Creationist or Evolutionist, Part 1
We are going cover the subject of evolution. First of all, I will read to you what evolution is; then as we follow along, you can see whether or not you are an evolutionist. These statements are
all copied from a treatise on evolution, written by one of the chief evolutionists; therefore, they are all correct, so far as they go, as definitions. “Evolution is the theory that represents the
course of the world as a gradual transition from the indeterminate, from the uniform to the varied, and which assumes the cause of these processes to be imminent in the world itself that
is to be thus transformed.” “Evolution is thus almost synonymous withprogress. It is a transition from the lower to the higher, from the worse to the better. Thus progress points to an increased value in
existence, as judged by our feelings.”
Now notice the particular points in these three sentences: evolution represents the course of the world as a gradual transition from the lower to the higher, from the worse to the better, and
assumes that the process is imminent in the world itself thus to be transformed. That is to say, the thing gets better of itself; and that which causes it to get better is itself. And this
progress marks “an increased value in existence, as judged by our feelings.” That is to say, you know you are better, because you feel better. You know there has been progress, because you
feel it. Your feelings regulate your standing. Your knowledge of your feelings regulates your progress from worse to better.
Now in this matter of progress from the worse to the better, have your feelings anything to do with it? If they have, what are you? Anyone who measures his progress, the value of his
experience, by his feelings, is an evolutionist, with a form of Godliness but denying the power. Now I read what evolution is, in another way; so that you can see that it is infidelity. Then, if
you find yourself an evolutionist, you know at once that you are an infidel. “The hypothesis of evolution aims to answer a number of questions respecting the beginning, or genesis, of things.”
It “helps to restore the ancient sentiment toward nature as our parent and the source of our life.”
One of the branches of this sort of science, that has come most toward the establishment of the doctrine of evolution, is the new science of geology, which has instituted the concept
of vast and unimaginable periods of time in the past history of our globe. These vast and unimaginable periods, as another one of the chief writers on this subject – the author of it
indeed – says, “is the indispensable basis for understanding man’s origin” in the process of evolution. So that the progress that has been made has been through countless ages. Yet
this progress has not been steady and straight forward from its inception until its present condition. It has been through many ups and downs. There have been many times of great
beauty and symmetry; then there would come a cataclysm or an eruption and all would go to pieces, as it were. Again the progress would start from that condition of things and build up again.
Many, many times this process has been gone through, and that is the process of evolution-the transition from the lower to a higher, from the worse to the better.
Now what has been the process of your progress from the worse to the better? Has it been through “many ups and downs?” Has your acquiring of the power to do good-the
good works which are of God-been through a long process of ups and downs from the time of your first profession of Christianity until now? Nevertheless, in spite of all the ups and downs,
you start in for another effort: and so through this process, long-continued, you have come to where you are today, and in “looking back” over it all, you can mark some progress, you think, as
judged by your feelings-is that your experience? Is that the way you have made progress? In other words, you are an evolutionist? Don’t dodge; confess the honest truth, there is a way
to get out of it. So if, when I am describing an evolutionist, so plainly that you see yourself, just say so, admit that it is yourself, and then follow along the steps that God will give you, and that
will bring you out of it all. But I say plainly to you that, if that which I have described has been your experience, if that has been the kind of progress that you have made in your Christian
Life, then you are an evolutionist, whether you admit it or not. The best way, however, is to admit it, then quit it, and be a Christian. Another phrase of it: “Evolution, so far as
it goes, looks upon matter as eternal.” And “by assuming” this, “the notion of creation is eliminated from those regions of existence to which it is applied.” For I read further that
evolution is: “It is clear that the doctrine of evolution is directly antagonistic to that of creation… The idea of evolution, as applied to the formation of the world as a whole, is
opposed to that of a direct creative volition.”
That is, evolution, as defined by those who made it-that the world came, and all there is of it,
of itself, and that the principle that has brought it to the condition in which it is, is imminent in
itself, and is adequate to produce all that is. This being so, in the nature of things “evolution is
directly antagonistic to creation.” Now as the world and all there is of it. You do not
believe that it all came of itself. You know that you are not an evolutionist as to that, because
you believe that God created all things. Every Christian should believe that God created all
things-the world and all there is in it. Evolution does admit that; it has no place for creation.
Whether you are of this kind or not, there are many of them, who believe that we must have
God forgive our sins and so start us on the way all right, but after that we are to work out our own
salvation with fear and trembling. Accordingly, they do fear, and they do tremble, all the time,
but they do not work out any salvation, because they do not have God constantly working
in them, “both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Phil 2:12-13.
Now in Heb 11:3 it is recorded that it is through faith that we understand that the worlds were
framed-put together, arranged, built- “by the word of God: so that things which are seen
were not made of things which do appear.” The earth which we have was not made of rocks;
men were not made of monkeys, apes and “the missing link,” and apes and monkeys and “the
missing link” were not made of tadpoles, and tadpoles were not made of protoplasm originally
away back at the beginning. No! “The worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things
which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
Now why is it that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear? Simply
because the things of which these are made did not appear. And the reason those things did not
appear is because they were not at all. They did not exist. The worlds were framed by the word
of God, and the word of God is of that quality, it has that property about it, which, when the
word is spoken, not only causes the thing to be, but causes to exist the material out of which the
thing is made and of which the thing consists. You know also the other scripture, that “by the
word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth…
for he spake and it was.” Psa 33:6-9. AT Jones
