I was just thinking about that
scripture that we quote all the time, where two or three are
gathered together in my name. There am I in the midst of you.
I'm so thankful that the Lord's here. I'm convinced there's two
or three that's met together in his name tonight. I believe
that. I'm so thankful that we can be here. I want you to take
your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Genesis chapter
1. Genesis 1. We've been looking. in these
midweek services they've been recording and putting them online
over the last few weeks in Genesis. We'd gone through Genesis 3 and
then decided we'd look starting in Genesis 1. So I'm going to,
for the benefit of those who possibly have not been able to
hear the messages, I'm just going to hit a couple of just real
quick highlights. I plan to be in verses 14 to
19 this evening, but the scriptures
reveal that, starting in Genesis 1-1, in the beginning, that is
of time. There was no beginning of eternity,
but in the beginning of time, God created the heaven and the
earth. Isaiah 45, 18 declares how God
created the heaven and the earth. And this is what Isaiah 45, 18
says, that the earth was created not in vain, but formed to be
inhabited. So when God made, created the
heaven and the earth, it was not void and without form and
darkness confusion, it was made to be inhabited. But between
verse 1 and verse 2 of Genesis chapter 1, obviously something
cataclysmic happened because the scripture says, and the earth
was, and the word was there could be became. The earth became without
form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Now,
I want to reiterate something that we know, but we always need
to be reminded of it. Of the words of the Lord to the
two on the road to Emmaus, starting with Moses, beginning with Moses.
And in all the scriptures, he expounded unto them the things
concerning himself. And therefore what we know in
the creation is the glorious display of the redemption and
salvation of Almighty God in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ for a people that has everlastingly been loved. Now
if we just look at the creation as a historical event. It's glorious
in that fact that God spoke all of this into existence out of
nothing. Out of nothing. He just spoke
it. He created it. I've said before,
a good carpenter can take and make
a beautiful piece of furniture out of wood. But He can't create
the wood. He made it out of something.
So whenever it says God created it, He actually spoke this into
existence out of nothing. And when He made it, it wasn't vain. It was made and
formed to be inhabited. And the scripture says, and here's
the picture, Regeneration. And this is what
he's talking about. I mean, the Spirit in verse 2,
latter part, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters. Now the water, the earth was
without form and void and the darkness was on the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. And
God said, let there be light. And there was light. God created light. Light is invisible. You can't
see light. You can see what it reflects
off of, but you don't see light. But God spoke light into existence. And there you behold the glory
of regeneration, how God regenerates a sinner. The Spirit of God moved
upon the face of the waters, that which now had become void
and dark and without form, and God said, let there be light,
just like whenever God speaks, and He speaks in the light of
the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, shines
in the objects of God's mercy, and there's light! They see,
in the light of Christ, they see Christ, they see Him, they
know Him, they see Himself, and the Lord made the firmament,
And he saw the light and God called the, verse 5, he called
the light a day, the darkness night. And then verse 6, he said,
let there be a firmament, the atmosphere. He made it. He spoke and there it was. He created this expanse above
us. We've got the heavens, there's
this part of the atmosphere, I guess
you'd say, right above us here, the air that the birds fly in.
It's got oxygen in it and stuff like that. But you're going to
get up a little bit higher, and you're going to have less and
less oxygen. And then it becomes this starry atmosphere out there. And then it's the third heaven,
that one that Paul said, I knew a man, whether in the spirit,
in the body, out of the body, God knows. He went to the third
heaven. made that. But He made this firmament. And then the scripture says in
verse 6, there was a firmament in the midst of the waters and
He divided the waters from the waters. What it was, He put waters
in the air up above the earth. And the earth now was covered
with water. It was all water. There was water
everywhere. And a picture of man's fall And
the complete and total formlessness and darkness and voidness, and
Almighty God, He divided the waters, is what it says. God made that firmament, verse
7, and He divided the waters which were under the firmament
from the waters which were above the firmament. And God called
the firmament heaven and the evening and the morning was the
first day. And then God took in verse 9 and He said, let the
waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place. Now
remember, the waters there that were dark and void and without
form and a picture of man and depravity and darkness that God
has to speak light into. But then in verse 9, The waters,
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
if you wanted to listen to that message where I dealt with this
explicitly but in a summary it was all the waters were gathered
together in one place and it's a picture of all of the sin,
depravity of God's elect being gathered together into the one
place, the one place of the Lord Jesus Christ. The only place
that their sin and debt could be taken care of. And the Scripture
says in God, when He said, let those waters in verse 9 be gathered
together into one place, and let dry land appear, and it was
so, God, the land was there. There's the glorious picture,
that dry land, and we went through many in that message I'm telling
you about, many instances of the safe passage of God's people. How many times dry land was spoken
of? The Red Sea, when God divided
the Red Sea, and there was God holding back, you know, and opening
up in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the children
of Israel walked across on dry land, And when they were going
into the promised land, and the priests were carrying the ark,
and when the priest's foot touched the Jordan River, the water heaped
up the Jordan River, and they went across on dry land. It's
the safety of being found in Christ, the dry, when it's there,
the earth. And it means firm, stable, the
rock, our hope, our city of refuge. our hiding place. So all of these
in the creation, everything's being created. It's spiritually
speaking of what the Lord is doing for his people. So here we're going to look tonight
and start in verse 14 through verse 19. And what I want to
do in these first minute or two, I want to just set forth, and
this is what usually you would read. I read these commentaries
on this and listen to messages on these passages of scripture,
you know, and they're, as I said before, usually it's a historical,
you know, referencing of what happened. And I do want, I want
to say what exactly what happened here historically. Let's just
read it. I'll do that first. I want to
set that forth first. God said, verse 14, let there
be lights in the firmament in the firmament of the heaven.
Now here's that firmament. It's the skies. It's there, but now God's gonna
put some lights in it. 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 God made two great lights,
the greater light to rule the day and the 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." We behold
here, humanly speaking, that God Almighty is going to divide
day and night. He's going to actually distinguish
it, separate it, put a difference between it. And the appearance
of the dividing of the day and night, God manifested that He
created, spoke into existence, the sun. He made a sun. He made two great lights. He made two great lights, greater
light to rule the day, lesser light to rule the night. He made
the stars too. He made the sun and he called
that day, he made the withdrawing or the hiding of the sun for
a determined length of time. He distinguished that to be night. You know, why do we call it day
and night? God called it day and night. We didn't name that,
God named it. And it said, now these lights,
you know, they were created and set, verse 14, to be signs for
seasons, for days, for years. These lights, these signs, and
what it is, the word signs there is actually a token. It's a token. I'm going to give you a sign
for day and night. You're going to recognize it.
When you see the sun and when you see the moon, you're going
to know that that's the sign that I've differentiated between
these two seasons. They're going to be for seasons,
for days to indicate and define. fixed appointed periods or divisions
of man's existence for the setting forth of God's faithfulness and
His consistency. The Lord had revealed to Noah
after the flood, it said that these signs, these stars, it's
amazing how certain times of the year. I never was one to
study it a whole lot, but I read a little bit about it. You get
these constellations. There's the Big Dipper. I could
sometimes find the Big Dipper. I couldn't find a lot of these
other things that you're looking up at. I mean, just clockwork. That's the only way I can think
of it. Just like clockwork. On this day in March, that constellation
is going to be right there. On this day in September, the
middle of September, it's going to be right there. It was just
there for signs and seasons and inviting and it sets forth order. And the Lord told Noah concerning
the order. God is setting order in this
world. Genesis 8, 22, while the earth
remaineth, seed time and harvest cold and heat, summer, winter,
day, night, shall not cease. I mean, they can tell you right
now, these guys that's got the computers, they're a whole lot
smarter than me, they can tell you in a hundred years, on this
particular day, the sun's going to come up, this is going to
be daybreak right there. That's when it's going to be.
It's just, it's set. It's set. Oh, the wisdom of God. The earth is not going to remain
forever. We know that. But as long as
it's here, as long as it remains, listen to this, it's ever-changing
seasons. I mean, it just, you know, right
now it's getting darker earlier and earlier and earlier. It's
just like about a minute, something like that, and then we'll have
daylight savings time. get it all squared away and then
every few years they got to change or add a millisecond or something
like that for a leap year and make sure it gets all, you know.
But here's the thing, it's ever-changing every day, but it never changes. It's a constant reminder that
God Almighty is a God of order, consistency. His Word stands. And so God set these lights,
verse 15, to give light upon the earth, to continue to be
the instruments of conveying light. Light is invisible, but
God's going to put these lights in there to reveal the light
that He has spoken into existence. And so these two great lights,
he said in there, the sun and the moon, the greater light,
the sun to rule the day, and the moon, which is not a producer
of light, but it's a reflector of light, and God put that in
there to rule the night, and God made the stars. Now I just
gave you the historical, you know, Message of the creation. That's what God did. And it's
marvelous. It is marvelous. It's a marvel
to see the order, to see the consistency. But, as we said
so many times, if we don't see the gospel in this, then we missed
it. We're not getting the message.
The Lord said these scriptures, these are they that testify of
me. So what I want us to do now is
just look and just behold the gospel. Now this is where the
heart of a believer will burn. When they see the Savior, when
they see themselves being the recipients of God's mercy and
grace, I believe, you can hold your place there and I'll just
read this or you can turn to Psalm 19. I'm gonna read a verse
or two here, Psalm 19. I believe that Psalm 19 truly
sets forth the truth of what I want to say here. Psalm 19,
verse 1, listen to this. The heavens declare the glory
of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Now, this is what
we're going to look at for a second. The heavens declare the glory
of God. What did the Lord say when Moses
asked the Lord, show me your glory? Show me your glory. If the heavens declare the glory
of God, I want to know what God said His glory is. And the Lord
said, I will make all my goodness That's the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Here's the express image of the
Godhead bodily. Here He is. It's the Lord Jesus
Christ. I will make all my goodness pass
before Thee. I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before Thee. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I'll show
mercy. That is His glory. He is a merciful
God. He's a just God and a Savior. That's His glory. To show mercy
and compassion to hell-deserving sinners. Now, the heavens declare
the glory of God. And the firmament shows His handiwork. It's the product of His hand
and power. That's what handiwork means.
The heavens shows what He's done. When we look up in the heavens,
what we see is a book, a message. We're going to see the message
of God that is absolutely open to the world. It's just there. for the beholding. The heavens
declare the glory of God. It is a book everybody can look
up. If they've got eyes, you can
see. And when you see the heavens, the heavens declare the glory
of God and the firmament, the expanse above us, shows His product
and His power. So here we're going to see in
these verses here, these lights that are in the firmament. What
are we going to see? What's there? Well, I can tell
you this, it's the display of the glory of God. It's the message
of the gospel of redemption and salvation for people. Paul the
Apostle said in Romans 1.20, for the invisible things of Him. Now we've read this scripture
before. Listen to what He's saying. For the invisible things of Him
from the creation of the world. Invisible to who? Invisible to
those that don't have eyes to see. Invisible to the unbeliever. Invisible to the world. The invisible
things from the creation of the world, Paul said, are clearly
seen Being understood by the things
that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they
are without excuse. The lights that God has put in
the heavens. What? He put the sun, the moon,
the stars. That's what He put. What are
they saying? They declare the glory of God. How? Well, again, Genesis 1 14
says, and God said, let there be lights in the firmament of
the heaven to divide the day from the night. Let them be for
signs, seasons, days, years. And then in verse 16, he said,
let there be, in verse 16, he's gonna tell us what it was. Let
there be lights. What did he do? Here's what he
put. He made two great lights, put the sun, the moon, and then
at the end of 16 he made the stars. Verse 14 and 15 tells
us what he's going to do. And verse 16, 17, 18 tells us
what he did, how he did it. So he created and put these lights
to divide the day from the night. When he said in verse 14 of Genesis
1, lights to divide the day from the night, let me tell you something.
Here's what God just said. There is a division between light
and dark. There's a division between light
and dark. God is light. That's what 1 John 1 verse 5
says. God is light. And being in fellowship and union
with Him sets forth that we are of the day. God is light. Let's listen to this scripture.
1 Thessalonians 5, 5. The Apostle Paul, in the inspiration
of God's Spirit, says, Ye are all children of light and the
children of the day. We are not of the night, nor
of darkness. Now what God said in verse 14,
there is a division between light and dark, day and night. We're
children of God in whom the light of God's mercy and grace in Christ
has shined in that new heart to give us. We didn't earn it,
we didn't possess it, we weren't born with it, It's a gift. God has given us the knowledge
of the glory of God. The glory of God to save a people
from their sins. That's His glory in the face
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We, by the grace of God, have
been enlightened by the Spirit of God concerning the person. of the Lord Jesus. Children of
the gospel day, as opposed to the darkness of this world and
its religion of self-righteous works. So the heavens declare
the glory of God. These lights out there, they're
for signs. As I told you a while ago, The
word sign there, these lights, these stars, these innumerable
witnesses of His grace, they're beacons, or monuments, or tokens
of His promise to save His people from their sins. Whenever the
spies came into the promised land, they came to Jericho, and
they went to a place of a woman named Rahab. And she hit him. You know the story. And so whenever
they were ready to leave, Rahab asked them, said, look, I want
you to promise me something. When you come in to take this
city, and I know you're coming, I'm going to ask you right now,
would you have mercy on me and my family? Joshua told her, he said, yep,
I sure will. He said, when we come in here,
he said, you make sure you're in this house. He said, if you
get out of this house, he said, your blood is going to be on
your head. You stay in this house, and he said, you hang a scarlet
ribbon in the window. And I'm going to tell all the
men, when we come in, you look for that scarlet ribbon. And
you see that house has got the scarlet ribbon He said, you leave
that house alone. That's the woman that protected
us. That scarlet ribbon was a token. It was a sign. That was the sign.
He said, I'm going to give you a sign. It's a token. It's a token. It's a promise. It's a promise of God's mercy. I promise you. I promise you. He said, when you look and you
see that son, he said, that's a promise. That's a token to
you. It's a token. of the Son of Righteousness
Himself. It shines in the light. It's a token just like it was
a token whenever God was going to come through Egypt. And He
said, I'm going to come through tonight. And He said, you kill
the lamb, you take the blood, you put it on the door, on the
side post, in the lintel. And He said, when I come through,
when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. So here we see this
glorious tokens. These are tokens and signs. The
lights are for seasons. I looked that word up, seasons,
and it means appointment. These seasons. Here, I was talking
a while ago about the seasons. It's just about this appointed
time. It's starting to get a little
colder. What do we know is coming? Well, we know winter's coming.
You know, days are getting shorter and temperatures are going down.
It's a promise. The sun is going down lower.
It's a different angle. The earth is on its tilt and
its axis. There's signs, seasons. The lights in the firmament declare
that our God has ordained all things for His glory and the
eternal good of His appointed and chosen people. And nothing
is left to chance. When he said, when you see that
sign of the sun, the moon, stars, when you see that, that's for
signs, tokens, and seasons, and days, and years. Whenever we
take a day, we take a day. I mean, these days are going
faster and faster. It seems like they're faster
and faster. But boy, when I think of the days, you know what it
made me think when I was preparing this message? Teach us to number
our days. I mean, it's becoming more and
more real to me. I mean, these days, I'm, you
know, and the years, for days and years, Man's days on average,
what? 3 score and 10, that's 70. I
didn't pass that. I'm not there anymore. Used to
be. I'm not there. I'm past that. And the thing
about it is, you know, I'm realizing God's promised. This life's a
vapor. You just remember that every
time you click off another day, just remember. These are signs,
tokens, seasons, days. And this declaration of God's
glory and handiwork is a witness. It's a witness that shall endure
until time is no more. Back in, if you're still there
in Psalm 19, I read that first, I'm going to read verse 2 and
3. The first verse said, The heavens declare the glory of
God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Listen to 2 and
3. Day unto day uttereth speech,
and night unto night showeth knowledge, and there is no speech
or language where their voice is not heard. You know what he
just said? The message of God in the creation. Paul said, listen,
these invisible things from the creation are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made. Even His eternal power
in Godhead, men are without excuse. And here's, Paul, the psalmist,
David says, day unto day, night unto night. This is the same
message, Pat, that's been proclaimed since there was time. God says
it every day, every day, every day. Man is without excuse. And the message of God is that
message that's heard everywhere. There is not a place in this
world that hadn't heard this message. No nation under the
sun fails to have this witness. This is a book. God made it this
way. This is God's message. So when we behold the sun in
the firmament, we see the declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is, I said a moment ago, He
is the Son of Righteousness, the scripture says, that shall
arise with healing in His wings. When we see that Son right there,
God said, this is what you're looking at when you see that.
There is a Savior. You hear Him. That's what He's
saying. When you look at Son, when that Son rises up, You behold
that Son that's saying that He is the light of the world, the
light that shines in dark places, the day star that arises in the
hearts of His people. What a witness! The Scripture
says that's what's being said. What a witness and it's revealed
to us. His people, we know it. And how
would we know that if God wouldn't have told us that? I would have
never known that before the Lord shined in my heart to tell me.
I didn't know that. I didn't know that was a message.
I just thought it was just the Son. It's the Son and all the
benefits of it. There's no life without the Son. But that Son is declaring something. that Almighty God is the Savior
of sinners and men don't see it. Well, what do we see when
we see the moon? What's the declaration? Well,
we're reminded of that which reflects the light of the sun. We're reminded of a believer,
but especially in totality, his church, the body of the Lord
Jesus Christ who receives all of her light from the sun. The moon doesn't produce any
light. The moon, it's a reflector of
the light. And here the moon is the sign. When you behold the moon, it's
a sign, a picture of that which reflects the glory of the Lord
Jesus Christ in this earth to this earth. That's what the Lord
said, you're the light of the world. He was here, he said,
I'm the light of the world. He said, no, you're the light
of the world. We reflect the glory of Christ, so when we look
at the moon, and there's a reflection, there's the glory of the sun. That's basically what I'm trying
to say. The moon, without the sun, you
wouldn't see the moon. You couldn't see it. You can
only see it when the sun is reflected. And if you see a partial moon,
it's because the earth is here, the moon is here, and the sun
is over here. Everything to do with the moon has to do with
the sun. And it's the sign. There's the remembrance. If they're
reflecting the sun, And believers are reflecting the Son Himself. There's the remembrance of God's
electing grace, redeeming grace, regenerating and keeping grace. We don't produce light just like
the moon doesn't produce light. We reflect Him. In this world, it's just darkness. But concerning the people of
God, That's what the Lord said. He said, you are the light of
the world, a city that's set on a hill which cannot be hid. The world sees God's people. They're not hid. So we see the
sun and we see the moon and then it's that glorious declaration
of the mercy of God to hell-deserving So here we manifest the mercy
of God, being the reflectors of God's grace in Christ. Philippians
2.15 says that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God,
without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation
among whom you shine as lights in the world. And then lastly,
he said, and the stars, and he made the stars. He was sitting
forth and he said, May 16, God made two great lights. The greater
light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the night. He made
the stars also. What message to those stars? What believer can fail to remember
the word that the Lord spoke to Abraham and his promise to
him concerning the stars. You remember that? It said in
Genesis 15, 5, he brought him forth abroad and said, look now
toward heaven and tell the stars if thou be able to number them.
And he said unto him, so shall thy seed be. I don't know how to say this
other than just to say it. I mean, when I look at some of
the numbers that they have estimated or guesstimated of how many stars
there are, I mean, it's just astronomical numbers. The Lord
told Abraham, he said, you look toward heaven and tell the stars
And that's an amazing thing. I'll tell you what that word
tells. It says you tell the stars. Psalm 147 verse 4 says concerning
the Lord and the stars. And here's the glory of this.
Those stars represent the promise of God on how many people of
God there are. I don't know. He knows. I don't
know. But he told Abraham, he said,
you tell the stars if you're able to number them. Listen to
this, Psalm 147 verse four. He, that is the Lord, he telleth
the number of the stars. I looked up the word telleth.
It means he determines the number of the stars. He determines.
He calleth them all by their names. He calleth all, He determines
how many there are, and He's named every one of them. You
remember that verse of scripture in John 10, 27, He said, My sheep
hear My voice, I know them, and they follow Me. God told Abraham,
He said, You look in the heavens, and He says, and tell the stars,
You determine how many there are, if you're able to number
them, which you gained. And he said unto him, so shall
thy seed be. Almighty God has a people that
he's everlastingly loved. And he has set forth in the expanse,
in the heavens. The heavens declare the glory
of God. And the firmament sets forth
the power of His hand. He has put a son to set forth
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. To rule the day, separate the
day and the night. Whenever we see day and night
now, it's not just happens to be 24 hours, we're just on the
backside of it. God is saying there's a difference
between light and dark. We're not of the darkness. We're
of the day. And we shine as lights in this
world. That's what he's saying. Where
is that moon that reflects? And those stars up in the sky?
God said, I numbered. I determined how many there were
going to be. I mean, it was billions and billions and billions. Just
galaxies on end. I mean, you just get lost in
trying to, you know, God said, I determined how many there are.
I put them there as tokens and signs of my mercy and grace to
a people undeserving. But I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy. And He said, I numbered them.
I named them. I know all their names. Everyone
that the Lord Jesus Christ ever died for. He died on that cross,
I said this before, just like those stones that was on the
breastplate of that high priest. He'd go in all the twelve stones,
all the tribes of Israel, setting forth all of the people of God. For whom did He die? All that
the Father gave Him. How many He gave Him? I don't
know. But I can tell you this, He knows every one of them. May
the Lord bless these words to our heart and give us Faith to
believe. I was going to say understanding.
We'll never get it. We'll never understand it. But
I'm telling you the glory of what we're beholding when we
look up and see that sun and that moon and those stars. That's
a book that God has written all the world to see and declare.
He's declared it. By the grace of God, there's
some people that see the invisible things of creation. They're manifested
to us, and we understand that by His power, He made these worlds. May the Lord bless these words
to our heart for His glory and our good. Amen.