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Bro. Otis Fisher
Would you please open to Genesis 1 -1. I'd like to make a few brief comments first as we begin this study. This book of Genesis is the most ancient history in the world. It contains an account of the creation of the world and of its first inhabitants.
The original innocence and fall of man, the rise of religion, the invention of arts, the general corruption and depravity of mankind, the universal flood, then the repeopling of the earth and the division of the earth, the origin of nations and kingdoms, and a particular history of patriarchs from Adam down through the death of Joseph.
All of this is included in a space of time at the lowest computation of 2 ,369 years. Now, a question that someone might ask is, how could such a book be written when for the first 2 ,000 years there was no alphabetical writing?
Between Adam and Noah, there stood only one man, Methuselah. In like manner, Shem connected Noah and Abraham, having lived to talk with both, just as Isaac did with Abraham and Joseph. Then Amran connected between Moses and Joseph.
Four men covered all of the space of this time. To put that kind of in perspective to our life, if a man of today at 85 should talk to a young boy of 5, then over these last 2 ,000 years back to Jesus Christ, there would only be about 23 people.
We had that many here this morning. So you see, word of mouth could have come to Moses rather easily. But, also, to make sure the unerring spirit of God directed Moses in the selection of his facts. Indeed, the narrative is so simple, it is so much like truth, so consistent everywhere with itself, so pure in its morality, so benevolent in its design, as amply to demonstrate that it could never have had an earthly origin.
Now, Bill, let me ask you the first question. Could God have made this world sooner than he did? He has to editorialize. The answer is no, because there is no sooner or later with God. Can God be benefited by our services, Clarence?
God does not have an imagination, neither does he make decisions. Lots of arguments, actually, about evolution today, as there has been for years and years, but it's becoming more and more prevalent. I'm not going to go into evolution, but I will say this.
The probability of the originating by accident of life is comparable to an unabridged dictionary coming out of an explosion in a print shop. It just can't be. Now we come to the first verse. I want to give it to you in the original language, and then we'll look at each word.
As you have it printed in your text, this is what it says in the Hebrew. The beginning created God, the substance of the heavens and the earth. While God exists eternally, this marked the beginning of the universe in time and space.
God created the heavens and the earth. Before creation, all was eternity, and there was an enormous amount of nothing, not even space. Time signifies duration measured by the revolution of heavenly bodies, but prior to the creation of those heavenly bodies, there could be no measurement and consequently no time.
Time is put here for man, not for God. He created, and in the first verse of Genesis, is the only creation that we have. The rest of it was made, and I know there's a few places where it's translated created, but actually it was made, and let me show you why.
The word create means to cause existence, where previous to this non-existent moment there was nothing. Now we come to the little word eth. E-T-H. Very, very important. The most important word in understanding the making of all things.
This word is genuinely considered to be a particle, but is often understood by the great Jewish theologians and many others. A. Ben Ezra was a great Jewish theologian. He says the word eth signifies the substance of a thing.
Keneshi says the same thing in his book. Dr. Ainsworth says the same word, having the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, comprises the sum and substance of all things. Dr. Buxtorf said it is used for the beginning and the end, just like alpha and omega.
The Syric translators understood the word in the same sense. It means the prima materia. Walton's polygot. Anyone know what polygot means? I didn't either until I finally looked it up. It means a book, especially a Bible, containing several versions of the same text in different languages.
Polygot. Walton wrote such a book, and he translated it as substance. Dr. John MacArthur, with whom a lot of us are familiar, also agrees that all we have here is the material of everything. So now we have not a finished creation in the first verse, but only the material or substance from which God is going to make everything else, and I mean everything, including you and I.
Now let me ask you women, if you're going to make a cake, as I've watched my wife make many times, would you not get all of the ingredients together first? It isn't a cake to begin with, is it? It's separate ingredients.
Then you put them together in the right proportion, treat it with a little bit of heat, and lo and behold, it turns into a cake, usually. Well, that's exactly where we are in the first verse. He spoke into existence.
Now, he did not have to speak verbally. The word speak means a will of the heart in that case. So we have everything now in existence from which everything else is going to be made. When I was in college, the teacher taught us the gap theory.
I hesitate to mention it, but maybe some of you have heard of it. It is wrong, by the way. But for lack of understanding the Hebrew, or exactly what was said, the man created the gap theory. And they rationalized it like this, that God does nothing except it is perfect and finished.
So they claim that in the first verse, everything was finished, complete, perfect. And then there came a great catastrophe and tore up everything, and they attribute this to Satan as he was thrown out of heaven.
And then it starts over in the second verse. Well, that's not true. God makes everything perfect, that's true, but he made the substance here and it was perfect. And there is no space between the two verses as man considers space.
In the second verse, we have these words. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Several key words here.
This earth, or this mass now, was without form, and it was void, and it was dark. All of those tell us that it had no shape, that it was empty. So if it was empty, what was there? David, you were talking this morning about no nothing.
Let me ask you, if you have nothing, does that nothing become something? And if it is something, how can it be nothing? This mass, glob, if you'll allow me to use that word. I will, whether you're allowed or not.
Glob. And it's a good word, you can look it up in the dictionary. And it means blob. The form tells us that it had no surface. Well, how can something exist without a surface? It means it's not finished in its shape and is yet uninhabited.
Then we have the word void. It contained no organized material. Now it's important that you understand this. No organized material. Now God is the only being that has ever seen this glob. Man has never viewed it.
So it had no organized material. It was empty, not occupied, unfulfilled, completely lacking. What actually it was, was the glob with no atomic structure. We have never seen anything, Richard, that did not have the atoms in it.
But that's what we had in the beginning. That's what God had. Something was there. God is the only one that's ever seen this in this particular shape and form. Now it says the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
This spirit is speaking of the Holy Spirit. And by the way, every time the word Elohim, or God as we translate it in the Old Testament, it is speaking in plural. The God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
So when Elohim created, it was the Trinity that was doing it. They were all present. Here we have the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit moved upon the face of the waters. The Hebrew actually says that the Holy Spirit brooded over the waters.
Now, Fred, can you tell me what the word brooded brings to mind? You can't? Who's ever raised chickens? Charlie? What do we mean by brooding hen? Can't you just see those of you that have seen it? The old mother hen clucking and all those little chicks come under her wing and she protects them.
She'll even set out in the rain to do it. Well, we find the Holy Spirit doing the same thing here. Now, he had to do that in order to keep this mass all together. Because remember, it has no structure to it.
Oh, form? Yes. That's right. Without forms, form means without. That's right. Without any rules of the atomic weight or gravity or mass or anything else. That's right. That's right. Exactly right. Do you all hear that?
Confirmation from a well-educated man. Alright, so the Spirit of God brooded over this mass. In the third verse, and God said, let there be light. And there was light. Now, you've all read that, no telling how many times.
What did you think of when you read it? Let there be light. Burj? Just light. Just light. Because he had created that energy. Well, he spoke it into existence, alright. But the word light does not mean an incandescent light or a light that we look at.
Neither does it mean the sun or the stars or the moons. They all come later. So it must mean something that was necessary into this glob before you could build anything. Well, that could well be because darkness is on the face of the deep.
Only he could see it and he was the only one around. The word light, as it is used here, is ore. Write that down. O-R-E. This is not the source, but the power of the source of light. The source of our electric light is what?
In most cases, incandescent bulb. The source of light would be what? The hot wires. The filament that gets red hot. So the filament would be the source of our visible light. This is the power behind that source.
Ore. That's what he puts into it now. Well, we could say that. Only here it's a little bit different. I would like for you to go to 2 Peter 3 .10, if you will, please. 2 Peter 3 .10. You have that, Richard?
Read it. All right. You notice the word element? Now, that's the only word out of that verse we're going to look at. There's a whole lot more in there, but the very elements will melt with heat. In the Greek, the word for element is stacheion, and for some unexplainable reason, the scientists have named that atom.
So what has occurred here is that God injected into this mass the atomic structure. Atoms are present now. Now, it's understandable why man has never seen anything in that state before the atomic structure.
Because once having put the atomic structure in, it's been there ever since. Stacheion, element, the first thing from which the others belonging to some series or composite hold. They take their rise, the element being the first principle.
And Bill is right. We call this source for the light electricity. And it was the power of God that was put into this, and it might just well be that the thing we call electricity is the power of God. Think about that.
All right. We call this atoms. The atomic structure was inserted at this moment, and what would happen when the atomic structure was put in for the first time and they begin to move? Well, let me ask this.
How many of you have seen or done take a 16 penny nail or some kind of nail and hold it with bare pliers over a fire and the nail turned red hot? Did you ever see that? Richard, what caused it to get hot?
What caused them to move? The heat. So, the heat of the fire did not cause the nail to get hot. It was the friction produced by the moving atoms that caused it to get hot. And this blob suddenly turned into a white hot mass.
Very easily could have been from the movement of the atoms. So, this light was latent heat. Now, what is meant by latent or caloric? Roger? Joy? And what is it that's there? All right. Fred, what's latent heat mean?
We're not talking FBI now. Bill, what's caloric mean or latent? Either one. All right. The latent heat means that it comes from within itself, and that's what is happening here. We're in Genesis 1 .1.
So, this light, latent heat or caloric heat, heat generated from within itself as the atoms took form and began to move. Now, another scripture is 2 Peter 3 .12. Richard, read that to us. Looking forward and hastening to the coming of the day, fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt.
I really believe, folks, that it means that, that the creation will return to Genesis 1 .1 and that he will build a new one. Now, I think that he built everything at the speed of light. Virgil, we're walking through it at our speed, which makes it much longer.
And man cannot comprehend how this earth can only be 6 ,000 years old. But let me ask you a question. We'll get a little bit later to where he made the trees and everything. Suppose we're already there, and he planted everything in the earth before, well, after it was grown.
He didn't put the seed in the ground. He put the full-grown tree in the ground. Now, how do you tell the age of a tree? By the rings. How do you determine the rings? You cut the tree down. Unless you have a bit that will go in and get it.
But let's say you cut the tree down. Alright, on the first day, the tree has just been there 10 minutes, and you cut it down, how many rings would it have? What did Roger say? That's exactly right. Greg, how old was the first rock that appeared?
You see, man has no way of determining. Now, they think they do, and they have some good rules and regulations. Carbon dating, they go by that a lot, but they overlook the fact that the canopy of water prevented the direct sun from shining on it, so carbon dating will not go back any further than the flood.
But we'll get to all of that later. The word melt, in Hebrew, is luo, L-O-O-O. And it means this, to be bound with chains as a prisoner, to be discharged from prison, to let go, to loosen, to undo or dissolve anything that is bound, tied, or compacted together.
Melt also means to be declared unlawful. So, when the great meltdown comes, God will declare it unlawful for it to remain as it is, and then he will establish a new law concerning it. At our present time, one of God's laws is that matter must consist of a certain structure of atoms arranged in a certain pattern.
And it all depends on the type of material. This is the law of God. Now, I'll come down to the fourth verse. Don't let me go too fast for anybody. If you have questions, please ask. And God saw the light, that it was good.
It was good for the purpose that it was intended to serve. And God divided the light from the darkness. Now, we come to another misconception. To divide the light from the darkness, this light is not oar.
This is maw oar. And it's speaking of the daylight and the nighttime. Now, what is it that divides our day and night, Richard? Rotation of the earth. Now, here, don't think that he's saying that the sun is already here, because it isn't.
He divided the light from the darkness. What is it that he had to do in order to divide the light from the darkness, Bill? We're actually not talking about light. We're talking about something else. Divided.
He started the earth rotating. It wasn't up to... That's right. And that's what he did. That's what will eventually make the day and night. But here, he put it into motion. So, without the spinning, there would have been no division.
So, dividing come about because he started the earth to rotate it. You see the logic behind all of this? We have the mass. Then he puts some structure to it. So, out of that, then he began to build things.
For God to say a thing is the very same as doing it. Now, Richard, with us, it's not always like that. Once in a while, I've said something and then not done it. But with God, it's not like that. When he says it, it's the same as done.
He saw that what he had done was good. The light was that divided from the darkness. And that light is a different word now. This is maor. This means the source of the light, which in this final stage would be our sun.
We're talking about a chandelier is what we're talking about. It does not speak of a visible sun. The subject here in this verse is division. The rotation action of the earth is what divides the night from day.
God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Now, to this great debate about how long were the days, what's it mean by day? The word is yome, y-o-m-e.
And it simply means a space of time defined by an associated age, birth, life, or so forth. If you can tell me how long the first day was, then I'll tell you how long the rest of them were. David, can you tell me how long that first day was according to the scripture?
It says that. Where does it say that? But there was no evening nor morning. When he spoke things into existence, how long was it in that state before he did something else? What I'm getting at is what man has assumed that it means, which is fine.
It's not going to change your salvation one bit. Remember this, the Bible is more a book of why and not so much, Russell, a book of how. It all speaks of Jesus Christ. Everything points to him. This side of the cross and the other side of the cross.
We are little men doing a little work in six short days. God did a large work in six far-reaching days, but I too would have liked to think that they were 24 hours, but I cannot prove that. 2 Peter 3 .8.
Fred, do you have that open? Verge, do you have it open? Cause me to hear it. Time belongs to man, not to God. Where we think he is long-suffering, he isn't. That's only as we look at it, not as he looks at it.
Everything's on schedule with him. He's not one second early or late. Remember now, there is no sun yet, neither are there any stars or planets by which to measure time. But I will have to add that day with numerical adjectives would tend to lead you to believe that it's a 24-hour period.
And we must stop here. I will ask you to study over the first five verses again. And if you have questions, write them down and let's discuss them next week. But I will ask you to do this. Keep your questions pertaining to the part of Scripture that is under study.
Don't go asking about the rapture and the judgments and all of that. Is there any questions now? Are there any? Alright. Well, I would like to think it was, but I can't prove it. How else could we think?
Well, one way that I had always looked at it was this, that he did a certain thing in one day. And then it took maybe billions of years for it to come to its ordained end. And then he did something else the second day.
So it was separate days spread over a long period of time. But I'm no closer to understanding any of the days yet. Yes. Good.