Date of message: 20 October 2002
Subject: Wonderfully Created In The Image Of God

Shalom, Boker-tov (good morning),

Recently I was watching a Discovery Channel show discussing the Charles Darwin Theory of Evolution and I recalled they showed pictures of the various stages of the evolution of the ape into modern man as we are today. And the presenter made the comment that the whole evolution process took millions of years. That was interesting. It is interesting because I cannot find the answer in the Bible.

What I do find in the Bible is that God is the Creator and the Hebrew word for God the Creator is ELOHIM and the word is in its plural tense signifying that there is more than one Person in God. In fact God is made up of three Persons - God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. Adding up the ages of all the various generations right up to Adam will give us the approximate number of years as slightly over 6000 years and this is well below the age that scientists had given as the age of mankind. Some archeologists had even said that man existed for millions of years and how they came to this conclusion, I do not know. What is important is that the Bible has recorded for us what God the Holy Spirit wants us to know and I believe it is the only correct record.

Did God really create everything in six days? Or did Moses record it as six days because man is finite and is limited in his comprehension of everything? Some bible students believe that God indeed completed His grand creation in six calendar days while another group believes that the six days mentioned in Genesis Chapter One was symbolic; that it was actually tens of thousands or even millions of years. The six days mentioned in the Creation account was the six physical days that God took to reveal to Moses while he was up on Mt Sinai (another name is Mount Horeb).

It is an established fact that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament and that he spent two parcels of forty days up on the mountain. We know that in the first parcel of forty days, the LORD revealed to Moses the Tabernacle and all its furniture (recorded for us in Exodus chapters 24 - 31). When he came down from the mountain and saw that the Children of Israel made a golden calf and was worshipping the idol, he threw the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments engraved on them at the calf and broke the tablets.

After a few days, the LORD commanded Moses to go up Mt Sinai again to receive the second slabs of the ten commandments and this time we do not have a record of what the LORD revealed to Moses. In the first meeting, the LORD revealed His heart to Moses and showed him at length what His Son would be like in types and representations. However, there is no record of the proceedings while Moses was up there for the second time. Since we do have the five books, I tend to think that the LORD showed Moses His creation story and talked about the great ancestors of Moses - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve brothers and especially Joseph and his exploits in Egypt. It must have been the longest story telling for Moses and also must have been the most interesting one as the Storyteller is none other than the LORD Himself.

In Genesis Chapter One, we read of the Creation and from the text, we can draw two very important principles of creation.

1. The created thing is made out of the environment that it is meant to be in.
" When God created light, He spoke to the darkness, "Let there be light," and light came forth.
" God spoke to the waters and created heaven.
" He then spoke to the waters below the heavens and separated the dry land from the seas.
" Likewise, He spoke to the earth, "let the earth sprout vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them," and it was so.
" God spoke to the heavens and created day and night.

" When God wanted to create the fish and all the sea creatures, He spoke to the waters and out came all the living creatures of the sea.
" In the same manner, He spoke to the earth and brought forth land creatures, all kinds of living things that populate this earth.

" Finally, on the sixth day, Elohim God spoke to themselves, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth," and man was created. The Bible says that God created man in His own image (Genesis 1: 26 - 27) and He blessed them and commanded them to be fruitful and to multiply.
2. The creature must continue to stay in the environment that it is created in.
" The fish must live in the waters and once it is taken out, it can no longer breathe but must die. Its gills are not made to breathe air directly.

" The stars in the sky must stay in their orbits. Any star that falls out of its orbit will become a dead star and will very quickly disintegrate - explode and become millions of smaller particles (that is how the Milky Way was formed according to astronomers) or implode and become a black hole.

" Animals cannot live in the waters permanently as they do not have the apparatus to do so; they do not have gills that act as a filtration to extract oxygen from the water and thus enable the animal to continue to live.

" In the same manner, mankind cannot live in the water permanently as we do not have gills to filter the air to enable us to breathe normally. Granted that man can live under the water for months as in a submarine or in an enclosure with the necessary oxygen but take him out of that vessel, he will die. This is the natural law of creation.
3. Man did not evolve from apes.

" Man is wonderfully created by Elohim God in His image. If Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution is indeed true, then I find it very hard to believe that certain apes chose to evolve and become humans (homo-sapiens) while some other continue to exist as apes. Why the distinction? What are the selection criteria?

" No, I submit to you that man is indeed created by God. Scientists have found that man has something extra that animals do not have. We have a spirit while all the animals do not have any spirit. We have a spirit because we have been created in the image of God and since He has a Spirit, so do we. Look around and you will begin to realize that because man has a spirit, his spirit will not rest until it has found its Source.

Charles Darwin, in the later part of his life, was known to have commented that he regretted coming forth with his Theory of Evolution. He apologized for the heartaches caused and the confusion made. That is why it is, to this day, only a theory, not a Principle or Law. Theories have no proven basis while Principles are usually time-proven and time-tested.
Man is different from the rest of God's creation. He has a spirit and this spirit must find its Counterpart, the Holy Spirit. Some have turned to other spiritual beings to find solace but their search cannot be over until they have found the Creator. I have seen the mediums chanting away during funeral wakes but from their expressions it is very obvious that they are still void of happiness.

There is only one truth and that truth is that we are created by the LORD God Almighty (YHVH Elohim Shaddai) and until our spirits are reunited with His Spirit, they will not be satisfied. If you have made up your mind to follow Jesus and to receive Him into your life, why not spend a couple of minutes to pray the following prayer, a simple act of faith.

Our Abba Father, thank you that You created me in Your image and that I am different from everything else. Because we are created in Your image and because You love us so much, You sent us Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came, loved You and loved us and was obedient to You even to the point that He died for all our sins and now we are made righteous before Your presence.

Thank you Lord Jesus that You took all our curses in Your body so that we can receive Your blessings in our lives. Thank you that we are made righteous by Your righteousness and that we are now children of the LORD and joint heirs with You in Your kingdom. Come, Lord Jesus, into my heart and take up precedence over my life.

Thank You Father that because of Your Beloved Son's death, I am now a child of Yours and I am greatly blessed, highly favored and deeply loved.

Thank you and I pray all these in the most precious and holy name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, our Yeshua Ha'Mashiarch (Jesus, the anointed One). Amen.

If you have prayed that prayer for the first time, welcome to the Family of the Father (and it is a very large universal family). It is important that you are not alone facing your personal trials but that you can obtain good help wherever you are. Why not take the time to find your own local Christian family (local church) and worship the Father together? You will be greatly encouraged when you meet together to worship the Father, for fellowship and for the study of the Word of Christ.

The Lord blesses you and keeps you,
The Lord makes His face shine upon you and be gracious to you and all your loved ones,
The Lord lifts up His countenance upon you and gives you His shalom peace.
Numbers 6: 24 - 26

Have a blessed week ahead, Shavrou-tov
Shalom,
Andrew L W Lee
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