If you would, open your Bibles
with me to the book of Revelation. Revelation chapter 19. As you're turning past this news
along, I heard from Brother Nyberg earlier this afternoon, and he
said they right now are tentatively scheduled to send Lynn home,
not just out of the hospital, but home by the end of this month,
which would be from what the original timing was before the
surgery. at least two weeks early. And
he says she's doing very well. She's still in, has a lot of
surgery pain, but the organs are just working wonderfully
and the doctors are just very happy. So they may get to come
home a little early, maybe by the end of the month. So continue
to remember them in prayer. All right. Revelation 19, we'll
read the first nine verses. And after these things, I heard
a great voice of much people in heaven saying, hallelujah. salvation and glory and honor
and power under the Lord our God. For true and righteous are
his judgments. For he hath judged the great
whore which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath
avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said,
Alleluia. And her smoke rose up forever
and ever. And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell
down and worshiped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen,
Alleluia. And a voice came out of the throne,
saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear
him, both small and great. And I heard as it were the voice
of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and
as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord
God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and
give honor to him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his
wife hath made herself ready, And to her was granted that she
should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white for the fine
linen is the righteousness of saints. And he said unto me,
right, blessed are they which are called unto the marriage
supper of the lame. And he sayeth unto me, these
are the true sayings of God. All right, Sean, come lead us
in some singing. If you would, turn to song number
454, What a Wonderful Savior. Christ has for sin atonement
made, What a wonderful Savior! We are redeemed, the price is
paid, What a wonderful Savior! What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Jesus! What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Lord! I praise Him for the cleansing
blood. What a wonderful Savior! That reconciled my soul to God. What a wonderful Savior! What a wonderful Savior! is Jesus, my Jesus. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Lord. He cleansed my heart from all
its sin. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Lord. and now he reigns and rules therein. What a wonderful Savior! What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Jesus! What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Lord! He gives me overcoming power,
what a wonderful Savior! And triumph in each trying hour,
what a wonderful Savior! What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Jesus. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Lord. To Him I've given all my heart,
What a wonderful Savior! The world shall never share a
part, What a wonderful Savior! What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Jesus. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus,
my Lord. Now if you would turn to song
number 216, Look to the Lamb of God. you If you from sin are longing to
be free, look to the Lamb of God. He to redeem you died on
Calvary. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save
you, look to the Lamb of God. When Satan tempts and doubts
and fears assail, look to the Lamb of God. You in His strength shall over
all prevail. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save
you. Look to the Lamb of God. Are you a weary? Does the way
seem long? Look to the Lamb of God. His love will cheer and fill
your heart with song. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save
you, look to the Lamb of God. Fear not when shadows on your
pathway fall, look to the Lamb of God. In joy or sorrow, Christ
is all in all. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save
you. Look to the Lamb of God. All right, let's open our Bibles
now to Genesis chapter one. We've been studying in this chapter
for some time. I'm going to go back and read
the whole chapter, see where it culminates on the sixth day,
which is what the Lord willing we'll look at this evening. Genesis
one. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. And the earth was or became without
form and void And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And
the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God
said, let there be light. And there was light. And God
saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from
the darkness. And God called the light day.
And the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning
were the first day. And God said, let there be a firmament in the
midst of the waters. And let it divide the waters
from the waters. And God made the firmament and
divided the waters which were under the firmament from the
waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called
the firmament heaven and evening in the morning or the second
day. And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered
together under one place and let the dry land appear. And
it was so. And God called the dry land earth
and the gathering together of the waters called he sees. And
God saw that it was good. And God said, let the earth bring
forth grass, the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding
fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth.
And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass
and herb yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding
fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind. And God saw that
it was good. And the evening and the morning
or the third day, And God said, let there be lights in the firmament
of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be
for signs and for seasons and for days and years. And let them
be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth. And it was so. And God made two
great lights, the greater light to rule the day and a lesser
light to rule the night. He made the stars also. And God
set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
the earth and to rule over the day and over the night, and to
divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good,
and the evening and the morning were the fourth day. And God
said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature
that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the
open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales
and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought
forth abundantly after their kind. and every winged fowl after
his kind. And God saw that it was good.
And God blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply, fill
the waters in the seas and let fowl multiply in the earth. And
evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said,
let the earth bring forth a living creature after his kind, cattle
and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind.
And it was so. And God made the beast of the
earth after his kind and cattle after their kind and everything
that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that
it was good. And 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 file of the air and over
the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing
that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own
image. In the image of God created he
him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them. And God said unto them, be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the
air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And
God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed,
which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in the
which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. To you it should
be for meat and every beast of the earth and every fowl of the
air and everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there
is life. I have given every green herb
for meat and it was so. And God saw everything that he
had made and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the
morning were the sixth day. Thank God for his word. Let's
bow together. our God and our Father, we humbly
bow at your feet this evening, begging a blessing from thee.
Father, we beg that you would give us a word from thee. Let
us not hear the thoughts and the message of a man, but Father,
I beg of you that you would give us your message for the hour,
that you would enable me by the power of thy spirit to preach
it and that you enable your people by the power of the spirit to
hear and to believe, to leave here rejoicing in Christ our
Savior. Let us lift up and exalt his matchless name this evening.
Father, show us your glory. We beg of you that you'd show
us your redemptive glory, saving, calling out your people and keeping
them, shepherding them, feeding them, watching over, preserving,
and protecting them all the days of their life. Father, we pray
you'd show us your glory. How thankful we are that salvation
is of the Lord. From its beginning to its ending,
Father, how thankful we are salvation is all of your will, of your
work, of your doing, of your keeping, of your application,
that you've left nothing of it left up to the creature to do.
Father, we're so thankful. We know if anything, any part
of this salvation was left up to us, it would surely fail.
But salvation's of the Lord. Father, cause us to believe,
believe that truth, to rest in our Lord Jesus Christ, that he
shall surely save his people from their sin and present every
last one of them faultless before your throne in glory. Father,
we thank you for this congregation, this family of believers that
you've called together. Father, I pray you bless each
one. Bless each home with your mercy, your grace, your presence,
your leadership. Cause us to continue to meet
together in unity of heart, unity of purpose, to worship our God,
to preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, give us
the heart to care for one another, to love one another, and the
wisdom to earnestly protect the unity that we have here that
you've given to us. Father, for those who are sick
and afflicted, we pray for them. We pray that you'd heal, that
you'd comfort. We thank you for the good report
we've had on many. Father, we pray you continue
to heal and strengthen and bless your people. One thing we have
learned, we are a poor and needy people. We need you every hour.
Father, we pray for our children. We pray that you preserve them,
that you preserve their minds and their bodies from this wicked
generation in which they grow up. And Father, in time, we pray
you grant them mercy, grace, that you give them faith and
life in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Father, again bless us as
we look into your word. Give us an hour of true heartfelt
worship, we pray. For us in that name which is
above every name, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we
pray and give thanks. Someday the silver cord will
break And I no more as now shall sing But oh the joy when I shall
wake Within the palace of And I shall see Him face to face
And tell the story said by grace And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace
Someday my earthly house will fall I cannot tell how soon it
will be But this I know my has now a place in heaven for
me. And I shall see Him face to face
and tell the story saved by grace. And I shall see face to face
and tell the story saved by grace. Someday when fades the golden
sun beneath My blessed Lord will say, well
done. And I shall enter in to rest. And I shall see Him face to face. And tell the story saved by grace
And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace
Someday till then I'll watch and wait My lamp all trimmed
and burning That when my Savior opens the
gate My soul to Him may take its flight And I shall see Him
face to face And tell the story saved by grace
And I shall see Him face to face And tell the story saved by grace Well, Isaac, without knowing
my text tonight, you sure picked an appropriate song that matches
the text. I'm thankful. Open your Bibles
now, if you would, again with me to Genesis chapter 1. I've titled the message tonight,
Blessing in Christ Our Head. Now all of God's salvation, from
its beginning in what we call eternity past, to ultimate glorification,
All of that, the whole purpose of it is seen in picture in Genesis
chapter one, in these first six days of creation. So far in this
creation story, we've seen pictures of Christ and his redemptive
work for his people over and over and over again. Moses wrote
of Christ, Genesis chapter one, right where he began. And we've
seen pictures of God's elect being given light and life in
Christ. when he appears to his people.
The picture of that is when God said, let there be light, and
there was light. We've seen a picture of Christ
being made flesh so that he could be the representative of his
people. We've seen Christ dying in the place of his people as
their substitute because he had been made sin for his people.
We've seen a picture of all life, all spiritual life being found
in Christ alone. All life is completely dependent
upon the resurrection of Christ. We have no hope if Christ did
not rise from the dead. We've seen a pictures, pictures,
plural of the new birth coming from the seed of the word of
God. All the life that God made in these six days reproduced
from a seed that was in itself. He says that over and over and
over again in this, the seed that was in itself, everything
reproduced after his kind. The nature of life comes from
the nature of the seed that created it. An apple tree produces apples. That's the nature of the seed.
A cow produces a cow. That's the nature of the seed.
The new man born of God the Holy Spirit is a new man. He's a new
nature that's holy and that's sinless. The reason for that
is because the nature of the seed that produced the seed of
the word of God, which is sinless and holy. It can only produce
a man, only produce a nature that's sinless and holy. We've
also seen a picture of Christ's successful savior, how he ascended
back on high as our mediator, as our high priest, where he
sits in glory upon the throne of God, ruling and reigning,
ensuring the salvation of the people for whom he died, that
he purchased with his blood. And there on that throne, Christ
the Savior will sit until the day appointed of the Father for
Him to return to earth. And when He returns, He's not
coming back as a lamb like He did the first time. He's not
coming back as a servant like He came the first time. When
Christ returns, He's going to come as the reigning King, as
the judge of all of the earth. He's going to appear in all of
His glory. When He came as a man the first
time, He hid His glory. Few people saw His glory. When
He comes a second time, the whole earth is going to see His glory.
He's coming in His glory to gather His people to Himself, to forever
be with Him where He is that they might behold His glory.
And He's coming to gather His enemies and put them in hell
where they'll not harm anyone ever again. And that day when
Christ returns, God's elect will be glorified. Those that have
died and have been buried or lost at sea, wherever it is that
their remains might be scattered all over the earth, some of them,
they're going to be raised from the dead in a glorified body. Those who remain in the twinkling
of an eye will be changed, glorified into a glorified, perfect body.
They will be made just like the Lord Jesus Christ, body and soul. Now, right now, they're saved.
They're redeemed, they're justified, they're righteous, they're holy.
Now, as much now, as they ever will be. I know you don't feel
holy, but if you believe God, if you trust Christ, if Christ
is your righteousness, you'll never get more holy than you
are right now. That new man in you is holy. Now the flesh is
not, but the new man is, and that's the man that's gonna go
be with the Lord. But until then, we've got this
holy, righteous man in us, this new nature in us, but in that
day, there's not gonna be two natures of belief anymore, there's
gonna be one. Body and soul. Perfect. Perfect without sin. Then God's elect will have no
presence of sin. Not in them and not around them. They'll have no more doubts.
They'll have no more fears. They'll have no more weak faith.
they will be perfectly conformed to the image of Christ. And everything,
not just God's people, but everything in God's creation is going to
be made new. All of it will be perfect and
sinless. There won't be an effect of sin
to be found anywhere in God's creation. And the glory of that
blessing, we try to imagine it, but I'm telling you, it's far,
far greater than we can ever imagine. And that day that Christ
returns, God's elect will have everything that the father purposed
for them, that the son purchased for them, that the Holy Spirit
gave them a down payment of. Right now we have the earnest
of it. And that day we'll have the full possession of it. And
we're going to look back and I say, we're going to say saved
by grace. We're going to tell that story
saved by grace. And that day there can be no more hope. There'll
be no more expectation. There's gonna be no more waiting
on God. There's gonna be no more faith.
We'll walk by sight, not by faith. And here in this sixth day of
creation, that's what's pictured, the glorification of God's elect,
ultimate completion of God's purpose of redemption when all
of his people are gathered together in one place in a new creation. On the sixth day, God had created
all these things in the earth. On the sixth day, God created
man. You know why he created man?
God didn't need man. He didn't need us, did he? No.
Why did God create man? So that he could fulfill his
eternal purpose of redemption. God created man so that there
would be a fallen people for his son to come redeem. There'd
be a fallen people that the son could come and bring back to
God to the glory of God, the father, to the glory of God who
purposed that salvation and did all the work to accomplish it.
And tonight I want us to see five or six things, pictures
of Christ, pictures of the new man that's created in Christ.
And then the glory, the glory of that new creation that God's
going to create when Christ returns again. And it's in that new creation,
that new heavens and new earth, That's where God's perfect people
are gonna dwell. Verse 28 says, God blessed them. God blessed them. And the things
we see on the sixth day of creation are pictures of the blessings
that God has given his people, given the new man right now.
And they're pictures of the blessings that we will have in perfection
someday in that new creation. And the first one is this, the
blessing of peace. Look at verse 24. And God said,
let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind,
cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his
kind. And it was so, and God made the beast of the earth after
his kind and cattle after their kind and everything that creepeth
upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good.
Now on the sixth day, God created every form of animal. animal
that lives on the land. He created the fish and the birds
earlier. On the sixth day, God created
every form of animal that ever existed. The animals didn't evolve
into something. The animals exist today the way
they exist because that's the way God made them 6,000 years
ago. I know some of them are extinct
now, But every animal in existence exists the way that they do,
because that's the way God made them. They didn't evolve and
change into something else. God made them that way. And God
made all of those animals for his glory. And he made them for
the good of man that he is getting ready to make and create. You think of all the different
species of animals, so many different species. of animals and all that
different variety just serves to glorify God's wisdom in creation. Who but God could create a duck-billed
platypus? You think of that. I was watching
Jeopardy. I mean, I'm not all that smart.
I saw this on Jeopardy. Some great botanist, not botanist,
biologist, somebody studies animals, whatever. Years and years, 100
years, 150 years, a long time ago, Somebody brought to him
a duck-billed platypus, and he started looking for stitches.
He thought somebody took two or three animals and stitched
them. He was looking for stitches. He said, this can't be. Only
God could create a duck-billed platypus. I mean, that's God's
wisdom. But you know, right now, right
now, we can't always see God's wisdom in creating certain kind
of animals. We just can't see the wisdom
in those things. And I tell you why. It's because man's sin has
made animals enemies of each other. It's made some animals
to be natural born killers and predators. You know, I thought,
what good is an alligator to a man? I was talking with Greg
Amquist last week. And he told me, he said, about
these natural freshwater springs that just all through Florida,
he said, All year long, they stay about 72 degrees. And people
like to go swim in. He said in the summertime, the
water feels a little cold. In the wintertime, it feels kind
of warm. It's kind of nice. But you know, alligators like
to go live in them things. I thought, I just, I'm not jumping
in one of those things. I just, you know, alligators
live there. I can live out here. Alligators
can live down there. Those two don't need to cross you. What
good is an alligator to a man? I mean, they could just kill
you at a moment's notice. How about a wolf or a lion? How about a grizzly bear? You
know, you want to be out hiking through the woods out west somewhere
and run into a grizzly bear? I mean, I don't. How about a
poisonous snake? How about a poisonous spider
or something, you know? I mean, how about a tick? What good's a tick? It just all
seems like, to me, all it can do is make you sick. Those animals
just harm, man. They could kill them every time
they get a chance. Now, I didn't look it up, but
I know this is generally true. Those animals, somehow, somehow,
they serve a good purpose to the earth. Somehow, they're a
predator of something, and, you know, if the predator was removed,
this other animal would, you know, the population would explode
and be bad for the earth somehow. I mean, generally speaking, I
know that that's, you know, the way God has created them. God
has some good for them now. Even though I can't see it, what
good is a poisonous spider? I have no idea. Somehow God has
some good for it. But in the new creation, you
know that'll be easy to see. It will be, it'll be easy to
see. In the new creation, there'll be no more predators. You won't be afraid of a lion.
You won't be afraid of a wolf. You won't be afraid of a grizzly
bear. You won't be afraid of a shark. All there will be is
perfect peace. Turn to Isaiah chapter 11. There'll
be perfect peace, even among the animals. Now, Isaiah 11 is
a prophecy of the coming of Christ, our savior. And it tells us what's
going to happen as a result of Christ coming in the flesh. Isaiah
chapter 11, verse one, and there shall come forth a rod out of
the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
And everybody here knows this is a, This is a prophecy of Christ. The savior is going to come as
a stem of Jesse. He's going to descend from, from
David and the result of him coming is peace. Look down at verse
six. The wolf also shall dwell with
the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the
calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little
child shall lead them and the cow and the bear shall feed and
their young ones shall lie down together. The lion shall eat
straw like an ox. And the sucking child shall play
on the hole of the asp. That just toddler's gonna play
on the hole of a poisonous snake. And the weaned child shall put
his hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not hurt nor destroy
in all my holy mountain. For the earth shall be full of
the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In
God's creation, there's gonna be perfect peace everywhere.
Even among these animals that are natural enemies. But you
know the greatest blessing in that day? The greatest peace
that we're going to have in that day? The peace that God's elect
have with God. He'll be perfect. Perfect. Those of us who are born in the
flesh as natural born enemies of God, they're going to be made
new too. And they're going to enjoy perfect
peace. Now, if you believe God, you have perfect peace already.
If you're trusting Christ, you already have perfect peace. You
have that peace. Christ made that peace for you
by the blood of his cross. How perfectly do you enjoy it,
though? Not very, do we? In that day, it'll be perfect.
Perfect peace. Look at verse 10. And in that
day, there should be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for
an ensign of the people. To it, to him, shall the Gentiles
seek and his rest shall be glorious. He'll give his people perfect
peace, perfect rest in Christ. We'll have that perfectly and
that day when Christ returns. All right. Secondly, look back
in our text. Genesis one. The next thing we
see is the blessing in that day of being made like Christ. What
a blessing that'll be. Verse 26 and 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 fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth. Now the word that's translated
here, God, is Elohim. And from what I read, that means
that's in the plural. It's the same word translated
God all throughout Genesis chapter one. It's God plural all the
way through. Now there's only one God, one
God. but he's in three persons. Even
in Genesis chapter one, Moses is telling us something about
the Trinity. He exists in the, in three persons,
God, the father, God, the son, and God, the Holy spirit. And
here in this creation story, we see all three of the Godhead,
three persons of the Godhead. They're all working together
in this thing of creation, which is no surprise because they work
together and everything. They have one purpose because
there's one God. But it's especially plain here
in our text. God said, let us make man in
our image. He's talking about three persons,
one God, but three persons. It's the work of the Trinity.
And the creation of Adam is a picture of God creating the new man.
When there's a new man that God the Holy Spirit creates, he causes
him to be born again, born in the new birth. And that man is
born in the image of God. God said, let us make man in
our image, in our image. Now that new man, he's not like
God himself and that it's a little God that's been born with all
the attributes of God. He's not, he's not God himself.
It's an image, an image of God. The word has something to do
with a shadow. You know, if I get out in the
sunshine and stand in a certain way, you can see the outline
of my body in a shadow. Now it's not me. It's an image. It's in the lightness. It's in,
you know, in the shape of that's how this new man is. He's born
in the image of God. Adam, God says, was made in the
very image of God. Now, what on earth does that
mean? How can a man be made in the image of God? Well, Adam
was not made with the power of God. Adam wasn't obviously made
with the omnipresence, the wisdom of God, the holiness of God.
Adam was not even created righteous. I mean, we might term it that
way sometimes, but that's not correct. Adam was not created
righteous. Adam did not have a holy nature.
He didn't have a nature that could not sin. It's obvious he
sinned, didn't he? So his nature wasn't holy. His
nature wasn't righteous. It was innocent. Adam was created
in innocence, but Adam could sin. He could ruin his innocence,
he could make himself guilty, and that's just exactly what
he did. We'll get to that in a couple weeks. But man was created,
Adam was created in the image of God in this way. Man has a
higher honor, a higher dignity than the rest of the animals
that God created. Of all the animals that God created,
only man has a conscience. Only man knows right and wrong.
Only man is a moral being. Only man was made to commune
with God. You think about it, God made
Adam to commune with him. Man was made to commune with
God. Only man was made with an eternal soul. Animals don't have
souls, you do. That's in the image of God, the
eternal God. In a few weeks, we'll see this.
Adam's body could die, but Adam couldn't die. His soul can't
die, his soul is eternal. Our souls are eternal. They're
gonna live somewhere. They're gonna live with someone
in eternity. And only man was made like that. There's not another animal made
that God made that was like that. Well, that's a picture of the
new man. The new man, born of God, is born in the image of
God. You who believe Christ, you know
this about yourself. You know. You have two natures
warring in you, don't you? You know you do. And that new
man, he's born in the image of God. Now that doesn't mean he
got the power of God. It doesn't mean he has the omnipresence
of God. He doesn't have the essential
nature of God, but that new man is born in the image of God,
bearing the likeness of God. And I'm telling you that new
man born of God is much better than Adam. Much better. Adam wasn't created righteous.
Adam was created innocent. He could lose his innocence.
The new man born of God is created in righteousness. He is righteous. He is holy so that he cannot
sin. He cannot lose his righteousness.
He cannot be cast away from God because of his guilt like Adam
was. So much better than Adam. The new man is righteous and
he cannot sin because he's born from sin. from the Lord Jesus
Christ, the incarnate seed. He's got his nature. And that
new man will one day, finally, leave this body of sin behind. He's gonna leave this clay prison
behind. And it's that new man that's
gonna depart and be with the Lord forever. And that new man
instantly is gonna have the capacity, the ability, the opportunity,
to commune with God Almighty. He's gonna worship God perfectly,
eternally. In a similar fashion to the way
Adam did. Adam was created to commune with
God and he did. God came down to commune with
Adam, to talk with Adam, to walk with Adam in the cool of the
day in that garden. But this new man's so much better.
He's gonna commune with God eternally. God's never going to be casting
his people out of the new creation. He's never going to be putting
an angel with a flaming sword that turns every which way to
keep them from coming back. No, they'll never depart from
his presence. They'll commune with God, worship God eternally
in a body and soul that's perfect without any sin because they've
been made just like Christ. All right. Number three, there's
the blessing of raining. He says here in verse 26, and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the
fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth
and over everything that creepeth upon the earth. God created man
to rule over this earth. Man is to cultivate the earth.
He's to rule over the earth. He's to move it around and do
what it takes so that the earth serves the needs of man. That's
what God created man for. He gave him dominion over the
earth in that way. And there are times, man does a pretty
good job of that. There are times, many times,
seems like men do a very poor job of that. And instead of using
the earth to serve people and do good, it actually causes harm,
you know, to the earth and to the people in it. And I tell
you why that rule falls down. It's because of sin. It's because
of sin. That's why our rule is not good.
That's why we do so many awful things. But the fact still remains,
God created man to rule over the earth, over the cattle. I
read a writer that, I don't know if this is so or not, but I like
to eat meat, so I'm gonna say it's so. He said, God made it
so that man's to rule over the cattle and to kill them and eat
them. I don't know if that's exactly so, but I just don't
feel guilty about it. God made man to rule over the
earth. But I'll tell you something far
better. God's people are gonna be given
a reign. They're going to be given a reign in the new creation
to reign over it. Like man was created to reign
over this world. Now people take this, this matter
of reigning and build a whole big thing about it. And let's,
let's not do that. God's people are not going to
reign over other people. They're not going to Lord their
authority over people in God's creation. You know, like now
they say to the believer, now I'm getting you back. You know,
now you rained over me in the earth, but now I'm raining over
you and you tormented me and I'm going to torment you now.
You know, it's like, you know, believers
just can't wait. I can't wait till the shoes on their foot
and I can just, you know, grind these people on my heel like
they're doing to me now. That's not how God's people are
going to reign at all. God's people will reign. They
will reign. They'll reign with Christ. They'll
reign in Christ. We're seated in heavenly places
right now. Right now. In Christ. Where is He sitting? Where is
He seated? On the throne of judgment. We're sitting on the throne in
Him. We're reigning in Him. See, Christ is the one who must
reign. Let's not make ourselves a whole
lot bigger. No. Christ is the one who must
reign. Christ is all. Paul said in 1
Corinthians 15, 25, For he must reign. One of the things Christ
must do is he must reign till all enemies have been put under
his feet. But God's people will reign too. They will. They'll
reign with Christ. Revelation 20, verse six, John
says, blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.
On such, the second death hath no power, but they should be
priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him. They'll
reign with Him. God's people, actually, the church,
God's people is reigning right now. We're reigning in this earth. You know how? By the Gospel. By preaching Christ. When Christ
is preached, the Gospel, the Savior reigns in calling His
people from death to life. To call them from darkness to
faith in Christ. and nothing in this earth can
stop it. God's people are kept, they're fed, they're blessed,
they're encouraged. They don't run off after a false
prophet, why? The gospel of Christ reigns in
their hearts and keeps them, it reigns over them. And God's
people will reign in the new creation too. In this sense,
not that we're gonna be making judgments about people and things,
that all belongs to our God. They're reigning with Christ,
with Christ. Here's how they reign with Christ.
They're all gathered together around his throne and they amen
everything he does. They praise everything that he
does. That's how they reign with Christ. They reign by worshiping
Christ who sits upon the throne. They reign over sin. That's right. They reign over sin, but it's
with Christ because Christ has made them sinless. They reign
over death. Absolutely, they reign over death.
You know why? Because Christ made it where
they can die no more. See, it's all with Christ. It's
all in Christ. They're gonna reign with Christ,
in Christ. All right, number four. God's
people are blessed in Christ, in Christ. Verse 27. So God created
man in his own image. In the image of God created he
him. male and female created he them. I wonder how much, how
often some of us have looked at that, but what does he mean
there? Male and female created he them.
That's what it says. But we know this Eve wasn't formed
from Adam's side until chapter two. How long was that after
chapter one? I don't know. Is at least one
days or at least after the seventh day wasn't until the seventh
day God rested. So why does it say here on the
sixth day God created both male and female? Created he them when
we know he only created Adam? Well, I can tell you why. It's
the doctrine of representation. When God created Adam, God created
Eve, too, because Eve was in Adam. When God created Adam,
he created you and me, too, because we were in Adam. Created he them.
And that same thing is true of every human being. God created
every human being that would ever exist, with the exception
of our Lord Jesus Christ, on the sixth day. Because they were
all in Christ. Every one of them. That we were
created. We were in our father, Adam.
And since we were in Adam, we did what Adam did. You know,
see in a few weeks how horrible that is. that this is how we
were made sinners. This is how you and I were made
guilty. It was in Adam. It was because we did what Adam
did. You and I weren't made sinners by our own sin and our own rebellion
against God. We didn't stand on our own and
now we're sinners because we told a lie. No, we became guilty
in Adam. We were made sinners in Adam.
And the reason that we commit the sins that we commit, the
reason that we come forth from the womb speaking lies, is we
were made a sinner in Adam. were born with his sinful nature.
Well, God creates the new man in the very same way in Christ. The flesh was created in Adam.
All of God's people spiritually are made in Christ. They're created
in Christ. And since they were created in
Christ, they're all in Christ. They're all in him. Adam was
our first representative. Christ came as a second Adam
to be the second representative of his race. And all of God's
elect are in Christ, so they did exactly what Christ did. That's how we're made righteous.
Not by our obedience, but by the obedience of Christ. When
Christ obeyed the law, you who believed did too. When he died
to the law, satisfied the law, you did too. See, we were made
sinners through the disobedience of Adam, and God's elect are
made righteous by the obedience of Christ, the second Adam. God's
elect, are the bride of Christ. They're in Christ, just like
Eve was in her husband, Adam. And the bride, Christ's bride,
is made just like our bridegroom through union with Christ, just
like Eve was made just like Adam. We'll see this in a couple weeks.
After Adam's sin, boy, everybody's hatin' on one another. Everybody's
pointin' a finger at somebody else, aren't they? Adam, he pointed
a finger at God. Pointed a finger at Eve, and
then he pointed a finger at God. None of this would have happened,
God, if you hadn't made her. Not my fault, it's gotta be one of
your two. Eve, she points a finger at somebody else. She points
a finger at the serpent. Why'd she do that? She's just exactly
like her husband. Just exactly like her head. Well,
Christ has a bride, and he's made her exactly like him. Through union with God, We read
it there in Revelation 19 to open the service. The bride is
clothed in a spotless white linen. And just so you can't mistake
it, John said that's the righteousness of saints. It's Christ's righteousness
put on his people. The bride is adorned with jewels
that make her beautiful. Where are those jewels? They're
the fruit of the spirit. Fruit of the spirit of Christ
that he put on her. The bride is made beautiful. She's made
holy. because she's wearing the beauty
and the holiness of Christ that he put on her. She's been made
just like him. Just like Eve is made just like
Adam. The bride of Christ is so much
one with Christ that when the father sees the bride, all he
sees is the bridegroom. God only created Adam on the
sixth day, but it says here he created them. Because he saw
them all, all human beings in Adam. When Christ looks, when
God the Father looks at his people, all he sees is Christ. And he's
well pleased with them. All male and female, all one
in Christ our head. Having every blessing that almighty
God has, every one of them, through union with Christ. Through union
with Christ. We have that now. God's people
have that now, but there we'll have full possession, full possession,
no sin in between. All right, here's the fifth thing. God's people, this kind of continuation
of the last point, are blessed with everything in Christ. Verse
28, and God blessed them. And God said unto them, be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it. Have dominion
over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and
over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. God blessed
Adam and Eve with a perfect world. He gave them a perfect environment
to live in. He blessed them. Adam and Eve
had plenty deed. Never had to worry if there's
enough deed. There's no danger for them to worry about. I reckon
they didn't have houses and doors, but if they did, they never worried
about locking them. There's no danger. God blessed them with
life and happiness. And Adam lost every bit of it.
by his rebellion, his sin against God. Not just Adam, not just
Eve, but all of God's creation was ruined when Adam sinned. Sin immediately started killing
things. Predators started popping up,
you know, the animals that used to get along, now one of them
is seeking to kill the other one. I don't know how long it
took, but there came a day, Adam was walking, wherever he was
walking, walking home from the field, walking somewhere. And
he came around the corner, and there was a deer being killed
by a lion. And for 900 years, Adam had to
live with the fact, I did that. Sin caused death in God's creation,
caused ugliness and hatred and ruin in God's creation. And all
of Adam's race, from Eve on down to you and me, down to our children,
down to our grandchildren, down to our great-grandchildren, as
long as it goes till Christ returns, we're all ruined in sin. We all became dead in sin. That's
us by nature. But God looked at His people
and He blessed them. He blessed them. In spite of
everything that they are, He blessed them with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. He blessed them with
eternal life. He blessed them with peace with
God. He blessed them with everything that God requires to stand before
Him in perfection. See, He blessed them in Christ.
He blessed them for Christ's sake because of what Christ did
for them, not what they would ever do. And this blessing, now
Adam was blessed. Eve was blessed. God blessed
them with the perfect garden. But when God blesses His people,
it's far better blessing than what God blessed Adam with. The
blessings God gives His people, will never be lost. It's impossible. They can't be lost. God's people
are so blessed, they'll be fruitful and they'll multiply and they'll
multiply and they'll multiply until they completely fill God's
creation with a people who've all been made just like Christ. Now that's a blessing. You think
what a joy it will be. to live in a place like that,
populated with the people like that, all made like Christ. All
right, here's the last thing. God's people are blessed to be
made perfect, perfect in Christ. In case you wondered how great
this blessing is, it's perfection. Verse 31, and God saw everything
that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening
and the morning were the sixth day. Now God saw everything that
he made was perfect. It was very good. And that's
the way God has always seen all of his people. He looks at them
and says, they're very good. They're perfect in Christ. And
that was the whole purpose of God's creation. This is the culmination
of it. Paul told us in Romans 8, 29,
that God predestinated his people. He had a predetermined destination
for them. And this is what it was, to be conformed to the image
of his son. Now that new man, he's conformed
to the image of Christ right now, made just like him. The
problem is, we have a hard time seeing that new man, don't we?
Why do we? It's because of the sinfulness
of the old man. We can't smell that sweet aroma of the new man
because of the stench of death that's in the old man. The new
man is perfect, but he can't produce any perfect, sinless
work in this life, because he's forced to live in this body of
sinful flesh. Everything he does is filtered
through this sinful flesh. It just makes it sin, the sin
of the old man. But none of that is going to
be the case in the new creation. In God's new creation, there's
not going to be any old, dead, sinful man to deal with. Everyone
in that new creation is going to be perfect, very good, just
like the Lord Jesus Christ. And when everything, all of God's
purpose has been all brought together, the world is no more. God burns up this world, creates
a new one, wherein dwells righteousness. God's going to look at the full
fulfillment of his purpose of redemption. And he's going to
look at it and smile and say, it's very good. And absolutely everyone there
without exception is going to look at it. and they're gonna
say the very same thing. Things that caused us so much
pain, so much sorrow, so much confusion. Things we had absolutely
no idea what was happening. In amazement, we're gonna look
at that and say, oh, it was very good. And we're gonna look at
everything that God has made Everything that God has done,
everything He's made us to be in Christ, and we're going to
say, it's very good. It's very good. I was in Danville last night,
preaching, and a man prayed before the service. And I thought of
this today as I was finishing up my notes. He prayed, Lord,
come quickly. Lord, come quickly. When you
think what we got to look forward to, can't that be our prayer?
Lord, come quickly. Oh, what a blessing it'll be
for God's people when he does. Let's bow together. Our Father, oh, how we thank
you for your word. How we thank you for your purpose
of redemption that you put in your son and the ultimate fulfillment
of it we have to look forward to. And Father, we can say with
our brother, come quickly. Oh, come quickly. Fulfill your
purpose quickly. But Father, until that time,
I pray you'd make us faithful. Make us faithful to believe thee,
to trust you, to rest in you. Make us faithful as your people
to continue to believe your gospel. Continue to preach it to our
generation, to our children, to our little ones, to those
in our community that know not thee. Father, make us faithful,
faithful to believe you, faithful to trust you, faithful to preach
your gospel to our generation. And when you've called that last
one in, oh, how we rejoice that you'll wrap it up and you'll
come. You'll not delay, but you'll
come and make all things new. Hasten, Lord, the day. Oh, how
we thank you. We pray you'd watch over us now,
bless us as we go back to our homes and prepare to go back
out in the world tomorrow. Watch over us and keep us, we
pray. Bring us back at the appointed time. Do one more time, worship
your matchless name. It's in Christ's precious name,
for his sake we pray, amen. All right, Sean. If you would, please turn to
song number 127, Hallelujah, What a Savior, and stand as we
sing. Man of sorrows, what a name! For the Son of God who came,
ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah! What a Savior! Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood, Sealed my pardon with His blood. Alleluia! What a Savior! Guilty, vile, and helpless we,
Spotless Lamb of God was He, Full atonement can it be? Hallelujah! What a Savior! Lifted up was he to die, It is
finished was his cry, Now in heaven exalted high. Alleluia! What a Savior! When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransom home to bring, Then anew this song we'll sing,
Alleluia! What a Savior!