26-1025p Transcript

(1:46) This sermon is entitled, (1:49) All Things Continue. It’s a question, by the way.

Take the statement of the scoffers and (1:57) turn it into a question. All things continue as they were? In the witness of Genesis 5. The (2:06) exhibit already in hand. This morning, we read the book of the generations of Adam.

We saw the (2:15) careful record. A man lived so many years, begets the named son, lives additional years, and then (2:24) the refrain comes, and he died. And Genesis chapter 5 verses 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 27, and 31 all say, (2:38) and he died.

We saw that the numbers are not decorative. They invite the continuous timeline (2:46) from Adam through the line of Seth to the generation that enters the ark. When the record is joined to (2:55) Genesis 11, the same method carries the line forward through the flood and up to Abraham, which is, by (3:04) the way, something we can measure.

So we have a person that we have some idea of where he fits in (3:16) modern chronology in which to gauge the chronology from Abraham on. It’s interesting to note that of (3:29) all the genealogies in the scripture, some of them have the ages, but not as detailed as chapter 5 and (3:38) chapter 11. The two chapters that allow us to go from Abraham all the way back to Adam are detailed (3:52) by age.

We can specifically use it to create a timeline from Abraham to Adam. They’re the only two. (4:05) The others have partial, and it’s very hard to establish timelines by those genealogies.

But chapter 5 and (4:17) chapter 11, no problem. That’s design. Anyway, the written account is the concrete exhibit we bring into (4:33) this evening.

It does not speak in abstractions. It records a beginning that is not uniform, a death that (4:43) entered the line of Adam, and a world that later perished under judgment. The text treats these as real (4:53) events in a real sequence.

That is the material we set against the claim that all things continue as they were (5:03) from the beginning of creation. The scoffers' objection, Peter describes that form of the objection this way. (5:15) Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful (5:29) desires.

They will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things (5:42) continue as they were from the beginning of creation, 2 Peter 3, verses 3 and 4. The assumption is uniformitarianism. (5:54) The process we observe today have always operated at the same rates and in the same way. No decisive beginning by (6:04) the word of God.

No global judgment that destroyed the world that then existed. History is simply the long uninterrupted (6:14) continuation of present conditions. The phrase from the beginning of creation is telling.

The scoffers do not (6:23) deny that a beginning occurred. They deny that it was the kind of beginning scripture describes, one brought about by (6:33) the word of God and later interrupted by judgment. And they’re telling creation itself is simply the start of the (6:43) same continuous processes still running.

The absence of visible catastrophic divine intervention in their own (6:53) experience is treated as proof that none has ever occurred and none should be expected. And Peter’s response, Peter’s (7:06) reply is direct. He says they deliberately forget two things the word of God has already done in 2 Peter 3, 5. The first is (7:18) creation by the word of God or by the word of God.

The heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and (7:28) through water. The beginning was not the mere onset of the processes still running today. It was an act of divine speech that (7:41) brought the ordered world into being.

And second, they deliberately forget a flood by means of these and that the world that then (7:53) existed was deluged with water and perished. These refers to the word of God and the water just named. The same two agencies that (8:04) formed the earth later destroyed the world that then existed.

The parallel of the creation account is deliberate. In the beginning, the (8:17) earth was covered by water and dry land appeared at God’s word, Genesis 1, 9 and 10. In the flood, the earth was again covered by water and dry (8:29) land later reappeared.

The same word and the same waters that once ordered the world later returned it to the water covered state and then (8:40) caused dry land to reemerge once more. Continuity was broken by judgment. This was not a restoration of the unfallen world.

The curse (8:52) remained, but it was a decisive divine reordering. The book of the generations of Adam with its timeline running up to Noah and its repeated notice of (9:04) death belongs inside the same history. It records the consequences of the first judgment, death, and the approach of the second, the flood.

And Peter draws the (9:20) direct consequence. But by the same word, the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the (9:36) ungodly. 2nd Peter 3, 7. 2nd Peter, yeah, 3, verse 7. The word that created and the word that brought the flood is the word that now reserves the present world for a (9:52) future judgment.

The scoffers uniformitarianism assumption fails in both directions. It misreads the past and therefore misreads the future. The delay of the coming is not evidence that the promise has failed.

The same powerful word remains in force. And the same apostle who described the flood this way also treats those waters as a type. (10:21) And 1st Peter, in 1st Peter 3, verses 20 and 21, he notes that eight persons were brought safely through water and that baptism corresponds to this or is the anti-type of this.

The historical judgment by water is real. It also carries typological weight. For tonight, however, the point remains the one Peter presses in the second letter.

(10:47) The flood already demonstrates that all things have not continued as they were. The schemes which we are not to be ignorant of. Paul writes that we are not to be outwitted by Satan for we are not ignorant of his designs.

2nd Corinthians 2, 11. (11:10) The schemes are identifiable. They are not random.

In the realm of origins and history, they take recognizable forms. And Del Tackett has often noted that the adversary strategy is less about open worship of themselves and more about distorting or suppressing the truth so that people live as if the supernatural is irrelevant. (11:37) The goal is a functional naturalism, even among those who may still use religious language.

Several of those devices appear precisely where the plain reading of the text like Genesis 5 is at stake. (11:57) The uniformitarian premise already made by Peter, present processes are the sole key to the past. All things have gone on as they have from the beginning.

Divine action is excluded in advance. (12:14) Methodological naturalism, the rule that only natural causes may be considered. Supernatural agency is ruled out by definition rather than by evidence.

They have no evidence that there is not a supernatural realm. They just exclude it by definition. (12:39) Deliberate forgetfulness or suppression of what the word of God has done.

2nd Peter 3 and Romans 1, 18-21. (12:49) Philosophical captivity. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human traditions, according to the elementary spirits of the world, and not according to Christ, Colossians 2.8. (13:04) Systems built on human tradition and the elementary principles of the world reinterpret the written record so that the timeline, the "and he died" refrain, and the preservation of the seed no longer speak of real events.

They try to turn it into mythology. (13:26) A strong delusion. Once the truth is refused, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false.

2 Thessalonians 2.11. (13:38) This delusion is the divine response to willful rejection of revealed truth, resulting in deepening belief in falsehood. (13:49) Their refusal of the truth is the same pattern Peter calls deliberate forgetfulness and Paul elsewhere calls given over to. (13:58) The strong delusion principle helps explain why uniformitarianism or naturalistic accounts can become settled convictions even in the face of the concrete record in Genesis 5. (14:14) These are the schemes and they make the concrete data of the book of Genesis and book of generations of Adam appear implausible or irrelevant.

(14:24) Recognizing them is part of not being ignorant of the design of Satan’s designs. (14:34) The counter the scripture supplies. Scripture does not leave the believer without a positive account.

(14:41) There are two real realms. The spiritual realm is not an optional overlay on an otherwise (14:50) self-sufficient natural order. It is the context in which the natural realm exists and is understood.

(14:59) Information about the unseen is given by revelation and is received by faith. The conviction of things (15:08) not seen. Hebrews 11.1. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, (15:17) not natural processes, so that what is seen was not made out of the things that are visible.

(15:25) Another way of saying that is so that what is seen was made out of things not seen, (15:34) things invisible. That is the spiritual realm is invisible to us and it can provide (15:42) an explanation for why the physical exists. (15:48) Genesis itself is written from that standpoint.

It records God’s speech, God’s judgment, (15:55) and God’s preservation of the line. It does not pretend that the physical realm can be fully (16:01) explained from inside itself, which is what the natural people are saying. That again, (16:08) which they can’t show.

Something must have always existed and the natural order we observe (16:15) is contingent. It does not contain within itself the sufficient reason for its own existence. (16:23) To say that matter, energy, or impersonal laws have always been is itself a claim that rests (16:33) on faith.

They can’t prove that. They’re taking that at face value. (16:41) Anyway, naturalism does not escape the necessity of faith.

It only refuses to name it. (16:50) Revelation states its dependence openly. The world came into being by the word of God.

Death (16:56) entered by transgression. A line was preserved and a judgment came that ended the world that (17:02) then existed. Both explanations require faith.

Only one is honest about that fact. (17:14) The Book of Generations of Adam is part of the honest record. It documents the entrance and (17:23) reign of death.

It documents the unbroken line through which the promise continued. (17:32) It supplies the chronological markers that let our readers see the sequence leading to the flood. (17:39) It stands as a written witness against the claim that all things have continued as they were (17:47) from the beginning.

And so concluding, holding the record, we are not required to force the text (17:57) into a framework that begins by denying what this text affirms. The same written account that records (18:07) and he died also records the preservation of the seed. The same timeline that runs from Adam to (18:15) Noah also runs forward to the later history.

Scripture itself connects to that line. (18:21) When later voices insist that the only admissible history is the history of uninterrupted natural (18:29) processes, the Book of Generations remains what it has always been. A concrete exhibit that the (18:37) world did not begin as it now continues.

The death, that death is an intruder and that God (18:47) has spoken and acted in the sequence of real events. The task is not to invent a new reading (18:57) that satisfies the scoffer. The task is to keep the record that has been given to recognize the (19:05) schemes so we are not outwitted by them and to answer with the same plain reading that has carried (19:14) us from the beginning of Genesis to this chapter.

Don’t change the word. That’s the sermon. (19:23) So the invitation is being extended.

Anyone subject to it. (19:27)