Watching God Fill the Heavens and Earth

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I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Genesis 1 again, and we are going to find our way this morning to verse 14.
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If you have been here with us, you know that we've been studying Genesis, and you know that we've been spending a long time on looking at different aspects of the creation narrative and those things that we feel like are important.
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And before our break over the Christmas season, we talked about how long these days are and how old the earth is.
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And we said that while we would hold to a position on that, we believe that it's true and accurate.
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We would certainly not hold that as a point of faith.
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But there are many things that we would hold as a point of faith, saying that if you reject those things, you're rejecting the very faith of the Bible.
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And one of those things is the existence of the historic Adam.
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If we don't understand and believe the historic Adam, we really don't understand the biblical narrative at all.
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And today we're going to get to the creation of Adam, Lord willing, because we're going to look at days 4, 5, and 6.
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Now I want to remind you, and it was my plan this morning to bring my whiteboard back in here, but it was the Lord's will that it not be, because I forgot.
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So I don't have my whiteboard, but I do want to try to remind you of the categories that we see in the first chapter of Genesis.
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Because if you'll remember what it says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and void.
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Tovu babohu, the Hebrew there, formless means it was not yet ready and shaped for use.
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And it was void, which means it was empty.
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It wasn't full.
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It wasn't occupied.
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It wasn't populated.
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Well, last week we spent our time studying days 1, 2, and 3, and what we saw in days 1, 2, and 3 was God bringing form to formlessness.
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On day 1, He separated the light from the darkness.
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On day 2, He separated the sky from the waters below, and He created the atmosphere.
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And on day 3, He separated the land from the water, and He brought vegetation onto the land.
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And so, in three days, people often say, did God create the world in six days? God created the earth in three days.
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And then He filled the heavens and the earth on days 4, 5, and 6.
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So, what I want us to see today is I want us to see the connection between days 1, 2, and 3, and days 4, 5, and 6, because on day 1, God creates light, and He separates light from darkness.
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And then on day 4, He's going to create the light bearers, the sun, the moon, and the stars.
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On day 5, God separates, I'm sorry, on day 2, God separates the sky and the water.
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And on day 5, God puts birds in the sky, and He puts fish in the water.
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Then on day 3, God separated the land from the sea, and He put vegetation on the land.
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And on day 6, God put the animals for the land and man on the land.
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So we see the connection, day 1 to day 4, day 2 to day 5, day 3 to day 6.
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This is God forming and now filling the heavens and the earth.
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So we're going to read verses 13, I'm sorry, verses 14, all the way down to 31, a lengthy passage of scripture, I know.
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But I think it's worth reading the whole thing.
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So I want to invite you to stand, it's God's word, so we give honor and reverence to it by standing, beginning at verse 14.
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And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night.
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And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.
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And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.
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And it was so.
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God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars.
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And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light to the earth to rule over the day and over the night and to separate the light from the darkness.
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And God saw that it was good.
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And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
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And God said, Let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures and let the birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.
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So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind.
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And God saw that it was good.
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And God blessed them saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth.
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And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
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God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.
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And it was so.
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And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind.
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And God saw that it was good.
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God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
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So God created man in his own image.
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In the image of God, he created him male and female.
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He created them and God blessed them.
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And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
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God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth and every tree with seed and its fruit.
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You shall have them for food and to every beast on the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has breath of life.
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I have given every green plant for food.
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And it was so.
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And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good.
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And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
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May God add his blessing to the reading and to the hearing of his word.
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May God write its eternal truths on our heart and may God keep me from error as I preach.
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You may be seated.
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According to just about all modern science, textbooks on cosmology, documentaries on how the universe was formed, there is almost a universal acceptance that the world is relatively young when compared to the universe, which is older than the world.
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Science says the universe is about 13 point some number billion years old.
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I think it's 13.8, but it always changes.
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So at some point I'll be right.
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So the universe is upwards of 14 billion years old, according to modern science.
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And the earth, 4.5 billion years old or somewhere around there, implicit in that is the understanding that the universe came first and the earth came later.
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Not necessarily last.
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Maybe there were some other things that came after the earth, certainly the moon.
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According to the cosmological or the study of cosmology, the study of the heavenlies, the study of space science, there's an argument that says yes, the moon came after the earth.
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The earth was formed before the moon, but certainly the sun was prior to the earth.
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And certainly the universe predates it all.
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And the universe began 14 billion years ago.
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And again, this is not something that is readily questioned in modern scientific discussion.
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If you don't accept these numbers, if you don't accept these dates, if you don't accept these billions of years, you don't have a seat at the table.
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It's not as if you have the opportunity to simply be a conscientious objector or some kind of a person who can just give your opinion and it'd be okay.
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No, if you don't accept these things, you are out.
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You are no longer a part of the conversation.
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You are a religious zealot who knows nothing from nothing.
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Your level of ignorance is right up there with those who believe in fairy tales, according to modern science.
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And so, when we arrive at the fourth day of creation, we are confronted with the most difficult interpretive challenge in Genesis 1.
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Because so far we have seen many things that, given enough time, might correspond with the scientific creation narrative.
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Not creation science, but I mean the scientific way that the earth was supposed to have come about according to science.
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It says that the earth did start out somewhat formless and did over time grow into form and then oceans appeared and then land appeared and those things.
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And so there's this sort of following the normal science.
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If you were to stretch it out over time, it's kind of following the normal stretch.
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But then you get to day four and you say, wait a minute, there's no sun yet.
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There's no stars yet.
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And you say, but pastor, wait.
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On day one, God created light.
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So that's the sun.
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No.
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Doesn't say that he created the sun on day one.
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It says he created light on day one.
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You say, well, pastor, in case you didn't know, the sun is where we get the light from.
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Well, I'm well aware of where light comes from, but I'm also aware that when we get to day four, it says God made the sun on day four, not on day one.
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So with that in mind, I go back to day one and I say, okay, what is this light that came into existence in day one? And those of you who've been a part of this study know what I believe that light was.
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I believe that light was light itself.
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And I believe that that light was light from God and that that light was a particularly unique type of light that lit the earth for three days, but that was not a projection of the sun.
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It was not radiating from the source of the sun, but that it was actually radiating from God himself.
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When we go to Revelation, the Bible says in the new heavens, there is no need of a sun.
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Why is there no need of a sun in the new heavens? Because God is the light.
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And so we see that in the new heavens and in Revelation, why can't I believe that in Genesis one? I think I can.
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And I think I can see a correspondence between earth as it was created in the beginning and earth as it will be in the new heavens and the new earth.
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And so I see there a correspondence between the light in Genesis one, day one, and the light in the book of Revelation, which is God.
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So that being said, we go to day four and we see in day four, the creation of the sun.
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This is absolutely 100% opposed to what we were taught in school.
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And if your children are in school, unless they're in a Christian school or homeschool, if they're in a public school, they would probably hear from their science teacher the same thing, that the sun is older than the earth and the universe is older than the sun.
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And what has happened is the theory of evolution, which really is a theory of how life changes over time, has now become a theory which sort of encapsulates so many other things.
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It's a theory of how the universe changes over time, and it's a theory of how societies change over time, even how religions change over time.
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Evolution has crept into every area of life and made its foothold in every area.
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And so the universe started as a very small, infinitesimally small thing, and it exploded into this large thing, and out of that large thing, hot planetary bodies began to form, and they began to cool, and the earth cooled, and then of course rain came on the earth, and that's what brought about the oceans, and the oceans filled the basins, and then we got the world that we now live in.
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That's what science says, but the Bible doesn't say that.
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The Bible says God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth he created, and he formed it first.
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He formed the light and the darkness, he formed the atmosphere around the earth so that there would be water below, and that there would be an atmosphere above, and he created land, and he created vegetation.
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Here's the thing that's really cool, if you think about this.
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He created vegetation before he created the sun.
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If the Bible is correct, and if we are reading it properly, day three, we read last week, he created every tree of the field, and every seed bearing plant, and fruit, and those seeds were meant to reproduce, and they would reproduce after their kind, right? Well guess what? That's on day three.
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There ain't a sun yet.
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So what you have is this earth that has light, it's got the light from God, it's not that it's dark, but it doesn't have even what we would look at as the process that gives plants their living conditions which are necessary.
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You understand that plants live off the sun.
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If you take a plant and sit it inside a dark room, it's going to die, because it doesn't have the ability to draw its nutrients from the rays of the sun, and so the sun is necessary for the living of plants.
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This is another reason why we might want to consider the days in Genesis as being actual days, because you've got plants that need a sun, where's the sun? The next day.
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Day four, God creates the sun.
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Let's actually read the text together, and I'm going to walk through and just mention a few things as we note.
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It says in verse 14, and God said, let there be lights in the expanse.
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Now stop right there, didn't get very far, sorry.
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This creates an issue for some people on an interpretive level, because it said, let there be lights in the expanse.
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If you remember last week, what is the expanse? The expanse is the atmosphere around us.
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If you go back just a few verses, you'll remember he said he created an expanse, right, to separate the waters above from the waters below, and that expanse is sometimes referred to as the firmament, right? And this says he places the lights in the expanse, and in the King James it says he places the lights in the firmament.
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Here's the problem with that.
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The lights aren't technically in the firmament.
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We know this because of modern science.
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If you study where the sun is and where the stars are, they're not in the atmosphere, they're above the atmosphere.
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Is that correct? So is this a place where the Bible's wrong? Is this a place where the Bible's made a huge cosmological blunder and we should just take the whole Bible and throw it away because one error, you know, it's like one drop of poison in a big glass of water.
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I'm not drinking it.
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You're not going to drink it.
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If there's one error, then the whole thing is not worth listening to.
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So we have to understand that the Bible stands or falls as a unit.
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So did we find the one error? Have we found the great card that's going to break the whole house of cards and we can just throw it away? No.
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I hope you know that.
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The Bible's trustworthy and we can trust it, but it does say the lights are in the firmament, in the expanse.
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How do we understand this? Well, I'll give it to you like this, and this is, I think, the best way to understand it.
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It's an issue of preposition, right? Language and prepositions are sometimes somewhat ambiguous.
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And when you say something is in something, you can also say something is above something or below something, and it can mean the same thing.
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For instance, I want you to take the example of a submarine.
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Does a submarine go in the water or under the water? Both, right? Submarine's in the water.
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Submarine's also under the water.
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Are we right? And that's a way that a preposition can be somewhat loose.
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It can be used to mean more than just the idea that it's being literally imposed upon.
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So when we say the lights are in the heavens, when you look up, are the lights in the heavens? Yes, but they're actually above the firmament.
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And so, in this sense, we can look at the preposition that's being used here and simply understand that we're not being told they're in the atmosphere, but rather they are above the atmosphere, because this is where the lights are.
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Now, some people believe that ancient man believed in a dome that covered the earth and the lights were hung up there, sort of like these lights are hung here.
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I don't believe that's what Moses was saying.
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In fact, I don't believe that's what any of them believed.
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But there was an ancient belief in that, and so this could be a way of challenging that and simply saying the lights, yes, they are there, but they were placed there by God.
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So going back to verse 14, and God said, let there be lights in the expanse, or we could say above the expanse of the heavens, to separate the day from the night.
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And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.
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Why is it that God places the sun in the sky? Why does God place the moon in the sky? Why does God place the stars in the sky? Well, this passage tells us he does it so that they can be signs.
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Now, I want to say something about that.
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This is not talking about your astrological calendar.
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This is not talking, you know, whether you're an Aries or a Capricorn.
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People ask me, what's your sign? I say dinosaur.
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They say, that doesn't exist.
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I say, none of them exist.
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They're all fake.
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So I'm going to make my own, right, just create my own, I'm a dinosaur.
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Some people get real serious about that stuff.
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That is not what is being spoken of here.
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The signs and the seasons are simply markers.
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Remember what God is doing in days one, two, three, and four, and five.
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He's creating boundaries, right? He created light from darkness.
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He created the atmosphere from the water.
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He creates the land from the sea.
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He creates boundaries.
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And what the sun does, the sun comes along and gives us a new boundary.
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What does the sun do? It tells us years.
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What does the moon do? It gives us months, right? And you'll learn later in the history of Israel, they would count the lunar days, and that's how they would come up with their special festivities.
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And that's when they would know it was a time to have this festival or that festival.
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It was based on the sun and the moon.
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So we see that's what it's referring to here, the sun and the moon and the stars.
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They're signs not to give you some kind of spiritual insight into whether or not you just happen to like to be a mean person.
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Some people say, I'm a mean person, but that's because I'm a Leo.
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No, no, you're just a jerk.
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That's what it is.
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And you're looking for a reason.
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Don't blame the astrological charts.
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And if you know, it doesn't matter.
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The point is, that's not what's being referred to here.
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He says he's going to give them for a sign and for seasons and for days and years and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.
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And it was so.
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And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night.
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Now, we know the lights he's talking about, even though he doesn't say sun and moon.
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There are Hebrew words for sun and moon, but he's using language that's simple.
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And he's saying the greater light, which is the sun, the lesser light, which is the moon.
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And some people challenge that too.
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I tell you, I've read all kinds of silly stuff.
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Well, the moon doesn't really make light, Pastor.
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The moon's a reflector.
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Not untrue.
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There is no light that comes from the moon.
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The moon itself is reflecting the light of the sun.
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But it do give light on the earth, right? And if you're walking around at night and it's a full moon night, it's bright, sometimes as bright as daylight.
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So it does give light on the earth.
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Again, this is not attempting to give a scientific explanation for how it gives light.
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It simply says this is how it functions.
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God gives us the sunlight and he gives us the moonlight.
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And that's what we still call it.
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We call it moonlight.
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Nobody in the world has ever heard somebody say, I'm walking by the moonlight, say it's not light, it's reflection.
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That would be ridiculous.
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We wouldn't do that.
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Neither should we do that here.
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But the most amazing thing about this verse that we're reading is not the greater light, which is amazing.
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Our sun's pretty amazing.
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Our sun has the power not only to grow plants, but it has the power to generate energy for generators and produce electricity.
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Our sun is an amazing, amazing thing that God created.
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And the moon is amazing.
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But then he says, and the stars.
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And the stars.
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I want to tell you, all that I had to deal with this week in preparing for this sermon, that's the part that bothers me most.
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What do you mean, and the star, the stars? We have come to learn that there is almost an infinite amount of space that is filled with these gigantic balls of gas that are out, hanging upon nothing in the universe for an infinite, infinite amount of space and time.
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And we couldn't imagine it.
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And the stars.
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You say, well, the reason Moses said that, Pastor, is because he just didn't know how vast the stars were.
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Baloney.
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One thing, Moses isn't the ultimate author here.
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It's God.
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And second, the reason why he says, and the stars, is because in order of importance, it is the earth first.
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That's the gem.
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That's the thing God has spent the time forming and filling.
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The earth has his attention.
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The sun and the moon are placed there for the benefit of the earth.
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And the stars for the benefit of those on the earth.
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So all they get is three words, and the stars.
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But think about all that's wrapped up in that.
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Think about all that is wrapped up in the phrase, and the stars.
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The other night, Brother Jerry and I were eating dinner at my dad's house, and we walked outside, and it's nice to sort of be out in Callahan, away from the lights of the city, and you can look up and see the stars better.
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And we got to looking, and I saw this one out, and it was so bright.
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I mean, it was like, if you're looking up, the moon was here, and the moon was almost full, and just a little bit off to the right was this bright, bright star.
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And he had this amazing thing on his phone where he could just take the, hold his phone up to it, and it would tell him exactly.
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It was, it was Venus.
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No, wasn't it? It was a planet.
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But from a biblical perspective, it's all just stars.
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From a biblical perspective, all that's just part of the heavenly bodies.
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And all of that was made on day four.
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God created the greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night, and he created the heavenly bodies.
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And you say, well, Pastor, why did he make so many? Why are there nine planets? And don't you tell me there are eight, because I believe Pluto's still on strong.
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There are nine planets, and why? Neil deGrasse Tyson can run away.
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Why are there nine planets? Why not just one? Why are there a seemingly infinite amount of stars and other planets and other galaxies? There are stars that are so much bigger than our sun, they make our sun look very small.
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And then you look at us in comparison, and you realize just how small we really are.
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You say, why would God make all that? If we're really the focus, if we are the apple of his eye, if we're the high point of his creation, if we're what he made, why make all those other things when you're never going to see them? Nobody's ever going to go out there and see them.
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Nobody will ever live long enough to make the travel trip far enough, even probably to get past Mars.
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Why would God do that? The Bible tells us why.
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The Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament above his handiwork.
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So when we look at the universe, and we see it so full of planets, and we see it so full of stars, and we see it so full of meteorites, and we see it so full of other suns, and we look at those things and we say, wow, if that's big, how much more big is God? You know what's interesting? Paul Washer said something one time.
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He said, you know, God creates sometimes the most beautiful flower on the side of a mountain that no one will ever see because he sees it.
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It's not put there for us, it's put there for him.
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Think about the fact that our ocean is so deep we can't even go to the bottom without being crushed by the pressures.
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And yet there are animals down there that live under that pressure and who are seen by no one but God himself.
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So not only do the heavens declare the glory of God, the great abyss demonstrates the power and the glory of Almighty God.
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So the heavens are created on day one, and the heavens are filled on day four.
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The sun, the moon, and the stars, and God saw that it was good.
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And now to day five.
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And God said, let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.
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So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind.
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And God saw that it was good and God blessed them saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas and let birds multiply on the earth.
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And there was evening and there was morning the fifth day.
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Think about this.
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There's no life.
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You say, pastor, wait, there is life.
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There's trees and there's fruit and those are living things, not the same.
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The Bible never compares plants with animals in regard to life.
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Animals are always described as having the nephesh or the life or the breath of life.
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Trees are not.
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I know you've probably seen some very conscientious conservationists who want us to believe that trees have feelings.
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I saw a video not too long ago of people who were surrounding a tree screaming and crying saying, we're sorry, we're sorry, we're sorry.
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They're talking to the tree.
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Wouldn't you just love it if the tree went? I'm good.
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I mean, I mean, just for a moment, if God let you know, God let God let Balaam's donkey talk, it would just be great if the tree was like, stand up when the animals are created, when the birds are created and with the with the the sea creatures are created.
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This is a new type of life.
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And notice that this life is given a blessing from God.
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This is the first time in the Bible we see anything receive a blessing from God.
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It says, and God blessed them.
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Isn't that amazing? He didn't bless the trees.
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He didn't bless the plants.
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He didn't bless the fruit.
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Not in this way.
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At least if he did, we don't know about it because it's not written down for us.
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This, it says, and he blessed them.
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How did he bless them? I think it's the ability to multiply because he's going to give that same blessing later to man.
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And the Lord blessed them and said, go and fill the earth and multiply.
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That's that's part and parcel of the blessing, the blessing of multiplication, the blessing of reproduction.
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You say, well, plants reproduce.
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Yes.
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But in a much different way.
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In fact, some plants rely on animals to cause them to reproduce.
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You know, the bumblebee is what allows the flowers to reproduce as it picks up from one and takes to another and pollinates and seeds.
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Right.
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So God blesses these animals and we see the creation of the birds.
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Oh, and by the way, if you ever hear the question, which came first, the chicken or the egg, you know the answer.
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It be the chicken.
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God didn't create eggs and hatch eggs and then send them out to fly.
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He created the birds with the ability to reproduce, and therefore the birds came first to produce the eggs.
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Back in the mid 90s, there was a movie.
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I'll just tell you, Jurassic Park, you guys have all seen Jurassic Park.
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In Jurassic Park, the main scientist of the movie argues that.
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Birds are descendant from dinosaurs.
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Now, you say, oh, well, that's just a movie.
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Museums now are promoting that idea that modern birds are descendant from dinosaurs.
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Chickens are supposed to be descendant from the same animal that the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
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And they say, don't you see it? Don't you see the T-Rex and don't you see the chicken? They both have two legs and they both have short arms.
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I never seen a chicken's arm, but I mean, the idea is there.
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You say, well, Pastor Keith, nobody really believes that.
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Yes, they do.
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It's remained in popular culture to this day.
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There was another movie came out a few years ago.
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It was a cartoon about birds.
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And the birds were talking to each other and one of the birds says to another, we're birds, we're descended from dinosaurs.
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And I remember thinking, wow, it's so pervasive in popular culture that it's even showing up in children's movies.
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Birds didn't come from dinosaurs, y'all.
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Birds were created by God to be birds, to fly in the sky.
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Fish were created by God to swim in the sea.
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The great sea creatures were created by God because God had created a sea to put them in.
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God created a sea and now he created stuff for the sea.
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He created the sky and he created stuff for the sky.
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The fish be the stuff for the sea.
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The birds be the stuff for the sky.
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God did all this filling.
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And then comes day six.
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God had created the land and now he creates the living creatures for the land.
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And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds.
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Livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.
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And it was so.
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Remember what I said last week about the phrase, according to its kind, according to their kind.
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What does that tell us? Life did not evolve on this planet from one single type of cell into the multiple different types of animals that we have around us, because this tells us that variation in species was found in the beginning.
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We're going to see in chapter two that God brings all kinds of different animals to Adam and he says, name them if they were all different species.
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If they were all the same, they'd all have the same name.
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But God brings these different animals because he's created a variety of animals upon the earth and he gives us threefold categories.
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He says there's beasts, there's livestock, and there's creeping things.
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Within each group, there would be further variations.
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We know there's different types of livestock.
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We know there's different types of beasts and we know there's different types of creeping things.
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But within God's grand category of animals, he says there's beasts, there's livestock, and there's creeping things, variation from the beginning.
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And in the midst of this, God creates man.
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And this is the only thing that he creates that is given a unique designation.
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He creates man.
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And by the way, we learn in chapter two that he creates man not by speaking man into existence, but by forming him from the dust.
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And he makes man and he breathes into his nostrils the breath of life.
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Man becomes a living soul and God gives man his image.
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Man becomes an image bearer of Almighty God, making him the absolute unique creation.
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In all the world, nothing else bears the image of God.
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And don't think, and we're going to talk about this next week.
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By the way, next week's sermon is all about the Imago Dei, the image of God.
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So I'm just bringing this today as a little bit of a precursor to next week.
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Because what we're going to see about the image of God is no other animal, no other creature, no other beasts, not the apes, not the orangutans, not the primates.
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Nothing else bears the image of God.
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And we see those things.
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They say, well, they look like us.
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They have similar shaped bodies.
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There's only 3% difference in our DNA or 1% difference in our DNA.
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And I say that 1% goes from throwing scat to making it to the moon.
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So it's a pretty big difference, even if it's only 1%.
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But the image of God is given to man.
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And he is made utterly unique among the rest of God's creation.
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Now I want to jump to the end because we're going to spend some time next week on the image of God.
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I want to jump to the very last part of chapter 1 and make just a small comment on something that is said at the end of chapter 1.
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In verse 31 it says this, And God saw everything that he made, and behold, it was very good.
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Up until this point, it was good.
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But now it's very good.
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Why is it very good? Because it came from God himself.
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And God is good.
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One of the most common arguments that I hear from atheists, I don't need God to be good.
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And I respond with this simple statement.
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Without God you don't know what good is.
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Give me a definition of goodness.
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Objective.
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Not subjective.
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Absolute.
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Not based on emotion or opinion.
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Substantive, not relative.
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Give me a definition of good.
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You can't without God.
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God is the standard of goodness.
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God is good.
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And you know the scariest thing about God? He's good.
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Because we're not.
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The scariest thing in the universe is that our world was created by a good God, and we have sinned against Him.
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Left to ourselves, we would deserve His punishment.
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Left to ourselves, we would deserve His wrath.
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And He should give it because He is good.
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And He will give it because He is righteous and good.
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But He is also merciful and full of loving kindness.
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And so He sent forth His Son, who was good, to pay the substitutionary penalty for those who are not good.
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Therefore, when Christ goes to the cross, He's the only good man who ever lived.
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When Christ goes to the cross, He's the only good man that ever lived.
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He takes the punishment for bad men and women who believe in Him.
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God is good, and you are not.
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But if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, God will declare you good based on the work of Christ.
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This morning, if you are here and you are in Christ, you have reason to rejoice.
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The same God who created the universe gave you a new heart, and He declared you good.
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And if you are here today and you are not in Jesus Christ, I want to tell you, God can declare you good as well.
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And He will if you come to Christ in repentance and faith.
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There is no one else who can save you.
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There is no one else who can give you that which you desperately need, except the Lord Jesus Christ.
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This is why the Bible says, there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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If you've never called upon His name today, I would urge you to do so with a repentant heart.
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Call out to God, save me.
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Lord, give me the gift of eternal life.
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Help me to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ all of my days.
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Hold me in Your hand.
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Never let me go.
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Let us pray.
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Father, You are the only one who can save a soul.
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Nothing I do or say can change a man's heart.
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But Lord God, You can take the simple preaching of the Gospel, the simple preaching of the substitutionary work of Christ, and You can make it change a man's heart.
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So I pray today, Lord, that You would change hearts.
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For the believers, Lord, I pray that they would know that they are loved.
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And for the ones who do not believe, Lord, that they would understand that apart from Christ they are condemned.
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But Jesus said, To the one who comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out.
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Lord, may it be that men and women come to You today.
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Even young people, Lord, would come to You today through Your Son Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
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Amen.