The principle of uniformity—the idea that natural processes have always operated as they do today—stands in direct opposition to the Christian understanding of a God who actively intervenes in His creation. From the very beginning in Genesis, through to Christ’s incarnation and sacrifice, to the promised new heavens and new earth, God demonstrates His supernatural involvement in human history. This truth forms the foundation of Christian faith and experience, where God continues to step into individual lives, offering forgiveness and relationship through His Son Jesus Christ.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] This passage in 2 Peter chapter 3 was one that brought to my attention in an era of my life where the whole field of apologetics was becoming more important to me in my studies. And so I was paying attention to a lot of people who set themselves up to be commentators on the radio, mainly TV. And back to you, I’m talking about the radio people had a lot more sway than I think they have today because today there are so many different channels of different voices coming that they’ve just sort of spread the influence over many different people. You could be a very good commentator on the radio and hardly anybody know who you are these days, I think. But there was a bloke called Jeremy Cordo who was having a conversation on the radio with a person whose expertise was in digging up ancient spots and coming to decisions, conclusions, understandings about how life had been in times past. And in the conversation they were talking about some of the discoveries that were coming to light and what that meant for how we believed the world came about and in particular our Christian beliefs. And so as the conversation continued, Jeremy Cordo said, I guess that knocks the Bible explanation of humanity about how things came about. And the assumption that he was relying upon was one that I was curious to know how some archaeological discovery could knock the Bible interpretation. Well when you explore it, what you discover is that there’s a principle that had been accepted amongst intellectual people and accepted some time back called the principle of uniformity. And the principle of uniformity is that as things used to be in the past, they remain to be the same, even still today.

[00:02:19] And that principle means that things don’t happen just by intervention of some deity. And the whole idea that there might be some act of God to cause to be what we now see in here was what was being disagreed with. Rather we were being called on as an assumption, but nonetheless one that people proposed, that things have always been the same, whether it be right back in the beginning of time or when there were people gradually becoming people from being a lesser form of, I was going to say the word creation, but that doesn’t fit what I’m talking about, a lesser form of life. People believe that you mustn’t try or have an explanation that relies upon there being some stepping in, some supernatural act of God to step in over the top of, that what

[00:03:19] is just naturally there to be trusted in. And so that was how the conversation went. Now there was something very accurate about this conversation and its conclusions that if you do accept that principle of uniformity proposed by someone back in 1830, Sir Charles Lyle, if you accept that, that’s the truth, that we must not today explain things by appealing to anything stepping in over the top of natural principles that still apply today. Then you’re going to have to disagree with the Bible. If we turn back, if you like, to chapter 1 of Genesis and look there at the description of how the world was created, you can’t help but notice that it’s entirely explaining what exists today in terms of God stepping in over the top of everything.

[00:04:20] In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, that’s a big one for a start. The earth was without form and void, so the first occasion of the earth being sprung into existence, it is formless and void. The words in the Hebrew have the idea that there’s no order in that thing that is discovered, it’s just formless and void. And darkness was over the face of the deep, in fact the whole globe was water all over at first, and the Spirit of God was hovering or moving over the face of the waters. God said, let there be light. This is a moment of creating the very thing that we call light. And there was light. God saw that the light was good and God said, God said, let there be light and there was light. God saw that the light was good. God separated the light

[00:05:24] from the darkness. Let me catch my spot again. God saw the light was good and God celebrated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and in the darkness he called night, and there was an evening and there was a morning, the first day.” So immediately you have here the idea of day and night something we take for granted in everyday living is not something that’s always been the case. It was a part of how God was bringing into existence the created world order in which we now rest in. And there was an evening in the morning, the first day. When you take that on board you realise there wasn’t a previous day at all. There may have been time, that’s not being mentioned, but nonetheless there’s a creative act of God. So you’re breaking that principle of uniformity that you can assume on the principles that now apply have always so done.

[00:06:31] And God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. We’re having here the construction of there being dry land going about. And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. That’s a bit mysterious, but it’s talking about the fact that there’s going to be atmosphere and the first initial creation, God’s got a whole lot of vapor, water vapor water up above the air and then there’s the seeds underneath and it was so and God called the expanse heaven and there was the evening and the morning a second day and God said let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place let the dry land appear and it was so. God called the dry land earth and the waters that were gathered together recalled

[00:07:35] the seas, and God saw that it was good. We take this record of creation very much as a familiar thing, but it’s an awful lot of implications in it, that the set up that we presently enjoy living on planet earth and living in lovely Australia. But all of this is something that’s always been exactly the same, well that’s actually scientifically not proven to be the case as far as living in Australia is concerned because the climate here has been very different in the past, and there’ve been all sorts of things that may have happened, and scientists quite correctly investigate and come up with ideas of how the land pieces were sometimes connected a lot more than they are today. Australia is a big island. It’s the biggest island and the smallest continent we hear.

[00:08:34] But there was a time when those connections between us and further north were a lot more solid. And indeed those who study the origins of the Aboriginal people coming to Australia, there’s theories, and I want to point out to you what I’m quoting to you as an anthropological theory. There were three different migrations of who became the Aborigines of Australia coming down here. So when you have the idea of the people who’ve always been here, that’s only a relative truth. Because there’s something that happened in the beginning which, according to the scriptures, is different from what we now see to be the case that we count on there being today. Much the same rules, if you like, or the same forces apply, as have always been, that principle I was referring to. But there was a beginning where something supernatural occurred. And this is at the start of the scriptures, and I think one of

[00:09:38] the biggest assumptions is that you can’t really be a Christian at all if you believe that principle of uniformity. Now I’d better make that a very more careful statement. There are probably quite a few people who are Christians who swallow the principle of uniformity, and so my saying you can’t be that doesn’t get proven to in fact be what’s happening. But I meant consistently. Because the moment you accept that the way that we have this planet earth is because of creation, and that there was a process in it whereby God spoke and it was so, or whereby the Spirit of God hobbered over the face of the waters, and the word for hovering there in the Hebrew is a word that was applied, say, to what an eagle did but it hovered over its nest. It’s a hovering, like a bomber up in the sky waiting to drop its bombs, but it’s a hovering of an eagle protecting its young in the nests.

[00:10:42] The Spirit of God is hovering over the face of the waters. What’s more rather apparent is that the God’s intervention isn’t something that he just flicks his fingers and it was done instantly, and never another change made. But it’s a process that God is going through. So the six days of creation are about the six steps whereby the text says, and it was the first day, or it was the second day, or it was a third day. Because prior to the first day there were no days and nights, there was no division of time to be observed until God set it up. The fact of their being light is something of the creation of the fact of light physically, rather than just the sun, the sun and the moon are put in place a little later than the light being made. When you understand all these things you will find that you have accepted not the principle

[00:11:37] of uniformity, that whatever back then was the case is the same as today, but that there was a supernatural intervention, a cosmological happening whereby God stepped in and set up what we presently have. Now the same understanding is true about the Christian experience. So the Christian experience is not just the idea of people taking on board certain doctrines and certain ideas, but a part of what those doctrines are as we had Joey leading us in the community service is something happened in the middle of history in the coming of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the God-man, so he is fully God, and yet God come and taken on human form so that he’s also human.

[00:12:23] There are certain little indicators in the storyline of Jesus Christ and how his deity is absolutely secure, and he demonstrates it in a number of different ways, but also his humanity is not overwritten, that he’s not human. It wasn’t as though God became human, but he’s now no longer God, or that God became human, or wasn’t really fully human, he didn’t just dress up as a human. He came and he was the Lord Jesus Christ, born as a man, and in fact the Bible is very in the New Testament, quite secure about the fact that he had a moment of being begotten of the Father when a human being was born. He was the God-man, and yet he also, according to John’s Gospel, the first three chapters or so, he’s the one who always was.

[00:13:14] And there is something here that you don’t really have an opportunity to argue about. I think I’ll take it slightly differently, I’ve got my own way to put this doctrine together. That’s not the option you’re given. And when the Scriptures reveal the coming of the Son of God into the earth, onto the earth, taking on humanity and becoming the God-man, that one who came is called the Son, it’s not as though that’s his first existence, but that is because he’s the eternal Son. And this fact that there being a God that is Father and there is Son and there is Holy Spirit is not something that is a development that somehow came about – has God thought up a new idea to have religion set on the earth? That’s an eternal happening or not happening, eternal scenario, where God the Father has

[00:14:05] a son and there is the Holy Spirit and these three are three persons, not meaning human persons, but three identities who have personhood and these three are a part of one God. Now there’s a mystery and that and if you try to get your head around that you’ll be thinking for a long time getting nowhere where you might end up crazy trying to unravel it, but the truth is our one God has three persons and that is indeed what the Bible presents as the truth of Christianity that we worship a God who is one God in three persons, Father, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament Hebrews were taught this and they didn’t really get a good grip on it you know the truth of the three-in-one. They understood of God the Father and they

[00:14:53] understood that there was a son somehow involved that the Holy Spirit was just an influence. And so if they wanted to say that God came and did it, they’d They’d say the Spirit moved, and they meant by that that it was somehow the Spirit from God or of God, but God and His spiritual form that came and did the action. And in the Old Testament, often that’s how they’re thinking. They didn’t get a grip on the Trinity and the fact that God had a Son who was eternal. But the Gospel of John, as it presents to us, this one God who is in three persons. The Old Testament had plenty of testimony to that. The Jewish people were taught to recite something that was a part of their central doctrine, and it was one that went like this, our God, but it used a plural word, Elohim, our gods.

[00:15:42] Then it used a verb, is, which is in the singular. And then it used a descriptive word, whether you call it an adjective or an adverb, I wouldn’t know, but a descriptive word that means oneness. And you don’t have to take that to be the oneness of solitude, that it’s one God and He’s on His own. The truth of the oneness of the one God is that there is no other God but Him. But this one God is in three persons. And the oneness is the oneness, not of solitude but of unity. In fact, the Scriptures speak about the fact that there is a tremendous fellowship that’s there and has been there for all eternity, in God the Father and God the Son, and God

[00:16:23] the Holy Spirit and that unity and that fellowship is called when we get accepted into it it’s being called to be a part of the fellowship of God or being called to become involved in that family-ness in that sense of belongingness and get accepted amongst the beloved is the term used and the beloved is that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father the spirit loves both the Holy Spirit, those three persons of the Trinity are in an eternal arrangement of love. And one of the features that happens when you become a Christian and come to Christ and receive him as your personal Savior when you get in the door with God. You only do that when you come to the Jesus who died for you, and you recognize that your sins have been paid for by Christ and you

[00:17:13] accept that forgiveness and you get reconciled to God, you come right with God, you get according to the scriptures accepted within the beloved and there’s something very precious about Christian experience that is not just about the fact that you found God, that I think is a lot of people’s initial understanding but gradually you become more aware as you get more sanctified and as you walk with God that you found a fellowship and you pray to God the Father and you have a relationship with father and son the very one that the son came and experienced on earth and has shared with you that you were a son of God as Jesus was and you’ll never be the same exactly as him because he’s eternally God but we take on board the role, the sense of sonship that Jesus himself came and

[00:18:06] part of the great miracle of becoming a Christian is the fact that you become a son or a daughter of God. There’s nothing more precious than and understanding your relationship with the Father that he sees you as a son and just as when Jesus did what was required of Him, was obedient for baptism and Jesus was baptized, there was suddenly a voice was heard. The voice of the Father, this is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased! And that attitude of the Father to us as sons and daughters of God is something that we get bequeathed to us through coming to Jesus. By our connection to Jesus we get looked at by the Father as a precious son and daughter. There’s nothing more wonderful than the realisation as you go through some times difficulties in

[00:18:55] this life of suddenly realising that God the Father shows up, and you have a heavenly hand. I’m using a metaphor, on your shoulder and he says don’t worry, you’re my boy. When you realise how he cares for you and understands your frailty, one verse of the scripture says he takes our tears and puts them in his bottle, it’s a picture, he feels the weight of the things we go through. This is an eternal God who understands those human emotions, the times when you got left out and not invited to the party, the times when something went wrong and all your aspirations were dashed and you whipped. I’ve had lots of times on my own when I weep, I need to tell you, and I’m not ashamed of sometimes the human role, the human experience we all have, but what is a great boon, what

[00:20:05] is a great blessing to me is to know that God understands and he understands my tears, enough to use that picture, I put your tears in my bottle. It’s all a picture, right, to express a very deep truth, but God up in heaven must have a stack of cupboards because I’ve had a lot of tears and he’s put them all there. Oh no, that’s a picture. He knows where you’re at and that’s why some of the promises of Christianity is about Jesus saying I will never leave you nor forsake you, about his promise that he’ll be with us, or like the Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want he leads me, besides still waters because he knows I have a need as a thirsty sheep to get to, I’ve got sheep he needs, and he knows he has to lead me by streams of water.

[00:21:08] He knows that there’ll be times when I’ll be damaged and so he says, I will restore your soul, and when you’re a Christian and you go through some of the difficulties of Christian life, there are times when Psalm 23, he restores my soul, is one of the greatest places in the Bible you can look. My God shall supply all your needs, calling to his riches in glory. The scriptures are full of the promises of God. In some condescension, him seeing how we are and the needs that we have, and he doesn’t despise us because of sometimes the littleness of our problems, little compared to him, big for us, and he feels the weight of them, and something of the relationship that the New Testament describes of Jesus and the Father and the prayers that he has, as he faced going

[00:22:06] to the cross and knew what a terrible thing it was going to be, and Father, he cries if it’s all possible, take this away from me, yet not my will, but yours be done. There you see that it’s not just one God with three different faces because otherwise what was Jesus doing praying to the other face? No, it was the Son talking to his Father, and why was it that the Psalms could capture a prophetic moment, looking ahead through time to when Jesus on the cross would bear our sins? And so I think it’s Psalm 22, 21, 22, where it captures what were the very words that Jesus was to say. Some people think it’s because Jesus had learned them off by heart and knew what words to give

[00:22:50] in the scene, but knows the other way around, the original event is Jesus on the cross bearing our sins and the Father’s punishment for our sins falling on him and him understanding for the very first time in his existence, in first occasion, I don’t know whether to use the word time, but the first occasion in his existence where he and the Father are separated, separated by your sins and mine, and on the cross cries out, my God, my God, how you have forsaken me, or why have you forsaken me? As Jesus experiences something of the deepest sort of being separated from the love of the Father as he bore the wrath of God for our sins, there’s mystery in that, mystery that can only make you worship. And though some people say the Bible can’t be true, I want to tell you that the Bible

[00:23:48] is the one place of truth. How do I know that this morning in our message we’re looking at the fact of how Jesus described how hell is going to be without stopping, it’s going to be forever, and Jesus describes the agonies of hell and why should we believe such an awful sight, awful thought, and my answer to that this morning was, because Jesus is truth. There’s something about Jesus and truth, he not only tells the truth, he not only knows the truth, but God created the very fact of what there is to be truth, because his son was that in its essence. Don’t ask me which was first, did he create it and Jesus was it, but Jesus is truth. Jesus cannot lie.

[00:24:44] You don’t know Jesus if you think Jesus doesn’t tell the truth, or if you find something he says and you say, oh no, that can’t be right. You don’t argue with God about what the truth is and says. In that first chapters of John’s Gospel, this one who came and took on humanity, he is the very essence of truth. That’s why he’s the outspokenness of the Father, when it says he’s the word, it’s the idea not only that he’s an expression, but he’s the speaking of the Trinity, he’s the one through whom the Father speaks. By sending his son, it was the greatest way that God could speak. In the book of Hebrews in chapter one begins to tell us there are many different places

[00:25:30] God has spoken through the prophets, but now in these last days he’s spoken to us through his son. The reason why the son’s coming was a speaking of the Father is because the son is the very essence of truth, he carries in his person what truth is. He defines what truth is and those first chapters of John says he was with God in the beginning and he was God and he comes and he’s the light that shines in darkness, he’s the light that came into the world and so the scriptures make this connection between light and between truth. Jesus is the word, the word from God and when God speaks his word and gives him into the history of the human race, he was doing something supernaturally, he was doing something that

[00:26:15] had never been done before, that every person who’s one of these people who think they know better than God and will argue about there’s nothing new happening, but the coming of Jesus was something that never occurred before, just like that in his incarnation. Many times he visited earth to inspect as it were, but he came as a human on the first advent. Sometimes we get discussing as to where is the heart of the gospel and some of the cults that exist today will change where they think the heart of the gospel is. You’ll get people who think the heart of the gospel is in the creation only, no, that’s not the heart of the gospel and there are others who think it’s the other end of the Bible, a revelation where it says the new heavens and new earth and there’s a group

[00:27:01] who think that that’s the gospel. That may be a part of the gospel, but the heart of the gospel is not in the second advent. I keep saying this, but I want us to know for sure the heart of the gospel is in the first advent when the sun came and that’s what the book of Hebrews is saying that through many different places God has spoken, but now he’s spoken to us in his son. And the out speaking of God piercing into our existence was an intervention by heaven in the coming of the sun. That’s why Christmas is important for us to go on celebrating. Don’t let it be just a popular thing people do in their culture. Well here we have the creation story, you know, I have the whole sermon to give to you

[00:27:49] and I’m still just warming up, I don’t know what to do. So I’ll probably continue next week, but it’s interesting, let’s go back to the letter in 2 Peter, that verse that I had in 2 Peter. And so you’ll find that some of the people who want to lean on the principle of uniformity want to laugh at us Christians because we believe in miracles. And by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. That was a supernatural stepping in of God to bring judgement in the flood. But by the same word the heavens and the earth that now exists were stored up for fire. And what the point of this passage is revealing is that just as God was able to judge the world by the flood, so he’s made a promise not to do that again, they put the rainbow

[00:28:50] in the sky as an indication of God’s promise he won’t do a worldwide flood again. There will be local ones but not worldwide ones. But there’s another way he’s going to judge the world and it is by fire. And so the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgement and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact beloved that with the Lord one day, this is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day, he can wait for that judgement. The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise because he hasn’t happened and people were saying where’s it going on, it hasn’t gone on. God is not slack to fulfil his promise as some count slowness but is patient, patient

[00:29:41] toward you not wishing that any should perish. And here we have as a part of the Gospel that this God who somehow in his righteousness will punish him is also a God who has great love. And those two things are a part of the nature of God as the Bible reveals what his character is. So he doesn’t wish that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. For the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. I think the other versions might read all burned up but anyway, since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness

[00:30:36] waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt with fervent heat, the old versions read, as they burn. But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells. Yes, there is a quote from 2 Peter 3 but it is echoed by the book of Revelation and the final chapters talking about the new heavens and the new earth that God creates. And that creation of a new heaven and new earth is also a part of the gospel message, but the heart of the gospel message, or should I word it this way, the centrepiece of the gospel message is in the first advent, not just the second, not just the story of creation

[00:31:28] all are a part of what God has done to bring about us as creative beings and also to bring about our salvation. And the heart of it is as we exercised, having a communion moment with, led by Joey, that we remember that central moment when Jesus on the cross took our sins. And he experienced the rejection of the Father because of our sins. And thank goodness that he was the eternal Son of God. And he paid the price. I don’t think if another average human being volunteered, and even if they were sinless to qualify, they couldn’t take upon themselves the sins of all the world. But Jesus, the eternal Son, did. And he exhausted the wrath of the Father for our sins in his person on the cross, and was able to say, cry, it is finished. Tetelestai, it is finished. He was able to then say, Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit. He was able to promise the repentant thief, this day you’ll be with me in paradise, which is a Persian word

[00:32:42] that means a place of comfort. It was where Hades had a better part. And Jesus and the thief went to it, referred to in Jesus’ story as Abraham’s bosom, where Abraham was looking after all those who are to be saved. But it’s a fantastic thing to recognize our salvation rests upon a God who intervenes in human affairs, both to create us in the first place. Secondly, to help us to become Christians by stepping into our greatest need. There’s a song that I’ve always loved to have someone sing, but it’s about the cross. And about how when Jesus saw our need, I think there’s one verse that goes that there never was a greater day of crime when they put Jesus on the cross. But nor was it a greater day of love when he saw my greatest need and became my friend indeed by taking my place under the wrath of the Father for my sins, for our sins, that I could be totally forgiven. And that’s the Gospel. The Gospel, the centre of it, is in the death of Jesus on the cross

[00:34:03] for our sins. Followed by, of course, the mighty resurrection. Followed by his ascension into heaven. Followed by in heaven him being taken, his name Jesus, a name given to him and his incarnation, and that name being made the name, it’s above every name, to have the highest authority. And this Jesus, he’s in the business of intervening in people’s lives. The greatest intervention that you can know is that moment when you understand this Gospel and that his death is offering your forgiveness. And the Holy Spirit is in the business of convicting us of the sins that we’ve had and letting us see that we’re called to come for forgiveness that’s there because Jesus died. And to have a testimony, some people get in the door without knowing what’s going on. I’m glad that I am not one who didn’t know that I knew that Jesus was calling me and I knew what it was to be absolutely certain that he had answered my request to come

[00:35:16] and be my Saviour. And that assurance is spirit fed. It’s an intervention into the psychology of your person where the Holy Spirit lets you know that you’re special to Jesus, special to God, and that he’s got you in the palm of his hands and he keeps you. That’s an intervention. I’m glad he’s not a God who leaves it just a normal process as you better go to a psychiatrist and get that one to help you feel forgiven. I want to tell you there’s a better way to feel forgiven that’s when God lets you know you are. I can’t explain the processes of that getting into our normal psyche mind, but I know that it happened to me. And just like other people in the scriptures who give testimony, this one thing I know that once I was blind but now I see. And that’s an analogy, if you like, of what happens to us when you come to Christ and you let him be the Saviour of your soul, you give in to him knowing that what he says about you is true, that you are

[00:36:25] a sinner and you ask for the forgiveness that you hear he’s paid for and he forgives you. And his spirit and your heart tells you that everything is different and the difference gradually gets more and more something that’s prosecuted by the spirit leading you. That’s your sanctification. You’re meant to work with it and help it work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. But that’s all a part of what God does. It’s an intervention. So don’t let the world talk you into all things just happen as they always have. When the greatest of all happenings might tonight be knocking at the door of somebody here. And if you’ve never come to that knowledge of Christ, understand that he’s wanting to bring you to belong to him because he’s died for you. And what you need to do be sure before you go to sleep tonight is to talk to him and say Jesus thank you. Thank you that you took my place and paid for my sins. Thank you that you want to

[00:37:30] be my savior and I want you to do that now. Don’t worry about whether you feel the right feelings just ask him and let him give you Christian experience along the way. That’s my call tonight and of course be ready for the future because don’t trust too much in this world, it’s all going to be burned up, but there’ll be a new heavens and a new earth. Heavenly Father, thank you Lord for this passage in 2 Peter chapter 3 and thank you for the promise that we’re not dependent upon some philosophical edict about a principle of uniformity and we’re not dependent upon some intellectual understanding that Uncle Terry said to us or whoever, but there is an assurance that you can give us that we have come to know you through your son.

[00:38:32] In him was life and life was the light of men, that idea of the light. You discover the spiritual light when you receive the spiritual life from Jesus. What a fantastic thing we thank you in Jesus name, Amen.