Pastor David tackles the theory of evolution.

<p>Pastor David tackles the theory of evolution.</p>

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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

Worshipping Our Creator

David Shin

Worshipping Our Creator - Part 1

Father in heaven, we thank You so much for this opportunity that we have to gather in Your presence this morning to worship You in spirit and in truth.

We pray that the Holy Spirit that inspires would also be the Spirit that instructs.

Well, today we are continuing in our three-part series of messages entitled Worshiping Our Creator, and today is our second installment in that series.

And I wanted to begin by doing a brief review from last Sabbath study, and we began in Revelation chapter 14, verse 6 and 7, as was read in our scripture reading.

Fear God, give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made the heaven and earth and the springs of water." And we emphasize the fourth part of the first angel's message is a clarion call to worship our creator.

This is a global message that is to go to the entire world before Jesus comes, And it's a call to worship Him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the fountains of water.

We said that this was a direct call and reference back to the Old Testament, the book of Exodus 20, 8-11.

Let's turn very quickly there in our review of last Sabbath's message, the fourth commandment, Exodus 20, 8-11.

And as Seventh-day Adventists, we're familiar with this text.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

6 days you shall labor and do all your work, 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.

For in 6 days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.

Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hollowed it, or made it holy." You'll notice the verbal parallel between these 2 that we've just read, Revelation 14, verse 7, and Exodus 20, verse 11.

The Lord made the heavens, the earth, and the sea.

Revelation chapter 14 verse 7 is referencing the Creator God in the fourth commandment and calling us to worship the Creator that created the earth in 6 literal days.

As we addressed last Sabbath that in 1844 Darwin completed a 189-page handwritten manuscript summarizing his species theory, scholars refer to it as Darwin's 1844 sketch.

He says, Thus, when Darwin in his 1844 manuscript sketch suggests that major biological forms developed over millions of years, God in the same year sends a special message to the world that he created the basic life forms in 6 days, not millions of years.

So here it is, these 2 competing worldviews, 1 that came by naturalistic evolution and the other that came by the Creator God in 6 literal contiguous consecutive 24-hour periods similar to the ones that we experience today.

Now here is a question, Why is a literal six-day creation essential to Adventist theology?

6 days, thousands of years, hundreds of thousands of years, does it really matter?

Isn't the main point that God created the heavens and the earth?

Why is a literal six-day creation essential to Adventist theology?

Now I'm talking about the internal consistency of the theological framework that we call Adventism.

Now in my studies, I've had the privilege of studying different theologians that were seminal thinkers.

And a couple weeks ago, I did a sermon on the resurrection, and I referenced this man, Rudolf Bultmann.

He was an early 19th century theologian and had some thoughts that really framed liberal Protestantism to this day, and he didn't believe in the resurrection or the virgin birth or any miracle in the Bible because it conflicted with science.

Now I disagree with Rudolf Bultmann, but I respect his consistency.

No miracles because they conflict with science there was another gentleman that Responded to Rudolf Bultmann's theology This is typically what happens in the theological community 1 person comes up with a claim and another 1 responds and it was Wolfhard Penenberg these guys are all German by the way And he said that without the historical reality of the resurrection of Jesus, the Christian religion is not a valid religion.

So does Paul, by the way, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

He says that if Christ is not risen, then our message is in vain.

So he links the historical reality of the resurrection and the truth of Jesus as the Messiah as the same thing.

Rudolf Bultmann says, oh, resurrection, no resurrection.

What really matters is the experience that we have.

And what Pannenberg is saying is, look, if you don't have the resurrection, you have nothing.

Now, building on or playing on Pannenberg's terminology, this is from David Shinn, here it is.

I don't think anyone will ever quote me, but here it is.

Without the historical reality of a literal six-day creation, Adventism is not a valid religion.

Now, I wanna be very sensitive to Individuals that may have grown up in our community of faith were born into Adventism like me I'm the grandson of a pastor.

So I'm third generation Seventh-day Adventist my wife is like seventh generation and we were born into this and the challenge is that sometimes you don't really appreciate what you have.

If you were born into this church and you're still figuring things out, bear with me.

And perhaps there's some that are here that are not a part of our community of faith or are new, and you're still wrestling with this idea, but bear with me.

Here is the internal consistency of the Adventist framework.

I want to reflect on this very quickly with you.

Why is it essential to have a six-day literal creation?

And without this, Adventism is not a valid religion.

This is interesting because the 10 Commandments ground the validity of the Sabbath to creation.

Verse 11, For in 6 days the Lord made the heavens, 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." In other words, our whole reason and rationale for keeping the seventh day Sabbath is because of the previous 6 days that were before it.

In other words, God did something in 6 days and then he rested.

So therefore, we should work 6 days and rest the seventh.

That is the whole rationale and reasons for keeping the Sabbath.

If you take away a literal six-day creation, then the seventh day becomes meaningless.

Why should we do anything on the seventh day?

If these were eons of millions and hundreds of billions of years that God created the Earth, why not go to church once every 70 years?

Perhaps, metaphorically, why once a week?

The whole seventh day doesn't make any sense.

Furthermore, if the 6 days are not literal, then the seventh day is not literal either.

Now it's interesting because I have never met any person that interprets Exodus chapter 20 in a not literal way.

In other words, thou shalt not kill, not literal.

Thou shalt not steal, not literal, let me take your car.

Thou shalt not commit adultery, not literal, I'm sorry.

But suddenly when we come to Verse 11, we suddenly change hermeneutics and say, that is not literal.

Now you'll notice something interesting about our name, Seventh Day Adventist.

If you take away the literal nature of the creation week We are not seventh-day Adventists our Identity is linked with a literal six-day creation Now this is from the book patriarchs and prophets and last week.

I did not quote the spirit of prophecy But this week I am and I want to encourage you to read The chapter in the first volume of the conflict of Ages series on a Sabbath afternoon, and there's a chapter in there that's called The Literal Week.

Encourage you to read that, and this is from that chapter.

Like the Sabbath, the week originated at creation and has been preserved and brought down to us through Bible history.

God himself measured off the first week as a sample for successive weeks to the close of time.

Like every other, it consisted of 7 literal days.

6 days were employed in the work of creation.

Upon the seventh, God rested, and he blessed this day and set it apart as a day of rest for man.

Worshipping Our Creator - Part 2

Father in heaven, we thank You so much that we can look to You, find our assurance, find our hope, find our Savior.

We pray that You would bless us, Lord, with Your presence as we pause for a few moments to reflect on You as our Creator God.

We ask these things in the precious name of Jesus.

They say that repetition deepens impression.

So, let's turn to our Scripture reading that was just read, Revelation 14, verses 6 and 7.

In Revelation 14, there are 3 angels with 3 distinct messages, that is to go to the entire world before Jesus comes the second time.

And we've been focusing on the first angel's message, fear God, give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water.

We've said that this text, this message given by the first angel, has 4 components.

Give glory to Him for the hour of judgment has come.

And the last part is a call to worship our Creator.

Worship Him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the springs of water.

We've said that this text, this last part of the passage, the fourth component, to worship our creator, is a direct reference back to the book of Exodus.

This is familiar to us as Seventh-day Adventist.

I'm assuming many of us can quote this by heart.

It's the only commandment that begins with the word, remember.

And scholars of the book of Revelation believe that this reference in Revelation chapter 14, to worship the Creator, is a clarion call back to the fourth commandment found in Exodus chapter 20, verse 8 through 11.

Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy?

Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hollowed it." We stated last Sabbath that there is this parallel between Exodus 20, verse 1, verse 11, which we've just read, and Revelation 14, verse 7, and I've highlighted the parallels there, you can see the exact same order as referenced in Revelation chapter 14 verse 7, made heaven, earth, and sea.

And Bible scholars believe that when the book of Revelation is quoting or alluding to the Old Testament, they are alluding to the entire context of that passage.

And the context in this case is the part that I've underlined here on the screen.

For in 6 days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea.

In other words, part of the first angel's message that is to go to the entire world before Jesus comes is a call to worship the creator God that created the earth in 6 literal days.

Now we also said that at the time that this message is commencing, that there's another theory that is being espoused.

In July of 1844, Darwin completed a 189-page handwritten manuscript summarizing his specious theory.

Scholars refer to it as Darwin's 1844 sketch.

Thus, this is according to John Baldwin, when Darwin in his 1844 manuscript sketch suggests that major biological forms developed over millions of years.

God, in the same year, sends a special message to the world that he created the basic life forms in 6 days, not millions of years.

A call to worship our Creator just when the theory of evolution is becoming accepted and the norm in the scientific community.

Last Sabbath I had this artist depiction of a theologian.

And when I studied the seminary I changed degrees from a master's in divinity to a master of arts in theology.

I went from a practical degree to a not so practical degree.

And I had the privilege of focusing on modern and postmodern theologians that were seminal thinkers.

And Friedrich Schleiermacher was a seminal thinker.

Matter of fact, he's known as the father of modern Protestant liberalism.

He was the seminal thinker that formed a certain way of thinking, specifically as it relates to science.

And in 1829, he published his famous Pact with Science.

Because Schleiermacher was trying to come up with a way to deal with the conflict between science and scripture.

And he's famous for this notion of saying theologians should let rocks be rocks and should let God be God.

In other words, the Bible is not a science book.

We should let the Bible do its thing and let science do its thing.

And what Schleiermacher did was he was also the father of modern hermeneutics.

He came up with this idea that we need to interpret the Bible in a different way.

He said that the Bible is not about history, it's not about facts, it's really about the experience that we get, the feeling that we get from experiencing the Bible, the Word of God.

But it is not about facts, it's not about history, and it's not about science.

So you can see that even in the 1800s, there were individuals like the theologian Frederick Schleiermacher that was trying to deal with this conflict between scripture and science.

And we also quoted from this man, who Rudolph Boltzmann in the early 1900s was also trying to deal with this conflict in scripture and science.

And we quoted this in our series, or our sermon on the resurrection, "'We cannot use electric lights and radios, "'and in the event of illness, "'avail ourselves of modern medical and clinical means, "'and at the same time, "'believe in the spirit and wonder of the New Testament.

He said, look, we have all these technological advances, all these things in the scientific world that are being discovered, we can't read the New Testament the same way.

So, Rudolf Bultmann said that the Bible was a myth.

And these were attempts by the pre-modern mind to understand scripture.

They did not have the enlightenment that we do today.

So they came up with these stories to reveal a deeper truth.

He said that these were not to be taken literally, but were to go to the deeper essence of these stories.

And he espoused this idea of demytholization.

In other words, this was Boltzmann's position.

And he also said the literal six-day creation account is a myth as well.

Now, Rudolf Bultmann was a systematic theologian.

In other words, he built a coherent theology that was consistent.

Now, 1 thing that I will credit to Rudolf Bultmann is his consistency.

He goes all the way down the line and says every miracle, every supernatural event in Scripture that conflicts with science is not true.

Now, when I was in the lower 48 at a particular church, I had a visitor that would come regularly to our community of faith.

He was not a member, and he engaged me in a conversation.

He said, Pastor, I want to talk to you because he took issue with the sermons that I gave, which is nothing new.

So we sat down, and he opened by saying, Pastor, I disagree with the literal interpretation of Genesis.

He said, I don't believe in a literal six-day creation on the basis of science.

I said, well, I understand where you're coming from, given that a literal 6 day creation is considered a pseudoscience by the scientific community, including intelligent design.

And he said, Pastor, yes, I believe in the virgin birth.

I said you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

If you're going to reject the literal sixth day creation on the basis of science, you've got to also reject the virgin birth on the basis of science.

Series

Worshipping Our Creator

Worshipping Our Creator - Part 2

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Unlock Revelation

15. The Mark of the Beast

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Ten Commandments

9. Two Witnesses

36m

GYC 2013 Seminar: To All: World Religions and Mission

04-“The Cross and Whatever”: Postmodernism and Missions 101

58m

The Whole Truth

One Hand Clapping

1h 3m

Antichrist: The One You've Never Known

Antichrist, Episode 6: Revealed

38m

Morning Devotional

The First and Final Forerunners

1h 3m

Amazing Disciples

10. How to Reach the Atheistic Mind, Part 2

46m

Ganoune Diop: Understanding World Religions and Contemporary Worldviews

Adventism, Prophecy, and The Whole Chain of Truth

59m

The Beatitudes

Blessed Are the Merciful

29m

Do You Really Want to Be Like Jesus?

47m

Lineage Season 4: Manger to Messiah

08 Jesus Rejected in Nazareth

4m

Jesus Who?

55m

Sound Doctrine