TPW 36 Every False Philosophy Refuted in Genesis 1:1-5

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November 15, 2018

00:05: We want the roles to be reversed. We were down here and God was up here, and Adam and Eve worshiped God. Now that we've fallen, we want it to be this.
00:12: We are up here. We want recognition. We have pride. We want people to look to us and recognize our greatness.
00:23: You don't have to be a young earth creationist to go to heaven. You need to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. However, what
00:30: God has revealed to us, everything He has revealed, we are supposed to believe. Welcome to the
00:56: Protestant Witness. This is Pastor Patrick Hines here at Birdwall Heights Presbyterian Church. Today, pressing on in the
01:02: Genesis series. It's kind of another introductory message. I called this one a corrective to the whole world.
01:10: And it is God correcting every false philosophy imaginable in five verses of Scripture.
01:16: The very first verses of the book of Genesis. Again, highly important divine revelation given to us.
01:25: And it does really correct every false philosophy and every false idea about the origin of the universe, the purpose of the universe.
01:33: And God does it as only He can in just a few sentences. So I hope that you will find this edifying.
01:43: Let us pray together that God will bless us with understanding of His word. Heavenly Father, we all confess together that we have been affected in every part of who we are by the fall of Adam into sin, including our minds, our ability to think clearly, rationally about the world around us and about what you have revealed.
02:05: And so we would ask now that you would enlighten our minds as Paul prayed for the Ephesians, that you would give us a spirit of wisdom and enlighten us with the knowledge of your word, that we would understand what your will is and understand clearly what you have revealed in this very important passage right at the beginning of the
02:23: Bible. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1.
02:30: Genesis chapter 1 verses 1 through 5 is this morning's sermon text.
02:36: Genesis chapter 1 verses 1 through 5. Genesis chapter 1 verses 1 through 5.
02:48: This is God's word. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
02:54: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.
03:00: And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
03:08: And God saw the light, that it was good. Then God divided the light from the darkness.
03:14: God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
03:22: May God add His blessing to the reading of His word. I've put an outline in your bulletin this morning for this morning's sermon.
03:32: The first point I've called correction to every false philosophy. The second point is without form and void, speaking about the earth.
03:41: And then thirdly, day one is finished. Now I've called the sermon this morning a corrective to the whole world.
03:47: It's really amazing that God in this passage does not take the time to enumerate and then refute all of man's false ideas about the origin and purpose of the world and of mankind.
03:58: God in one sentence, the opening verse of Genesis, refutes every false idea that's ever been thought of about the origin of man and of the universe.
04:07: It's really quite remarkable. We'll look at a list of those things at the very end of this morning's sermon. But first, by way of introduction, the
04:15: Bible is the bestselling book of all time. It is also the most widely read book in the world of all time as well.
04:22: Now, most people who own a Bible, who have ever tried to read it, usually start where they would start in any book, and that is at the very beginning.
04:30: And therefore, we could tentatively conclude that Genesis 1 verse 1 and the first few verses of Genesis have been read by more human beings in more places and in more languages than any other words have ever been read in the entire history of the world.
04:44: And let us remember, as we look at the very first words of God's written revelation to man, that this was given to us to be a revelation, a making known of that which was unknown before.
04:57: Not an obscuring of that. It's not a code that we need to know eight Near Eastern Semitic languages to understand.
05:05: It is a revelation from God to us so that we would understand these things. It's sufficient to give mankind the knowledge of God and of himself that would lead him to salvation.
05:17: And why is this written revelation so very important? The opening sentence of the Westminster Confession of Faith tells us this.
05:23: Please hear this. This is one sentence. Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom and power of God has to leave men inexcusable.
05:36: Yet they are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation.
05:43: Therefore, please the Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal himself and to declare that his will unto his church and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world to commit the same wholly unto writing, which make up the
06:05: Holy Scripture to be most necessary. Those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people being now ceased.
06:13: And so the written word of God is what gives us the knowledge of God that is necessary for our salvation.
06:21: And so often the distinction is made as pushed out there by the world and by critics of a young earth position that these aren't salvation issues.
06:28: These things are very important. There are lots of things that we can believe anything we want about. Now, on one hand, that's true.
06:35: You don't have to be a young earth creationist to go to heaven. You need to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. However, what
06:41: God has revealed to us, everything he has revealed, we are supposed to believe. And there's always going to be consequences if we don't believe those things.
06:51: And we've gone over what some of those things are on the last three Sunday mornings when we reject the simple, straightforward, clear reading of Genesis 1 and Genesis 1 through 11, the earth's foundational history.
07:02: There are dramatic consequences that follow from that. And that's why I made the argument last week. One of those is the moral collapse of our society.
07:09: As I stated last week, our beliefs about what is right and what is wrong with regard to human relationships, marriage, of technology, economics, politics is based upon the things that are taught in the
07:22: Bible and the morality that is given to us in God's law. But if we hand over earth's foundational history at the beginning of the
07:31: Bible to the world and say, you guys can make mincemeat out of this and we'll believe whatever you tell us to, we have effectively knocked over our own tower.
07:39: By giving the unbelieving world everything they need to reject what God's word says about everything else.
07:44: If we can't believe it from the very beginning, why should we believe anything else in it about things like marriage, life, politics, government or anything else that's in the
07:52: Bible. So as we begin to read God's graciously given written revelation, we must pay very close attention to everything he says to us in light of the fact that, as our confession says, the light of nature and the works of creation and providence are not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation.
08:12: What we read in scripture gives mankind the knowledge of God and of his will, which is needed for us to be saved.
08:18: And therefore, what we read in it could not possibly be more important. So let's look at verse one, verse one, correction to every false philosophy, verse one in God's word to us.
08:31: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
08:37: We're going to look at every word and phrase in this verse because they're all important. That first phrase in the beginning.
08:43: Well, the key question is in the beginning of what? And the answer is the existence of space, matter and time.
08:50: We often ask questions or at least my children used to ask me questions. What was God doing before he created the universe?
08:57: I've always appreciated the great Augustine. His answer to that question was creating hell for people who ask that question.
09:04: But such questions are asked asking about the nature of things for God using a temporal qualifier before.
09:11: Is it even proper to speak of time in any sense before the existence of time, matter and energy and space came into existence?
09:19: Now, the Bible does speak of there being a before the foundation of the world. We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
09:26: Ephesians chapter one tells us. But when Genesis one one says in the beginning, it is speaking amazingly enough, if we can even comprehend this, of the initiation of time itself.
09:39: God is a supra temporal being. He's just outside of the realm of time and does not in himself experience a succession of events in the way that we do being time bound as we are.
09:51: Now, God does interact with us in time, doesn't he? God very often had conversations, direct conversations with the patriarchs, with Adam, with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob.
10:00: There was real interaction, God condescending to us to interact with us. But God himself is the architect, the creator of the space time continuum.
10:09: He exists outside of it and is not bound by it in any way. The universe is not eternal.
10:16: It began. That's one of the great things that's taught in this passage. Beginning teaches us that there was a beginning.
10:24: The universe is not eternal. It began to exist a finite time ago, about six thousand years.
10:31: The second word, the second phrase or word in the passage after in the beginning is the word God. There, the
10:37: Hebrew word Elohim is plural in its ending. Elohim is not to be translated as God to say what you would call in Hebrew a majestic plural.
10:46: Often if they wanted to communicate something's majesty or power, they would put it in the plural, even if it was a singular object.
10:53: And that's what this indicates, God's majesty and his omnipotence, that he is all powerful. And some have looked even at the plural ending of the noun
11:01: God, Elohim, as being an indication of plurality within the Godhead, that God is tripersonal. We know that he is
11:07: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But who is the great beginner of everything?
11:13: It is God, the one and only true and living God. Everything that is derives its existence and its essence from his creative power and omnipotence.
11:26: And now the next word, God created, that word created. Here we have a very unique Hebrew verb, the verb bara, which is used always and only of the creative work of this
11:39: Elohim. This one God is able to bara, only God can create something.
11:45: And I pointed this out in other sermons, but I want to review it again. God alone is able to create something out of nothing, to call something into existence out of nothing.
11:55: That is a power that is completely unknown to us. It's something for which there is no analogy in the created order anywhere.
12:03: We make things out of stuff that God's already put here. We can make things out of wood and out of the ground, and we can mine metals out of the ground and do things.
12:10: But no one can create anything except God. Only God can call something into being out of nothing.
12:18: And that is a power that truly is unimaginable to us, to be able to do something like that. Romans 4 .17,
12:24: Paul wrote, As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of him whom he believed,
12:29: God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.
12:37: Only God can do that, can call something as if it exists which does not exist. Hebrews 11 .3,
12:43: you may remember in the very first sermon in the series, Hebrews 11 .3 says, By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
12:56: This is a power to bring into existence that which doesn't exist, creation out of nothing.
13:05: Now, our Westminster Shorter Catechism speaks about the fact that God is not only the creator, but that he is the preserver of that which he created.
13:13: And again, it's something that we have to recognize. It's very important for us to understand the doctrine of providence, that God is the one who preserves the existence of everything that he created, because every single thing
13:25: God made, space, matter and time, our bodies, everything that's in this room, the entire universe in created order, it exists because God created it and he sustains its existence over time.
13:39: He is the one who keeps it there. Why am I here? Why do I continue to exist?
13:45: Because God sustains and preserves my existence. It's vitally important for us to know what does that mean?
13:53: What does it mean that God has a providence? That's one of our Westminster Shorter Catechism questions.
13:58: What are God's works of providence? God's works of providence are his most holy, wise and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.
14:10: God preserves the existence of everything that he created. And again, remember that Hebrew verb bara as it's used throughout the
14:18: Old Testament. It only has one subject and only one God, because man, the only thing man can do is make things.
14:26: That's another Hebrew verb, the verb asah. We can asah things, but only God can bara something. Only God can make it exist out of nothing.
14:34: And again, that's something that we should meditate on from time to time. I have no being or existence apart from God's power.
14:42: He preserves my existence. And again, if I were to go out of God's mind, even for a moment,
14:48: I would simply disappear and everything I'm made out of would disappear. God can simply make me not exist any longer if he so desires.
14:58: If we and everything else in the universe were called into existence out of nothing, then it follows that our continued existence is by the sustaining and preserving power of God.
15:06: And so I want to make this point of application to you. Does it not follow that men are acting so very foolishly when they pretend that they are independent from God or pretend that they are a law unto themselves?
15:20: A new video just came out, Evolution vs. God, put out by Ray Comfort along the same lines as the 180 video.
15:26: I bought that and we watched it yesterday. And it was just amazing to listen to Ray Comfort asking professors of biology and professors of geology at universities, are there moral absolutes?
15:38: No. And then he would ask, well, who makes the rules? And they would say, we do. That is the height of foolishness.
15:46: Our moment by moment existence is preserved by the power and word and providence of God.
15:53: And if we say we create the rules, if we act as if we are independent of him, we could not possibly be more foolish.
16:02: Years ago with one of my older boys, we had an ongoing debate around bedtime about creation. Trying to get across to a six or seven year old the concept that God created out of nothing can be a rather difficult challenge.
16:13: She kept wanting to tell me there was God and black stuff. And I kept saying, no, son,
16:19: God created out of nothing. That's what that catechism question means when it says that God made all things of nothing by the word of his power.
16:26: And he would say, no, there was God and black stuff. God and black stuff. And I kept saying, no, there was God and nothing.
16:32: He called us into being. And eventually that went back and forth until it just was him laughing at me saying,
16:38: God and black stuff. God and black stuff. God and black stuff. There was no black stuff. There was no stuff at all.
16:45: It was God by himself enjoying an eternally blessed joy of fellowship between the members of the
16:52: Godhead. That's incomprehensible to us. And then God, by his own will and determination, chose to glorify himself by creating a universe.
17:01: And here now we have human beings in the world who act as if he doesn't exist. And act as if that's intellectual to believe that.
17:09: When you see evidence of his existence all day, every day, it's amazing to hear on that video.
17:15: Well, there's no existence, but there's no evidence for the existence of God. And yet the Bible tells us every fact that that is everything that is created screams to the world that God exists.
17:26: The problem is we suppress that truth and unrighteousness. It's vitally important that we understand that there is nothing of equal ultimacy with God.
17:35: There is no God and black stuff. It's God creates the universe and he created the universe through his son and for him.
17:44: The universe and everything in it was created through him and for him. It is for him. Why am I here? For him.
17:50: Why are these pews here? Why is there matter in the world? It's for God. It was created through him and for him.
17:56: Remember that passage in Colossians 116? I preached on this in the very first sermon in the series. For by him, all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible thrones, dominions, principalities and powers.
18:08: All things were created through him and for him. There is nothing of equal ultimacy with God.
18:14: God is the ultimate being. His existence takes primacy over everything else.
18:20: We are all derived from God and exist by his power, by his creative work.
18:25: And we continue to exist by his decree, by his providence. So that final, my final word to you about the word created, that unique verb aram.
18:35: Again, only God can do that. Man makes things. God creates them. God creates them and calls them into being out of nothing.
18:45: But man can never create anything. Only God can. And all things that were created were created through him and for him.
18:51: And thus everything that exists, exists for the glory and praise of God, not us.
18:57: As much as man has been wont in his rebellious sinfulness to reverse his role with God.
19:04: Ever since sin came into the world, now we have pride. And we want everyone to recognize how great we are.
19:10: We want the roles to be reversed. We were down here and God was up here. And Adam and Eve worshipped God. Now that we've fallen, we want it to be this.
19:17: We are up here. We want recognition. We have pride. We want people to look to us and recognize our greatness.
19:23: But again, that is so very foolish because everything that we are, all of our talents, everything we're good at, the discipline that we've had to develop those talents is itself a gift from God for him and his glory.
19:37: You see how rebellious and foolish we are when we're prideful about what we're good at, about our gifts, about the things that we are, the things that we've accomplished?
19:46: It's all for the glory of God. We're acting like unbelievers. We're acting like atheists when we're prideful about ourselves and our accomplishments.
19:57: And so God is the one who creates. God is the one who makes things out of nothing. And they all exist for him and by his will and for his pleasure.
20:06: So fourth thing in the passage, in the beginning God created, next phrase is the heavens. The heavens.
20:13: The Hebrew word there is shamayim, which is also plural means heavens. And that seems to refer to the modern term space, the vast and empty expanse in which all material things exist.
20:24: And please bear in mind and remember that at this particular point in the creation week, that the stars, planets, the sun and the moon are not created yet.
20:32: You just have this gigantic, vast, huge expanse. God creates the heavens and the earth.
20:38: And most commentators think what that means is God creates space, time, continuum, this vast, huge, open expanse.
20:45: And then there's matter. But even then it's without form and void. It hasn't really congealed yet.
20:51: There's just stuff and a vast expanse. So we're talking about this vast and empty place, the theater in which
21:00: God will soon display his unimaginable power and his glory, his creative genius and his astounding and inexhaustible power.
21:09: It is somewhat haunting to think of the heavens being created, this vast expanse of space being created at first with nothing in it yet.
21:18: Silence, vastness, darkness and time together. But then we read the next phrase, the heavens and the earth.
21:27: In this particular verse, that term earth, Eretz in Hebrew, refers to matter, specifically the matter of the planet
21:34: Earth itself, as the next verse explains. The earth initially seems to be a ball of matter with water covering it.
21:41: And here again, our imagination is somewhat stirred. You have this formless earth with water covering the surface in the midst of this vast expanse.
21:51: And if there's darkness, there's no light yet. And then this sphere of matter called Earth is called into being and has water on it.
21:58: And it's just kind of sitting there. So let's go to the next point. It's without form and void. Verse two, the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep.
22:11: And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Now, here's an important technical point.
22:16: It's very important to recognize. Verse two of Genesis chapter one, like every verse in Genesis chapter one in Hebrew, begins with what's called a while consecutive.
22:26: Now, that's a technical term referring to a conjunction that starts new sentences and new thoughts in Hebrew narratives.
22:37: In narratives of history, you find what's called a while consecutive. It's just one little Hebrew character with two little dots under it that tells you, and then this happened, and then that happened, and then this happened.
22:47: What is that saying? These happened in order. These happened in sequence. The language in the text is that of historical narrative, not poetry, not figures of speech.
22:58: So I share that with you. A while consecutive, while spelled W -A -W, it's one of the Hebrew characters. A while consecutive is a little character you normally just translate it with and, and that's what you do here.
23:09: And the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
23:16: So here we have the next event. Here's what happened. Let's look at that first phrase.
23:21: The earth was without form and void. What does that mean? God called space, matter, and time into existence, and then the earth, the matter, was these two kind of fun -sounding
23:33: Hebrew words. Without form and void in Hebrew is tohu wau bohu. So everything is tohu and bohu so far.
23:41: Now, tohu, the word that's translated without form, the different lexicons
23:47: I looked that term up in describe it as formlessness, confusion. And then one of them actually said, had this phrase in it, said, it signifies the terrible, eerie, deserted wilderness.
23:59: Everything is tohu. It's without form. It hasn't taken shape yet. God has simply created the materials he's going to form the world and everything in it out of.
24:09: And then the word bohu, where it says tohu is without form and bohu means uninhabited.
24:16: It's empty. So God creates this vast, huge expanse and puts matter in it, covers it with water, but everything right now is tohu wau bohu.
24:26: It's without form and it's uninhabited. There's nothing there yet. There are no creatures in the water. There's no life anywhere.
24:31: All you have is the stuff that God has put in place. I love that description from Kaler and Baumgartner, the
24:39: Hebrew lexicon. It signifies the terrible, eerie, deserted wilderness. That's what came to my mind when
24:44: I was going through this. What a haunting image. This huge, vast expanse and then there's this little bit of matter here, but it's without form and void.
24:53: There's nobody living there yet and it's covered with darkness. Everything's dark still. The great commentator
25:00: Henry Morris, which his commentary on Genesis, if you want to invest in a commentary that Ken Ham called it the
25:06: Cadillac of Genesis commentaries, it's fantastic. His book, The Genesis Record, is worth its weight in gold.
25:11: Henry Morris' commentary on Genesis is the best one I've ever seen. He says this, quote, The picture presented is one of all the basic material elements sustained in a pervasive, watery matrix throughout the darkness of space.
25:25: The same picture is suggested in 2 Peter 3 .5, the earth standing out of the water and in the water.
25:31: And then he makes this further comment. Elements of matter and molecules of water were present, but not yet energized.
25:38: The force of gravity was not yet functioning to draw such particles together into a coherent mass with a definite form.
25:46: That's why it says tohu, it's without form yet. Neither were the electromagnetic forces yet in operation and everything was in darkness.
25:54: The physical universe had come into existence, but everything was still and dark. No form, no motion, no light.
26:02: Now let's look at the next couple of phrases. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And then the last phrase, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
26:14: Here we have the first reference to the spirit of God in Scripture, the ruach Elohim, the spirit of God.
26:21: He is hovering. Some translate that very interesting Hebrew verb as moving, but a more technical translation of it could actually be shaking or fluttering.
26:32: One of the lexicons of that term described the verb as referring to the moving back and forth of a bird's wings.
26:40: God is, in a sense, there's this sense of back and forth movement, back and forth movement, fluttering, shaking, vibrating over the surface of the deep.
26:50: It's a very strange image. It's a very unusual Hebrew verb that's used there. Listen to Henry Morris's insights on what this is referring to.
26:57: Morris wrote, quote, The idea seems to be mainly that of a rapid back and forth motion.
27:03: In modern scientific terminology, the best translation would probably be vibrated. God was vibrating over the waters.
27:12: If the universe is to be energized, there must be an energizer. If it is to be set in motion, there must be a prime mover.
27:18: It is significant that the transmission of energy in the operations of the cosmos is in the form of waves, light waves, heat waves, sound waves, and so forth.
27:31: In fact, except for the nuclear forces, which are involved in the structure of matter itself, there are only two fundamental types of forces that operate on matter.
27:39: The gravitational forces and the forces of the electromagnetic spectrum all are associated with fields of activity and with transmission by wave motion.
27:50: Waves are typically rapid back and forth movements, and they are normally produced by the vibratory motion of a wave generator of some kind.
27:59: And so Morris is saying it's almost like this is God winding up the universe, this fluttering, this moving back and forth, hovering over the waters.
28:08: He is bringing into existence energy. Everything that you're able to hear right now is coming to your ears through waves of sound that are being vibrated by the back and forth movement of my vocal cords and my esophagus, and those waves go into your ear.
28:23: The ultimate wave maker is God, giving this energy, which, since this happened, all that energy has been doing what?
28:29: It's been depleted. Eventually all the energy will run out. But I think it's one of the most fascinating things
28:35: I've ever read about why the Spirit of God was fluttering or hovering or moving back and forth.
28:41: And even the Hebrew lexicon says it's the image of a butterfly's wings going back and forth and creating those waves of energy.
28:52: Morris continues, There was a big water park in Cincinnati that I used to go to once in a while when
29:08: I was a kid called The Beach. And it was this astounding breakthrough and fun technology where they had a wave pool in it.
29:16: And there were these gigantic walls that would move back and forth. And as long as those walls were pulsating back and forth, those big waves of water were coming over.
29:24: And that's what came into my mind when I was reading through this and looking at what that verb hovering or fluttering, however you want to translate it, moving back and forth over the waters is referring to.
29:32: God seems to be energizing the formless void so it has energy. It's almost as if the
29:39: Spirit of God, by doing that, is energizing all of creation and fusing and winding up the unimaginable storehouses of energy that will fuel everything in all of creation from planetary motion to the burning of stars, star movement, galaxy movement, and every other expenditure of energy that there ever will be.
29:56: God is the primary mover, must be the first one to move in order for everything else in creation to be able to do so as well.
30:05: And that was something when I took philosophy when I was in seminary that always struck me as a bit of a strange question, but that is a major philosophical problem is movement, motion.
30:13: How are things able to move at all? You may wonder, why is that a problem? I'm not sure I really fully understood that either, but it is apparently a problem that philosophers write about.
30:22: Well, here's why we can move, because God moved first. God is the one who is hovering over the surface of the deep.
30:29: OK, thirdly, day one finished. Let's look at verse three, four and five here. Verse three, four and five.
30:35: Genesis one, three. Then God said, let there be light. And there was light. Now, in English, we render that as four
30:43: English words. Let there be light. But in Hebrew, it's just two words. Yahi or be light,
30:51: God says. And there was light. And one of the great commentators, John Currid, said this, quote,
30:57: His awesome, crushing power was demonstrated dramatically by that command of just four words in English, only two in Hebrew.
31:06: God spoke and the physical came forth out of nothingness. By mere verbal fiat, the light was called to break into the formless, empty and dark world.
31:15: And what was this light? Since the sun had not yet been created, not until day four, it cannot have been a natural light.
31:23: Some rabbinic writings believe it was the effulgent splendor of the divine presence. The New Testament writings agree that it was reflective of God's presence.
31:31: But here in the person of Jesus Christ, that's what many commentators think. The source of light was the glory of Christ in the world.
31:39: Before God created a stable, physical source of light, it was Jesus Christ's glory shining into the dark and formless void.
31:47: That is something that we see in the rest of Scripture. Listen to these other passages. John 1, 1 -5
31:53: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
31:59: All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
32:13: Again, we saw the passage from Colossians 1 -16. Isaiah 30, verse 26 says,
32:18: Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold as the light of seven days, in the day that the
32:26: Lord binds up the bruise of his people and heals the stroke of their wound. And then Revelation 22, verse 5 says,
32:33: There shall be no night there, speaking about the heavenly Jerusalem. They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the
32:40: Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever. So, what exactly is this source of light?
32:46: The text doesn't specifically identify it, but if God says, Be light, there's light. Because he's able to create it out of nothing, if he so desires.
32:55: He doesn't need a sun. I'm emphasizing this to you because I've been reading extensively on these topics, and listening to debates, and there are those who have argued very, very forcefully that this had to be a second sun.
33:08: And therefore, it couldn't have been a second sun, because it didn't leave behind any astronomical evidence. I just want to remind us of something
33:14: I think should be obvious. Everything that happens in this first week is miraculous. Everything that happens is supernatural.
33:22: God is calling things into being out of nothing. God is the one who is doing all these remarkable things and creating out of nothing.
33:29: He doesn't have to account for light with a sun, with a second sun, destroy it, and then make another one.
33:35: If God says, Let there be light, he's able to create light out of nothing, if he wants to. Or it could be, as the rabbi said, the effulgent splendor of his own glory.
33:43: Or it could be Jesus Christ's glory shining, like in the book of Revelation. They need no sun, for the
33:48: Lord God gives them light. He can be the source of light himself, if he so desires. Okay, verse 4.
33:54: And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And here again, you see the wow consecutive use over and over again, meaning these are sequentially ordered events being narrated to us like a story, like a historical narrative of events that actually took place.
34:12: This is the first of seven times that we have that phrase, it was good. God saw what he had done, and it was good.
34:18: He saw the light, and it was good. Seven times in this chapter, you find that phrase. Seven representing, of course, the number of completion and perfection and fullness.
34:27: And now God names two things. The light, he names day.
34:33: And the darkness, he names night. Now look at verse 5 there in your Bible. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.
34:44: So the evening and the morning were the first day. I want to just make one little point here, that one of the commentators, the guy that I actually had as a professor, wrote a commentary on Genesis, Dr.
34:55: John Currid, points out that when it says light and darkness in this phrase here, in the first phrase,
35:03: God called the light day and the darkness he called night, there's actually what's called a Lamed preposition affixed to the front of each of those words.
35:12: Normally, everywhere you ever see a Lamed preposition, you translate it with the word to. That you went to something, or God called to something.
35:20: And that's what Dr. Currid actually thinks, that God called to the light day.
35:26: And then he called to the darkness night. And that's how he named them.
35:32: That you heard the sound of God's voice echoing across the vastness. God called to the light day.
35:40: And then he called to the darkness night. And that's how he named them in that way.
35:47: The text here is using a literary device called a Merism. That's an important word. M -E -R -I -S -M.
35:54: A Merism. When it says the evening and the morning were the first day. Okay. A Merism.
35:59: A Merism is using opposite ends of something to signify the whole. I have read and listened to more discussions than I care to about how, well, technically from evening to morning is just 12 hours.
36:13: So they couldn't be 24 hour days. Well technically from evening to morning is 12 hours.
36:20: You just go, look. The Bible uses Merisms constantly. Where you use opposite ends of something to signify the whole.
36:27: For example, in Psalm 139, the psalmist says to the Lord, You know my sitting down and my rising up.
36:36: Does that mean that God doesn't know us when we're walking around? Does that mean he doesn't know anything else about us? He knows my sitting down and my rising up.
36:44: So God just knows me when I'm sleeping, when I lie down through the night, and then when I rise up. But not when I'm up and about walking around.
36:50: Of course not. That's silly, isn't it? It's silly to say that evening and morning would just be 12 hours too, isn't it?
36:56: It's a Merism. It's a very common Hebrew literary device. Two ends of the spectrum signifying the whole.
37:02: Very common. Very straightforward. Very easy to understand. There was evening. There was morning.
37:08: The first day. I actually listened to a Hebrew scholar, a guy who knows eight Semitic languages, saying that we don't know how long those first three days were because the sun hadn't been created yet.
37:20: And you can't have days until the sun's created. So that would mean that Jews hearing this did not know how long the first three days were, but after the sun was created, they knew that days four, five, and six were 24 hours.
37:31: I'm sorry, that's just pushing a little too hard. That's asking too much to believe. The Jewish people that heard this thought that evening and morning, first day, evening, morning, second day, evening, morning, third day, fourth day, fifth day, sixth day, they thought that those were days.
37:46: The way the fourth commandment is written, in six days the Lord God made heaven and earth to see and all that is in them.
37:51: You work for six days and rest the seventh. Everybody knew what that meant. And there's no reason, absolutely no reason to think otherwise.
37:59: There was evening, there was morning, the first day. As I said at the beginning, I've called this sermon a corrective to the whole world.
38:06: In just these five verses of God's special verbal revelation to mankind, every false philosophy about the origin and meaning of the universe is refuted.
38:14: Every single one is. I'd like to list for you seven categories that are refuted by, even just by Genesis 1 verse 1.
38:22: First of all, atheism is refuted. Atheism is refuted. The assertion that God does not exist is refuted because God has spoken.
38:31: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God spoke forth, breathed forth those words.
38:37: There is a God and everything exists because he created it. If atheism were true, there could not be anything that exists.
38:44: There would be no matter either. As the great R .C. Sproul has said many times, if there was ever a time when there was nothing, what would there be now?
38:53: Nothing. And what would there be for eternity? Nothing. Atheism is refuted.
39:01: Secondly, pantheism is refuted. Pantheism is a belief that is held by many, many millions of people in this world.
39:07: The belief that the universe itself is God. The belief that you and I are part of God.
39:12: That the grass, the cows, the trees, the stars, the moon, the sun are all part of God. God is not the universe.
39:20: God created the universe. In the beginning, God, separate from the universe, he created the heavens and the earth.
39:28: God is not the heavens and the earth. God transcends the universe. This is one reason why it is idolatry to worship and serve anything in the created order.
39:39: It is precisely because nothing God created is God himself that it is idolatry to worship or serve it.
39:47: That's why God's wrath is provoked when people do that, when they make idols and bow down to them.
39:53: It is giving to what he created what is due to the creator alone. That's why we don't have statues and icons for people to bow down in front of.
40:01: That is the essence of idolatry. That's the essence of paganism. This one verse of the
40:07: Bible should correct that. God is not the universe. Third, polytheism is refuted.
40:15: Polytheism is refuted. There is not a pantheon of gods, but one and only one God who created all things.
40:22: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. I always remember in the
40:27: Mormon faith, in the additional books of scripture they have added to the Bible, they have what's called the
40:33: Book of Abraham. And the Book of Abraham has a statement in it that reads as follows. In the beginning, the head of the gods called a council of the gods together and concocted a plan to create the world and people it.
40:46: They believe that there is a council of gods. Polytheism is refuted by Genesis 1 verse 1.
40:53: Fourthly, materialism, which is one of the most dominant ideas of our time and our nation.
40:59: Materialism, the belief that the only thing that exists is matter. We know that matter exists because God created it and that there is a spiritual realm that exists apart from matter.
41:10: We ourselves are living souls and our souls are not made of matter. God is not material in nature.
41:16: He is a spirit. And this matter came into existence out of nothing and continues to exist by God's power and providence.
41:23: Matter is not ultimate either. It is subordinate to God and is under his absolute control.
41:29: So while it was comical to hear there was God and black stuff, God and black stuff, that would ultimately result in dualism if you push that philosophy hard enough, because that would mean there was something else eternal alongside of God.
41:40: And there's nothing eternal. Everything that exists is created by God. God himself is the only eternal being who exists.
41:48: Fifthly, dualism is refuted. Again, dualism was a very popular belief in the ancient world, and it's very much alive and well in our culture today.
41:57: The idea that there are two equally powerful and opposed beings in the universe, one good and one evil, is refuted.
42:04: Now, is there a supreme evil being? Yes, but the devil was created by God. He is a fallen angel.
42:11: God created the universe by himself. He was alone when he did it. There were no other beings alongside him when he did that.
42:19: He was alone. Dualism is refuted. Sixthly, humanism is refuted.
42:24: Humanism is refuted. The idea that man, not God, is the highest being and is the measure of all things.
42:30: Over and over again in that video that just came out, Evolution vs. God, that was put out by Way of the Master and Ray Comfort, you heard these nonbelievers, atheists, saying again and again and again that man makes his own rules.
42:42: Man governs himself. We decide what is ultimately right and wrong. That is refuted by Genesis chapter one, verse one.
42:51: God is the one who created. God created mankind. The first chapter of Genesis, we are the special creation of God.
42:56: We are entirely dependent upon him and accountable to him. Man is subordinate to God since man was created by God.
43:04: It is not the case that man and God just happen to co -occupy a universe where they've bumped into each other and God happens to be more powerful and commands us to worship him.
43:12: That's not the case at all. The universe and everything in it, including us, including space, time, and everything made of matter, was called into being by God and exists through him and for him, including us.
43:24: Humanism is false. Man is not the measure of all things. We are not the determiners of what is right and wrong, and we do not decide how we want to live and what we want to do with our time.
43:34: God holds us accountable for obeying him because he created us. Seventh, and finally, evolutionism is refuted by this passage.
43:44: The idea that the universe exploded into being and that then very slowly it evolved into its present form with all of its life, motion, planetary and solar complexity, etc.
43:55: over very long eons of time is refuted. God created everything as it is.
44:01: Things did not evolve into their present form. God created them mature. And I think, again,
44:07: I want to emphasize to you this is why the age question is so important because, as I said before, for the evolutionary worldview to work, you have to have massive amounts of time.
44:18: And if the universe is young, their whole theory makes no sense whatsoever. If you get rid of millions of years, you can't even have the possibility of evolution, even though no one's ever seen it happen.
44:29: And I really look at evolution as a folk religion. It can't happen in short periods of time, but if you add enough time, they think anything is possible.
44:37: But we have to stand against that. We do not believe in evolution. God created animals according to their kind, they reproduce according to their kind, whereas evolution tells us, no,
44:47: God made one kind and that became every kind. It's not possible. One kind cannot become another kind.
44:52: God said they reproduce according to their kind. Dogs will always be dogs, cats will always be cats, and so on and so forth.
44:59: Man has always been man. Adam and Eve were created as man and woman. They didn't come from an ape man and an ape woman.
45:06: They were created as they are. Man has always been man, exactly as he is today.
45:13: Henry Morris wrote these words, quote, The entire system of anti -Christianity could well be called the system of atheistic evolutionary humanism.
45:23: Other philosophical ideas could also be incorporated into the same monstrous structure, naturalism, uniformitarianism, the idea that there's never been a global catastrophe of any kind, deism, agnosticism, monism, determinism, pragmatism, and others.
45:38: All are arrayed in opposition to the great truth, marvelously simple and understandable to a child, yet inexhaustibly profound, that in the beginning
45:49: God created the heavens and the earth. End quote. That refutes all of man's ideas about origins, all of man's ideas about purpose, one sentence as a corrective to the whole world.
46:05: You see why it's so important that we defend Genesis chapter 1, verse 1? It's the answer to everything around us.
46:12: God does not need to mention man's ideas by name. He simply destroys them all in one astounding sentence of beautiful truth.
46:21: There is such safety and joy in these opening five verses of God's revelation to man to give us correct knowledge of himself and ourselves so that we can be saved and be happy in this life.
46:31: The universe is not eternal. It was created. The universe has absolutely no independent existence apart from God.
46:38: He created it and sustains it. You and I did not evolve from apes. We were purposefully created by God as mankind, and we have a very distinct and well -defined purpose to our existence, which we are by nature, sadly, in rebellion against until God opens our eyes and subdues us.
46:57: And that purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Space, matter, time, and energy were all created by God and are under his absolute control and authority.
47:11: For those of hearts that are, by God's grace alone, teachable, what comes next in this account is of great benefit to us to know, especially what we will see in the rest of Genesis chapters 1 through 11.
47:22: The account of the creation of man, the institution of marriage, the command which still stands today to be fruitful and multiply,
47:30: God's covenant with man, man's rebellion against God, the institution of human government, the
47:35: Noahic flood, the dispersion of the nations, and the Tower of Babel, the origin of human languages.
47:42: If we would know who we are, who God is, and our place in this world, we must listen to and believe what our creator tells us about these things because all of them affect us today.
47:53: And may God make us teachable and receptive to hear him as we continue in the coming weeks.
47:59: Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us a clear revelation of yourself.
48:07: And Lord, we think of the astounding things that are revealed here. The universe has a beginning. It wasn't eternal.
48:12: That you are the one true God, and that there's only one of you. That matter is not eternal.
48:18: That we are not eternal. That light is not eternal. Energy is not eternal. That you are the one who created and sustains all these things.
48:25: And here we are down to this day. We exist here. We live and move and have our being because you created a world.
48:31: You created us and put us here. Father, again, forgive us when we forget those simple truths, and forget why we exist.
48:39: And that is to worship you and to enjoy you. And Lord, it's a strange thing to ask forgiveness for, but forgive us for not being more happy.
48:47: Forgive us for not having more joy in the knowledge of our creator. Help us to see, as we read in that psalm this morning, that your statutes, your judgments, your revelation to us is to be desired more than gold, yea, than much fine gold.
49:01: That the wisdom of your word is life to us. That it's more valuable than anything else we could ever desire or hope for.
49:08: Father, forgive us when we live as if that's not true. And Lord, help us to understand the earth's foundational history.
49:15: That we might be faithful in our understanding of these things, our understanding of the world, and faithful as witnesses to others.
49:21: That they might see that they were created too by you. That they are accountable to you.
49:27: That they might be brought to repentance and saving faith in your son. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.
49:40: This is Pastor Patrick Hines at Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church, located at 108 Bridwell Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.
49:47: And you've been listening to the Protestant Witness Podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any
49:52: Sunday morning at 11 a .m. sharp, where we open the word of God together, sing his praises, and rejoice in the gospel of our risen
49:58: Lord. You can find us on the web at www .bridwellheightspca .org.
50:04: And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.