INTRODUCTION: It is a story that is as old as our nursery books. We all begin with Adam being created, then Eve being taken from Adam and the entrance of the serpent. But so many look upon the Genesis account of creation as merely a myth without any basis in truth. But this beautiful, pristine, creation story, which the Bible declares as fact, is fundamental to the truth of the entire Scriptures, including the divinity and truthfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

BODY

I. AN OVERVIEW OF CREATION

A. "The beginning" was not the beginning point of God. He existed before creation and set creation in motion.

1. Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

2. Psalm 90:1_2 "LORD, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."

3. Acts 17:24 - "God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

4. Proverbs 8:22-25 - talks about wisdom personified as being with God before He created all the universe.

B. The order of creation.

1. Genesis 1:1 is an overview statement of the entire creation account. The explanation given by the Jule Miller Video of this verse is about as good as I have seen. 

a. "In the beginning" - time

b. "God" - force

c. "created" - energy

d. "the heavens" - space

e. "and the earth" - matter

2. We need to understand that while the creation of the universe was supernatural (outside the realm of our established natural laws) it is not illogical. In fact, the entire creation was laid out in a logical fashion.

3. Notice the account of creation, given by the Scriptures. (Six days)

a. Creation of light (1:3-5)

b. The division of the water on earth from that in the heavens (verses 6-8).

c. The division of land masses from the oceans and the beginning of plant life on the land (Verses 9-13).

d. The placing of the moon and stars in the universe (verses 14- 19).

e. The creation of birds and aquatic creatures (verses 20-23).

f. The creation of land animals and finally, the creation of man himself (verses 24-31)

g. On the seventh day God rested. This is not meant to convey "rest" as we know rest, as if God could get tired. It, like some many things taught in the Bible was representative and meant to teach certain truths to man.

h. The final capping creation of God was the forming of Eve, after awakening a sense of loneliness with Adam by having him name all the animals. (2:18-22)

C. Notice some things about the creation of God.

1. It was a complete and perfect creation.

a. That is part of the significance behind the concept of God "resting" on the seventh day.

b. See the conclusion of God creation after fashioning Eve (technically not a creation because she was taken from Adam).

c. Genesis 1:31 - "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day."

2. It was true creation. It was not the reforming of matter, shaping what was already in existence.

a. The creation spoken of in the first three chapters of Genesis was ex nihilo, or literally "something out of nothing."

3. All the animals that have lived on this earth, those now living and those extinct, had their origin during the seven day creation of the universe.

A. Are we to accept the Genesis account as literal, or are we to just see it a symbolic of God's dealings with man?

1. This is not a moot debating point! The fact is that a rejection of the Genesis account will naturally lead to a rejection
of the entire Bible, since the Bible tells us again and again that Genesis is true.

2. When Moses was instituting the Sabbath he hearkened back to the Genesis account to show why God wanted the Jews to keep the Sabbath.

a. Exodus 20:8_11 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it."

3. Jesus believed the Genesis account and held it to be literally true. When he sought to teach about the permanence of marriage he hearkened back to the Genesis account and said it was "in the beginning." He even quoted the words of Adam! 

a. Matthew 19:4_6 And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' 5 "and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? 6 "So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate."

4. Paul believed the Genesis account as literally true. He used it to teach about the Messiah's mission on earth, and even used the Fall to teach about the relationship between men and women. He even identified Adam and Eve as the first man and woman. 

a. Romans 5:14 - Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

b. 1 Corinthians 15:22- For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

c. 1 Corinthians 15:45- And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being." The last Adam became a life_giving spirit.

d. 1 Timothy 2:13_14 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.

B. Didn't the days in Genesis 1-3 really mean long ages and not real days?

1. First, you cannot get this idea from a simple reading of the text. It is clear that the phrased repeated after each day's creation, "the evening and the morning were the ______day," was meant to show each literal day.

2. The Hebrew word for day, Yom, is spoken throughout the Old Testament as a literal 24 hour day. This is the accepted and usual definition as found in the Bible.

3. The Old Testament spoke of literal days when teaching why the Jew should keep the Sabbath day. (Exodus 20:8-11)

4. This "day-age" theory has not support from the Scriptures and in fact destroy the veracity of the rest of the text, especially when it comes to the genealogies in Genesis and the Gospels.

C. What about the "Pre-Adamic" age between Genesis 1:1-2?

1. Some will point to God's command to Adam and Eve to "replenish the earth" in Genesis 1:28 (KJV). But this is a mistranslation. The NKJV gives the accurate sense when it translates the phrase "fill the earth."

2. Any believe in a "Pre-Adamic" age has to be understood for what it is, pure speculation and pointless supposition. It is done by Christians who have sold out to evolution because they believe the fossil records do not support creation.

3. In fact, as we have seen earlier, the Bible looks upon the events in Genesis 1-3 as "the beginning."

D. Is it really "that important" about the how of God making the earth? After all, couldn't God have made the earth through evolution instead of creation?

1. Yes, it really is that important! Upon our acceptance of the Genesis account rests our attitude toward the literally of Scripture, and our understanding of the nature of Jesus. If Jesus didn't know that the Genesis account was just a myth He is not the Messiah of the Scriptures. If he knew it was a myth and just repeated the tale for the benefit of his audience he is a fraud! 

2. What we believe about origins is of tremendous importance as to how we look at society.

a. Creation states that a loving God carefully and lovingly created the universe to be in harmony, while evolution states that the universe is a result of blind chance.

b. Creation states that man is the result of the creation of God and thus we are different than the other beings of the world and are responsible to God for our actions. He gave us moral laws for us to live by. On the other hand, evolution believes that man is just the product of a continual "survival of the fittest" evolution and that such things as moral law and religion are the product of man's development. We are not different than the animals of the world, just smarter.

c. Creation believes that man is made in the image of God, while evolution believes that man has made gods in his image.

d. Creation believes that we have an eternal soul in need of redemption, while evolution believes that man needs to be free from such nonsense!

3. One final thought about this question. It is not a question of how God could have accomplished the origin of mankind but how God did choose to carry out the origin or mankind.

CONCLUSION: Evolution has brought about Communism, genocide, and the idea that we are all savages fighting to get to the top of the heap! This is not God's way! The Genesis account lovingly calls us back to a God who made all things well and place man here responsible for his actions, with a moral standard of right and wrong, and a need to be accountable to God. Remember this century's greatest evolutionist? He believed in survival of the fittest - Adolf Hitler!

STUDIES OF BASICS:
Intoduction
Existence of God
Creation of Mankind
Epistles- Christ's Messages to the Church
Book of Acts
The Inspiration of The Bible
The Inspiration of The Bible (Part 2)
The Life & Mission of Christ
The New Testament
The Book of Revelation -- Victory