BiblicalInsights.net

Consider two important facts.  First, no liars will be in heaven (Rev. 21:8).  Second, no one who believes a lie to the exclusion of the truth will be in heaven (II Thess. 2:11-12).  Being deceived is not an excuse for disobeying God.  Herein lies the danger of deception.
The Deception Perpetrated By The Gibeonites.
The Gibeonites were among the Hivites who feared Israel at the beginning of the conquest of the land of Canaan by Joshua.  They disguised themselves in an elaborate way and pretended to be from a far country when, in fact, they lived in Canaan.  In Joshua 9:4-5, their elaborate disguise is recorded, “They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up; And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy.”  They were able to deceive Israel because of this disguise.  The disguise obscured the truth about their identity and so helped with the deception.  The men of Gibeon sought a treaty of peace with Israel in order to spare the lives of their people.  God commanded Moses to utterly destroy them (Deut. 7:1-3).  Joshua was supposed to carry out this command which was the result of the justice of God against these people due to their iniquity (Gen. 15:16).
The Deception’s Success
In Joshua 9:14, we are told why the deception succeeded.  “And the men took of their victuals and asked not counsel at the mouth of the LORD.”  You cannot discern a lie without knowing the truth. You cannot know the truth without consulting the word of God.  This neglect on the part of Joshua and Israel makes them culpable for believing the lie.  They are not innocent in this matter.
The Deception’s Danger
We are vulnerable to lies when we fail to consult God’s word.  If we believe a lie, we will transgress the commandment of God.  Joshua and Israel transgressed the commandment of the LORD and failed to carry out the justice God required against the Hivites.  The result is that they entered into a covenant with the Gibeonites that God forbade and this permitted them to live among the Israelites and influence them (Num. 33:55).  “But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.  Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.”  Israel’s disobedience led to their own eventual destruction.
A sure defense against believing a lie and being damned (II Thess. 2:11-12) is to love the truth and cleave unto it.  “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

I would like to provide my readers with two quotations from Thomas Warren on the topic of evolution.  Both quotations come from the book, The Book of Genesis edited by Thomas Warren and Garland Elkins.  These quotations are significant in light of the fact that the Warren Christian Apologetics Center published Genesis 1 and Lessons From Space which was written by Dr. Nobie Stone–a theistic evolutionist.  Thomas Warren would not have approved of the false doctrine of theistic evolution.
Thomas Warren wrote a lecture for the book, The Book of Genesis, titled, “In the Beginning God…” On page 19, he writes, “But God–through the Word–created everything other than Himself.  The passages of Scripture which are referred to in endnote 43 make clear that God, by the power of His Word (and through the Word, John 1:1-3) is the creator of the physical universe (the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars), human beings, all animals, and, in fact, all that exists other than himself.  The theory of evolution is false.  The doctrine of creation–as taught in the Bible–is true.”
A second quotation comes from a lecture Thomas Warren wrote titled, “The Creation of Adam and Eve” pp. 42-47).  On page 42, Warren wrote, “There are two basic ways of completing the statement “Man and woman came into being as a result of...” Those two ways are: (1) “…the miraculous creative act of God,” and (2) “…evolution.”  Point (1) means that God created man and woman full grown and, therefore, that man had no non-human ancestors, Point (2) means that man came into being by some sort of changes from some lower (non-human) form of life and, ultimately, of non-living matter.  There are the two basic answers.  It cannot be the case that both of them are true, and it cannot be that neither one of them is true.  It must be that one of them is true and the other is false.  Can we really know which one is true?  We confidently affirm that we can.  Since the Bible is the word of God (this can be proved), then the Bible is infallible (God does not lie, Heb. 6:18; Tit. 1:2).  Therefore, if the Bible gives the account of the origin of man, then by studying and properly interpreting the Bible, man can come to know the truth about his own origin.  It is of great significance to note that while the theory of evolution cannot be verified but can be falsified, the Biblical account of the origin of man can be verified and cannot be falsified” (p. 42).  (All emphasis Thomas Warren).

An excellent article written by Justin Rogers appeared in Reason and Revelation in September, 2015 (98-100).  The article was titled, “Does the Hebrew Word Yom Endorse an Old Earth?  Highlights from that article will be presented in this article.
First, the controversy over whether or not the days of creation are 24-hour periods or great eons of time is the result of a compromise that is made between individuals who believe that God created, but that He used evolution in the process.  Evolutionists postulate that the universe is 13.7 billion years old and that the earth is 4 to 5 billion years old.  Individuals who desire to accommodate the theory of evolution interpret the days of Genesis 1 as being epochs of time or if they believe the days to be 24-hour periods they argue that there are eons of time in-between the days.  Consider the remarks of Dr. Nobie Stone, “Third, there is nothing in the grammar throughout the rest of Genesis Chapter One that requires these to be consecutive days.  A period of time placed between the first day and the second day is consistent with the language.  These may be “days of creation,” separated by a period of time” (Genesis 1 and Lessons From Space, p. 68). This statement represents a modified form of the Day-Age Theory.  Dr. Stone’s remark that there is “nothing in the grammar…that requires these to be consecutive days”, will be shown to be false.
Second, the Hebrew word yom, can be used in a non-literal sense in the Hebrew Bible.  Justin Rogers gives several examples: Gen. 39:11 where in the KJV the word day is translated by the generic word “time.”  The plural form is found in Gen. 26:18 where reference is made to the “days of Abraham.”  The passage is not referring to 24-hour periods in this context.  It refers to the “time of Abraham.”  Rogers states, “The generic meaning of the word “day,” however, is entirely irrelevant for Genesis 1 for reasons we will consider below.”  We will consider some of the reasons for this in the rest of this article.  There is one other example that Rogers points out that is worth noting.  It is Gen. 2:4.  “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”  A literal interpretation of the Hebrew word “yom” in this passage would mean that God created everything in one day instead of six days.  The term “yom” is referring to an indeterminate length of time and not a specific 24-hour day.
Third, the context of each occurrence of the Hebrew word “yom” must be considered to determine whether or not it is literal or non-literal.  Rogers mentions that the use of the adjective (number) with the noun, “yom“, indicates that the word is to be taken in its literal sense.  This is a grammatical feature of Genesis 1 that Dr. Stone said did not exist, but which disproves his interpretation of the days of Genesis 1.  Rogers declares, “An adjective accompanies every occurrence of yom in Genesis 1, a fact that fundamentally limits its meaning” (p. 99).  Rogers further states, “Since every time the word “day” occurs in Genesis 1, a numerical adjective accompanies it, the generic application of the term “day” that we have observed does not apply at all.  The scope of reference is limited.”
Fourth, Moses expected his readers of Genesis and Exodus to understand his words in a literal 24-hour day in the Creation account because he applied that knowledge to the keeping of the Sabbath day.  In Exodus 20:11, Moses writes, “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”  The Sabbath day is clearly a reference to a literal 24-hour period of time.  The work week observed by the Israelites was determined by the creation week.  They worked for six days and then rested on the Sabbath day.
Fifth, there are other grammatical features of Genesis 1 that have a bearing on the interpretation of the Hebrew word “yom.”  Rogers says, “After each day’s creative activities, the Bible utilizes the same formula: “And there was evening and there was morning” (Gen. 1:5,8,13,19,23,31). While it is true that the Hebrew term “day” can be used in a nonliteral sense in other contexts, the terms “evening” (‘erev) and “morning” (boqer) are always used in a literal sense.  The former occurs 134 times in the Old Testament and the latter around 200 times.”  This statement is conclusive.
The old-Earth view, presented by Dr. Stone, is completely without grammatical authority.  The Hebrew word “yom” is used in it literal sense of a 24-hour period when it is used to describe the days of creation.  There is no possibility of a compromise between the creation account and evolution!