Lesson 10
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Bible Study 1 - Genesis 1
SERIES: A WORLD IN A WEEK
LESSON 10 GENESIS 1.24-26 DAY 6 –THE CREATION OF MONKEYS AND MEN
24. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.”
25. “And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”
26. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”
In our study and investigation of the days of creation, we are aware that there is a parallel between the sixth day of creation and the third day.
You may recall that on the third day the Bible tells us that the God formed the earth and that God filled the earth with luscious vegetation. Now, on the sixth day there is a parallel because that day tells us about God filling the earth with the animals and with people.
So on day three, God forms the earth. Now, on day six, God fills the earth with animals and people.
We can't help but notice as we move along through these days of creation that there seems to be a crescendo building. There seems to be a progress going on. There seems to be a development upward going on. God is getting this creation ready for an inhabitant. God is getting ready for men to live on this earth. There is a sense of anticipation. There is a sense of building interest as we move through these days of creation - especially when we get to the next study which tells us about the creation of people on the sixth day.
In this study, I want to deal specifically with the creation of the animals. We are told that on the sixth day God created the animals.
The theory of evolution takes the position that people came from the animals. That we are descended from animal creation. In fact, they really say it begins before that. They say that back there, somewhere in the beginning of it all, there was a single cell. Perhaps there was a cell and at some point in time this became a creature of the sea. At some point in time this creature of the sea became a reptile. Then after millions and billions of years of evolutionary development, this reptile became a bird. After a period of evolution and development this bird became an animal. Somewhere along the way, an animal became a man.
When I read about all that I think about a poem I heard:
“Once I was tadpole, beginning to begin.
Then I was a frog with my tail tucked in.
Then I was a monkey in a banyan tree.
Now I'm a professor with a PhD.”
I want to read you something that I ran across that I thought was quite interesting.
“THE MONKEY'S VIEWPOINT ON EVOLUTION”
“Three monkeys sat in a coconut tree
Discussing things as they are said to be.
One said to the other, now listen you two
There's a certain rumor that can't be true.
“That man descended from our noble race,
Why the very idea is a dire disgrace.
No monkey ever deserted his wife,
Starved his babies and ruined their life.
“You'll never know a mother monk
To leave here babies with others to bunk.
Shove them around from one to another
Till they scarcely know who is their mother.
“Another thing you'll never see.
A monk build a fence around a coconut tree.
Forbidding all other monks a taste
And letting the coconuts go to waste.
“If I built a fence around this tree
Starvation would force you to steal from me.
Another thing a monk won't do is
Go out at night and get in a stew.
“Or use a gun or a club or knife
To take some other monkey's life.
Yes, man descended, the ornery cuss
But, brothers, he never descended from us.”
That is the view of evolution. If you do not agree with this and endorse the theory of evolution then you are looked upon as some kind of uneducated religious kook. I want to say to you that I emphatically, with all of my heart and with all the intellect which God has given me, reject the theory of evolution. I do not believe that the theory of evolution is correct. I do not believe it on two basic reasons.
First of all, on spiritual grounds. I do not believe, spiritually, that evolution can be supported. The second reason I do not believe in evolution is on scientific grounds. I do not believe that the actual facts of science, that the facts of biology, that the facts of genetics give support for the theory of evolution. I do not believe this is what you find in the fossil record.
In the fossil record we have ancient life - life that has been dead for a long, long time preserved. I do not believe when you look at the fossil record you can find evidence which evolution says is necessary in order for man to have descended from lower form of life.
When Charles Darwin set forth his theory of evolution which basically changed the world and how we look at the world, he said that he would expect to find in the fossil records numerous examples of transitional forms. In other words, one form of life in transition to another form of life. For instance he said we should expect to find in great profusion examples of transitional forms between apes and men. That we would find these transitional forms that would have characteristics of apes, but would also have characteristics of men. He said if we did not find that kind of evidence in the fossil records, then his theory would be in serious, serious trouble.
Where are we today in the fossil record? What does the evidence really have to say? Let me reveal to you this documented record from David Raup, the Curator of Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. He wrote this back in 1979. He said, "We are now 120 years (today in 2015 166 years) after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn't changed much. We have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time."
Let me reveal to you what Professor Gould, the leading paleontologist probably in the world and a vowed evolutionists of Harvard University had to say - "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in fossil record is the trade secret of paleontology." He is saying - we don't have a great deal of evidence.
The fossil record does not teach evolution. The fossil record does not teach a great profusion of transitional forms from one division of life to another. Rather just the opposite is true. We find in the fossil record, for instance, that there is a sudden explosion of life at one period of time in the record, which is known as the Cambrian explosion. That means that virtually all divisions of animals appeared suddenly at the same time in the fossil record. There is no evidence of any ancestral forms before that animal beginning. They all came at the essential same time.
The question arises - if this is true, and it is true, then why do people still hold on and why is evolution still taught?
Let me give you a couple of quotations to help answer that question. Professor Lemaine, the curator of the Paris Museum said this. "Evolution is a kind of dogma in which its priests no longer believe, but which they preserve for the people."
Here's a second quotation from Dr. Louise Bournoure, Director of Research French National Center for Scientific Research. "Evolution is a fairy tale for grownups."
With that as a backdrop and a solid foundation against the falsehood of evolution, I want us to seriously study about evolution and about animals and what the Bible has to say about the animals. We will deal with some of the so-called “missing links” as we go along.
As we begin to look at our test on this 6th day of creation:
I. FIRST AMONG OUR CONSIDERATIONS SHOULD BE THE COMPOSITION OF THE ANIMALS. Verses 24 and 25 make three statements. "And God said." "And God made." "And God saw." In those three statements we have the circumstances involved in the creation of animal life. That is how animal life is constituted. That's how animal life was composed. “God said”, “God made”, and “God saw”. That's what the Bible has to say about it. There is no evidence in any way of transition. There is no evidence in any way of gradual development over millions and billions of years. It would be absolutely fantastic; it would be mind boggling to believe that all of the animal kingdom just came into existence by accident. It would be unbelievable that all of it just happened to be.
A. IN THE COMPOSITION OF ANIMALS THERE MAY BE SIMILARITIES. The more you read the various theories of how life began on the earth, the more amazing they become anyhow. I casually referred to you two or three studies ago about how some have taken the position that life actually originated in outer space and somehow got to the earth. There are some who say that what happened was that a germ of life was riding on a meteor and it needed to be disposed of. It needed to be dumped as garbage. So life was just dumped like garbage on the earth.
When I read that I thought about a lady who said to her friend, "You know, when I'm down in the dumps, I buy a hat”. Her friend said, "I wondered where you got them from."
Friends, you did not come from garbage. You are not something that has just been dumped on this earth. You are composed by God. Moreover, the animals were composed by God as well.
1. THERE IS A SIMILARITY IN SUPPLIES in terms of the animals and people. When we look at these statements this implies that there is a similarity. That animals are similar to people. There are some similarities. Verse 29 says "And God said, behold I have given you (Adam and Eve) every herb bearing seed (vegetation) which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed. To you it shall be for meat" (food). That's what God said to the man and the woman.
In verse 30 God says "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air and to every creeping thing upon the earth wherein is life, I have given every green thing for meat and it was so."
There is a common substance. When God put vegetation on this earth. By the way, the evidence is that at this point man originally was vegetarian. There is a reason why we are now permitted to eat meat. Not only man, but the animals, ate basically the same substance. The reason for this is - it will be reproduced all over the earth. The second reason is - it never is discontinued. There is a continuous supply. There is a continuous food chain going on.
THERE IS A SIMILARITY IN SUPPLIES on the part of the animal and on the part of people.
2 THERE IS A SIMILARITY OF SUBSTANCE. When you examine the chemical composition of animals and of people, you find that they are very similar in construction. Here's why. In verse 24 God says, "Let the earth bring forth”. Not that the earth produces the animals, but that the substance of the animals comes from the earth.
In Genesis 2:7 we have an expanded account of the creation of man. It says People - our substance - is basically the same as the substance you find in the earth in the ground. When you look at the DNA of the animals and the DNA of people and you will find that they are amazingly similar. About 98% of all the DNA of a monkey is the same as a person. Which means that God formed us, animals, and people, from the dust of the earth. However, the similarity in composition does not prove common ancestry. Rather it proves a common creator. The creator took the material He Himself had brought into existence. With that material He formed the animals. With that material He formed people. Similarity in supply. Similarity in substance.
THERE IS A SIMILARITY IN SUPPLIES
THERE IS A SIMILARITY OF SUBSTANCE.
3. THERE IS A SIMILARITY IN STRUCTURE. You will find that the structure of animals and people are very similar. You will find eyes. You will find hands or appendages. You will find feet. You will find similarity of structure in the way they function. However, the similarity of structure does not prove common ancestry, nor does it prove that one developed from the other.
Let me give you an example of that. Let's just suppose that you have different kinds of houses. You have a little doghouse. Then you have a little shack. Then you have a cottage. Then you have a condominium. Then you have an elaborate palace. What are you going to do? You know that they are all similar in structure. They are similar in substance. You see that they all have floors. You see that they all have ceilings. You see that they all have walls. What are you going to do? Are you going to assume that just because there is a similarity of substance and structure that one came from the other? So are you going to take the simplest form--the little doghouse - and put it here? Are you going to take the little shack and put it here? Are you going to take the cottage here and the condominium here and the palace here? Then are you are going to say - presto! That proves that the palace descended on the doghouse? That is no proof whatsoever of descent. It is only proof of similarity of design - similarity of structure.
IN THE COMPOSITION OF ANIMALS THERE MAY BE SIMILARITIES. Ninety-eight percent may be the same.
B. IN THE COMPOSITION OF ANIMALS THERE MAY BE DISSIMILARITIES. It is that 2% difference that makes all the difference in the world. There are other characteristics people have which are not common to the animals. A sense of morality, for instance. An awareness of esthetics, an awareness of beauty, an appreciation for the high and noble, an appreciation for art, an appreciation for music. There is a spiritual capacity God has placed in people that He has not placed in the animals.
I am saying to you that though there is a common composition - made from the same substances - there is an infinite difference between an animal and you. You, my friend, did not come from the animals.
Let's go a little further. I want you to see:
II. SECOND AMONG OUR CONSIDERATIONS SHOULD BE THE DISTINCTION OF THE ANIMALS.
A. THE THEORY THAT MAN DESCENDED FROM THE LOWER FORMS OF LIFE IS TO BE REJECTED BECAUSE IT IS NOT FACTUAL SCIENTIFICALLY. Did you notice in those two verses that little phrase that comes up again? We have met that phrase already in our study of the days of creation. It is that little phrase "after his kind”. Ten times that phrase occurs in Genesis 1. It occurs five times in the two verses which talk about God creating the animals. Basically, God is drawing the line. It seems as if God, knowing what the future would bring, knowing what the theory of evolution would say - that man descended from animals - five times God puts down His boundaries. God puts His reproductive limits on the animals, so that an animal never, ever will produce a human being.
What about those prehistoric animals? What about those ape men they show you in magazines and on television programs? When you pick up a book and you read and see those scary pictures, what is all of that about? Maybe you have seen some biological tree of life that appears in some textbooks, where did that come from?
Friends, the search has been on for over 150 years to find these transitional forms. In 1856 a man named Harold Cook found the remains of what came to be called the Nebraska man. You might see a picture of the Nebraska man in a museum. You might even see a Nebraska man and a woman, for that part. They estimated that Nebraska man was one million years old. At the Scopes Monkey Trial, in Dayton, Tennessee, which featured two well-known men in America. One man was William Jennings Bryan who was one of the godliest men in public life America has ever known. He was a candidate for president at one time. He was arguing against evolution. On the side for evolution was a man named George Darrow. In the course of that trial, they dropped this Nebraska man as evidence and proof that man came from the monkeys.
William Jennings Bryan had never heard of the Nebraska Man. He just simply said, "Let's wait until all of the evidence is in before we render a judgment. Let's be sure that we understand." They laughed at poor old William Jennings Bryan. They said, "He won't believe the assured results and findings of science." They laughed him out of school and dismissed him as some kind of ignorant, backwoods Bible-thumper because they had found Nebraska man.
What would you think they found when they found the Nebraska man? They found a tooth. That's all. Not two teeth. Not a mouthful of teeth. They found ONE tooth. Around that tooth they built Nebraska man. They drew pictures of Nebraska man. They had a wife for Nebraska man. They had babies for Nebraska man. They built it all around ONE tooth. Later on they found where that tooth came from. They found the rest of the animal. It turned out that the tooth they had found that they claimed was the Nebraska man over one million years old was from a pig.
Then in 1891 a man named Dr. Dubois announced the discovery of the Java Ape Man. That meant Ape man who stands up. You see, they had to have some transitional form, some kind of animal apelike being who could stand upright like men do. The word for man is “anthropos”, which means upright one. That's where you get the word, “anthropology”. So there had to be some kind of transitional form that would show an apelike creature who could stand? They found him in the Java ape man in 1891. Here's what Dr. Dubois found. He found the top of a skull, a left thighbone, and three teeth. Twenty-four imminent scientists gathered in Europe and studied the information of the Java ape man. Ten of those scientists said, "This is clearly an ape." Seven of those scientists said, "This is a man." Seven of those scientist said, "This is the missing link between an ape and a man." The point I'm trying to make is that there has never, ever been a unanimous consensus, even in the scientific community, about whether these so-called missing links were indeed transitional forms. Later on, Dr. Dubois reversed himself and came to believe that this indeed was not a transitional form, but a monkey all the time.
Now we come to 1912 and the Piltdown man. They show this in some textbooks and magazines. Charles Dawson found the Piltdown man. What did he find? He found a piece of a jaw, two molar teeth, and the piece of a skull. Moreover, they announced that this was Piltdown man and that it was thousands and thousands and yea, millions of years old. Then in 1956 Reader's Digest exploded the whole Piltdown hoax. As it turns out it was a hoax. In fact, somebody had filed down the teeth of this so-called Piltdown man and had colored those teeth to make them look much older than they were. It was a pure hoax. Some believe that some of the students of the professors were playing a little trick on the professor. There goes your Piltdown man.
Have you ever heard of Lucy? You will see Lucy in your Museums. You will have pictures of Lucy in your magazines. In 1974, Dr. Donald Johnson discovered Lucy. He said that Lucy was 4 million years old and that here was a missing link - an ape man - a transitional form that walked upright. How in the world did Professor Johnson prove that Lucy walked upright? He found a knee joint. He said that knee joint proved that Lucy was an ape or a transitional form between an ape and a person. Later on it came out that the kneecap was found two miles away from the skeleton of the rest of the animal. It is now the considered opinion of many in the field of paleontology that what he found was no transitional form at all. Rather he found a chimpanzee about three feet tall, weighing 35 pounds. No transitional form at all.
What you really have in these missing links is this. You have art rather than science. You have imagination rather than genuine investigation. You take an imagination and some plaster of pairs and you can build a whole race of imaginary creatures. There is no solid evidence to be found anywhere on this earth that man descended from the lower forms of life, especially from some monkey.
I was told that there is a professor at Emory University, who at one time was the director of the Primate Center there and he had a brand new view of the whole thing. He came up with the idea that rather than man being descended from the monkeys, monkeys are descended from men. That is his view.
When I read that I said to myself, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!"
I heard about a monkey that was walking out of the library with a copy of Charles Darwin's “ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES” under one arm and the Bible under the other arm. Somebody asked him, "Monkey, what are you doing?" He said, "I'm just trying to find out if I'm my brother's keeper or my keeper's brother”.
The animals are distinct from human beings. People are different from the animals.
A. THE THEORY THAT MAN DESCENDED FROM THE LOWER FORMS OF LIFE IS TO BE REJECTED BECAUSE IT IS NOT FACTUAL SCIENTIFICALLY.
B. THE THEORY THAT MAN DESCENDED FROM THE LOWER FORMS OF LIFE IS TO BE REJECTED BECAUSE IT IS NOT FACTUAL SPIRITUALLY. There are serious spiritual problems. If evolution is true, evolution is an attempt to explain your existence without the existence of a supernatural God. If there is no supernatural God who created you, if you are just some kind of accidental result of evolutionary process, then there is nothing basically different between you and the animals. You are just another animal. If that is true, there is no God to whom you answer. There is no God to whom you must give an account. If that is true, there is no morality. There is no right and there is no wrong. Human life becomes very cheap. When a little baby is aborted in the womb of its mother, it's like a dog dying out in the garbage can.
I'm here to tell you that you are very special to God. There is a God. I am here to tell you that God created you in His image. You are accountable to God. God sent His son the Lord Jesus Christ to die on the cross for your sins and you are valuable because Christ shed His blood that you might be saved.
Because you are made in God’s image, you have feelings, emotions, and a sense of right and wrong, you have thoughts about the past, the present, and the future. You have all the attributes that God will allow a human being to have on this earth. You have a constant audience with God with the mere mention of His name. He is just a breath away at all times. A tear never fall that He does not catch, a hurt is never felt that He does not feel, a prayer is never prayed that He does not hear. A good deed is never done in Jesus name that is not or will not be rewarded. A friend is never absent with Jesus by your side. Wisdom is never lacking while you trust the Holy Spirit in all your ways and lean not upon your own understanding. As a human being that is a child of God you are just one heartbeat away from an eternity with God. The life you now live is only a journey of which you are passing through this wonderful creation called “the world”. So be encouraged my friend you are much more than some men want to give you credit for being – you are God’s creation you are man – you are woman – you are boy and girl.
To find more help in receiving Jesus Christ as your personal Savior please go to the Bible Study Title Page “ETERNAL LIFE”. Please send me an email and respond to me about any decision for Christ you make so that I may pray for you. Feel free to send me any questions, comments, or responses you may have as well. For those who are already Christians I invite you to also please let me know of any decisions you make in your Christian life for Jesus. Feel free to send me any questions, comments, or responses you may have and let me know if the Bible Studies are helping you. [ rfdenning1951@gmail.com]
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