Genesis 1 & 2

[0:00] Last Wednesday night we began this study,! What I'm calling comments on key scriptures.

[0:16] And we focused last time on the truthfulness of Genesis 1-1.! And you might recall I made a comment there! that if you can get by Genesis 1-1 and embrace that as absolute truth, the rest of the Bible makes sense all the way to the last words of Revelation.

[0:35] It's just people get hung up on Genesis 1-1. And you don't need to because it's absolute truth. This evening we're not going to focus on just one verse.

[0:46] We're going to take a little broader look at some of the opening words of Genesis. Again, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

[0:57] The earth was without form and void. And darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

[1:08] And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness He called night.

[1:22] And there was evening and there was morning the first day. So here we have an accounting for God's activities on the first day of creation.

[1:34] And let me add at this point that I firmly believe in a literal six 24-hour days of creation. Became very popular when they came up with the geologic tables to say, well, each one of those days was millions and millions of years and evolutionists try to sell that and theistic evolutionists try to sell that.

[1:58] And I believe in six 24-hour days. Now, get to heaven, we find out, well, it was actually 25 hours. Well, I can live with that. Whatever the Lord says.

[2:11] I've always believed, though, that God is capable of saying what He means and meaning what He says. Interestingly, we are introduced to the Holy Spirit in this passage.

[2:22] We are also introduced to the Son of God, but it's a bit more subtle. As the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, we are told many times in Genesis chapter 1, God said, God said.

[2:41] Well, how does anyone say something? We use words. Humans communicate primarily by words. When God speaks, He uses words, the written word, the spoken word.

[2:56] We do the same. We use words. That should be plain to us, but let's drill down a little more. Who is the person that is speaking?

[3:07] Well, it is the Word of God. He's speaking words. And who is the Word of God? Well, John reveals that to us in the opening words of his gospel.

[3:19] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God all, listen to this, all things were made through Him.

[3:38] And without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

[3:50] The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. So we are introduced here to a person.

[4:03] And that person is identified as the Word, and as the light. And then when we get down to, in John's gospel, starting in verse 9, it says, the true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

[4:24] He was in the world, and listen to this again, and the world was made through Him. And then John drills down even further to the proper identity of the Word, John 1.14, which you all have memorized.

[4:41] And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory.

[4:53] Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the Greek language, it says, He tabernacled with us, or He pitched His tent with us.

[5:08] Came to this earth, pitched His tent with us, lived with us. The Word who spoke in the opening passages of Genesis is none other than the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.

[5:22] And while the Trinity was involved in the creation of the universe, the Lord Jesus was the active agent who carried it out on behalf of the Father.

[5:35] Paul affirmed this in the book of Colossians. He was, of course, speaking about Jesus. And in Colossians 1.16, he says, For by Him, and that's Christ, he's speaking of Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.

[6:06] I've always been fascinated by that visible and invisible. Back then, they didn't know much about the invisible. They sure didn't know about atoms and molecules and electrons and all of that.

[6:18] And yet, He created them all. Now, I'm not planning on reading the entire first chapter of Genesis. I hope you will go home and do that in the days remaining in this week.

[6:32] But I do want to break down this chapter and what it says concerning the seven days of creation week. Because in day one, which we've already looked at, we have the creation of the heavens and the earth as well as light.

[6:51] And that's going to be very interesting here in just a moment. On day two, we see the separation of the upper and lower waters by space. We'll talk about that at some point in the future.

[7:05] Day three, we have the creation of plant life. Day four, the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. I love how He talks about it.

[7:19] You know, when He made the tabernacle, which was a temporary place of worship, made of animal skins. It was temporary until they built the temple. The Lord used something like 157 verses of Scripture to describe how to build the tabernacle.

[7:34] When He created the stars, it says, He made the stars also. And actually, in Hebrew, it said, the stars also. He didn't spend a lot of time. He just said, He made the stars too. Day five, we see the creation of fish and fowl.

[7:50] Day six, creation of land animals. And then day seven, creation completed and God rests. Now, there's so many interesting things to note here.

[8:02] Light was created on day one, but the sun, moon, and stars were not created until day four. Well, what was the light of day one?

[8:14] We're not totally sure. The Bible doesn't tell us. But it was probably the glory of the Lord. It's just like, you know, there's no sun or moon in heaven.

[8:28] Revelation tells us that. But it will be lit by the glory of God, the glory of the Lord Jesus. So this is probably the Shekinah. We like to say the Shekinah glory.

[8:40] That's like saying glory, glory. It's the Shekinah. It denoted the glorious presence of God. And we know from our study thus far the Trinity was present in all this.

[8:53] The triune God. I found another thing interesting concerning Creation Week because we talked briefly about Charles Darwin and then we flushed him out of our vocabulary.

[9:05] But Darwin said life began in the oceans of the earth. God says that life began on solid ground with the creation of the plants.

[9:16] I didn't have to consider that very long and then I made a decision I'm going to trust what God said and not Charles Darwin. And then it says on day seven that God rested.

[9:31] So what are we going to take from that? Well that means first of all creation was completed. From God's standpoint creation is complete. it did not mean that God was exhausted and laid down in a hammock to take a nap.

[9:49] It never said that. And in fact this is the only time in the Bible that God is pictured as resting. So whatever it was it wasn't like I rest.

[10:02] I take I'm almost 73 I take a pre-nap and a nap and a post-nap and then I fall asleep watching TV and Diane wakes around and says why don't you go to bed? So that's my life now.

[10:14] Now I did leave one thing out of creation week and I did it for dramatic effect. I was going to ask for a drum roll but I'm afraid Mike Dursham would do that so I'm not going to I'm going to add it in right now.

[10:28] And I do so by focusing on a particular passage found in Genesis chapter 1. And this is actually day 6 creation.

[10:41] Then God said there's word right? Then God said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

[11:11] So God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him. Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 and the first part of 27.

[11:25] So here we have the creation of man. There is much in these two verses of scripture. chapter 1 first we have a clearer indication of the trinity.

[11:38] We talked about that last week but we already saw the trinity alluded to in verse 1 with the use of the word Elohim for God.

[11:51] And we said last time Elohim is a plural word used to describe the one true single God of the universe. God of course is a trinity three persons one God one essence one nature and Elohim is a plural word describing the one true God.

[12:15] In using Elohim it is as if God is saying we the one true God created the heavens and the earth. But we can't be that dogmatic on verse 1 we can get a little more dogmatic now.

[12:28] Because in verse 26 God says let us. Now that's a plurality in whatever language Hebrew English Swahili it doesn't matter.

[12:40] Let us make man and now we go back to a plural word in our image. We've got us and our. After our there's a third a second hour our likeness.

[12:56] the concept of the Trinity is coming more and more into focus with words like let us make man in our image. So we have the sixth day of creation and it was quite a day.

[13:10] It was quite a day. And again I want to reiterate I do believe in the literal six hours of creation account. Man now becomes the highlight of the sixth day of creation week.

[13:26] And one thing is for certain man is different from the other created things of the first week. He's different from all of them.

[13:38] He's different from plants. He's different from creeping things. He's different from birds and fish. Undoubtedly man possesses the highest kind of life. And you know the world is so opposed to that and science is opposed to that.

[13:53] And our good friends at PETA the ethical treatment of animals they said it would be good if every human would commit suicide because then animals would flourish and wouldn't be harmed.

[14:06] They also ran an ad campaign a few years ago. I saw it. It stayed up about 30 minutes. It said you know we talk about Hitler killing 11 million Jews. Colonel Sanders killed billions of chickens.

[14:18] And they had a picture of chickens awaiting execution so we could eat them. And they had pictures of Jews awaiting the gas chamber. And they kept that up about 30 minutes and they got inundated and it was gone and should have been.

[14:37] But we looked at creation week in this light. Plant life possesses unconscious life. it's unconscious. Animal life possesses conscious life.

[14:53] Man possesses self-conscious life. But think of it this way. With the creation of man we now have a creature walking on the earth in the garden of Eden and he can eat the wonderful food that God is put in that garden.

[15:16] Essentially fruit trees. Fruit trees. And it's wonderful food and Adam can eat that and when he's finished he can do what a plant and an animal didn't do then and they do not do it now.

[15:34] He can glance heavenward and thank God who made both the eater and the food. That God supplied the food for Adam to eat and Adam can thank him.

[15:50] Dandelions can't do that and neither did dinosaurs. They never did thank the creator. Only man knows there is a God before whom he is subservient.

[16:04] And you know all my years in law enforcement I saw that so many times that when people curse God and curse God and curse God and then their whole world starts caving in and now they're calling out to him.

[16:17] And then things turn and they're better and so they put that aside and they forget that for a while. They just forget it. So as we read through the opening verses and chapters of Genesis we learned that man was busy doing the work that God gave him to do.

[16:40] God gave him work to do. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that. God told him and said I want you to subdue the earth and fill it.

[16:51] That's interesting language. How am I going to do that? I want you to subdue the earth and fill it. God says I want you to enjoy the tree of life and all the other trees in the garden and then he adds except one and he asked Adam he said name all the animals.

[17:18] I had a friend of mine years ago and some of you would know him if I called his name but he said I can't believe Genesis because it would take more than a day to name all the animals. Well it probably would but I think it was more that he's going to be subdued under his leadership.

[17:34] And Adam is going to rule over them. This is pre-fall pre-garden of Eden in the serpent. So he's to name all the animals.

[17:46] And in the midst of this and this isn't burdensome he's going to become a farmer. He's a gardener. He's going to tend to the garden of Eden a perfect place. But in the midst of that God gave Adam one what we could call negative command.

[18:02] he was forbidden to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he was told don't eat of that tree.

[18:19] And the day you eat from that tree you're going to die. I'm not even sure Adam fully understood what dying was unless God told him. the negative command will become very important when we get to the third chapter of Genesis and that won't happen until January of 2021.

[18:40] Something else happened though in creation week more specifically on day six. God knew that this man which he named Adam was incomplete.

[18:55] He needed a helper. This is how God addressed the issue all on day six of creation week.

[19:05] Then the Lord God said, and who's he talking to? Probably the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is not good that the man should be alone.

[19:16] I will make him a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called every living creature that was its name.

[19:33] The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens to every beast of the field but for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

[19:45] So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept took one of his ribs closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man and the man said wow I think that's what I learned it from David Ray he said that's probably what Adam said when he saw her he probably said wow look at this now the Bible records it this way this is Adam this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they become one flesh the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed and I'm not going to hammer this point home you'll know the meaning precisely but remember it was

[20:49] Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve okay one man one woman for life thus we have the creation of our original parents Adam and Eve and and I wanted to look something up on Adam and Eve and I thought well I could do it on a computer so I logged on to that great standby Wikipedia!

[21:20] And this is how it started it said Adam and Eve are totally fictitious characters that have no semblance to the truth it was propagated by the Jews and carried on by Christians that's what Wikipedia had to say so I it is interesting I find it interesting that in the Bible and these guys that take surveys do this quite frequently there are three main events that are almost always treated as fiction even by some in some churches!

[21:56] one of those is the creation of the universe including the creation of our original parents people want to say oh no that could never have happened that could never happen I gave a speech on that at a graduation once at Wesleyan Christian school and I said look I said if we didn't have creation of Adam and Eve and then a fall in the garden I mean if we evolve from animals then why would we be punished for sin we wouldn't be responsible if came up from monkeys or whatever I said the beauty of Wesleyan Christian school and other Christian schools they can teach creation I know when I took biology in my junior year sophomore year in high school my one of the football coaches was my teacher and I I never forget the first day he got in there and he said I'm required by the state board of education to teach evolution and I'm going to do that because that's law but I want to tell you that what I'm going to teach you is absolutely impossible could not have happened and with that we've studied evolution so so there's three events creation the other event is the universal flood of

[23:23] Noah that it covered the earth and that people saw we don't believe that I actually took a graduate course a Bible course I actually have to be honest I took half of it I got so mad at the professor I just said the heck with it because he believed in a local flood theory and I was going to have to turn in a paper on that so I said can you imagine you have this big massive pool of water but it's trapped by mountains in probably Mesopotamia because he only believed in the local flood not a universal flood and people would get on those hills when Noah was going to come by and they would all be yelling down at him and laughing at him here he goes around again with all those animals we can smell the animals that are in the ark and there's animals on this side of the mountain over here I little creation of universe creation of man and woman

[24:44] Noah's flood guess what the third one is Jonah God made a great fish that swallowed Jonah he didn't that's impossible well you know it's really not impossible there's actually whalers that have been swallowed and cut out a day later and it leaves a lasting impact on their memory but God made a great fish he swallowed Jonah which kept Jonah from drowning by the way it was an act of grace well anyway before we leave behind the first two chapters of Genesis there's something else that I find quite interesting and important it touches on our understanding of everything in heaven the universe everything in the universe everything on earth and it's found also in Genesis 1 26 and 27 and it is the fact that our original parents were created in the image of God that is very important very important and

[26:01] I cannot understate the importance of that truth touches everything we are as human beings created in the image of God even in fallenness even people that aren't saved are uniquely created in the image of God pray you never live in a nation that snuffs out the lives of the unborn or babies who are created in the image of God don't think that won't come to God's attention but it's very important truth and I discovered as I was working through it that it can't be covered tonight unless we go to about 845 and I wasn't going to do that to y'all so next week which I was asked to devote to something else in Genesis but next week we're going to talk about what it means to be created in God's image and after the likeness of God because it's vital to our understanding very important and then like I said after that we will be on our Christmas break and ready to explore more key scriptures beginning in the new year so I apologize for getting out a little early although we did almost go 30 minutes that's about average let's close with a word of prayer father I thank you for your word

[27:27] I thank you lord that you spoke it the holy spirit spoke it and had men write it down and in the original autographs totally without error and lord I thank you that we can study your word make efforts sometimes feeble to live up to your word and lord we can worship the word christ jesus and through him to the father lord be with us the rest of this week bring us back to church on sunday lord be with those who couldn't be here tonight be with all those that were mentioned in prayer request tonight lord you know every need every want may we separate needs from wants we pray this in jesus name amen Thank you.