Genesis In Space And Time - [Genesis 1]

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Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to come together and worship your name
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Lord you are the one who is Deserving of worship you are do our worship and we would bring that to you
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We ask that the Holy Spirit be our teacher this morning and open our hearts in Jesus name.
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Amen Okay, I would like to continue this morning on a theme that I have touched on at least twice other times this this summer
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And that is the study of the book of Genesis But to begin
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I would like to look in Psalm 136. So if you would turn with me to Psalm 136 and The psalm writer
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Begins to give reasons first of all, he encourages us to give thanks to the
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Lord to worship the Lord For he is good for his
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Steadfast love says the English standard endures forever Some of your other translations will probably say his mercy endures forever
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And that is used over and over and over as a theme It says give thanks to the God of gods for his steadfast love endures forever
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Give thanks to the Lord of Lords for his steadfast love endures forever
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But then it's very interesting when he starts off In the next five verses
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With his he that the whole psalm he's giving reasons why we are to give thanks to the
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Lord why we are to worship the Lord but reason number one to him who alone does great wonders and Then this first great wonder that he talks about is creation itself
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Verse 5 to him by understanding made the heavens Verse 6 to him who spread out the earth above the waters
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Verse 7 to him who made great lights verse 8 the
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Sun to rule over the day verse 9 the moon and stars to rule over the night for his steadfast love endures forever and Then he goes on and starts talking about God's mercy to Israel to his chosen people what he has done
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He talks about the the time in Egypt and so forth and so on but it's very interesting That David starts off or the writer of this psalm starts off by Emphasizing if you will the historicity of original creation
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That he assumes that the Genesis account of The original creation is real history
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It's not a legend. It's not an allegorical story to make a point. It really happened
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Because he starts off. These are the reasons you're to praise God. First of all, he's the creator.
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He made everything and secondly, he's done these marvelous works for us as the children of Israel and he goes on through this and so He he's dealing with with Genesis with the book of Genesis as Real history as Real history and this is an idea and that I've sort of tried to emphasize this summer is that this is something that is essential
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The book of Genesis is in the front of the Bible for a reason It is where we have to start and the
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Bible says Genesis says Genesis 1 1 in the beginning
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God created the heavens and the earth now In the beginning, that's the first phrase in the
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Bible and yet The writer is not trying to imply that before that beginning there was nothing
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Because there was something before the beginning in fact, you can even say that the the thrust of the sentence is in the beginning that was not the beginning
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God God created the heavens and the earth because before the beginning of creation in sequence
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God existed the Trinitarian God Existed and Jesus made reference to this
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He said in in John 17 24. He says thou loves me before the foundation of the world in John 17 5
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He says the glory which I had before the world was so there was a
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God that existed because There's no such thing as true nothingness and we'll talk about this in just a moment
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Because even and Job also the Job chapter 38 In fact, if you want to if you want to find true original creation
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Yes, it's Genesis but also go to Job chapter 38 where that's where he's talking about the creation of the universe and everything and Job, of course is
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Standing there, you know being interrogated by God who's basically saying where were you? when all of this took place
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But anyway, but before Genesis 1 1 there is a God there.
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There's the Godhead exist in three persons and The Bible talks about that that in Ephesians 1 4 it says we're chosen in him before the foundation of the world
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That The response to to Adam's fall Was not something that was dreamed up at the last second.
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God did not call together an emergency committee to Discuss the situation and decide what he was going to do.
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This was all planned out ahead of time First Peter 1 20
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Christ's death is foreordained before the foundation of the world Even before anything is created the fact that Jesus is going to come and die for the sins
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Die for our sins is already foreordained Titus 1 2 eternal life is promised before the world begins 2nd
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Timothy 1 9 we are saved we are called according to his purpose and his grace before the world began so someone existed before the beginning and That someone is not static
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He is personal That someone is not an eternal otherness or whatever you want to call it
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It's a real personal thinking being
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Because what's going on Specifically mentioned is the
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Father and the Son and And also by implication the Holy Spirit is all mentioned as being present at the beginning because Genesis 1 2 says the
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Spirit of God moves upon the waters and throughout the early chapters of Genesis God says let us make man in our image.
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For example using the plurals and That's significant. So there's there's three individuals
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There's three personalities. They're all there. They love each other.
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They communicate with each other they plan So all of this is going on before The world is even founded
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The fact is that there was a promise and The promise was made within the members of the
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Godhead because that's all there was There's a promise. There's love. There's communication so that these things are intrinsic they have always existed and When human beings are casting about We cast about because we need love don't we?
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We need communication. We are not Born to be alone God said
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God said of Adam. It is not good that man should be alone I'm going to make him a partner suitable for him.
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And so All of these things, you know, we search for these things as human beings artists spend their time and pour their souls into Seeking for this and yet these are intrinsic things
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They have always been there and they exist and have value in and of themselves and so that brings us to what
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What sort Jean -Paul Sartre called the basic philosophical problem facing man the fact that something is there as Opposed to nothing is there.
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Why is there something as opposed to nothing and I Can look around and say
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I'm here I'm here and also things that are in contrast to me are here
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I Mean unless you really get off into some weird Eastern Religions and philosophies the fact that we're here is pretty undeniable
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You know here we are and so that leads us to the question Is what is is what is here?
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Has it always been here? And if it hasn't always been here Where did it come from? Because I See myself, you know, where did
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I come from? These are the questions that have puzzled philosophers all their lives, you know, who am I? Why am
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I here? Where am I going? What is my destiny and man has cast about to all these various places and philosophies and what have you looking for answers to those questions and yet the answers to those questions are very clearly delineated within God's Word and The only true answers are delineated in God's Word otherwise, you're going to be spinning your wheels for the rest of your life and You will eventually wind up in despair because you will not be able to find the answer
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So back to the back to the the the topic of being there Have has have we always been here
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Well, there are four possibilities that you could look at that you could look at one is that there at one time there was absolutely nothing truly nothing
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Then you can also say that everything began with an impersonal Something then there's the possibility that everything began with a personal something
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We'll talk about that at some detail And we can also say that there is and always has been a dualism
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And you find these philosophies floating around but very few have ever tried to seriously propose that there was once absolutely nothing because That has to really be nothing
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That there's no matter there's no energy. There's nothing Which leads to the immediate question if there's absolutely nothing if there's no matter there's no energy
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Where did something come from? did it suddenly spontaneously erupt and No one seriously puts that that point of view forward and same thing for the last point of view that there's always been a dualism and you get this and Some Eastern religions and a lot of New Age thought and things of that sort, but you can't really make that hold up either because Anyone who has ever proposed a dualism whether it's yin and yang or you know, whatever it is
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You always wind up emphasizing one side of that to the other you can't really keep it in balance so The whole idea that there's always been good and evil a balance of this and that you know
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That that point of view doesn't seriously stand up so that only leaves us with two things and the first is that everything began with an impersonal something and that is the current consensus of What Schaefer calls modern modern science?
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It's also the the universal consensus pretty much of Western thought and Eastern thought too for that matter that everything comes from natural causes in a closed system and that is where most modern philosophy stems from is that idea, but if you if you go from there if If you go with that that means there is ultimately no absolute and Again as Schaefer points out
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Mankind cannot truly live without absolutes If you if we reject the absolutes of the
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Bible Then we begin to invent absolutes on our own on our own self
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Because we have to have something that's absolute to give meaning
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To the particulars in our lives. We are all particulars. We're all little particular things
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This chair is a particular this music stand as a particular, but we need something that overarches all of it to give it meaning and so if we reject
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God as The ultimate transcendent over all everything then we begin to think up things on our of our ourselves
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We have to have we have to have absolutes The trouble is absolutes if they come from any other source except the
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Word of God are subject to change Which is sort of a contradiction in terms, isn't it a variable absolute?
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But that's what we wind up with That's what we wind up with if we if we look to the elites of our society
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Whether we call it the the hereditary nobility or we we call them university professors, you know
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Yeah, who are going to tell us? Who are going to tell us the truth, you know?
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If y 'all remember there used to be a cartoon, I guess it's still published called BC and whenever they were going to Proclaim truth they went and stood on the truth pedestal spell
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TR VTH and You know, so we put somebody on the truth pedestal who's going to tell us what truth is and The trouble is with that is that these things change
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You can have a government who's going to give you your absolutes the communists tried this and What happens after 70 years it all collapses?
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So we go on we go on the impersonal Beginning in a it even though it's the consensus.
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It doesn't answer two big issues It does not answer the issue of the question of why?
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Why does what is have a particular form?
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What why is something The way it is whatever it is. Why is a maple leaf the way it is and not some other way?
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Why are we the way we are and not some other way? Which leads us to the other question?
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Why is their personality? Every person in this room is an individual personality
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You are an individual personality. That's how I can tell you all apart You look differently you you act a little bit differently you
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Every one of you has little different ideas on things. You are individual people and That's how we tell each other apart
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We're personality and this impersonal beginning does not answer that can't that has no answer for that for that issue
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And and and as an extension of that there's no answer that there's no basis for human relationships
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There's no basis for human society. There's no basis for human culture There's no basis for the rule of law.
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Not really or any of these things and so choice
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C Becomes is the Judeo -christian answer and it does answer these questions
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It does answer these questions Why is their form and personality because a creator
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God decreed? That there be a specific form and a creator God has personality
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That's the characteristic of the eternal God. They are they are personalities and So why is their personality in the universe because God is?
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Is Personality and has personality and why is there form to the universe?
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Because God decreed that it exists in this form and not some other This is the
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Christian answer and it does answer the questions because and it's the basis
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It's the basis for example of the Christian doxology. What do we praise?
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We what do we say when we praise God unto what him? Not unto it
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Not unto an impersonal thing but unto a personal being because the
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Bible Contrasts so much between God and idols that man make what are the characteristics of idols?
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Well, they're dumb and I by that I mean they can't speak they're dumb.
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They can't hear they can't see They can't move You want to pray to this, you know,
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I Mean, here's this piece of block of wood, you know, and and I carved it up and I gilded it real nice But it still can't hear it can't speak.
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It can't move unless I move it You know doesn't sound like it's gonna be a whole lot of help when
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I get into trouble and A kindling wood maybe you know, I could sit on it perhaps if my chair breaks or something
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But so what has God? What is God God is personal God is personal.
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It's person. There's personality between the the members of the Godhead and also to us
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We have a personal God who is personally interested in us
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He pays attention to what happens to us And think about that he's not some impersonal something even even the pagan societies that dreamed up Gods in Olympus or wherever they were those gods that were up there were just extensions of man's personality they were inventions of man so that they they had if you read
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Greek mythology the Greek gods had all of the all of the foibles that men have the jealousy the pettiness the
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The desire to strike back all of those things that mark human beings they had
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They were just like us in other words But our God is personal they are created
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And one one thing I left out that they were not particularly interested in people on the earth except for a certain individual
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Our our God is interested in us every last one of us Jesus told the disciples not even a little bird
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Falls that your Heavenly Father doesn't take note of that Because it's part of his creation and you are much more important than birds
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God says The the animal rights people fundamentally have it wrong
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You know as much as we love them our dog and our cat are not as important to God as we are
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But anyway, he is the creator he's the former of all things
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Jeremiah 1016 God is the former of all things.
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He is our portion he was before all else in the beginning only marks the start of Modern of history if you will it is a sequence point
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But it does not mean that before Genesis 1 1 that nothing existed
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God existed and God was complete God has never spent a day in his life in all of eternity
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Where he needed anything? Whether he was unhappy about anything
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Whether he where he did not exist in perfect harmony and love with the other members of the
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Godhead God did not have to create you you you hear some people say well
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God was lonely and so therefore he made creation and created man to give him companionship.
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No, no, no God has always been complete 100 % complete he created us because it gave him pleasure to do that It was his desire to do that.
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And so he creates he is there He is there he has always been there
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He is it's very significant that he picked the name when he when Moses said who shall
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I say sent me? What did he say? I? am Sent you he has always been
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I am He's never I was Never I am going to be he's always
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I am he's always there and So this is the root reason for why we praise
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God Why do we praise God? You know, we love him because he first loved us.
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Well, that's certainly true We love him and we praise him because he saved us. That's certainly true But those are not the fundamental reasons why we praise
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God we praise God because he is God and Praise is do him
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It belongs to him by right Because he is the creator. He is the source of all that exists
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He brought it all into existence he is the one that created by Fiat out of nothing and at one point there was nothing and then
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God said and And it was the Bible says You Seen the
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King James. He says God spoke and it was done. The word done doesn't really apply there the the actual
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Hebrew says God spoke and it was so God said light and there was light and God spoke the worlds into existence the universe into existence and so He's the
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God that does these things and he continues to work in his creation and someday, he's going to judge his creation and Therefore we are not autonomous that's that's the problem you run into with the impersonal start theory is
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That we become autonomous We're just in a close kind of a closed loop and it never we never there's no real meaning to anything in that we're just sort of here and you know, it's you you you're the product of time and chance and There's nothing after death.
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You're just oblivion. But in the meantime have a meaningful life, you know That's not why we are
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We're here because God created us He created from nothing the Hebrew bara
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Means to create from nothing and it's used in only four places in Genesis It's used in chapter 1 3 times and in chapter 5
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Genesis 1 1 means the creation from nothing that's
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It's argued. Is that original creation or what? But anyway, it's creation from nothing when
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God made the universe Then there is the creation of conscious life in Genesis 121 then there is the creation of man in Genesis 127 and Then Genesis 5 verses 1 and 2 is a summary of chapter 1
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So those four things is when this word is used to mean to create from nothing. God is the one that creates out of nothing he speaks and it comes into existence and So but his creation has unique stages and Differentiation as he goes through his creation process first.
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He creates physical matter and at the same time energy that's one of the principles of physics is that matter and energy are interchangeable and Everything in the universe is either matter or energy and we've gotten very good at changing matter into energy
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We call that an atomic bomb or a hydrogen bomb. We're not so good at turning energy back into matter but So he creates and and matter and energy come into existence and then as a differentiation of that He creates he creates life
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Conscious life because he's already created plants Plant life, but now he's created conscious life animals
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But then as a further differentiation he creates man and the
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Bible specifically says of man that he is created in God's image and This is a very profound statement and This is something that unfortunately in society
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We have lost this idea that meant that men are created in God's image.
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Why do men have dignity? Why does a human being in and of himself or in and of herself have dignity that other animals do not have
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Because we are created in the image of God and That becomes the basis for so many things in our society
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The rule of law for example rests on that and As we are slowly eroding this whole idea
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That there is a creator God and that we are created in his image You begin to get away from you what people don't realize is that they're they're chewing away the foundation for society itself
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Why is why is it wrong To kill another human being
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I challenge you to answer that question without Making reference to God if we are all just if we are simply the
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Particular great apes that have managed to claw our way to the top of the food chain Fundamentally, why is it wrong for one of us to kill another one?
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I Mean in in in human in animal life this goes on all the time Someone put it, you know nature is what red of claw and bloody
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Because that's what nature does the the survival of the fittest all those ideas, you know the
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In any herd in any herd of antelopes that are running along Some of them are going to be slower than the others and the slow one.
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We have a scientific name for that and we call him lunch Because the lion
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The lion realizes he's got if he's going to survive he's got to outrun the the slowest antelope and The antelope realizes that if he's going to survive he's got to outrun the fastest lion and that's the way
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That's the way what we call nature and we worship nature. That's the way it goes But why don't we do why don't we deal with human beings that way?
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What makes us different and Do you see what I'm driving at if you get away from the idea if you lose the idea that we are created in the image of God Then you have kicked the props out from underneath Everything you've kicked the props out from under society and yet we have so often we have lost that idea
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We have lost that concept You were going to say something
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Charlie Absolutely what
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Charlie was just saying those of you that miss it is that we have when we when we abandon this idea
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That we're that we are created in God's image Then the basis for morals for behavior is what's called altruism, which is a reciprocal agreement
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You know, I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine type of thing And yet we have gone there you see it in in legal
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In legal decisions that are being made today we have gone there but the because we have abandoned the idea
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That we do certain things Because it's the right thing to do not for any not for anything we get out of it but that this is what
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God has said this is the way you act towards each other and Therefore this is what you do
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And On the most extreme example of that does deal with taking of human life
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God says man is created in God's image. Therefore you one man does not kill another and As an extension of that this is so important that God grants to government
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That if someone does take the life of another human being that the government after proper
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Process and procedure will in fact take his life. All of this is laid out in the immediate post -flood era
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Where that goes on? But this answers your question, you know, why don't we why don't we?
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when she gets old and and and not able to Help around the house anymore.
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Why don't we just take grandma out and you know Find a place in the in the woods out amongst the snow and put her out there and let the wolves take care of her
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Why don't we do that? Why do we treat we treat even? the remains of a human being with dignity
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Why don't I after all after after the the soul departs from the body? I mean, that's just a hunk of meat there
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Isn't it? So why don't we just call? Whoever our trash pickup is and say, you know
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You know like the old medieval days bring out your dead and it's in them off. I know what you're thinking about Yeah, there you go and send them off no we we treat that body with dignity we treat that body with dignity and Why do we do that because we're made in God's image
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And by losing that or by rejecting it We undermine our entire society and that's what we're doing.
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And that is what it is. So necessary for us to regain the idea that we are that we are created in God's image as We go out and we preach the gospel
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The first thing you have to get across to somebody is That you know, you can't start off by just saying, you know,
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Jesus came and died for you Because the immediate reaction to that is yeah, so what
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I Didn't ask him to do that You know Until you have regained the idea that Number one there is a
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Creator God and Because there is a Creator God who made you you're not autonomous
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You're not autonomous. You don't exist in a vacuum You exist in the framework
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That stems from the fact that there's a Creator God and from there Then you can go to the idea that you have offended him mightily
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Why do you need us out? Why is there a need for salvation? Because there is a
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God to whom we must answer and we have offended him We come short of his
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Criteria We can no longer stand in his presence. We are not fit to stand in the presence of a holy
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God What are we going to do about that? That's the question that comes up in Job.
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How can a man be right before God and It's not enough quite frankly to have our sins removed
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That's a big step. We have to have our sins removed But we also have to somehow come into a possession of a righteousness that is equivalent to God's righteousness
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Or else we can't stand in his presence God this is not a neutral thing.
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This is not a zero -sum game We have to have a righteousness that is equivalent to God's righteousness.
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And that's why the doctrine of imputed righteousness is so important It's not just that Jesus hung on the cross and died for our sins to take our sins away
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It's also that his righteousness is imputed to us as if it belongs to us
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So that I can take a righteousness that is not my own I Didn't do anything to earn it.
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I Certainly don't deserve it in any way shape or form But I have it by the grace of God and because I have that righteousness
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I Can go and stand before God I can come into his presence and I can call him father
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And not your honor You know, it's not like I'm coming before a judge
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I'm coming before my father in heaven. And so What comes out of this whole idea this emphasis on the creation of man as a living being?
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With conscious life and created in God's image. Well, first of all First of all man is different in kind from the rest of creation
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Men and women are created as a unit God created
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Adam. He created Eve from Adam so that they could be a unit because what did God say?
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It is not good for the man to be alone He's already run all of the animals have now come by Adam Adams first job was or one of his first jobs
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Was guess what Adam you get to name all the animals. So all the animals come by and Adam gives them all names and One thing that Adam notices because Adam is brilliant, you know
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There's no fall yet. So Adam, you know Adam is using all of his brain Not the 10 % of it that we use and so they all come by and Adam gets the point very quickly
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Every one of these animals has got its mate Except me
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I look around and there's no one who's like me There's no one who is a mate for me
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And God comes along and says that's right, and that's not good So what we're going to do
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Adam you go to sleep and when you wake up Here's Eve Created to be your partner or as the as the old
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King James puts it a help meet for him and Someone who is appropriate for Adam and what does
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Adam say? He says now here is someone who is like me different but like me of the same kind to go through life with me and So they're designed as a unit
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And so we are in the flow of history man is different in origin
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He's different in origin all things created by the same God. That's true. But man is fundamentally different He is created in God's image.
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And what does that mean? It means that man is related to God in a way that nothing else is
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God rules over all of his creation. But what did God do as far as man is concerned?
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He says Adam Acting under me, of course But you have dominion over the earth
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You are to rule on earth You know you are to take care of the animals you are to take care of the garden you are earth's ruling authority
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I have given you I have extended to you that authority and so He has this relationship upward
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Adam has a relationship upward to God, but he is supposed to control the earth
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Now after the fall that's going to become corrupted but you know, we're speaking for the before the fall here for a minute
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So what's going on now? Well God Adam has this vertical relationship, which is the primary one
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He also now has a horizontal relationship to Eve his wife Because the two of them the two of them are designed to be a unit and Love is possible genuine love is possible
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Because it stems directly from the love that the Godhead has within its own members
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Okay, so we can now It's it's possible to love horizontally because of the love it's vertical
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Communication is possible Adam and Eve can communicate with each other
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Again communication has always been there because the eternal Godhead communicated among the members of the
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Godhead And so now we have in short we have an intellectual emotional and psychological basis for the understanding of who we are and Therefore because he's created in God's image.
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He has dominion over the rest of creation He is to stand between God and all the rest that God has created here on earth
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The Bible says, you know, God rules in heaven man rules on the earth We are to subdue the earth.
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We are to control it. We are to take care of it So often we have a warped idea of what it means to have dominion or a warped idea of what it means to be in charge
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What it a warped idea of what it means to lead The best definition of what leadership is that I ever heard was this one
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Leadership is the conscious taking a responsibility for the welfare of others
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That's what it means to lead It's not fundamentally that the guy who's leading gets to give orders
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He does he gets to give orders, but he also gets to take the responsibility for those orders but first and foremost the leader and it doesn't matter if we're talking about a leader in a military context a
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Military and our leader in a family context, whatever it is. The leader is the one who is responsible for the welfare of The ones that he's leading
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So fathers you are responsible for the welfare of your family of your wife and your children
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Young men who are not yet married. That's what you're going to take on When when you ask some girl to marry you
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What you're really asking her to do is put yourself under my care I will be responsible for you
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I will care for you. I will put your needs ahead of me
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Because that's what a good leader does he takes care a good leader takes care of those that he's responsible for Before he takes care of himself
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Again if you're in the military concept context, it means that your men eat before you eat
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It means that your men are bedded down Before you think about retiring it means you're up before they are
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To make sure that everything goes well When the day starts the next morning all of those things and we have that relationship
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We have that responsibility because God gave it to us and We are also freed by this though we are freed from the
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Thinking that whatever is is, right? again, if we are simply the creation time and chance and And we are autonomous
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Then there is no real concept of right. What is simply is and The idea that what is might be wrong and that we might go out and take steps to change it
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It's really a kind of a foreign concept But we're free of that We're free of that man has been given dominion over the earth and therefore he has moral responsibility for what he does
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Another thing that comes out of this is that all of creation is there for man to use?
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not to abuse But to use we are responsible for our care of the earth
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We are responsible for our care of the earth it is unfortunate that in this day and age
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Environmentalism has become politicized and So we tend to shun it and stay away from it
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Which is really not what God has For us he has given us dominion over the earth.
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We are to care for it We are to care for it We also have the right to rule.
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We have the responsibility to rule psalm 8 verses 5 to 8 psalm 115 verse 16 emphasizes these things
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But finally and in conclusion Man is a value because of his origin
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That's the whole point. I've been trying to drive home this morning and Also in the the two previous times that we've discussed this chapter
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Man is a value because of his origin. We are made in God's image
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We are made in God's image and that gives us intrinsic value
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Intrinsic value means it's it's a value in and of itself Because we are human beings made in God's image we have value not because of our
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Knowledge or our wealth or anything else But simply because we exist and we are made in God's image.
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That's why in the ultimate sense the Einsteins of the world have value and The the individual who in God's providence is retarded has value and That answers the question that you're starting to see from certain from certain thinkers if you want to use that term, you know where they're saying that well, you know a a
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Newborn has no real right to exist Because you know, it can't contribute to society at all.
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You know, it's just there it it doesn't do anything Except you know eat and sleep and the consequences of eating and so forth and so on It doesn't really contribute anything and we have to wait until you know
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It's it's three or four or five years old before it becomes fully a human being
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Now I'm not making this up. There are there are Educated people that are seriously talking along these lines at this time
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And what's the answer to that? The answer to that is that in the womb
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From from the moment of creation in the womb this individual it's a human being created in God's image and Therefore it's not just another piece of plasma.
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It's not just another piece of protoplasm It's not it's it's a human being and it has all of the dignity that is that is attached to that because it's created in God's image and it is to be protected and nurtured and all of those things
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Let's pray our Heavenly Father. We do thankful We're thank thankful that we are indeed created in your image and that you have not abandoned us
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But that you have reached down to us and drawn us back to yourself, even though we have rebelled and gone off in our own way you have nonetheless reached down and you sent your son and The Bible tells us that all of this plan was laid out even before the beginning
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That the planning was done. Everything was in place. The decrees were made and so Lord we can do nothing except praise you and Fall down and worship you and We would do that this morning
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We pray Lord this morning that your hand would be upon our pastor as he opens the word to us Prepare our hearts to receive your message this morning in Jesus name.