GYC SE Conference 2021: If Not Now, When? If Not I, Who?

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GYC Southeast

Plenary Sessions

David Wright

How to Know God’s Will for Your Life

Who Invented Sex?

The Thing the Devil Hates

A Father’s Love

Are You an Evolutionist?

Never Enough

Today, the World Church has deemed this creation Sabbath.

Why do we need a Sabbath dedicated to creation?

And I would propose to you, it's because the idea of creation is getting a lot of doubt, a lot of flack, a lot of people in the scientific community are very quick to say, no, no, no, no, no, that doesn't work.

Anybody who is a thinking individual, any scholar, anybody who is in the world of academia will tell you creation is not the model.

And if you want to be taken seriously, you better push that off to the side and you better adopt evolution because this is science.

We need to follow the science wherever it leads, so they like to say.

And so they don't even talk about it as an evolutionary theory.

It's more presented today as the evolutionary facts.

But I'm here to remind you this morning on this creation Sabbath that it is not a fact, but it is still a theory.

But sadly, many are caving to the pressure.

It's not just out there in the world of academia.

I mean, it is, but it's crept into Seventh-day Adventist academics as well, which is concerning.

And many of you, if you have not already been confronted with at some point in your career, especially if you're going the medical route, will be confronted with this idea.

And so my question for you this morning is are you an evolutionist?

It seems to be the expected belief all over the place.

Time Magazine, I don't know why I just grabbed Time, but Evolution's Big Bang, how man evolved, Big Daddy.

Everywhere you look, there's this theory being pushed, pushed, pushed, how life began, how we became human, how man became man, how apes became human.

I mean this is very flattering, isn't it?

I mean rather than coming from a creator at his hand, forming you in the dust of the ground, we rather cling to the idea that we came from worms, from tiny little organisms, and then we finally made our way up the chain, and you look beautiful this morning.

Your ears have calmed down just a bit over billions and billions of years and your nose is more shapely than it once was.

Hopefully none of you have that blue bottom.

It's not a very uplifting thing to think about, is it?

You look at any of these magazines and textbooks, you'll likely see a picture like this.

I mean, really the line goes a lot further to get to this point, but this is just that little progression between monkey and ape and, well, man.

We study Birds, we study wildlife, we see the variations.

This is evolution, this is science, this is fact.

Dating back to Charles Darwin and his work published in 1859, which is interesting when you study the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

And when we started coming onto the scene, when the Sabbath started to get more publicity, the devil is saying, no, no, no, we have to do something about all this.

And so in 1859, on the origin of species, and even the papacy seems to try to appease both camps.

Pope Francis, his words not mine, evolution is not inconsistent with the notion of creation.

This was just 7 years ago, or will be 7 years this coming Wednesday.

Reading more of it says, When we read about creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God as a magician with a magic wand able to do everything.

He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each 1 so that they would reach their fulfillment.

So let's be clear, God is not powerful enough to create by His word as the Genesis account in scripture states.

No, he's not powerful enough to do that because this would make God a magician.

To be clear, the Pope is saying God is limited in what he can do.

So he created human beings, he allowed us to develop, to reach our fulfillment.

What God was powerless to do, we can then accomplish given billions and billions of years.

And if so, doesn't that make us capable or more capable of doing something that God is powerless to do?

And if that is in fact the case, then why are we bothering to worship God anyway?

We really should be worshipping ourselves.

We've arrived He goes on evolution in nature is not opposed to the notion of creation Because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.

So presuppose or assumes the creation of beings that evolve.

So God created, but then it was evolution, then after.

Now, to be clear, there's a difference between micro and macro evolution.

Micro evolution speaks of variety given within a given species.

We see that in the birds, in the warbler world, we see it in the dogs, and the cats, and the various species, and now they're mixing every kind of dog with poodles so it doesn't shed, and the list goes on.

There's some limits to how far you can go with that dog variety.

I mean, I mixed a poodle with a warbler, so I have a flying, I don't know, flying poodle?

There's some crazy names of dogs, I guess I could have done some research.

We had a cockapoo at 1 time, That's not a nice name.

Can I make a poodle that can breathe underwater?

Maybe if you just give me enough billions of years, this is the size of a whale, and can, I mean, really?

This is macro, this is big jumps, these are big leaps.

How much have we spent in this time and age flying all over the place?

When we had wings, why did we ever give those up?

I mean, I'm going to go fly back over to, I don't know, Colorado for a hike and I'm gonna fly back this afternoon or whatever.

Traditional Catholic teaching has not been at odds with evolution for some time.

In 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed that there was no opposition between evolution and Catholic doctrine.

So this idea that you can have both creation and evolution, no matter your convictions, we have a place for you, says the Catholic Church.

Friends, let me just ask you, is doctrine something like a buffet where we can just pick and choose?

I mean there are just tables all over the size of this room with every food that you can imagine and there's there's a real you know you don't just grab anything here.

Series

Plenary Sessions

Are You an Evolutionist?

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Are You an Evolutionist?

30m

Hope in the Future

Hope in the Future- Part 3

58m

Risk and Redemption

Risk and Redemption: Stand and Deliver

49m

Revelation Made Simple

18. Revelations Spiritual Revolution for a New Millennium

57m

Why Am I a SDA?

1. Does the Truth Really Matter?

35m

All In: Faithful to the Finish

26m

Reed Shaken With The Wind

1h

When Lady Liberty Lays Down the Torch

49m

Revelation Today Crusade

14. The Mark of the Beast Revealed

57m

Plenary

By Every Word

1h

Why Am I a SDA?

2. Isn’t Jesus Enough?

48m

Plenary

02 As Though He Saw the Invisible

46m

Sound Doctrine