Study the Word

Guest (Male): Is there a purpose for your life? Or are you only here by accident and blind chance? The answer is right around the corner here on Study the Word. Why is there something instead of nothing? Since we have life, what is the meaning of it?

These are basic questions we all grapple with on some level, because we all have a sense there must be meaning and purpose for life. Today's Study the Word with Pastor Tom Keller will help us answer these foundational questions of life, beginning with why is there something instead of nothing? The Bible tells us in Genesis chapter one that God created something out of nothing. From the pulpit of Calvary Chapel Lebanon, here's Pastor Tom.

Pastor Thom Keller: Jean-Paul Sartre stated that the essential problem with philosophy is this: there is something instead of nothing. Why? There is something instead of nothing. Why? A simple statement, but a huge question. Why? Why is all of this?

Even beyond the point of evolution. I want to say this right up front. There are a lot of Christians that believe in evolution. There are a lot of Christians that don't. There are a lot of Christians who believe in a literal six-day creation. There are a lot of Christians that don't. There's room for both. Keep studying, keep researching, keep looking. You're not a lesser Christian if you take one or another of those positions. It's not conditional to your salvation. Believing there's a God is, but these are other points that can be worked out. Study and research. Do the work.

Let's examine the question of why. Why did he do all of this? The book of John gives an answer to this. John 1 says this: He, Jesus, was in the beginning with God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make. Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone.

So when it says in the beginning God created, actually, Jesus was the creator of all that there is. In Colossians, it goes even further and makes this statement: Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before God made anything at all and is supreme over all creation. Christ is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and on earth.

He, Christ, made the things we can see and the things we can't see: kings, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities. Everything has been created through him and for him. He existed before everything else began, and he holds all of creation together. They talk about this dark mass that scientists have discovered in the universe. They can't even describe it. They don't even know what it is, but they suspect it's kind of the glue that holds all of the universe together. Well, in that dark mass, if that's true, is Jesus, because he is the one that holds everything together.

So why? Why do we have a Genesis? Why do we have this beginning story? Why do we have this whole story of the creation and God going through this exercise and Jesus going through this exercise of creating? Why? Why did God go to all this trouble to create when he would have been complete, we would think, without us? Isn't that an odd thought, that we would complete God? Isn't that a peculiar thought?

K.P. Yohannan said this: the whole purpose of the Old Testament is to find a bride for Christ. Isn't that beautiful? The whole purpose of the Old Testament, the whole purpose of Genesis, the whole purpose of Leviticus, the whole purpose of Exodus is to find a bride for Christ.

When you think of where we've come from in Genesis, where the bride of Christ is brought to heaven, finally that reunion takes place. It culminates in that, and the beginning is right here. That in some way, God was not complete without us. God was not complete without you. In the Bible, it says that in marriage, God created the woman to be Adam's ezer, his completer. To complete in him what he could not complete in himself. It's the same word that the Old Testament uses for the role that God plays in our lives, that he completes what we could not complete in ourselves.

But did you know in some way that is beyond my understanding, in some way, we bring completeness to God? God pre-existed. God always has been. There has never been a time when God has not been. We know that the angels were created earlier because in the book of Job, it says that the angels witnessed the creation. We also know that timing had to be something like that because Satan appears in the garden and he was a fallen angel, and all of that had to happen before this garden scene took place. So the angels predated the creation of the earth, the creation of the world.

It says in verse two that the earth was empty, formless mass in absolute darkness. It says that hovering over its surface, that God hovered over its surface. The Hebrew word there signifies a vibrant moving, a purposeful moving with an energy, and a protective hovering, kind of a desire to protect and to create. Verse three says, then God said, "Let there be light." It's interesting: God spoke all of the universe into creation except one thing. Everything we read in Genesis, he spoke into creation except one. What was that one? Man. He formed man from the dust. Everything else he spoke.

It says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Remember, in the beginning, there were the heavens and there was the earth. There were no stars. There was no sun. There was no moon. That puts the earth at the very center of God's plan, doesn't it?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a statement. This is just my opinion. There may be life in other planets. There very well may be. Who knows? But it's interesting, if you stop and think about it, that there was first this empty void of nothing, and then God created the earth, and that everything really he created he added to that. He made it bigger and bigger, and then he comes back to the earth and he begins drilling down to the earth: plants, animals, fish, man.

But he starts with the earth, it expands, and then he comes back. And it's almost like—it's not almost like, it's true from the telling of this story—that all of the universe revolves around the earth. If there was life in other planets—and again, this is just my opinion—if there was life in other planets, intelligent life, it's almost like they would have occurred as an afterthought when he said, "and he made the stars." It's hard to imagine that if he has this much love for us, being created in his image, if there were other beings that he created in his image, that they just would have been a part of the afterthought. Does that make sense? You can't make a case for it, but it's interesting.

The United States government spends 100 million dollars a year looking for life in other planets, taking back sound waves. The idea being that if there's intelligent life, they probably are using radio signals to communicate, and so we look for patterns in radio signals that would indicate that there's some pattern in the signal, not just some random gamma rays being sent out. And of course, we have found nothing yet. One commentator said it might make more sense for them to spend the million dollars a year to see if there's any life in Washington, but we're not going to go there.

Let's go on. Then we get into the whole idea of the days. What about the literal days? Are these literal days, or could each day be a million years? Well, a lot of different positions on this, and I personally am to the place where I believe that they were literal days. I believe that they were literal 24-hour days.

I'll give some reasons for that. First of all, God is that big that he could create a mature earth. If you stop and think about it, when God created the trees, do you think he made a big tree and a little tree, or were they all little saplings the day he made them? Do you think they were full-grown trees? If they were full-grown trees, did they have rings, or just one big ring? Do you think they had rings? Well, if they had rings, it would signify that they were the age of the rings. Why couldn't he create a tree that had rings from the beginning, right?

When he created Adam, did he bring a sperm and an egg together? No, he created a mature man. Did he have whiskers? Did he have hair? How did his hair grow? I mean, he created a mature [man]. And see, this is what I love about when you come up against people that take a purely scientific "I have to understand it all" position on everything in the Bible is that their box is so little. Their box is so small.

I remember somebody saying one time, "If God is omnipotent and all-powerful, can he make a rock so big he can't lift it?" That's a good question. You can't answer that question, by the way. Can't be answered. But here's a follow-up question: God is that big, you can't make a box big enough to hold him. You can't. Science can't. They've tried, but they're not going to get God in their box. They're just not.

And I got thinking about this. I thought about the sound waves. Wouldn't it be something if they came back—let's say that God decided all of a sudden he wants to reveal his presence and the reality of a living God to all of the world and to science. And let's say that tomorrow morning all of those satellites, all those dishes start bringing back messages, and they're able to run it through the computer and interpret it, and they're messages like this: Jesus Christ is Lord. There's no way to God except through Jesus. Let's say that those messages start pouring back in.

First of all, would that change the hardness of man's heart toward God? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Because we saw that in Revelation. It doesn't change—it would not change the hardness of man's heart. But you know what it would do? It would take away the discovery process. It would take away the joy of finding God.

I've often thought in the story when the shepherds, when the angels came and appeared to the shepherds when they were with their flocks on the hills, and they said, "A Savior is born. Go to Bethlehem. How will you know it's him? You'll find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." And what did they do? They got excited. They ran into the city and they started their journey, right? They started their search. They went from house to house, building to building, garage to garage, car to car, looking. "Is he in there?" No. And when they found him, they were filled with joy.

Now, the angels could have come to them and said, "Listen, tonight the Christ, the Messiah, has been born. How will you find him? He's at 105 East Main Street." "Oh, great!" And they run to 105 East Main Street. Now, that would be cool, but where's the discovery? Can't you kind of sense the excitement of them going door to door looking for him, and when they finally find him, all that rejoicing?

It's the same thing with finding your mate in marriage. I wouldn't want God to have told me that it was going to be Sue and the day and the month that I was going to find her. The joy is in the discovery. It's like life. The joy is in the journey. If you think that your joy, young people, is going to be someday at 20 or 25 or 30 you get married, you get a house, you get the college, you get out of college, you pay your house off, whatever—if you think that's the joy, you're never going to get there. That isn't joy. Joy is not a destination. Joy is the journey. Joy is the discovery.

How would you feel if you read your Bible through once and you got to the end, you understood it all and it all made sense, there's nothing more in there for you to learn? Wouldn't that be boring? When I first gave my life to Christ and started reading this, I thought someday I'd have this all down. I really did. I'm not kidding. I thought if I read this long enough, I'm going to understand it all, and won't that be great? No, it would be boring.

That's, man, that's why God created your wives like he did. They can't be understood. They can't. Is there any man in here that understands his wife completely? Well, I saw one hand. We'll talk later. They weren't meant to be understood. We're to try. First Peter says, "Men, understand your wives." We're to try to understand, but the joy really—now listen, you that are frustrated—the joy is in the process of learning them. Wouldn't it be so boring if we understood our wives? Don't shake your head no. It's true.

And God set this whole universe up so that the discovery of God would be a beautiful thing and a rewarding process. And that we'd come up against flak and disagreement, but that he would continue to reveal himself in a way that we would just keep pressing through it in a beautiful way.

We had some friends stay with us on Tuesday night. They're from Colorado and he was employed by the Creation Research Institute for a period of years. And he said that there's a new book out—and I'd like to get this—written by two astrophysicists. And the point of the book is this: that not only is the world created in a way that demonstrates that there is a God, but the earth has been uniquely created and placed in an exact space in the universe that we are in a position to perfectly examine all of the universe. They go through point after point after point after point. It's a fascinating concept.

Verse seven. It says the waters above separated the waters above from the waters below. Well, how can you have waters above and waters below? Right? That's the making of the flood right there, isn't it? Ka-boom! Here they come. And again, this gives rise to what's known as the canopy theory. That in the beginning, the whole earth was covered by this canopy of moisture. That the sun never really broke through. We never saw a bright sun. That it would have created a uniform temperature all around the earth. And without the sun's convection of the earth, winds wouldn't have been created. And without winds, there would be no rain as we know it, because it's winds that cause the convection.

As a result of that, there would have been a lush tropical vegetation that would have been over the whole face of the earth. I mean, it's a greenhouse. It's just moist dew all the time, even temperature, and the whole earth is in that kind of a climate. And as a result, this vapor blanket would filter out ultraviolet lights and other destructive forces from space.

And you know, we've talked about this I think last week, but this is where the idea of the dinosaurs come up. That a reptile will continue to grow as long as it lives. The problem is that with radiation and other factors in this earth, they don't live forever. But if there were none of those destructive elements, a reptile would live forever. That little lizard you have, that was the next dino. Really, it's just how it could have been.

So when that all changed, when the flood occurred, that could have been when all that happened. Again, we'll probably get to heaven and you'll come up to me and say, "Thom, you were all wrong about all that," and that's okay. That's okay. But it's theory. It's a possibility.

Verse 9 to 13, let's go on. It says and God said, "Let the waters beneath the sky be gathered into one place and let dry ground appear." And so it was. God named the dry ground land and the water seas. And God saw to it that it was good. Then God said, "Let the land burst forth with every sort of grass and seed-bearing plant, and let there be trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. The seeds will then produce every kind of plants and trees from which they came."

It's interesting that God almost anticipated the theory of evolution when he wrote Genesis 1, because he says in verse 11, "The seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees which they came from." 12 says, "Their seeds produced plants and trees of like kind." If you go over to verse 25, it says God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to reproduce more of its own kind. He went out of his way to say that. He could have said he made animals, he made fish, he made birds, but he goes on and says each one producing its own kind. And evolution would have a big problem with that.

There's also an interesting point here that makes a point for a literal 24-hour day, and that is that the plant life was created on the third day and then the sun and the moon was created on the fourth day. Now, if you take days to be a period of millions of years, you'd have the earth with plant life for millions of years surviving before the sun comes along. Now, if God created the earth in this vapor that kept the heat in, could it not be that the sun happened 24 hours later? I mean, plants could survive without sun for 24 hours. Just makes an interesting case.

We'll kind of close with this. Evolution is a huge tool designed to be a logical argument against God. And nature, the skies, the universe, God's creation of this earth is God's number one tool to draw man to himself. That's his primary vehicle of drawing man into relationship with God is looking at all that God has created. It says this in Romans 1.

And although we look at evolution and we agree with parts of it or we disagree with parts of it or we laugh at it or we mock it, the destruction that it does is enormous. Because what it is designed to do is to dismiss the thought that there's a creator. And if you can live with the thought that there's not a creator, so much goes away.

I want to read one quote and then we'll close. Darwin said this: he said, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." And science today has proven over and over, repeatedly, that God's creation could not have been formed that way.

Here's the question: if there's a creator and he made you, you're not just some creation of random chance. I mean, that means that God specifically and individually created every one of you, and that he has a purpose and a design for your life—every one of you. And that he created you, he formed you, to be in a relationship with him. What a high privilege. What a high calling. One of the attributes of a man, of a woman, is that alone compared to all animals, they only, their countenance is level and skyward. All other of God's creation, their eyes are down. That's not by accident. It's that we would look up and seek God.

Guest (Male): What a high calling and purpose indeed. And it's only because there is a God who made you. This is Study the Word. Pastor Thom Keller is leading us through Genesis at the present time. You can hear this message again as well as what you may have missed in the series online at ccleb.com.

You can also call and request a CD copy at 717-507-7862. That's 717-507-7862. Perhaps you've been listening a while and have grown as a result of this radio ministry. You can voice your support through a financial gift to Study the Word and help many others across the nation study the word as well.

Our ministry mailing address is Study the Word, 740 Willow Street, Lebanon, Pennsylvania, 17046. And we'd love to have you visit us at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. See when and where we meet as you visit ccleb.com and download our free church app. Search Calvary Chapel Lebanon in the Google Play Store. Concluding our time with a word of prayer, here's Pastor Tom.

Pastor Thom Keller: Father, I'm glad that I'm not a bag of chemicals. I'm glad that all of us here were created with a specific purpose and a design in our life. And Lord, you do have a calling on every single person in here. Lord, you devote your full attention to every single person in this room. And it's not an attention in order to punish or discipline or to hurt, although sometimes those things do happen, but your attention on us is designed to bring blessings and to bring us into a life in harmony with you, Jesus, that would just blow our socks off, that would just give us so much joy.

And Father, I pray that as we work through the book of Genesis, that each of us would discover anew your plan from the beginning of time and how that relates to us. That we would become more and more certain and secure in the love that you have for us.

Guest (Male): Calvary Chapel Lebanon is pleased to present Study the Word with Pastor Tom Keller on this station and many others like it. Come back next time when we'll resume our series in Genesis.