Every once in a while I’m tempted not to post the written version of my sermon on my web site, or hand-deliver it to folks who don’t have internet access. Although you hear what I actually say, those who read the messages obviously don’t. For instance, in my recent series dealing with deception, especially as it pertains to the Theory of Evolution; folks who didn’t hear me preach them would have no way of knowing there have been times when I was preaching I have acknowledged I’m not an expert on this particular subject and that I hope I’m not getting in over my head. Nor do they know that when I’m finished, I pray and ask God to please let me know if I have taught any error. Finally, when I’m alone in my car driving home, only God hears my thoughts expressing concern about the possibility I may have said something which isn’t quite accurate or perhaps I didn’t say something He wanted me to mention. I keep asking Him to let me know so I can correct myself at the earliest opportunity. Then just before I arrive home I let it go and look forward to enjoying the rest of the day with my wife.

During the week when I’m thinking about my next sermon, I often ask the Holy Spirit to lead me into all truth just as Jesus promised His beloved disciples He would do for them, because there is such a thing as truth and not knowing it or not believing it can have awful consequences. A prime example was the twenty six Jehovah Witness teenagers that I spoke about in my last sermon. They were featured on the cover of the magazine AWAKE. Underneath their photos was the headline which proclaimed: “YOUTHS WHO PUT CHRIST FIRST”. Each of those teens and their parents believed it’s a sin to receive a blood transfusion, and each of those poor kids needlessly died. They had been spiritually deceived, just as many other Americans are. For instance, surveys indicate most Americans believe in God and that when they die they will go to heaven. And yet, most Americans also want nothing to do with the only One who can get them into heaven, the One who taught the truth of the matter when He said: ^7… “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep, and elsewhere taught “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” John 10:7; 14:6 (ESV). The Apostle Paul reminded the early Christians of this fact. Romans 5:1-2 (ESV) ¹ Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Ephesians 2:18 (ESV) ¹⁸ For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Being deceived into not believing these wonderful truths that through Christ is the only door which opens into heaven can have horrible eternal consequences. That’s one of the reasons why I do my homework and why I’m very careful whenever I’m speaking about spiritual matters. I sure don’t want to unknowingly lead anyone astray, and I also don’t want any of the folks He has planned to become part of my life experience to remain separated from Him forever. I’ve been speaking about the problems inherent with the Theory of Evolution for the past several weeks because I don’t want students who are coming from Christian homes to be deceived and turned away from Christ and His Word by some atheist evolutionist college professor; nor do I want you folks to be inadequately equipped to lovingly attempt to do everything you possibility can to lead non-Christian’s to our Risen Savior and accept the free gift of forgiveness for their sins. That’s the only way anyone will be able to do what they were created for which is to glorify God while they are on earth and finally enjoy being with Him in heaven throughout eternity. That’s my heart’s desire for all those non-Christians He has caused to cross paths with me in a special way, and I hope it’s yours as well. It’s also the reason I’m constantly asking the Holy Spirit to lead me into all truth. If I teach something which isn’t true or if I have not mentioned something I should have, I want to correct it as soon as possible. Well, it’s turned out that this morning He has given me the opportunity because He has reminded me to practice what I have been trying to persuade you folks to develop the habit of doing for quite some time.

Allow me to once again explain. You know I have a deep reverence for the Sacred Scriptures and that I firmly believe the Bible is the inerrant divinely inspired Word of the living God. And so, when Francis Collins, a fellow Christian and world renowned evolutionist scientist writes a best-selling book in which he speaks about the Genesis account of Creation and makes statements such as: “This powerful document can best be understood as poetry and allegory rather than a literal scientific description of origins,” and that “it has a more lyrical and allegorical flavor, and does not generally seem to carry the marks of pure historical narrative,” and furthermore, “the story of Job and Jonah and Adam and Eve frankly do not carry that same historical ring;” [i] whenever I read something like this I tend to get myself a little bent out of shape; especially if he’s quoting fallible men such as C. S. Lewis and Augustine and Pope John Paul II to make his point, but uses very little Scripture. I responded with a barrage of Scripture passages in an attempt to refute the man’s claim. However, I must confess that was a knee-jerk reaction on my part. Please read along or listen as a very gifted man named Max McLean reads the ESV Translation of the first chapter of Genesis to help us to better understand what I’m getting at.

Genesis 1:1-31 (ESV) ¹ In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ² 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. ³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. ⁶ And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷ And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. ⁸ And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹ And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹ And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. ¹² The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶ And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷ And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

²⁰ And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” ²¹ So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

²⁴ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. ²⁵ And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ²⁸ And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” ²⁹ And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 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 the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. ³¹ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

I firmly believe Scripture is the best interpreter of Scripture and so I offered the following quotes of Jesus in an attempt to make my point as to whether or not Adam and Eve were in fact real historical people.

Matthew 19:3-6 (AMP) ³ And Pharisees came to Him and put Him to the test by asking, Is it lawful and right to dismiss and repudiate and divorce one’s wife for any and every cause? ⁴ He replied, Have you never read that He Who made them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ And said, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be united firmly (joined inseparably) to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder (separate).

Mark 10:2-9 (AMP) ² And some Pharisees came up, and, in order to test Him and try to find a weakness in Him, asked, Is it lawful for a man to dismiss and repudiate and divorce his wife? ³ He answered them, What did Moses command you? ⁴ They replied, Moses allowed a man to write a bill of divorce and to put her away. ⁵ But Jesus said to them, Because of your hardness of heart [your condition of insensibility to the call of God] he wrote you this precept in your Law. ⁶ But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. ⁷ For this reason a man shall leave [behind] his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and cleave closely to her permanently, ⁸ And the two shall become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹ What therefore God has united (joined together), let not man separate or divide.

I went on to elaborate by saying that it was, “From the beginning, and not millions of years later after they finally evolved into becoming human beings. Elsewhere I cautioned: “make no mistake about it and don’t deceive yourselves. Jesus didn’t regard the events and people He referenced from the Old Testament as being anything other than historical events involving specific human beings.” [ii] To substantiate that point I quoted the following passage from Matthew’s Gospel.

Matthew 12:39-41 (AMP) ³⁹ But He replied to them, An evil and adulterous generation (a generation morally unfaithful to God) seeks and demands a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰ For even as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. ⁴¹ The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, Someone more and greater than Jonah is here!

I also pointed out, “The things Jesus spoke about concerning Adam and Eve and Jonah appear to have had that same historical ring to them for Jesus that they don’t have for Collins. Jesus spoke as though these people did indeed exist. He affirmed the authenticity of the Old Testament by quoting from it more than a hundred times. And He certainly affirmed the reality of real people and events. Jesus regarded the Old Testament Scriptures as being the very Word of God; words either spoken directly by Him or through godly men as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.” [iii]

Now allow me to ask a few questions. In light of the passages we just read, do you folks think Jesus believed Adam and Eve and Jonah were real historical people as I have been saying in my previous sermons, and do you believe that by quoting from the first chapter of the book of Genesis Jesus also believed it described an accurate account of the creation of the world, including the fact of the creation of the first two human beings? Do you believe that by comparing Scripture with Scripture as I have been doing we will learn everything we need to know in order to determine the truth of the issue we’re considering and share it with those special non-Christians we want us to try our best to lead to the Risen Savior? Well if you do, you’re mistaken, because the Bible doesn’t give us enough information to know the whole truth of the matter. Furthermore, Jesus didn’t believe that first chapter from the Book of Genesis gave a factual account of the creation of the world either. In fact, Jesus knew the Genesis account was a STORY which the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to write in order to communicate profound spiritual truths to the Jewish people.

At this point I realize some of you may be tempted to tune me out and put me on the top of your prayer list, but please hear me out. Although I didn’t intend to at the time; I short changed and may have mislead some of you folks by not factoring in something very important for us to consider in that sermon; something I have been trying to persuade you folks to do for several years, and which I had completely forgotten to do until I got my hands on another book through which the Holy Spirit used Amazon.com of all things, to jog my memory. Because I purchased the book I had been previously quoting from them they sent an Email suggesting another book on the same subject they thought might interest me. I bought it and was pleasantly surprised to discover the author was not a biblical lightweight as I had judged Francis Collins to be. I quickly jumped all over the books pages, highlighting many insightful comments. The more I read the more convinced I became this man had a solid mature understanding of the Bible. I finally discovered that he was coming from a Reformed Presbyterian background; meaning that he holds to the wonderful truths that came out of the Protestant Reformation and that he shares most of the same historical biblical convictions as a like-minded Reformed Baptist such as some of us do.

Because of my knee-jerk reaction to Collins’ apparent dismissal of the first three chapters of Genesis as some kind of mythical story, I had only given you folk’s samples of the “internal biblical evidence” in an attempt to prove my point without offering you an opportunity to consider and evaluate for yourselves the “non-biblical external evidence.” And it’s this kind of sloppiness that makes Christians like me look stupid in the eyes of people who are knowledgeable about proven scientific facts and are apt to dismiss the Bible as being a “fairy tale.” I short changed you folks because I neglected to factor in the “historical cultural context” of those passages from Genesis which provides the information which may enhance your ability to lead some special person God the Father wants you to do your very best to lead to His Son, and away from an eternal torment. I hadn’t practiced what I had been preaching to you for several years, urging you to cultivate the habit of always asking yourself this question before deciding the Scripture’s relevance for you: What did that statement, or that letter or that prophecy mean to its original audience? It’s a crucial question, and in the case of attempting to lead someone to the Risen Savior, it could be a matter of eternal life or eternal death. Because I didn’t provide such valuable information which is so vitally important, I ask you to please accept my apology!

Lord willing, soon….

[ii] My sermon: THE ONLY PAGE TO BE ON.

[iii] IBID.