Then God Said

1 May 2002

When you speak about Creation Science, most of the time there are questions relating to the age of the earth. As most of you have now gathered, I believe that my Heavenly Father is not an evolutionist. Actually, that concept is developed in an article from 1999 that briefly looks at the various measurements of the earth's age from a statistical point of view.

But just after God created the formless, void heaven and earth, then God said.

Before we get into what He said, it would be a good idea to look at language generally, and God's language specifically.

These articles are an attempt to communicate through the written electronic word the thoughts of one personality to a specific group of other personalities. Language is a mechanism for the exchange of ideas and related information.

Contrary to the math involved in the statistics of my Father's world above, we are told to believe that this language ability evolved by chance over millions of years. If we just work with the monkeys, or the dolphins long enough not only will they type all the books known to man, they will also begin to speak well enough to order an extra value meal at McDonalds. That is of course if we have enough faith to believe.

Really, the evangelical Christians are the problem, for they believe in that book of myths and fables they call the Bible. But outside its Holy book connotation, a bible is just considered an authoritative or essential book conveying some particular subject. In that regard we have the Macintosh Bible, the Shooter's Bible, and a whole lot of other bibles.

The problem is, and any true thinking individual will verify, there is a quantum leap in language, or communications ability between animals and mankind. That Jewish and Christian, Holy Book says that it was all by God's design. In fact, that Bible states, later in the creation story than we are today, that man was created in the image of God.

Working backward, those evolutionary faithless religious people could probably assume that Elohim is the Eternal Communicator. But from that concept, to believe that the worlds were created by God through the spoken word, even the spoken word of God, is really a stretch beyond the mind of modern man. But the Bible speaks of a man of God named Moses, who wrote the creation story as fact. It follows that he must of either been extremely deluded about the existence of a Supreme Being, or he believed creation as an actual fact.

Now if I were going to create, or build something really grand, I would probably hire a team to help me out. First of all I would hire an architect and or engineer to take my ideas and turn them into plans that could actually be assembled. Then from those plans I would hire a contractor to actually bring those plans into reality.

Using this simple analogy, we see the same development through the creation narrative. In the beginning God (the Father) created perfect chaos out of nothing. And the (Holy) Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, ready to assemble something once the plans are received. Water (even primal soup) is the requirement of all life. Then God said (the Word, Jesus Christ).

Next week and the week thereafter we will look at the attributes of light the first expression of the word. For the rest of this week we will look at the Word of God as it was expressed in creation down to this present day.

I once heard someone say, that the only thing that lies outside the limitations of creation is a thought. In the beginning, with the personality of the Triune God and complete randomness, brings us the sense of the face of the waters. This word face could also be defined as presence (of life), in its just created perfection. In the perfection of the Godhead, we have perfect information to be transferred perfectly within the distinct personalties of God's eternity.

Moses under the divine inspiration of God, is attributed to writing the first five books of God's testament of Himself, the Word of God, the Bible. These books were followed by the rest of the canon of scripture, which we call the Old and New Testaments. In that context the written Word is Jesus Christ, but at the same time this Bible testifies of Him.

In this era however, we tend to separate God into His personalities. We speak of the moving of the Spirit, as distinct from the moving of Jesus, and the moving of the Father. But if our fundamental but limited definition of the Trinity, three personalities of one essence, is true, then to speak of the Spirit moving alone is at best misguided, at worst, this spirit is not God's Holy Spirit.

Throughout the Bible we see God speaking to his people, and in some cases even with pagans. In the pages of the Bible, we see no record that this communication of Eternal Personality to created personality, has ever ceased. But we do see a demarcation, or various levels of that communication, both in the authoritative sense and the personal sense. While there may be additional ways, perhaps a more accurate account would be a continuum of ways, we shall look briefly at three.

First, we have the Word of God, the Bible. Historically understood as the inerrant principles of God. It was written through men moved by the Holy Spirit. The reformers were so moved by this principle, one of the tenants of the Reformation was the principle of Sola Scriptura, or scripture alone. Along with this, the other solas, Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone, to God's glory alone, we see the principles by which lasting renewal of the church takes place.

Now notice I said moved by the Holy Spirit. While that is accurate and scriptural, we seldom notice the same construct as in the creation account. The Father purposed to create the Bible, the Son of God, the Word, communicates through the Holy Spirit the information required for the result, and the Holy Spirit working through the personalities of the writers, transforms this Word into actual created writing.

Next, in today's religious society, we always hear statements such as, "God told me this. And my favorite, "God told me to tell you." Now the question is how do we check the validity of these statements. Classically, we are to determine how these thoughts line up with the Bible. Things that can not be harmonized with biblical principles are therefore not from God.

But when you talk with your friends, do you always speak of the great truths of Biblical interpretation. Of course not. A lot of it is in the eternal sense, just small talk. Some more important, but for eternity, it may not merit a specific Biblical interpretation. How do we judge then?

For the last one hundred fifty years or so in the evangelical church there is a lot of talk about believers being raptured out of the pretribulation earth, to be the bride of Christ at the "Marriage Supper of the Lamb." While these rapture thoughts only set the context of what I am about to say, this marriage concept does say a great deal about the present condition of the church, the bride of Christ.

I heard a brief segment of a marriage enrichment video last week. That segment stated that the average couple communicated a total of thirty seven minutes each week. Also it is known that we retain only about six percent of verbal communications. Therefore it could be said that the average couple communicate and retains 37x0.06= 2.2 minutes per week, or about 133 seconds, or about the same number of spoken words, divided by two.. With those statistics in mind, we see that the time we spend each week in prayer, Bible study and other forms of communication with God, has a direct relationship to the truth God can communicate to us in this personal way.

Finally, we have the word of God expressed through the church service and similar manifestations. While we could have used this scripture reference earlier, the quotation from Hebrews 4:12 is exceedingly appropriate here for it really is the heart of the symbiosis between God and man. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

The modern translations all use the word "living" where the authorized uses the word "quick." This life giving connotation of course reflects the life changing aspects of life in Jesus Christ and His body the church. And we see this in the context as the verse is presented in Hebrews.

There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.  

Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

This is the gospel that the minister of God is called to proclaim. Many times it seems to get lost in the work of the preacher, but that does not diminish the living or the powerful nature of the word of God. Many times also, the most amazed person at the word's eternal nature is the preacher himself. "Now if I just had some idea of the meaning of what I just said."

But no matter the ability and the gifts of the minister, the word of God itself brings salvation, healing, and a whole host of other gifts through the proclaimed word, because in the Word the whole of the Trinity dwells, just as in the beginning of time.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth from the formless void. He still is in that business, He has not changed and neither has the word of God. So this week, in those times when you might feel discouraged and you think that even God does not care about your situation, look again at the creation story and remember that this same creative process, is alive and powerful in your life. The only reason it seems so difficult, is we can't handle anything any greater than the gift of today. God can create the universe in six days, to create your first step into eternal life, God takes all your days. Thus is the nature of the Word of God to God's chosen.

Seeds for Prayer

A lot was accomplished last week towards a more normal life. I had the opportunity to have lunch with a classmate from graduate school. We have been talking about lunch for years, but just never got it all together. Come to find out he and a friend of his might be interested in helping with our mining adventure. Please intercede that God's glory may be manifest in this developing opportunity.