Adrian Rogers sample sermon

The World in a Week By Adrian Rogers Main Scripture Text: Genesis 1:1 Outline Introduction I. The Meaning of the Days II. The Miracle of the Days III. The Message of the Days Introduction And, I want you to pay attention today, to the message from God's Word and incidentally, again our scripture is very easy to find. Genesis 1:1. Turn to it, would you please. The first book and the first chapter and the first verse. Today we're speaking on this subject, "A World in a Week"—"A World in a Week." We find here the story of the creation and the formation of the world in a week. I begin here in Genesis 1:1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be light, and there was light and God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Now let's just stop right there. The evening and the morning were the first day. In 1859, Darwin wrote his famous book, The Origin of the Species, and in that book he proposed to tell us from whence we came. And he talked about the origin of the species. I've been thinking about that. And I believe that the destiny of the species is far more important than the origin. Now, I'm not demeaning the origin. And we need to know and learn from whence we came. And I trust this morning we will and I just want you to draw close and listen and tell you, dear friend, from whence you've come has already been decided wherever it was. But where you're headed the destiny of the species may not yet be decided in your own heart and in your mind and so you'd better pay attention. And it is the Bible, not Charles Darwin, that's going to tell you both about the origin and the destiny of the species. And I'm so glad today that we could talk about these things. And you say, oh the destiny, that's so far away. Not necessarily. Eternity is just a heartbeat away. Eternity is just around the corner. You know, sometimes we get in a habit of talking about some horrendous experience we went through. Maybe an automobile accident, or something like that, and we say I've never been so close to death in my life. But, friend, you weren't close to death at all because you're still living. You are closer to death now than you've ever been in your life, this moment. You're closer to death now than you've ever been. And one second from this you'll be even yet closer to death. What I'm trying to tell you is this: that your destiny is right around the corner—only a heartbeat away from many who are listening to me right now. And so, we need to pay attention as to what God says not only about the origin of the specie but the destiny of the species. And I believe that both are told us very clearly here in the first chapter of the book of Genesis, and in the message that we're going to entitle today, "A World in a Week." Three basic little simple thoughts I want us to gather the rest of our thoughts around this morning. First of all I want us think of the meaning of the days as we think about these days in the week listed here in Genesis 1. And then secondly, I want us think about the miracle of those days. And thirdly, I want us to think about the message of those days—a very simple little outline. I. The Meaning of the Days But, notice if you will please, in Genesis 1:5, "And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And then look if you will please in verse 8. "And God called the firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning were the second day." And then look if you will please: "And the evening and the morning were the third day." In verse 13. And six times we find this specific statement, The evening and the morning were the first day, the second day, the third day, the fourth day, the fifth day, the sixth day. Now, what is the meaning of these days? Because the word day is used in the Bible in many different ways over 1400 times it's, it's listed in the Bible, this word day. And it's translated about 44 different ways in the King James Version of the Bible. This one Hebrew word yom—y-o-m—is translated many ways. And so, as we look at these days—the evening and the morning were the first day—we want to ask ourselves, what did God mean? Did He mean literal 24-hour days as we mean them? Because some people have tried to make the Bible coincide with geology. You know, the geologists and the uniformitarianist school of thought tell us that the world is actually billions and billions of years old. And so, they try to say that these days were not literal days but these days were great ages that God just simply called days. Now, let me say that the word day is used in the Bible in several senses. The word day does mean a 24-hour day. That's ones use. Actually, it's not 24 hours; it's 23 hours, 56 minutes, and four seconds, if you want to be a nitpicker. But anyway, that talks about the time that the earth revolves on it's axis one time. And the Bible calls that a day. The evening and the morning were the first day. But, then also, the Bible calls that portion of what we call a day—that is daylight. The Bible also calls that a day. For example, you can see in 1:5, "And God called the light day and the darkness, he called night." So right away, there's a different use of the word day other than the 24-hour day, the evening and the morning being a day. But then, God also uses the word day in a generalized sense just to mean an indefinite period of time. Here's an interesting verse, so you can just jot it down in your margin—Isaiah 4:1: "And in that day, seven women shall take hold of one man saying we will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel only let us be called by thy name." Hmm, fellows, there's coming a day, when there will be seven women after you. And, just say, I'll make my own way, just let me use your name. I'm not sure what that means. I'm not going to preach on that today. But anyway, I'm just going to tell you that I'm using that phrase there to show you that God speaks of the word day, He says, in that day, in that general period of time. So the word day there is used to talk about a general period of time And then, the word day is used to talk about an inclusive period of time. For example, look, if you will, in Genesis 2:4: "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." The day, and yet we find out that God did it in six days and rested on the seventh. And, yet, God called all those six days, one day. See. So, I'm trying to say that's just not just a simple thing when we're talking about the days. Are these days that we're talking about, are they indefinite periods of time, sort of like geological ages. Or do these days refer to 24-hour periods of time? Or do they refer just to daylight? Or do they refer to an inclusive period of time and so forth? I want to tell you that I believe that God made this world in six 24-hour days. That's what I believe. And, thank you for those amens. I was afraid so of you were going to arch your eyebrows when I said that. But, I believe that. I believe that God made it all in six 24-hour periods of time. Now, having said that, let me just tell you why I believe that. First of all, I don't have any difficulty believing that. Because I believe in God, you know, it's no difficulty for me to believe that God made it all in six days. God could have made it all in six seconds. Amen? That's no difficulty. You believe in God, you don't have any difficulty with those kind of questions. That doesn't bother me one little bit, because I believe in God. Remember, the Bible says, "In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and earth." And remember, Elohim is that word for God which speaks of His mighty strength. Elohim made it all. But, let me tell you why I believe that it was six 24-hour periods. First of all, just the normal usage of the word—the evening and the morning. If you were to read that, just look at, just the normal usage of the normal language, letting language say what it seems to say, you would say that's a 24-hour period. The evening and the morning were the first day. The evening and the morning were the second day. The evening and the morning, the third day, and so forth. Just the plain use of the language. The other thing is this: that if you make these geological ages, you get into all kinds of difficulty. For example, if you have on the third day, plant life created, and it was created, and then on the fourth day, you have the sun that's made to appear, well, you've got some real difficulty there. Because, if you make these geological ages, you've got hundreds of thousands and millions of years with plant life and no sunlight. You see the problem there? The sun gives energy and life to the plants. And all plants operate by a process that we call photosynthesis, which means, literally, "put together with light." And so, you have an impossibility. And then again, you find out that, on the fifth day, the sun's not made you see until the fourth day, and then, on the fifth day, you have animal life that is created. Now, these are geological ages, and great ages, you have hundreds of thousands of years of plant life and no sunlight, and then, finally, you have animal life and everybody knows that animal life and plant life are interdependent. And so, the animals eat the plants and the animals breathe, and give out carbon dioxide, take in oxygen, the plants take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen, and it's necessary. Many plants cannot exist without the pollination of little insects, and so forth, that would not have been created until hundreds and thousands and millions of years later. We make these geological ages. So, I just believe it, like God said it—like I believe God said it. God just created the whole shebang in six days. I mean, God just spoke and it was so, and God just moved through, and God said, "Let there be light, and there was Light." And God said, "Let the earth appear, and the earth appeared." Let the sun, moon, stars shine, and gave animal life, created man, all of it. I believe that God did it in six days. And I believe that as you look through the Bible and read the language of the Bible, it is like that the writers of the Bible believe. For example, in Exodus 20, where Moses is talking about the Sabbath, he says in verse 11, listen to this, put it in your margin, Exodus 20:11, "And in six days the Lord made heaven and the earth, the sea and all that in them is and rested the seventh day. Wherefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." Now, just reading that, it seems obvious that Moses believed that God did it in six literal days because he's referring to the Sabbath which is a literal day, a literal 24-hour period, you see. Now, some people say, oh he's talking about a Sabbath age, they say that one, two, three, four, six work days and then geological age, the Sabbath day. We're living in the last generation. And, they think that the Sabbath time started from creation and we're all living in the final Sabbath. Well, God, you have some real difficulty, because the Bible says, God rested on the Sabbath day. If you make it an age, what are you going to do with that statement where the Bible says, Jesus speaking, said, "My father worketh here to and I work." See, God's not resting according to Jesus, He was working. So, what I'm trying to say is, that these are, in my estimation literal 24-hour days. I don't have difficulty believing that at all. I just accept it. I say praise God for it. I have a God of might, a God of miracle, a God who did it like He said He did it in the Bible. I believe the simplest way is to read it and believe it. Somebody said, if God didn't mean what He said, why didn't He say what He meant. And so, God made these things, I believe, in six 24-hour days. II. The Miracle of the Days Now, let's talk, let's move on, and talk not only about the meaning of the days, but, let's talk a little bit about the miracle of the days. I believe that God did it miraculously. Now, you say, well Brother Rogers, doesn't that bring you into conflict with science? True science and true Bible never conflict because God wrote two books. God wrote this book, His inspired, inerrant, infallible Word, and then also God made the book of nature. I mean, God created nature, and nature is in a sense, His book. The Bible says, Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There are books and brooks, and sermons and stones and God in everything. You see, all of this shows the glory of God. God made it all. And, God, who wrote this book, and God who created this world, He's not going to have any difficulty putting these things together. I mean, its scientific proof didn't sneak upon God. God knows it all. Nobody needed to inform God. God knew about all of this and if all Scripture's given by inspiration of God, there is no conflict between true science and true Bible. Now, often there's a conflict between the Bible and what is called science. As the Bible says, science falsely so-called. And I'm glad, I am definitely glad that the Bible doesn't always agree with what some men call science, because what some men call science changes, and what we believed yesterday is not necessarily believed today. And had the Bible agreed with what we believed yesterday, then the Bible would have been proven false today. So, I just say, let God be true and let every man be a liar and we don't check out our Bible by the science. We check out the science by our Bible. And not only that, but I don't believe there's a conflict between true science and true Scripture. And I don't believe there needs to be any kind of a fuss. But, now, what about this matter of evolution, therefore? What about the theory of evolution? And, notice I call it theory. The theory of evolution. Evolution is a theory. Now, anybody who tells you that evolution is a fact is lying to you. I mean that. He may want to believe that it is fact. But it has never been proven as a fact. It is a theory. It is a theory. I heard of a woman who called her husband theory rather than dearie, because he didn't work. And you need to understand that this thing called evolution does not work. It is a theory, and I reject it. I'm gonna tell you why I reject it in a moment. I reject it for three reasons. I reject it first of all, for a logical reason. I reject it secondly, for a theological reason. I reject it thirdly, for a moral reason. And, I'm going to discuss those three reasons with you in a little bit. But, I want to tell you, you're looking at a guy, you know, some people will look at you like you've got rooms to rent upstairs unfurnished, if you don't believe in evolution. But, I want to tell you, I reject that monkey mythology. And, I want to tell you why I reject it, and give you the reasons I reject it. And then, of course, you're going to have to make up your mind for yourself. But before we do that, let me tell you what the theory of evolution is. Now, of course, there are many different varieties of evolutionists, just as there many different varieties of people in all schools of thought. And so, let's just go back to what Darwin had to say about evolution. Of course, not all evolutionists today agree with Darwin in every detail. But, here's what Darwin said in The Origin of the Species, on page 523: "Analogy would lead me to the belief that all animals and plants, all of them now, are descended from someone prototype. All organisms start from a common origin and from such low and intermediate forms, both animals and plants may have been developed. All the organic things which have ever lived on the earth may be descended from some one primordial form." That is, here at the beginning was a little blob of life. A little amoeba-like substance, a little bit of scum, and out of that, it all came. They believe that somehow, by spontaneous generation of something, a one-celled life substance began. And that one-cell life substance that began somewhere in some primitive soup, finally, became a worm, an unsegmented worm. That unsegmented worm finally became a fish, and that fish finally, after it wiggled around for eons, became an amphibian, and that amphibian finally crawled out, and became a bird, and after a while that bird became a mammal, and after a while, that mammal became a man. Now, that's what they ask you to believe. And I've told you—friend, listen to me—it takes more faith to believe the monkey story than it does the Word of God. I'm serious. Once I was a tadpole, beginning to begin, then I was a frog with my tail tucked in, then I was a monkey in a banyan tree, and now I am a professor with a P.H.D. Now, that's what they want you to believe. That, you know, we just came on up and it all happened. And it all happened by chance. They believe�