Some Things I Know
Meditation for the week of September 13, 2009
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
There are some things I know and a lot of things I don’t know. For example, I know there is a God because of the world that He designed, but I don’t know where God came from. Logically He can’t even exist because if something has no beginning, it doesn’t exist in our world. But just as you can’t have a car that wasn’t built and you can’t have a house that just “happens” unless your house is a cave, you can’t have a world like ours without a Creator who calls Himself “God” or “the mighty or supreme One”.
I don’t know what happened in the beginnings of beginnings since the concept of eternity doesn’t allow for a beginning. I do know that the Bible does not tell us about the beginnings of beginnings. Instead it tells us about the beginning of our history. In John 1:1, we read, “In the beginning was the Word.” If there was no beginning what is John saying? I think he is saying, “Once upon a time there was the Word.” In other words, in the beginning of this story there was the Word. Other Bible authors refer to beginnings but it is always the beginning of the part of our story that they are telling us about, and not the beginning of time.
God has revealed Himself to us through the written Word (the Bible) and though the living Word (Christ). But He hasn’t told us everything. Sometimes we spend more time trying to understand what He hasn’t told us than we do trying to understand what He has told us. This tends to get us into trouble. We would do better if we would ask why God has not revealed some things to us, rather than trying to figure out what he has not revealed. We really don’t need to know how God could have always existed to worship Him as the God who provided us with a beginning.
I am convinced that those who have faith in God and who work with His divine revelation in trying to understand this world are going to accomplish a whole lot more than those who resist the Truth of God. Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” So I take it that the opposite is also true. If we are lacking faith in God, we are also lacking understanding. 2 Corinthians 4:3 says, “whose minds the god of this age (or Satan who is a deceiver) has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” Those who do not believe in God are blinded. Unbelievers may be educated and they may think that they have the answers, but they are being “spoiled” or cheated through philosophy (men’s reasonings) and empty deceit (empty lies).
I have listened to a number of sermons on creation in the last year or two and, frankly, I have had more questions raised about our ability to reconcile faith and science than I had before. There are a lot of things I don’t understand, but I understand this: God did it. I not only understand that God created the heavens and the earth, but that Satan came along and spoiled God’s creation. It is as though Satan took a sledge hammer to the beauty that God had created. He didn’t want God to enjoy what He had made. Satan is now trying to convince men and women that Christ is not the only path to God. I now understand by faith that what God does Satan does his best to destroy. And He does that by planting doubt and unbelief in the heart of mankind.
Isn’t it a shame, that we feel we have to understand things God has not told us in order to trust Him? Satan blinds us to the blessings of God because we aren’t simple enough to just take God at His Word and believe what He says. God created the Heavens and the earth. I’m simple enough to believe that. God sent His Son to the cross to die for my sins so that I could have a place that as a sinner I do not deserve in His new heaven and new earth. I am simple enough to believe that as well.
Bruce Collins