SC: A rainy but awesome start

I’ve said it before: Californians do not know how to drive in the rain. Though I left the house with plenty of time, I was still forty minutes late. Thankfully, there was no accident contributing to the slowdown. In the very least, though, that would have explained the average highway speed of fifteen miles per hour.

So, unfortunately, I could not join in the singing this morning. It’s a shame, too; I even bought a sleek black jacket for the occasion!

Oh well, enough on that. I’m sitting here in the overflow watching the opening session on the projector. Folks are trickling in, and despite the rain, this should be a wonderful conference.

Note that two years ago, MacArthur opened with the message, “Why every self-respecting Calvinist must be a dispensationalist.” Last year, he opened with, “Why every self-respecting Calvinist must reject church-growth methods.” After opening by reading Genesis 1:1–2:4, he entitled this year’s message, “Why every self-respecting Calvinist must be a six-day creationist.”

“Whoever created the universe understands how it works. Perfectly…. He is not waiting for scientific advances to help Him figure it out.”

He compared to the sacred texts of the Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists, Mormons, Christian Science (capital letters) folks, texts of which give inaccurate accounts on origins. If the Creator wrote a book, it is not unreasonable for us to expect it to be truthful in matters concerning the creation.

There are three words to consider when approaching Genesis 1.

1. Fidelity
“Either you believe what Scripture says or you don’t.” He goes on to make this bold statement: there is no such thing as creation science. No science explains creation. All creation scientists can do is demonstrate the absurdity of evolution—they cannot demonstrate creation.

How does one explain the resurrection of Lazarus, or the multiplication of the fish and bread when Jesus fed the 5,000? Science could demonstrate the nature of the fish and bread, and could examine Lazarus, and establish all the physical material elements, but it could not explain the miraculous.

If you cannot trust the first chapter of the Bible, then there are the hundreds of chapters remaining in the sixty-six books of the Bible that we must also question.

Evolution is hostile to everything Christian. It was invented to reject the Creator of Genesis, rejecting a God who is the Lawgiver and Judge.

2. Simplicity
Divine revelation is clear. Constantly the word “day” is used. Man was created in a day, at the beginning according to Christ.

Consider Psalm 104—a rejection of creationism robs God of praise. In Isaiah 40:28; 42:5—God’s creative power is linked to His redemptive power.

We need to take a stand on Scripture at the beginning of Scripture.

3. Priority
History will end only when God’s goals are achieved. The universe will end in an implosion when God’s scheme is done.

Consider Isa 46:9–10: when God began the universe, He already ordained how it would end. Colossians 1:15–16 says that all things were created by Christ for Christ.

What are we to do if there was no real Adam, but a line of “half-monkey men?” What does this do to redemption if Christ is constantly compared to Adam in the New Testament? What does it do to our salvation if the light spoken of in 2 Corinthians 4:6 took billions of years to shine—that the spiritual light shines very slowly in our hearts?

Not content to blast those Christians who are squishy on the topic of creation, he then turns his impressive guns against Christian environmentalists.

We’re not only messing with the beginning, but now we’re starting to mess with the ending. Look at the “uncreation,” 2 Peter 3. Everything is going to be destroyed. MacArthur is tired of the greening of Evangelicalism. Why are we spending our (Evangelical) money to save the planet from the damage of people? God cursed the creation: He started all the weeds and disasters.

MacArthur states that human poverty is a failure to subdue creation. Green Evangelicals seem to skip over Genesis 3 and the curse. “If it wasn’t for human care… this earth would be uninhabitable.” If we want to help impoverished people, we need more technology, not less. Global Warming efforts in coming years will kill between 20-50 million people because it halts progress. He shows figures, of course, to back up these claims, but too fast for me to type.

He begins his concluding remarks with, “So, step on the grass, kill a deer, drill for oil now.” He read from Genesis 8:22, in which God promised, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” MacArthur adds, “So relax.”