7 ,000 years, 6 ,000 to 7 ,000 years.

If you take no gaps in the genealogies at all. If you allow for gaps in the genealogies, but don't allow them to get crazy, because some people believe in, again, 150 ,000 years worth of gaps. I don't think that that's really, I think it's kind of a grievous imposition on the text.

But if you allow for gaps in the time frame, you're looking at maybe 10 ,000 years. Now, I want to say this for just a second. People say that's a young earth. 10 ,000 years is still a long time. I mean, it's not as if I'm saying that it was created last Tuesday.

I mean, when I say young earth, it's not just a little older than me. I mean, it's 10 ,000 years. It's not a short amount of time. It's only short when we compare it to four and a half billion years. But for a moment, I want to, for a second, I want to ask you a question.

Do you even really understand, and I'm going to say you don't. You don't really understand the concept of billion. Now, if you deal with money, and you deal with big time stock market stuff, or maybe you deal with stuff like you watch the NASDAQ and all these things, and you see the trillions of dollars in debt that we're in, you might think you have a good mind wrapped around billions.

But I just want it for a second. That's why I brought my whiteboard today. I want to ask you a question. You don't have to answer. I just want to ask you a question in your mind. Answer this question.

A million seconds. How long do you think it takes to get to a million seconds? We started right now and we started counting to a million seconds. How long in your mind, you don't have to answer, just in your mind, I want you to come up with a time.

How long do you think it would take to get to a million seconds? I'm going to give you the answer and I'm going to write it down. It's 11 and a half days. It's actually 11 .574 days. If you started right now and you started counting one second for a million, 11 days from now, you would get to a million seconds.

Now, here's the fun part. How long is a billion seconds? In your mind, think. How long do you think a billion seconds is? A month? Six months? A billion seconds is 31 .7 years. That's the difference between a million and a billion.

A billion is a thousand million. So a thousand times 11 .5 days is 11 ,000 days, which is 31 .7 years. So why are you giving this illustration? One thing I think is funny. If you're 60 years old, you've only lived 2 billion seconds.

That's an interesting little illustration. But the point is this. When people start talking about billions of years, they fill it out like it's no big deal. But if the earth is billions of years old, and man has only been around for, let's say, let's say 100 ,000 years.

Let's say man's been around for 100 ,000 years. You understand that man, if this were a radar screen, man wouldn't even be a blip on that radar screen. You say, why does that? Well, pastor, what does this got to do with your sermon?

I believe the earth was created for man. And therefore, if the earth was existing 4 .5 billion years ago, and it's existed for that long, and man has only come around in the last 100 ,000, not even a blip on the radar screen, then it raises a question in my mind of purpose.

And here's the answer. The answer to the purpose is this. It takes time to make the earth fit for man. This was the argument that Hugh Ross gave in his book, The Improbable Planet. He said it takes this amount of time for this to happen, and this amount of time for this to happen, and it takes this amount of time for this to happen.

My proposal to you today, beloved, is it doesn't take God any time to do anything. Because when Jesus went to those six water pots and there was water in them, he didn't have to wait for the grapes to ferment.

God is not bound by time. Neither is he bound by the processes of time that take the time to do the things that we all think need the time to do the things. One of the passages that's often cited by old earth creationists is 2nd Peter 3 ,8.

2nd Peter 3 ,8 says this, To the Lord a day is as a thousand years. And they'll say, see, it could be a long period of time. It's not just a day. But that's not all the verse says. It says to the Lord, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.

The point of the verse is this. God is not bound by time. It does not take God time to do anything. He speaks and it is. Therefore, he doesn't need to wait. If you believe in an old earth, again, it's not a huge deal as far as time is concerned.

But I would ask, what is the necessity of it? What is the necessity of it? Are we simply trying to find a way for the Bible to fit into the modern scientific consensus? And you say, well, what's wrong with that?

Nothing, nothing. We don't want to be. We don't want to close our eyes to science. We don't want to be unwilling to see the things that science has been so wonderful at being able to teach us and create.

We don't want to do that. But there is a difference between how science determines such as how a microchip works or how a car can get better gas mileage or something like that, what we might call operational science.

There's a difference between that and how science determines the age of certain things, because the age of the earth is a highly interpretive game where they have found bones where at one time they say it's 60 billion years old.

Now it's 80 billion years. Well, now it's this. Now it's that. It's it's it's an ever moving. Goalpost, it's like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. They say, well, carbon dating proves radiometric dating proves all of those things are very helpful tools.

All of those things are very useful tools. But they have to be interpreted. And as I said last week, there is no such thing as a neutral interpreter. Everyone comes with a worldview. Everyone comes with a worldview.

My worldview is simply this. I'm going to start with the scripture. I believe the Bible is true. I believe the Bible is true, not just because it says it's true. I believe the Bible is true because the Bible tells me about a man named Jesus Christ, who I believe lived 2000 years ago.

He died on a Roman cross, was buried in a borrowed tomb, and he raised three days later. And guess what? Science says that's impossible, too. And when he rose from the grave, he walked on this earth for 40 years and he ascended into heaven, having been seen by over 500 people.

And when he was seen by those over 500 people, he called them to go into all the world and preach the gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.

He said that based upon the authority that he had. He said, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. And that authority comes from himself, who is the second person, the Trinity, who is God. He can speak with that authority because he is God.

And, you know, one thing that the Bible tells us about Jesus, Jesus believed the Bible. Because every time he came into contact with the Pharisees, every time he came into contact with people, he was always pointing them back to scripture.

If Jesus died, was buried, rose again, if Jesus saved my soul and Jesus believes the Bible, I'm going to start with the Bible first. If science challenges me, I'm going to allow it to challenge me. If I, if there's times where I need to adjust what I understand, because I see things more clearly, that's going to happen.

I'm not in any way saying I have arrived, but as I understand the word of God, I can come to no other conclusion at this point than that the earth itself follows the timeline of this word. And the timeline of this word, as I read it, is a young earth.

Six Literal Days and the Sabbath Pattern

Next week, I'm going to deal with some of the most important questions that follow from this position. If you believe in a young earth, what about the fact that Adam and Eve seem to have been created at a long distance from each other?

As far as time goes, that's a big question. If you believe in a young earth, what about those dinosaurs? You mentioned earlier, if you believe in a young earth, what about the earth's age appearance? It has so much appearance of old age.

I'm going to hold those questions to next week. I encourage you if you're interested to come, but let me conclude by saying this, the young earth position is exactly what it sounds like. I believe the earth was created in six literal days.

And by literal, I'm not being overly or crassly literal. I simply mean six days. And I want to take you to one final verse to show you what I think is possibly one of the most important verses on this issue.

It's often overlooked. We read it in our opening this morning. Brother Jerry read it. We're going to end with it. Exodus chapter 20. In Exodus chapter 20, we have the giving of the 10 commandments and in the giving of the 10 commandments, we have the giving of the command of the Sabbath.

Listen again, beginning at verse eight, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shall you labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord. Your God on it. You shall do not any work.

You are your son or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or your sojourner who is within your gates. Verse 11, for in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day.