Turn to Genesis 2. And good morning. Let me read starting in verse 4 through verse
7. These are the generations of
the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the
day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every
plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb
of the field before it grew. For the Lord God had not caused
it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground. But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the
whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of
the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, and man became a living soul. Let us pray. Our Father, Bless Thy Word that we've just
read. Enable me to rightly divide the Word of truth. Make Thy Word
and make me a blessing to these people this morning. Grant unto
us, Father, a true spirit of worship. Get our attention. Enable us to leave here this
morning rejoicing in God our Savior, giving unto thee all
the honor and glory that's due unto your name. We pray for those
in this congregation who are under trials, physical, spiritual,
we pray for them. We pray that you would give them
the grace for the trial. Thank You for all Your blessings,
all that we have, You've given to us. We thank You for it. And
what we pray for ourselves here, we pray for all Thy people throughout
this world. We pray for the missionaries,
Father. Bless them. We pray for this country. Lord,
give the leaders of this country wisdom. The heart of the king
is in the hand of the Lord. Like the rivers of water, Lord,
You turn them with us, whoever You will. Father, in Christ's
name we pray. Amen. Now, we have seen the power of God in creation. We've seen the wisdom of God
in creation. When you look at creation and
all the variety that's in creation, and to realize that was in the
mind of God and no one taught it to him. No one instructed him. No one
instructed God how to make a tree or to make a cow or a horse. No one instructed God. It amazed
me this week as I was studying. That just struck me so strongly,
how that all of this is in the mind of God without Him being
instructed in any way, shape, or form. He said, that's a tree. That's a dog. That's a cow. That's
a fish. That's our God. We haven't even
began to scratch the surface of the being of God, not even
began to. And now we've also made some
spiritual applications to the new creation of a sinner in Christ
as we've gone along here. But this morning we're going
to see what man is made of. Bunch of dust bunnies made of
the dust of the ground. That's what we are. I went to
a doctor to have allergy tests once, and he said the only thing
I was allergic to was dust. I said, well, I'm allergic to
myself. I'm just a 200-pound dust bunny. I said, I'm allergic
to myself. Because that's what I am. I was
made from dust. And how in the world can we be
so proud when we're made from the dirt we walk on? Well, I'll get to that in a minute.
But we're going to see what man's made of and how he became a living
soul. You see, the body's mortal. The
soul is immortal. It's from the breath of God.
The soul was not made from the dust of the ground. It was made
of God. God gave it. We're going to see how we are
responsible to our creator. That's how we get responsibility.
God made us. God created us. We are his. He's the potter. The potter has
power over the clay. The potter owns the clay. The
clay does not own the potter. And the clay does not say to
the potter, this is how I want you to make me. No, the potter
makes the clay how he sees fit. Now, ever say he sees fit. Now,
verse four and five, we're given the history of the heavens and
the earth. It says, these are the generations
of the heavens and of the earth. These are the genesis. That's
what he's saying. These are the genesis, the beginning.
of the heavens and the earth when they were created. We have
recorded here the creation of the heavens and the earth. We
know without doubt, without doubt, how all this came into being.
I'm not confused. I'm not confused how all this
came into being. Are you? God did it. God did
it. God created the heavens and the
earth, and we should always speak of God as our creator as well
as our redeemer. You should be able to walk outside,
take your children sometime, or your grandchildren sometime
and say, you see that tree? God made that. See those animals,
see that dog? God made that. It did not evolve,
God made it. Everything you see, God made.
Now also, what we meet with here is a new name of God. L-O-R-D. You notice that? It says, in
the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and
that is capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. In the
first chapter, his name was God, in the beginning, God. And that
name means Elohim, which means a God of power. And we were able
to see God's power when he, when he commanded light, there was
light. When He commanded the earth and the water to separate,
it separated. What we saw was the power of
God in creation, is what we saw. But now is for the first time
we meet with Jehovah. That's what that capital L-O-R-D
means. It means Jehovah, Jehovah Elohim. This is what it means,
which means a God of power and perfection. Jehovah also means
this, self-existing one or having His being of Himself. God is the only one who has His
being of Himself. Everything derives its existence
from Him. All things were created by Him
and for Him, but none created God. None created Him. God derives His existence from
no one but Himself. Now life, whether it's plant
or animal, did not exist until God commanded it, but no one
commanded God's life. God is life. The thing we have to understand,
and I believe you do, is that God does not have life, He is
life. I have life. You see, the second
Adam is the Lord from heaven, which is the what? Life-giving
Spirit. That's what the Scripture said.
He's the life-giving Spirit. Life comes from Him. Truth comes
from Him. Grace comes from Him. He's the fountain of it. As John
said there in 1 John, we've seen life. Life has manifested. We've seen it. We've touched
it. We've handled life. Now it says in verse 5, "...and
every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every
herb of the field before it grew. For the Lord God had not caused
it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground." There was not a plant or shrub in the earth before
God called it forth. The earth did not produce by
its own virtue. It didn't do that. That's what
He's saying. It produced by the Word of God. The earth did not cause a rose
to grow up. God commanded that rose in its
perfection. And from that rose became its
seed, and from there more roses came. Just like God created Adam
from the dust of the ground. But you and I were born from
Adam. We were born from him. He created one man from the dust,
and the rest of us were born from it. That's the way we see
all that's on this earth, all the trees, the plants, and all
that. God created them in perfection. And then from them, we have what
we have. But let me make a spiritual application here. A sinner cannot
produce any good on his own or of his own virtue. A lost sinner
has no virtue. If there's none good, no, not
one, where's the virtue at? There's not any. There's not
any. God must command life first and
then command the fruit of life, just as He did in the first creation.
Listen to Ephesians 2, verse 10. For we are His workmanship, You
know, that's what you see in creation. You see the workmanship
of God. And this is what you see in a
sinner when God saves that sinner. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. There's the fruit. which God
hath before ordained that we should walk in them." God ordained
this good fruit, just like He ordained all the fruit that we
have out here on this earth right now. He's ordained all of our
fruit, all of our good works. God has ordained that, and that
we should walk in them. And then it says here, "'For
the Lord God hath not caused it to rain upon the earth.'" We cannot attribute We cannot
look back at that time and attribute the growth of the flowers, of
the trees. You cannot attribute that to
anything but the power of God, the Word of God. You can't attribute
it to rain. It didn't rain, then all of a
sudden it starts growing up. No. We attribute it to the Word of
God, to the power of God. And at this time, the earth didn't
need rain. It didn't need rain. It was perfect. And there was
not a man to till the ground, so all that you see now cannot
be attributed to Adam. We cannot say, look what Adam
did. God made man, then He tilled
the ground, and look what all has come forth since then. No. All of this existed in its perfection
before God created Adam. God made Adam last. He prepared
everything Adam needed, then He created Adam. God saved His
chief creation to last. Let's make a spiritual application
to this. The Lord Jesus Christ prepared
everything we need to live in God's presence. He said in John
14, I go and prepare a place for you. A place of acceptance. Because we lost that in Adam.
I go and prepare a place for you. Our Lord prepared everything
we need to live in God's presence. He's prepared everything we need
to live on that new earth. One day there will be a new heaven
and there will be a new earth. I look forward to that day. I
think about it often. The older I get, the more often
I think of walking on that new earth with the Lord. with His people, with the saints
of God. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David. We'll walk on that new
earth with them. And that's prepared. We won't
bring anything to it. We won't do anything to make
it better. It'll be perfect. Perfect. Listen to this in 2 Corinthians
5.17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature, a new creation. All things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. Now says in verse six. But there
went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of
the ground when God created the earth. the heavens and the earth,
and He separated the water from the land. He put water in the midst of
this earth. You can dig down so far and you can run into water. You dig wells, you may go down
100 feet, you may have to go down 300 feet or more, but there's
water flowing through this earth. Well, immediately this scripture
came to me when I read this and thought about this. In John 4,
14. But whosoever drinketh of the
water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that
I shall give him shall be in him. It shall be in him. A well of water, springing up
into everlasting life. There's a well of water in you. living water, the Holy Spirit
in you. And he said, it's just springing
up like this mist that came up and watered the ground. Have
you ever just been sitting around the house or sitting down and
thinking, then a scripture comes to your mind and and just bless
you, just bless you. You know, you just start thinking
about it and just find it such a blessing. That's that well
of water springing up. That's that mist coming up. Moisture. It's the moisture of grace. That's
what it is. Now we come to the creation of
man. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. This destroys any monkey business,
doesn't it? If you believe the Word of God,
it destroys it. But how humbling. How humbling. Adam was not made
from precious stones. Adam was not made from gold dust. Adam was made from clay, red
clay. It says here, dust. In Genesis
3.19, in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou
return unto the ground. For out of it was thou taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return. These old bodies right here,
this body of mine and yours, it's going to return to dust. Job said, when my skin worms
eat this body up. That which was ready to eat us
up is already in us. Our skin worms. But notice here, in creating
it says, you know, when God, back in chapter one, it often
says, God made. God made. But here it says, it
takes a different turn. It says God formed. God formed. It's like the potter. And the
idea is this. It's like the potter. He takes
the clay and he puts it on the wheel. See, all the others, God
commanded them to come into being. But here, God forms. He takes
dust and He starts forming Adam. He starts forming his body is
what He does. Like the potter with the clay
on the potter's wheel, He forms it meticulously. He's making
it just like He wills it to be. This is what the potter wants.
This is his desire. And he's making Adam, he's forming
Adam meticulously. God took in hand to form Adam,
not just to command his being, not just to command man to exist,
but to actually take in hand, because he said, let us make
man in our image and after our likeness. And so God takes in
hand and he's forming this body that Adam is going to inhabit. And then man was made, he said,
in the image of God. And notice how connected now
we are to this earth. We are of the earth, Paul said,
earthy. Our body is of this earth. Our food is from this earth. Everything we eat to sustain
this body is from the earth. We live on this earth, and then
our bodies will go back to this earth. That's how connected we
are to this earth. When they check your body, you
got minerals in it. You got magnesium, you got copper,
you've got all this minerals in it, and that came from this
earth, from the dust we were made from. But listen, it's not
so in the new man in Christ. That new man created in the second
Adam who is the Lord from heaven. He's not of this earth. Nah,
he's not of this earth. The new man is born of the Spirit. And that which is born of the
Spirit is Spirit. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. And
that new man is born from above. This earth has nothing to do
with that new creation in Christ. This earth, this life, nothing
of this earth, nothing earthly, nothing of this old nature touches
that new man, that new creation. It's of God. It's of the Spirit
of God. It's from above. It's not of
this earth. It's not from below. It's from above. And His food
is from heaven. His food is from heaven. Christ
said, I am the bread of life. He that eateth my flesh, my faith
he's talking about, and drinketh my blood. Our food is from heaven. Christ
is our bread of life. He's the one we feast on. He's
the one that new man lives on. We live on Christ. And Christ
is the water of life we drink. We drink. We drink of Him. When God saves a sinner, that
new man is created in Christ and Jesus Christ is formed in
that new man. Christ in you is your hope of
glory. Your hope of glory. And God,
it says, and God breathed into the nostrils the breath of life,
and man became a living soul. Now, here's the part of man that's
not of this earth. You know, the scripture says
when a man dies, the body goes back to the dust, and the spirit
goes back to God who gave it. Who gave it. God breathed into
the nostrils of Adam. Before that, he was just a body. There was just a body laying
there, inanimate, no life in it whatsoever. It's just like
a dead body laying there. But when God breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life, Adam became a living soul. And
I tell you this, when God takes that breath away, Man dies, that
body goes back to being dead. It goes back to being dead. God did not do this to any of
the animals. Only Adam. Man became a living
soul. Man can reason, he can think,
talk, communicate. The animals can't do that. Animals
can't do that. They don't have that soul that
God breathed into Adam. That's the image of God. Not
the physical body, because God is Spirit. He has no body. There was none like Adam throughout
all of creation. Just as there's none like Jesus
Christ, the second Adam, there's none like Him. The perfect Son
of God. The whole creation of Adam from
start to finish was the work of God. Adam didn't bring one thing to
the table, did he? Not one thing. Nor do we. Nor do we. Even so, the whole creation of
that new man in Christ is of God from start to finish. From start to finish. All right.