If you will, we're going to be
in Genesis chapter 1. My brother just read there in
John, it said, "...In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. The same in the beginning with
God. And all things were made by Him,
without Him not anything was made. In Him was life, and life
was the light of men." It shined in the darkness, and the darkness
comprehended it not. We see Genesis 1 in these days,
like we were just saying, day by day. We go day by day in Genesis,
and all we see is that God created the earth. It didn't big bang. There was no evolution. Whoop-de-doo. If that's all you got, you got
nothing. It's fool's gold. It's a fact. That's truth. The Lord made everything.
I wouldn't spend two minutes arguing if somebody didn't think
so. I'd say, I paid that for you. Go get your ham sandwich.
You'll be alright. The Lord will deal with it. I
wouldn't argue that for two minutes with somebody. The Lord created
the heavens and the earth. He said so. He spoke it and it
happened. Sovereign God Almighty created
all things. Christ created all things. John just told us that.
I wouldn't argue that for a minute. But if we go through these day
by day, these days of creation, and all we get is that God made
light. We ain't got that. We have to
see Christ in that. We need to see the gospel in
that. The gospel message has not changed. Our brother David
Pledger preached a memorial service for Walter Gruber today. And
we were sitting here by the cells without the children and listened
to it. And I said, you know what? If you didn't turn to Genesis
27, he had the same outline I had this morning. He said, if you
had a doctor that was doing the same practices 2,000 years ago,
you wouldn't want that doctor today, would you? But you wouldn't
want the same preacher that preached the same message 2,000 years
ago as he does today. It doesn't change. Before we
showed on the scene, the Gospel was the same. God the Father
purposed it. And His purpose before time.
The Son came and purchased us. And His blood, God the Holy Spirit
proclaims it in the hearts of His people. They hear His voice
and they obey Him and follow Him and He preserves them for
all eternity. Day one came. It says, in the
beginning God. We could just dwell on that for
eight to ten hours a day. We may know something. He created
the heaven and earth. Earth was 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. That was us, our fall,
without form. We were void. Just a bad check. Debt, inequity, inequity. We're in the hole. The Spirit
of God moved upon the waters, those waters of wrath, me and
you. That's a picture of salvation, isn't it? Let there be light.
He commanded the light of Christ, Christ the light in the hearts
of His people. And it says, and the evening and the morning were
the first day. Verse 6 begins, the second day
the Lord made a firmament. How's all this going to happen?
Well, something's got to be between you and God. You need a mediator? You better not come to God without
one. You don't go to a judge without a lawyer if you've got
any sense. You don't go to God without a mediator. You'll be
consumed. A sinful creature can't be in
his presence. Anything that has the potential to sin. If all
your debt was wiped clean, you still can't go in his presence.
I was thinking about that today. If I was a billionaire, I could
buy a car that had zero miles on it, but it had the possibility
of breaking down, I don't want it. If I know it's going to break
down in two miles, I don't want it. We have to be made pure. That sin has to be taken away
and a pure heart, a holy nature has to be put into us. That means
something has to be a go-between, a mediator, a firmament, an atonement. Someone has to bear that wrath
of God for us. We can't bear it ourselves. That's
Christ. Christ is the light. Christ is
our firmament, our atonement, our covering. Just like we saw
this morning with Jacob. That robe, that's Christ's robe.
That skin, that's Christ's skin. That smell, that's Christ's smell.
We need a firmament. We need a covering and it's got
to be Christ. And it says there in verse 8,
in the evening and the morning, or the second day. Now we come
to the third day. We're getting there in verse
9. And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered
together into one place and let the dry, lands in italics, let
the dry appear and it was so. God said it and it was so. And
God called the dry land earth. And the gathering together of
the waters called He seas. And God saw that it was good.
What God makes is good. What He provides is accepted.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding
seed, and the tree yielding fruit after His kind. whose seed is
in itself upon the earth and it was so." He commanded it.
God said and it was so. And the earth, here's the result,
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. It was acceptable
unto God. And what does it say in verse
13? And the evening and the morning were the third day. There's three
commentators I like very well to read to see what their input
was. One of them missed the mark on these verses here 9 through
13 horribly. Horribly. He only got a couple
facts. God's made the continents come up in a landmass and made
the waters not go to that continent and he made stuff grow on it.
That's true. A seven-year-old could read that
and tell you that, but he missed the mark. There's no gospel in
that, is there? My favorite commentator, as he
does so many times, I look to this, and you know what he said?
Exactly what I thought. That's just so plain, it ain't even
worth my words touching it. Isn't it? Boy, we could just
go on for hours about that. Isn't that so plain? The gospel.
Gospel message, just plain as a nose on my face. I hope we can see that this morning.
If we don't see Christ, then we've missed the mark. It says
there in verse 9, and God said, that's where it all begins, isn't
it? Each day, every day, God has to speak. Let the waters
under the heaven be gathered together unto one place. Waters under Christ the firmament. These waters have already been
separated. That was on day two, wasn't it? There was a water
above the firmament. That was between Christ and God. There
was no mediator for that water. Nothing was in between that water
and God Almighty, the Holy God. But then Christ covered a water.
This is that covered water. And that covered water was gathered
together. The Lord gathered it together
under the heaven, under Christ. Those the Spirit moved upon,
as it says there on day one. That's the waters that God, the
Holy Spirit's worked in. They're gathered together in one in Christ. We're gathered together in Christ
before time. His body was, wasn't it? In that covenant of grace
He made with the Father. We were put in Him before the
fountains were gathered together in one. What happens on this
earth to His people, to His bride on this earth, those that hear
His voice and follow Him? An effectual call is being given
to them. They are gathered together under the preaching of the Gospel.
They are gathered together, one, under Christ, subservient to
Christ, bound to Him in love, in goodness. Why is that so loving
and so goodness? Because collectively, all of
His church, His body throughout time, our sin was gathered together
in one place, in Christ. And that took place
at the cross of Calvary. Every sin I have committed, the
sins I'm committing right now as I speak to you, and the sins
I'll commit as long as the Lord lets me walk on this earth in
the body of death were collectively pulled together and put into
Christ at Calvary's cross. That's called hope. That's the
only hope a sinner had, to be put in Him. And then what's more
amazing, that's just for me. All the sins of all the people
of His sheep throughout time and throughout time to come that
number the sands of the sea. My sins number the sands of the
sea. Talk about the value of the blood of the Son of God.
That was the payment for those. Those gathered in Him. Those
waters gathered together. That's what we are in this world,
the waters. And those waters are moved upon.
What's water do? It's shaking, isn't it? There's
waves and it's cresting and it's moving. It's unstable. You ever
feel unstable? It's probably not you all, just
me, right? I feel like I'm bouncing off the walls, and that's when
I'm setting still. My mind runs. My mind's the fastest thing on
me. It can run marathons in 20 minutes, can't it? Unstable,
shaky, moovy, just waters. Waters of wrath, deserving of
God's wrath. That's how I come into this world.
But we're gathered together. The Lord gathers us together
by His voice, by His command under Christ. We're gathered
there. And when He was gathered, all
of our sins were gathered in Him at Calvary. And we're gathered
in His name, aren't we? Where two or three are gathered
in His name. He gathers them to worship Him,
to follow Him, to serve Him, to love our brethren, for that
water to cling together. Those covalent bonds, the tensile
strength of that water bound together. And we follow Him.
We gather together to look at our dry ground across our Savior. God said, let the waters under
the heaven be gathered together into one place and let the dry
appear. And it was so. If the Lord blesses
the service tonight, you know what will happen? He will gather
us together and we'll look at Christ. If that happens in the most rudimentary
way, Christ told us that's a miracle.
John's disciples, they went to go see him and said, are you
the Christ? And he said, you go tell them everything you saw
and everything you heard. Blind see, the deaf hear, the
lame walk, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
If a man stands, if I have somebody come fill in for me and they
get up here and their points are horrible, they don't make no
sense, they're all out of order, they fumble, they stumble, they
stutter, they talk real low and mumble and sound like they've
got marbles in their mouth, but they tell the truth to you, there's
no poison in that. Christ the Almighty God, the
King of Kings says that's a miracle. You know what that takes for
that to happen? God has to speak. God has to say, and it was so. That's a miracle, isn't it? But
this dry ground appeared. This dry land appeared. What's
that dry land? Turn over to Jonah chapter 1.
We looked at this as we went through Jonah before. I just
thought it was precious and needed to be seen again. Jonah chapter
1. I saw on the news, I don't comment
on modern events and the gospel is timeless. I don't think it
needs our daily reflections to make it valid. But a man said
he was swallowed by a whale up there lobster fishing. Everybody
says, oh, he's like Jonah. Jonah wasn't swallowed by a whale.
Did you know that? He was swallowed by the Lord's
fish. He wasn't a whale. We assume And our great and wonderful
knowledge of what we think, we think it's a whale because that's
the biggest fish we can think of. I bet it's a minnow. Any professional
fisherman, a commercial fisherman would have saw that fish and
said, that ain't a whale, that's a fish. That's God's fish. God's Jonah was on God's boat
in God's storm thrown in God's ocean into God's fish and spit
out on God's dry ground. That's what happened in the Book
of Jonah. And he said, salvation's in the Lord. Everything's of
the Lord, isn't it? Look here in John 1 verse 9.
Those men came to Jonah and said, what did you do? Why is this
storm raging? And he said unto them, I am a
Hebrew, I'm a Lord's child, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven,
which hath made the sea and the dry. You see everything around
you? All this troubled water? All
this death and destruction that represents man in this world,
God made it. You know that safe, sturdy, steady,
stable, dry over there? God made that too. I'm His child. My God made these things. Look
over in chapter 2 verse 9. Jonah says, but I will sacrifice
unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. This is while he was in the belly
of that fish. I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation
is of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto the fish,
and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry, upon the dry ground. We looked at that before when
we come through Jonah. That dry is Christ. All those
waters of death, of God's wrath were absorbed by Christ, wasn't
it? It all landed on Him. He is our stability. He is the
rock that we are planted on. He's the rock that our security
is in. He's our surety. He's our dry ground. Those children
of Israel, they come up to that Red Sea, and they said, uh-oh,
there's a mountain on one side and Pharaoh's chariots on the
other. How are we going to get a couple million people across
this Red Sea? Lord told Moses, you go over to that sea, I'll
take care of it. And all those waters, what if they all got
in that water? They're going to die, ain't they? Ain't nothing
but death in that water. And the Lord separated that water.
And they didn't walk across on the mud, did they? They didn't
walk across on a damp ground, they walked across on the dry
ground. Where's salvation from the floods of God's wrath, the
floods of this world, the floods of our sin? Where's salvation
found? In the dry ground of Christ, in our rock, Christ Jesus. That's
where it's found. Colonel Joshua, chapter 3. At the first five books of Moses
and then Joshua. The Lord told Joshua, said, these
people, beginning with Joshua, let me see what it says. It says,
Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came
to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses'
minister. saying, Moses my servant is dead,
now therefore rise, go over this Jordan, thou and all thy people
into the land which I do give thee, even to the children of
Israel. Moses, that law, the picture
of the law, those first five books is dead. Here comes Joshua,
Savior, Christ, to lead his people across the Jordan into the land.
Here in chapter 3, The Lord had spoke to Joshua and said, they're
going to believe you, these people, they're going to look to you
the same as they looked to Moses. They're going to know that you
are My prophet because of the message you're going to preach,
which you're going to show them. You're going to tell them and you're
going to show them. It says in verse 16, that the waters which
came down from above stood and rose up upon a heap very far
away from the city, Adam, that is, beside Zarethan. And those
that came down towards the sea of the plain, even the salt sea,
failed, and it were cut off, and the people passed over right
against Jericho. And the priests that bear the
ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the
midst of the Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on
the dry ground until all the people were passed clean over
Jordan. The Lord told Joshua, said, you
go down there, and when those priests, just as Moses did, when
they get to the water, that water's going to part. and they're going
to be on dry ground. And they take that ark, and they set right
in the middle of that river, and that water's going to heap
up. You think Hoover Dam's impressive? That's what man made. That thing's
going away up there right now, about to fall in on itself. That
ark of the covenant set, that mercy seat, that propitiation,
that bloody sacrifice, that acceptable Lamb of God, covering the law,
set right there on dry ground in that River Jordan. And you
know what happened? All that water held back, heaped
up. Picture Christ sitting right there on Christ. And Joshua,
our Christ, our Savior. Every one of the children of
Israel went clean across. They crossed right over the Jordan.
He's our dry. We're the waters. We're gathered
together under Him. And every time we're gathered
together, all we see is Him. He appeared. He appeared. There
in Genesis chapter 1, the Lord said, In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. This earth was already made.
It was without form. It was void. Now whatever was
underneath that water, I don't know. Was it mush? Was it mountains
as it is now that we can see? As things dry up, we have sonar. Divers go down and look at things.
I don't know. But that ground appeared. It came up, didn't
it? That's what happens whenever
the Lord reveals Himself to someone. It's not that that's the day
we know of salvation. Salvation occurred a long time
ago. Just as this dry ground was under that water since the
Lord made the earth, Christ has been in His people since before
the foundation of the world. He said, Lo, I am with you always.
Always. That ain't from this point on.
I ain't going to leave you no more. He's always been with us.
Before we were even born, He was with us. How is that possible?
I don't know He's God. In His providence, He was with
us. In His purpose, He was with us, controlling everything. My
dad got in a car wreck in 1976, and he didn't have a seatbelt
on. He had them big bench seats. And it T-boned him, and he got
shot all the way over to the passenger side. And he didn't
believe in wearing seatbelts ever since then. I said, Dad,
you didn't put your seatbelt on. If I had worn a seatbelt,
you wouldn't have been here. You can't legislate safety. He always
told me that. A man can do anything they want to. If he'd had a seatbelt
on and you think he'd have died, I wouldn't have been here. It
was impossible. We have a sovereign God ruling
and reigning in all things, doesn't it? The cross was in His people
always. And then when the Holy Spirit
comes, when it moves upon that water, that dry ground appears.
We're just bouncing all around and shaky, thinking we're big
old waves and go just as fast as we swell up. We have crests
and troughs, don't we? And then that Word of God comes.
The Holy Spirit moves on the water and we say, uh-oh, right
there's stability. There's stable, flat, steady
ground. It ain't me. It's that. We see
Him. We'll turn to Psalm 104. Psalm
104. Christ is revealed in a sinner.
Before time, He was with us always in Providence. And Christ is
revealed to His church as a whole, isn't He? We all see Him together. We rejoice together in our services,
in our conduct, our conversation. We speak of Him at conferences.
Boy, it's precious time, isn't it? y'all get together for a
couple days, set aside, put this world away. If something's going
on, I don't care what's going on. It'll be a time of seeing
that dry ground. This don't happen often. Sometimes
I'm way out at sea ain't I? That's a special time. Do me well if I get there too.
Psalm 104. This is both the physical happenings
of how this ground, this dry, came out of the earth, and what
happens in the heart of a sinner. Psalm 104 verse 5, speaking of
the Lord, "...who laid the foundations of the earth that it should not
be removed forever." Thou cover'st with the deep as with a garment.
The waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke, they fled. What was said that made that
dry ground come up? God said, right? At his rebuke,
those waters were pushed away. And the voice of thy thunder,
they hastened away. They go up by the mountains,
they go down by the valleys, unto the place which thou hast
founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they
may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover the earth."
Whenever Christ is, that's the most beautiful thing I've read
in a couple of weeks. When Christ is revealed, it has
to be there to be revealed, doesn't it? He has to be put in you before
the foundation of the earth. When Christ is revealed in a
sinner, that mountain shoots up out of the water, this water,
and those waters run away. Everything I thought was mine
is pushed to the side, isn't it? And God sets a bound for
that. That water cannot come past right here. Dry ground.
It all stops right there at Christ. You're going to leave every bit
of you right there at Him. And forever it cannot cross that
bound. Isn't that good news? That's
called perseverance of the saints. God promised He will keep His
people forever. None is going to take them out
of My hand. These waters won't come again. Wrath won't come
again. There's no double jeopardy. All that sin that was gathered
together in one place in Christ, it's put away as far as the East
is from the West. Forever. Now if all you got was Pangaea
come out of the ocean, and then tectonic plates broke apart,
we got seven continents, you're in a mess. I hope you don't die
without knowing God. This is salvation. God's saving
His people. When we're saved, when salvation
is revealed, when we see Christ for the first time, we see our
sin gathered in Him at Calvary. What a pain that is. You want
to be made whole? It's going to take Christ's blood.
Will thou be made whole? We see Him lifted up just as
that mountain come out of the ocean. We see Him lifted up on
the cross. We say, that's me. He became
me. I put Him on that cross. I drove
the nails in Him. And I was made His righteousness. Made! This is that infinite man
was made whole. I was made whole. And then we
see that mountain lifted up and He's seated in His throne in
glory forever. The bounds are set. It cannot
be crossed. This is Thy throne forever, O
God. That's where He's seated. Rule
in rain and make an intercession for a worm like me. Ain't that something? Set Him
in glory. Taught of Him, we know His name.
We are new creations. We are named of our Lord, aren't
we? Look here in verse 10. Just as
Jacob came to his father Isaac and said, what's your name? He
said, Esau. He said, you my son Esau? He said, I am. And he didn't
say nothing else, did he? He hushed. He shut up. He was given a name. Look here
in verse 10. God called the dry land earth.
And the gathering together of the waters He called seas. And
God saw that it was good. He said, I'm going to separate
that old man from the new man. You're going to be given the
name the Lord my righteousness. That's going to be your surname.
That's your last name. You'll be married to Him. And
you know what the Lord said? That's good. You know what His
people say? That's good. God gets all the
glory in this. He saved His people. That's good. I don't need no part in it. After we're saved, Christ is
revealed, and He appears to us. We see His fruit. That's what
we see. Did I do anything good to not
be watered, to be put on dry ground, have my feet firmly planted,
to be vomited out of that fish, to be laying on dry ground? Did
I do something good? Is there a little bit, well I did a whole
lot of studying, and I did a whole lot of working, and I did a whole
lot of giving, and I did a whole lot of praying. I didn't have no fruit, did I?
I was just tossed about waves. If I have any fruit, it's Christ
doing it. It's His fruit. Look here in verse 11. And God
said, let the earth bring forth grass. You know what that grass
is? Tender grass. Tender grass. Whose grass is
it? What did David say in Psalm 23?
The Lord leadeth me by the still waters. He is my shepherd. He makes me lie down in green
pastures. He makes me lie down in tender grass. That's the same
Hebrew word. He makes me lie down in Christ,
where all the fruit comes from. That's what sheep eat, isn't
it? Low to the ground, simple, plain, tender grass. He said, let the earth bring
forth grass. That's what comes first. And the herb yielding
seed. Herb's a little bit more meaty,
isn't it? You make a salad, you start adding some different herbs
and things of seasoning in there. Now you've got a little more
on your plate. Pun intended. And the fruit tree yielding fruit
after His kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and
it was so. What's this gospel age that we
live in right now? This great revival that's taking
place in our country. Most people don't think that
way. Right now, tonight, Sunday evening, in Hamel, California,
I'm looking out on the Lord's revival. There is fruit here. Where'd that fruit come from?
Did you do something? It come from the seed that the fruit
came from, from that tree, didn't it? Where'd that come from? Well,
the seed and the fruit from where that sapling come from. Well, what about that one? It
goes all the way back where that original fruit come from, crossed.
He's the source of our life. He says, I'm the vine, you're
the branches. you will bring forth the fruit
that I am." Isn't that something? Some people say, well that's
where we got trees from. Oh, it hurts my heart. And the earth brought forth,
verse 12, and the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding
seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was
in itself This ain't your decision. This ain't your seed. This ain't
your plowing. This ain't your rocky ground and stony paths.
It's the farmer's. It's his seed. You didn't even
water it. Seed after itself and after its
kind. Righteousness begets righteousness.
Is there any corruptible thing in his seed? The seed that's
in you is as righteous as Christ is. You gonna make yourself more
holy in Christ? It ain't possible. It ain't gonna
be his fruit, is it? His fruit's perfect. God said
and it was so. And God saw that it was good.
God said, I'm gonna make people just like my son. And any good
thing, I'm gonna have them do our works of righteousness. That
ain't works of evil, is it? That's works of righteousness.
That's good. All of our believing on Christ, loving our brethren,
serving our brothers and sisters in this world, praying for folks,
listening to them, crying with them, weeping with them, everything
good. Joy, long-suffering, meekness, gentleness, goodness, tenderness.
All those things ain't no law. All that love. Every bit of that
will come from Christ. And every bit of His people that
came from nothing but a sea that Christ was their firmament for,
that God said, let there be light and move the spirit on, they're
going to say, you know what? Everything good I've ever done,
that's Christ doing it. For me to live is Christ, but
for me to die is gain. You think all this is good. Christ
working in me. And God said, you know what?
That's good. And all His people say, that's good. That's the
way I want it. So if I ever preach a message, that's what old Brother
Jones said one time, Lord Martin Jones. He said, I've preached
two good messages in my life. He said, both times I was asleep.
If I ever preach a good message, if I ever bless a heart of a
poor and needy sinner, that's the Lord doing it, ain't me.
Ain't my big old brain. Ain't my knowledge. And the Lord
said it was good. Save this for two days that we've
been going through Genesis for you. Verse 13 says, and the evening
and the morning were the third day. The first six days, seven days of creation, right?
The seventh day the Lord rested. The first six days. Each day
it says, and the evening and the morning was that day. The Lord let us get a hold of
that. Isn't that precious? Would you say it that way? I
would say, well the day went and I had a morning and then
I had an evening and then I went to bed and that day was over.
That's how we would see it, wouldn't it? The evening and the morning
was the next day. Wherever one of us begin, the
starting of darkness, just as that world was without form and
void, it was dark, wasn't it? Our darkness in Adam, we did
not know God. And then you know what happened.
There was a day there in Genesis the Lord had and He showed us
salvation one more time. His mercy to sinners one more
time. New that morning on this third
day. Two days consistently. God is going to be merciful to
a people. And from that darkness, that's
a general call. That's not the effectual call. The Lord said,
this is my Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him. That's
a command. And with the command comes power
and that obedience and faith that He provides. But at the
end of every day, the Lord said, in the evening and the morning,
that was the day, here was Christ. All of our fruit, all of our
covering, our payment for all of our sin. And the Lord said,
you're in darkness. That's where you came from. Let
there be light. Come to Him. That's called a
day. You know what will happen tomorrow?
The Lord speaks to His people tonight. He wants to save a sinner
tonight. If we keep this up, God just might save somebody. Somebody's going to say, boy,
that's right. Christ is all. He's the Lord. The Lord of my
salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. He's
not just my Savior. He's my Lord. I want to be His
willing bondservant, not a debt of gratitude, a debt of love.
It would be my privilege to serve Him. God saved some sinners. You know what's going to happen
tomorrow morning? You're going to see Christ all over again.
You'll want to see Him all over again. His mercies are new every
day, aren't they? The evening and the morning was
the third day. That's something, isn't it? I pray the Lord will bless that.