Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayer for attention to Genesis chapter 1 and the
few words in verse 1. In the beginning, God. Just those words. The whole verse
reads, In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Not to convey really right at
the start, what is my main thought and main message this morning
and it is this that if God is at the beginning of a thing and
especially in our call by grace in the work of conversion then
it shall be well he will finish that and we can have great comfort
when we see God's hand whatever it is in our lives, that he is
at the beginning of it. And the word of God here begins
with this great statement, this great word, in the beginning,
God, and then follows with the account of creation, the beginning
of this world and all that is to be done all that was to be
done and performed and is yet still being done, until the Lord
closes this earthly scene, returns again, and time shall be no more. The Lord, right at the very beginning
of this earthly scene, He began it, and all that is going on,
all that is happening, is all under his almighty hand. We think of some of those occasions
like the children of Israel. And we think how God began with
Abraham. He called him out of the Chaldees. He gave him the promises. He
brought his seed as he had promised into Egypt. He brought them out
again and he brought them into the promised land. None of that
came from Abraham or Isaac or Jacob. God began it, and every
step of the way, God's hand was in it. It is that that I desire
to bring before you this morning, that we might see and watch God's
hand and know this great comforting truth. of the beginning with
the Lord will end with the Lord. Well, to direct our thoughts
this morning, I first want to speak of that which in God has
no beginning. Might seem strange to begin with
that, but I do want to highlight that which has no beginning. And then that which God is and
must be the beginner of. And then thirdly, the comfort
that God has been in the beginning of a thing. But firstly, that which in God
has no beginning. And we must say that God himself
has no beginning. We read in Deuteronomy, the eternal
God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. Paul tells the Colossians that
he was before all things and by him all things consist. There was never a time When God
did not exist, there will never be a time when he will cease
to be in existence. Eternity is a mystery to us. God is a mystery to us. If we
could understand him, he would be a little God, wouldn't he? If we could grasp those things,
everything of God, then he would be a small god. When we think
of our children beginning to learn, how little they know about
those that are fully learned in a particular aspect of something. How little they would know about
a doctor, one that has trained at university after their schooling
for six years, and they're a doctor. But that doctor, after he's done
all that six-year study and he's beginning to practice as a doctor,
he doesn't know anything about engineering. He's not a professional
engineer, nor is he a professional farmer or nurseryman or an architectural
engineer. And we think of so much in our
lives, We specialize. We take all of our lives to learn
one aspect. But God knows everything. Eternally
He does. He never had to begin to learn. Never had to learn wisdom. He is wisdom. He hasn't had to
be given power. He has all power to give. And maybe really think of the
greatness of God as really an evidence for God himself. Those who think that they must
know everything really want God to be such a one as themselves. Our Lord has said, Thou thoughtest
that I was altogether such as thyself. It takes away reverence,
takes away greatness. If we were to go into the woods
near us and we'd see one of those ant mounds, a foot or two high,
teeming with ants, what would those ants know about our lives? What would they know about travelling
12,000 miles to the other side of the world? They could impossibly
know anything of that. And yet in God's sight we are
like that. like the ants, being like as nothing, knowing nothing,
knowing only really what God himself has chosen to reveal
and set before us in his holy word. May we really strengthen
our belief in a mighty, eternal, ever-living God. In Psalm 90,
we have the prayer of Moses, the man of God. And that begins
like this. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling
place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought
forth, wherever thou hast formed the earth and the world, for
even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. How great is God
as he is set before us in that way. Then we think of how Jeremiah
sets before us the love of God. Not only God has been and is
eternal, but his love is an everlasting love. He says, yea, I have loved
thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness
have I drawn Thee, and we love Him because He first loved us. The love of God has, like God
Himself, no beginning nor an end. He is love. The eternal covenant of God,
that covenant of grace, the covenant in the Lord Jesus Christ, His
people are chosen in Him before the foundation of the world,
in eternity past. And we have in Hebrews 13 and
20, now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our
Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood
of the everlasting covenant. May you perfect in every good
work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing
in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and
ever. The Lord's covenant was what
comforted David. He said, Though my house be not
so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and sure. though he make it not to grow.
He felt his weakness, but there was that which was unchanging
in God, that covenant, that agreement between God the Father, God the
Son, God the Holy Spirit, of choosing, electing a people unto
himself. to redeem them, to save them. You know, when Paul writes to
the Ephesians, one of his main purposes in writing is to tell
those believers the blessings that they had and where they
went back to, how they began. And he says in Verse 3 to 5, on the
first chapter of his epistle to them, Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as
he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. A sovereign, eternal God, the
Lord saying of his people, Thine they were, and Thou gavest them
me. That which was done, that which
was settled before the world, in our God. And then our God
begins this world. He brings the world into existence. And all that is done in this
world, He is the author and beginner of that which is done. And I
want to then look secondly at those things of which God is
and must be the beginner of. And I want to begin with the
creation here, the giver of life. We take this away. We take away
really the whole meaning of the word. We take away the whole
meaning of this world. we rob God of His honour and
glory, it is vital that we begin reading the Word of God and believing
the Word of God with this very first verse, this very first
statement, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. A Christian's worldview starts
with that statement and everything else what man has devised, has
thought, has schemed, has written, all must be brought to the bar
of God's Word. Where was man in eternity? Where
was man when God created the heaven and the earth? What is
man? Formed out of the dust of the earth. Fallen man that will
lift up his fist against God, that will reply against him and
say, God didn't make the heaven and the earth, it just happened.
It was just an explosion. And out of confusion came this
wonderful creation. God tells us in Romans 1, that
man shall be without excuse because of himself, because of himself
as a pinnacle of creation. I came across a book the other
day, daughters when she was studying things to do with anatomy, with
nursing, great big thick book and just thumbing through it
and seeing the human body and seeing all the parts of it, vascular
system, the nervous system, all the workings of the body, how
complex, how wonderful. Sometimes we do not really consider
it. We are fearfully and wonderfully
made. You read Psalm 139, when David
the psalmist, he speaks of this. Curiously wrought in the lowest
parts of the earth, formed in the womb, and how wonderfully
he sees God there. Most solemn thing that any, with
any profession of religion, let alone those who have none at
all, should ever deny. a creating God. It strips away
everything. Here is the beginning. In the beginning, God created. And always through His creation,
we see it here, such a wonderful order. The first three days of
creation, the Lord made places. He made the heavens. He made
the sky and the sea and He made the dry land. That's the first
three days. And then the next three days
He populates them. And He puts the sun and the moon
and the stars in the heavens. And then He puts the fish in
the sea and the birds in the air. And then He puts the beasts
on the ground that's already prepared and already burdened
and then he creates man and puts him in the garden. If you were having a pet, if
you were making an enclosure for an animal, you'd make the
enclosure, you'd put everything in it that it needed, and then
you'd put the animal in. You wouldn't get the animal and
put it in a, a bare enclosure and then start working around
it to make it good for them. And we see God preparing and
then putting into that prepared place what he has prepared for
it. And so we have the Garden of
Eden, man put into that. We have Canaan and the Israelites
put into that. We have heaven I go to prepare
a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I'll come again and receive you unto myself. And
he prepares that for a prepared people. God is a preparing God
and a God of great order. We see it at the beginning of
the Bible, the beginning of the Old Testament in Genesis. And
when we come to the beginning of the New Testament in Matthew,
we have the generation of our Lord Jesus Christ. traced from
Adam to David and from David to the carrying away into Babylon
and from the carrying away into Babylon and to Christ. Fourteen
generations of beautiful order that's set forth. And so God has the days of creation
set forth and it struck me that when he comes to the seventh
day, that is the day That is the day that is blessed and sanctified. None of the other days were.
All his works were pronounced good. But this is the day the
Lord hath made. You might say, but do not we,
we gather on the first day of the week? The Old Testament,
there is God's work, seven days, and then he rested. But when
the Lord rose from the dead, he rose on the first day of the
week. The principle is still the same. One day in seven is given wholly
to the Lord. And it was that first day that
the Lord appeared to His people and in the churches. That is
the Lord's day. John says in Revelation, I was
in the Spirit on the Lord's day. And He is the Lord of the Sabbath. And there's a spiritual meaning,
too, for that order. Because with the people of God
in the Old Testament, you might say under a covenant of works,
they were to work six days. They're the sacrifices, the ceremonial
law. It was hard. And then they could
rest. In the New Testament, our Lord
Jesus on the cross declared, it is finished. He finished the
work. So we, on the first day of the
week, we rest. We remember the Lord's finished
work. The same as here. There was on
this sanctified day a remembering the finished work of all the
days of creation. But we remember the finished
work of our Lord on Calvary. And then the remainder of the
week we work out that which God has wrought in. Our works we
do not do to merit salvation. Christ has done that at Calvary.
What we do is to show forth the praises of him who hath called
us out of nature's darkness and into his marvelous light. So
it is the Lord that begins in creation. It is a good thing
if we were to, and I'm not going to as it were, go through it
fully this morning, there's not time to, but if you took the
first three or so chapters in Genesis, which is a book of beginnings,
and we find the creation, we find the one day in seven principle,
we have marriage, the Lord began marriage, it's not an institution
of man, it is God that has instituted marriage, He gave the law, the
law of God. There's the beginning of the
law. Thou shalt not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. The day that thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. Sin is the transgression of the
law of God. They always remember that. And
so sin is set forth here in these chapters. And then the fall of
man, we have That here, a beginning, the very beginning of the Word
of God, the secret, why there's the curse, why there is death,
why there's sorrow, all of that is set forth here in God's book
of beginnings. But then we have the beginning
of the promises, the seed of the woman that should bruise
the serpent's head. And right through the Old Testament,
we have promise after promise. You and I cannot rely on a promise
if God has not given it, if he has not been the beginner of
that. And the same with hope. How can
we hope if we do not have a basis for that hope? Hope thou in God,
says the Psalmist when he is cast down. Why art thou cast
down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise him who is the health of my countenance. and my God,
because there was a beginning in God to hope upon. And so in the word of God, in
the beginnings, we have God beginning. We mentioned Abraham. And of course, in Genesis, it
sets forth the beginning of Israel, the nation of Israel. It begins
with the calling of Abraham, the promises to him, the promises
of Christ through him, and then the forming of the nation in
Egypt, and then bringing out of Egypt. In the beginning God,
Genesis. May we look upon the book of
Genesis in a very different way when we have this very first
verse impressed upon us. Here is a book of God beginning
things. God bringing things to pass.
God establishing the world as he would have it to be. And then when we think, going
further on, of the church of God. Paul, when he writes to
Timothy, he speaks of the church of God as being the pillar and
ground of the truth. When our Lord spoke, and taking
from Peter's name a cephas, a stone, he says, upon this rock, not
meaning Peter, but meaning himself, upon this rock, I will build
whose church? My church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. And Paul, he writes and he says,
that other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which
is Jesus Christ. And it is that foundation is
the foundation of the church, which is the church of the living
God. And it is God that is set forth
in the church. He's set forth the apostles and
teachers and pastors and elders. They're not man's device at all. The government of the church,
the order of the church of God, is ordered by God. Yes, God has
not set forth, well, we've got to have three hymns or three
psalms or a reading of a particular length or an order, but the emphasis
is in the word of God. Preaching is the way that God
has said it will please God through the preaching, to save them that
believe. Go ye into all the world, preach
the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. God has begun that. He has begun
the preaching. Go ye into all the world. It
is with his command and his commission. And so with the church of God,
It is the Lord that has purchased it, not a building, but a people,
known, loved eternally, and gathered ones, gathered to each other
and gathered unto Christ, gathered as a body, a gathering on earth
through all the scenes of time, but a gathering in heaven, an
innumerable multitude. May we join with the hymn writer
and desire that we might be with them now and through eternity. It's a great blessing to be able
to view what God has begun and to see God's plan and to see
his hand ordering it. And in our services, the word
of God as well, to be prominent, and the singing of worthy praise,
and the offering up of prayer, and I believe we have got the
balances right. Some churches feel they've got
it wrong. They have perhaps 90% of singing,
very little of the reading of the Word of God, very little
preaching. But the balance must be those
not prescribed in the Word of God, based upon the emphasis
that God places upon the Word and upon the preaching and upon
praise and prayer. But it is the Lord's Church,
and He has begun it, may we never despise what God has begun and
ordered, or perhaps rearrange it and say, well, we don't like
God's order, we're going to change it and make it look something
very different. There's the great, great danger
since COVID that that is what is happening in many, many situations. Many contend with online church
or not gathering together at all and choosing that way when
they could gather together as God has commanded. It has been,
of course, a great blessing to those that cannot gather and
those that are afflicted or those that must stay home with the
children or those where we can minister where they have not
got a pastor and at a great distance are great blessings. But how
we need to be careful. It's such a new thing, very mindful
of that in the last four years since COVID, four years since
we first had it. And the many changes, especially
amongst our churches and we need to stand back and think, is this
according to God? Has he begun it? Has he ordered
it? Is he using it? Or are we misusing
the blessings that we've been given and not walking in what
God has ordained in his word? God must be the beginner of the
church of God. Then we think of the new birth.
We sung of that in our middle hymn. And really it's in that
sense that I was drawn to the subject this morning. How vital that we be born of
God, born of the Spirit. This is the work of God, that
ye believe in him whom God has sent. The hymn writer says, "'Tis
Christ makes a believer and gives him his crown." And it's vital to believe that
God is the beginner. He is the one that passes by. I pass by thee when thou wast
in thy blood, and when thou wast in thy blood, I bid thee live. Now, when we read this account
in Genesis, And it struck me, and I've often marveled at this,
the first day, the Lord said, let there be light, there was
light. There was no sun, there was no
moon. The Lord is the source of light. But he didn't just leave it like
that. On the fourth day, He put lights
in heaven, the sun and the moon. He put the memes there. He gave those things that we
might say, many might say, that's nature. And don't look past it
to God putting it there. But we could make the other error
and say, because God has put it there, or because it is not God, then we
will despise or not look to that means. And maybe with the sun
and the moon, that's not so evident. But when we think of preaching,
when we think of the word of God, if one was to say, well,
We want God's word to, we want God to be in the beginning so
that we are born of God, that he begins with us. But overlook
the means and the way that the Lord will begin. He's chosen
to use his word. Remember the parable of the rich
man and Lazarus? The rich man in hell, he thought
that if Lazarus was to come from the dead and to appear to his
brethren, then they would listen to him. They would be born again.
But Lord said, no, they have Moses and the prophets. If they
hear not them, neither will they be converted, even if one did
rise from the dead. And we should then remember that
it is the Word that quickens. This is what God has ordained,
that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
The keeping of God's people as well. They are kept by the power
of God. But it doesn't stop there. Through
faith. Through faith. So God's people
are kept. It is God that keeps them. It
is the power of God that keeps them. But He uses the Word, the
Word that is preached and the Word that they read, when temptations
are set before them, a standard is lifted up. The Word of God
is lifted up as a bar to all that is wrong, as an anxious
light to all that is right. And the Lord gave the Word. That's
vital for us as well when we're thinking of the new birth, to
remember that the Lord gave the word. He was the beginner. He
is the author of the word of God. It is inspired, it is infallible,
but he uses men. He used Moses, he used Paul,
he used James, Matthew, 40 writers, penmen of the word of God. But
God is the author. Every word of God is pure. And the Lord said, Though heaven
and earth pass away, they will pass away, yet my word shall
not pass away forever. O God, thy word is settled in
heaven. And so one of these things that
is vital that we believe and know that God is the beginner
of and must be, is the word of God, is the church of God, is
the new birth. a sinner that is brought to spiritual
life in the Lord Jesus Christ, one that feels that they are
guilty, they have transgressed God's law, they have broken God's
law, they have rebelled against Him, they are worthy of death,
they are worthy of condemnation, is those that are under that
sentence and made alive to it, aware of it, They're then led
to look to the Lord Jesus Christ, that they might have life through
his name, through what he has done at Calvary, to put away
their sin, to suffer in their place and to give unto them eternal
life. Remember, that's another beginning
of the Lord. I give unto them eternal life. They shall never perish, neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand. He is the beginner. And may we truly look that the
Lord would work that in us and never despise where we're able
to see that the Lord has. But there's other things as well.
There's tribulation and it struck me in reading the account with
Job and all the tribulations that Job had, that Job went through. How did it begin? How did it begin? And if we turn
to that in the very first chapter in the book of Job, we read,
a day came, verse 6, And the sons of God came to present themselves
before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. Now here's the
beginning. The Lord begins by saying unto
Satan, Whence cometh thou? Then Satan answered the Lord
and said, From going to and fro in the earth, from walking up
and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan,
Hast thou considered my servant Job? There is none like him in
the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and
escheweth evil, hateth evil. And it's from there God began
it. God began by bringing to Satan's
attention Job. And Satan then just accuses Job
that he really only fears God because he is blessed all that
he has. God's put a hedge around about him and he thought, and
it is true, it would be the case with many on this world, that
all the Lord had to do was to touch what he'd given him and
he'd turn around and curse God to his face. God gave Satan permission
then to touch what Job had, including later on his own health. And Job did not curse God. Job went through that trial,
the Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name
of the Lord. But the beginning of this book
of great tribulation, great sorrow, that Job went through, the Lord
began it. Not Satan, not Job, not chance. It was ordered by the Lord. And
we think later on with our Lord, when he was baptised, what began? His temptations in the wilderness,
He was driven out, not by Satan. The Holy Spirit brought Him into
the wilderness to be tempted, to be tried in the desert, to
be proved He truly was the Son of God. So tribulation, the greatest
instance of it, great trouble in the Word of God, and we see
God is the beginning. And then we have providence.
God's ordering of things in the earth, in Lamentations, of course,
this is written by Jeremiah after the destruction of Jerusalem. Who is he that saith, and it
come at the pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? The Lord is
in control, not chance, not the devil, not man. He is the King
of kings and Lord of lords. Our text, is the beginning of
the world. Our Lord has said that he'll
return again with great power and that shall bring in the end
of the world. And in all that then is instituted
and begun and carried on through the world is by God, in the beginning
God. Paul says to those at Athens
who were idolaters, In Him we live and move and have our being. Not only does God begin, but
He maintains His creation. And though He has given the sun,
the moon and stars, ordered all of these things, yet He is the
sustainer of them all. May we be able to see this in
the beginning God, that he be a very real reality to us, that
it be a very firm belief to us that nothing can be done but
that God permits and orders it. We'll want to look then lastly
at the comfort that God has been in the beginning Perhaps to begin
with what first was a comfort to me, thinking of the new birth,
the calling, the time that I went from hating the things of God
to loving the things of God. The time when I had no desire,
no concern for my soul, no realisation of any need at all. and the Lord
changing that, to have a great concern and a great need. Much ignorance, great ignorance,
a great feeling of ignorance, but now a hearing ear, an appetite
for the Word, and a need of salvation for my own soul. That is a time
to be always remembered, where God begins, where God has begun,
And the comfort is in Paul writing to the Philippians, he which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day
of Jesus Christ. If God's work is not in the beginning,
and you might say, well, doesn't God begin everything? He is the
order of all things. But you know, David is the great
imitator, and he imitates God's work. And men think that they
can do God's work, and that they can just, at their own command,
raise themselves from the dead. No, this is the work of God,
that ye believe in him whom God has sent. Paul, we said, to the
Ephesians, told them what blessings they had. And he likened the
power that makes a believer, that brings him from darkness
to light, the spiritual death, the spiritual life, to be the
same power that raised up Christ from the dead. And it is the
same power. Every believer, everyone that
is a truly a changed character, that are brought out of this
world and to whom this world then becomes a barren place,
a wilderness, and that makes them pilgrims and sojourners
that are looking for a heavenly country Those that have undergone
that change, God has done that, he has wrought that in their
hearts. And he will always have a respect
to the work of his own hands. He has formed his people for
himself. This people have I formed for
myself, they shall show forth my praise. So where we are able
to discern that beginning, however small it might be, but the reality
is that the Lord began, and where the Lord begins, then he will
continue on, and there'll be signs, and there'll be evidences
of that teaching. I will instruct thee and teach
thee in the way which thou shalt go, I will guide thee with mine
eye. In Hebrews, we read in the summary,
of those that have faith. It was they saw the promises
of far off, those promises given by God. They embraced those promises
about being taught by God, about Christ coming, putting away sin. All the promises of God are yay
and amen in Christ. They embraced them and they confessed
that they were strangers, and pilgrims in the earth. Our Lord
said, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. It's the most solemn thing to
have those who profess Christians, and yet looking at their lives,
they live very worldly, carnal lives. And in their conversation,
their likes and dislikes, their clothing, their whole attitude
is no different than the world. God's people are a called out
people When God began with his people in Egypt, then he made
it very clear they were different than them. They couldn't sacrifice
in the midst of Egypt. They had to be called out. Come
ye out from among them. Touch not the unclean thing,
and I will receive you. You shall be my sons and my daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty. And so that is the command of
God. God does it, God brings out,
God brings the separation, gracious separation, come ye out. He doesn't say go out, he says
come out, come out to me, like Noah. The Lord was in the ark,
come thou, and all that thou hast into the ark. The Lord bids
his people come unto me, all ye that labour are not heavy
laden, I will give you rest. It's the Lord that speaks these
promises, that speaks these words, that begins this with His people
to raise up hope as He speaks to them. Now when we believe
that God begun with the creation, that God is in control, what
a comfort that that is. In this world with all its tribulations
and all its troubles, when we believe the tribulations of Job,
The Lord ordered them, appointed them for good. The Lord has said,
in me you shall have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation,
but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. That is, the Lord has control
in those great troubles. He hasn't ordained that they
be taken away. I pray not that those take them
out of the world. but that thou wouldst keep them
from the evil. This is the Lord's doing, this
is the Lord's way. And so may we in our providences,
sometimes we can get into places that are so low, so hard, so
many afflictions, but go back to the beginning. What brought
us here? What brought us into this particular
affliction? What brought us to this home?
or to this place or under this ministry, who is the one that
ordered that? May this morning there be a going
back, a looking to the beginning, looking to the source, looking
to where the Lord began with us. Maybe the Lord used some
very strange means. Maybe He even used people that
were not the Lord's people. Maybe even use those that said
they were Christians, but they weren't really Christians, but
he used them. And then he brought us from error,
and he brought us to the truth, and he made us to be able to
say with the apostle Paul, what I am, I am by the grace of God. So the apostle's going right
back to the Lord. He was called by God's grace,
free and merited favour of God, and that's why I am what I am. God began with me, and so there
is a comfort in that, a real comfort in that. Though he might
be in perplexity and trial and difficulty, the Lord knoweth. He knoweth the way that I take. When he hath tried me, he shall
bring forth me as gold. The Lord orders all things after
the counsel of his own will. And it's a blessed thing to be
able to look back and see the Lord as a God of beginnings. In the beginning, God. And may
we be able to add that which the Lord has done for us and
how he has begun with us. Begun by grace and begun in providence. And that be a resting place,
a help and a plea. Lord, as thou hast begun, do
carry on. Lead me not, lead me not. Be thou my guide, my teacher,
my refuge, my help, my all. Bring me at last to be with thee
in heaven. And then when Thy creation that
Thou has made is all rolled up, is all finished, that Thou will
be to me my eternal home, eternal refuge in the beginning God. May the Lord bless this word
to us each this morning. Amen.