In the book of Acts, in chapter
17, the apostle Paul preached a sermon to those who were not Jews, who
were in the Greek, the land of a place where there's called
Mars Hill in Greece, a city called Athens. And when he was there,
he noticed that these people had idols everywhere. And one
of the idols had written on it, to the unknown God, because they
wanted to make sure they had covered all their bases. And
so Paul took that as a cue and he began his sermon from there.
He said, whom therefore you ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. And the very first thing he says
in his sermon is this, God that made the world and all things
therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth
not in temples made with hands, neither is he worshipped with
men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to
all life and breath and all things. That's where the Bible starts,
that's where Paul started his sermon, and that's where we are
today. The Lord, our Creator. Let's pray. Gracious Father, we come to you
through the name, through the blood and righteousness of your
dear Son, our Savior, and our Lord. And we pray, Lord, that
you would receive us for His sake. Even our prayers are full
of sin. We pray that you would hear us
through Him. and that you would glorify your mercy and your grace
because of your wisdom and your power that you would find a way
to save sinners at the highest cost and you paid the full cost
yourself. Help us, dear Lord, as we look
into your word. We pray that you would enliven our hearts
to hear, that we would be enabled to see wonderful things out of
your word. The things of our Lord Jesus
Christ, our Savior, our Lord, our Creator. In Jesus' name we
pray. Amen. I've entitled this message,
Christ, Our Creator, Our Lord, and Our Savior. Last week we
talked about the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Christ unto you is
born this day in the city of David, a Savior. which is Christ
the Lord. I like to think about the fact
that God always emphasizes in scripture that the Lord Jesus
is our Savior. What a precious title that is,
and what a name. His name is to us, Jesus, for
He shall save His people from their sins. In John chapter 6
and verse 46, Jesus told the Pharisees, if you had believed
Moses, you would have believed me. Because they boasted in Moses,
he told them, if you had believed Moses, you would have believed
me. For he, Moses, wrote of me. And so when we look in Genesis
and Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, indeed the whole of Scripture,
we expect, and we should put this at the beginning of every
book, He wrote of me. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
subject of all of Scripture. Even though we may not be enabled
to see it all, we know it's about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus also told the Pharisees
in the same chapter, actually I said John 6.46, it's John 5.46,
but in John 5.39 he told them this, you search the Scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life, and they are they
which testify of me, the Lord Jesus Christ. In Revelation,
the book of Revelation, and even in the Old Testament, the Lord
said this in Revelation 1 verse 8, I am Alpha and Omega, the
first letter of the alphabet, Omega, the last letter. I am
Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord,
which is and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. And
if you read Revelation chapter 1, you see that it's the Lord
Jesus Christ who's speaking there. So we know that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the beginning and the ending and scripture speaks of
Him. So let's read in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. We're going
to read the first four verses, actually first five verses here
today. He says in the first verse, in
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the
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. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God
saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from
the darkness. And God called the light day.
And the darkness He called night. And the evening and the morning
were the first day. Here we have the account of what
God did in the very beginning of time. The only way we know
what happened in the beginning, how the world came to be, is
that God spoke it and wrote it in His Word. And I know that there's a lot
of anxiety in the world as we were growing up and schooling
our children. I was interested in what the
scientists had to say. Those scientists Most scientists
would deny creation flat out. Most would say the popular thing
that's taught to children today in schools is that the earth
took billions of years. Nobody has an exact number so
they just tack on a lot. Billions. Long time ago, far
far away, something happened and now here we are. It doesn't
follow any of the rules of science, but it happened. We can't reproduce
it, but it happened. We can't explain exactly how,
but it happened. We just believe it. And that's
what science does today. But nothing could be further
from the truth. Science shows their ignorance by fabricating
fanciful, vain imaginations about how the world came to be. But
here, the Lord Himself tells us how it came to be. He says,
in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In
one simple statement, God says... He gives an account of how the
world came to be and how the heavens came to be. He did it.
He created it. He did it by Himself. And He
did it by His Word. He spoke and it was done. And
so... So the heavens were created by
God Himself, and a lot of times I've found this to be the case,
that men try to prove that there's a God, or prove that the world
was created by God. But here God speaks. What is
more certain than God's own word? Can you find something? Is there
something more foundational? More axiomatic as they would
say. In geometry they had these things called axioms. You started
from axioms and proved everything based on those. Is there anything
that's a more basic axiom than that God has spoken? There's
nothing. Scripture itself is called the
truth. Throughout Scripture, in Psalm
119, over and over again, the Word of God is spoken of as the
truth. Jesus said in John 17, 17, Thy
Word is truth. The Scripture cannot be broken,
Jesus told the Pharisees. And Jesus said, Heaven and earth
shall pass away, but my word shall never pass away. So scripture
is the foundation of everything that we know that's true. We
can't know anything unless God reveals it to us. And he reveals
it fundamentally in his spoken word. And so when God speaks,
if we seek for a foundation more certain than what God has said,
then we are making an idol of that thing. We're making the
assumption and proceeding on the basis that there's something
more certain than God's own word. And that calls into question
God, as someone would put someone else on a witness stand and say,
we're going to interrogate you now to find out if your word
is true. You can see the blasphemy of that, can't you? But that's
what men do. We want to find something that
gives me an assurance that's more than what God has said.
You'll never find it. Eternity will never find it,
because there's nothing more certain than God's Word. And
if we come to that realization, then we'll find peace. Hebrews
11.3 says, through faith, through faith, Not through observations, not
through evidences that we look at, but through faith. And what
is faith? What is faith? Faith is believing
what God has said. That's what faith is. It's taking
God's word about the way things are. It's taking God's word for
the way that things are. God has spoken. Therefore, that's
the end of it. That settles it. If you were
to go in our own government today and you were to find something,
here's where we have a debate, we have an argument, we're going
to take the debate to the highest court, the highest place in Lenin.
Find out what's right, what's wrong here. You take it to the
Supreme And the Supreme Court would look at the laws. They
would look at what's written. And when they come to their judgment
about what is written, that's the final word in the government
today. We say, well, we can't go any further than that because
our Constitution sets it up that way. Well, that mirrors God's
Word. God's Word is the final say in
every matter. And it's the final say in how
things came to be. So that's the first thing I want
you to see here, is that the Lord has spoken, and that is
the final word. God has spoken, and the Lord
Jesus Christ is called in Scripture, what? The Word of God. The Word of God. Look at John
chapter 1. John chapter 1. I despise the fact that Jehovah's
Witnesses try to rip, by the instigation of Satan himself,
try to rip the truth from John chapter 1 verses 1 through 3.
Because they claim that they've got some kind of a translation
that is more authoritative. They've got translators who understand
it. It's all a lie. It's a lie. Here we have the
clearest and most authoritative message of the
Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to listen to these
words just as we read Genesis 1-1 because this is a mirror
of that. It says in John 1-1, in the beginning, was the Word. Not that the Word
was created, but the Word was in the beginning. And the Word
was with God. That means they were distinct.
The Word and God. And the Word was God. That means
they're the same. So the Word is, we're going to
find out in the next few verses here, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was with God and He is God. Verse 2, he says, the same, the
same word, was in the beginning with God. He reiterates it. He's distinct. He was in the
beginning. All things were made by Him, the Word, and without
Him was not anything made that was made. You see, there was
nothing made that was made apart from the Word, the Lord Jesus
Christ. So when we read here in Genesis
chapter 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth. He's referring to God as not
just God as if we don't know Him. We know Him. He's the Word
of God. The Word of God is the one who
spoke. The Word of God is the one who brought it about. And
it's attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ. But not to him, an exclusion
to God the Father, because God the Father also is given credit
for creating the world. Ephesians chapter 3 and verse
9 says this. If you look at Ephesians chapter
3, you'll see this. And I'll take you to a couple
of verses here. Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 9 says that Paul
wants to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery
Verse 9 of Ephesians 3, "...the fellowship of the mystery, which
from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created
all things by Jesus Christ." We ask, well, how did God create
the world? By Jesus Christ. And who is Jesus
Christ? Well, He is God. He's one with
the Father, one with the Spirit of God. Look at 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 8. I want you to see this, how the
Lord teaches things that are plain testimonies to the deity,
the Godhead of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in 1 Corinthians
chapter 8 and verse 6, He says, But to us there is but one God,
the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him. So all things
are of God the Father. And then the next sentence says,
And one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by
Him. To both God the Father and God
the Son, God says, we are by Him, all things are of Him. And
so He gives equal credit to God the Father and God the Son for
creation and our own existence. And by giving Him equal credit,
He's saying that God the Son is equal with God the Father. God created all things by Him,
the Word of God. Look at Hebrews chapter 1. Just
a few verses here. Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 1
through 3, he says, God, who at sundry times, that means at
various times, and in diverse manners, in different ways, spake
in time past to the fathers by the prophets. So we know that
God spoke to the prophets in times past. He spoke to the fathers
by the prophets. But this same God hath in these
last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir
of all things. That means he's the one who inherits
all things. They're all his. By whom also
he made the worlds. who being the brightness of his
glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding
all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty
on high." The Lord Jesus Christ made all things. He made the
worlds. And he's the brightness of God's
glory. And what does that mean? Well,
when you look at the sun, how do you know there's a sun there?
Because of the shining rays of the sun. Can you actually see
the sun without seeing the rays? Not at all. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the brightness. What you see when you look at
God. When you want to see God, you see the Lord Jesus Christ.
And seeing Christ, you see the brightness of God. And how is
that brightness made known to us? In His work. In His word. In His work. He
spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.
Look at Psalm chapter 33. This is where our memory verse
is. Psalm chapter 33. Beautiful, beautiful testimony
from God of the Lord Jesus Christ and how He created the world
by Him. Psalm chapter 33. He says in verse 6, By the word of the Lord were
the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of
His mouth. The host in this verse means
the army, like an organized army, a force. You see those movies
where you look out over this vast army. They're all in straight
rows, and everybody's in line, and everybody's got their weapons
and their armor on. God says that everything He created
in creation is His. And it's organized according
to His purpose. It accomplishes His will, and
He does whatever He wants with it. And how did it get there?
He says, by the word of the Lord. were the heavens made, and all
the host of them by the breath of his mouth." How did God create
the world? By the word of the Lord. And
who is that word? The Lord Jesus Christ. All the
host of them by the breath of His mouth. What is the breath
of God's mouth? It's the Spirit of God. Isn't
He the breath of God? The Spirit of God is called the
breath. So here we see that God attributes to the Lord Jesus
Christ, creating all things. He's the Word, but God the Father
did it by Him. And the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
His work by the Spirit of God. So it's very important that we
see this. And so, if we look at Isaiah
chapter 40, there's nothing more fundamental, more basic, and
more prevalent in Scripture. then the fact that God created
all things, and the God who created all things is none other than
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you look at Psalm chapter
40, you'll see an amazing set of things here that are taught. And I'm not going to go through
this whole chapter and give it to you, but the first thing you
see in verses 1 through 2 is the comfort of God that He gives
to His people, the church, because the Lord Jesus Christ made satisfaction
to God for their sins and defeated their enemies. Look at verse
1 and 2. God says through Isaiah the prophet, Comfort ye my people,
saith your God." That's the people of God. Comfort my people. Speak
ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Jerusalem, which is above, is
free, the mother of us all, Galatians chapter 4. It's the heavenly
Jerusalem, the spiritual church. He says, speak ye comfortably
to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned. for she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sins." You see the comfort God
pours out here? Your sins have been pardoned. Your enemies have
been defeated. Isn't that the theme of all the
Old Testament? Our sins have been put away by
the blood of Christ. Our enemies have been destroyed
by what He did on the cross. All of Scripture is about that.
But then, In the next two verses, it's about John the Baptist,
who was the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in
verse 3, "...the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness."
That's John. "...prepare ye the way of the
Lord Jehovah." John was sent, according to Jesus, when he quoted
this verse in the New Testament, he said, he was sent to prepare
the way before me, the Lord Jesus said. But here, he says, it's
the Lord Jehovah. prepare ye the way of the Lord,
and make straight in the desert a highway for our God." So Isaiah
40 is teaching that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one through
whom God has put away our sins, defeated our enemies, but he's
the one who's also coming and John the Baptist would declare
him our God, the Lord, the Jehovah. And then he goes on In verse
4 he says, So what is he saying? He's saying
that God is going to reveal Himself in Christ through the declaration
of the Gospel. That's the work of John the Baptist.
He pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ and said, Behold, the
Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. But in
verse 6, he shows us, he teaches us about ourselves, about man.
He says the voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry?
This is what you should cry. All flesh is grass, and all the
goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass
withers, the flower fades, because the Spirit of the Lord blows
upon it. Surely the people is grass. The
grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God shall
stand forever." And Peter said in 1 Peter, he says, and this
is the word which by the gospel is preached to you. So in the
gospel, in the preaching of the gospel, the first thing we learn
is that we are nothing. We're fading away. We have no
sufficiency to bring to God what God requires. And we're like
grass fading away. He draws our attention first
to our weakness, and our impotence, and our total inadequacy, in
order to then point us to the Word of the Lord. He says in
verse 9, Oh Zion, that bring us good tidings, get thee up
into the high mountain. Oh Jerusalem, that bring us good
tidings, lift up thy voice with strength. Lift it up, be not
afraid. Say unto the cities of Judah,
behold your God. This is what the apostles did
when they preached the gospel. Peter said in Acts 10.36, Jesus
Christ, they preached Jesus Christ, He is Lord of all. None but God
is Lord of all. And so that's what the apostles
did. They took the gospel of Christ and they preached, behold
your God. Behold the Lord God will come
with strong hand and his arm shall rule for him. Behold his
reward is with him and his work before him. So after teaching
us our utter weakness and inefficiency, I mean, insufficiency, and the
work of the apostles to proclaim Christ, now, in the rest of Isaiah
40, God sets forth a glorious person of Christ as the God and
Lord and Creator of all things. He says this in verse 12. What
is the hollow of your hand? Have you ever wondered that?
It says God has measured the waters of all the earth in the
hollow of His hand. It means if you take your fist
and you make a tight fist, mine's not as tight, but if you look
at Don Fortner's fist and you made a fist with his fist, it'd
be very tight because he's got a meaty hand. He squeezes it
tight. There's no space left. In the hollow of his hand means
that space is left after you do that. God has measured all
the waters of the earth in the hollow of His hand. And He's
measured out heaven with a span. This is a span. The width of
your hand. A man's hand was called a span.
God has taken all of heaven that He created. It's no more than
His span. The part of His hand. And He
weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. Who
has directed the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of our Lord
Jesus Christ? Or who, being His counselor, has taught Him? With
whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him
in the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and showed
to Him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a
drop of a bucket, And are counted as the small dust of the balance.
After you take off the balance, whatever you had on the scales
was left. That small dust that you don't worry about. It doesn't
really change it. That's the small dust. That's how big the
nations are, he says. He said... So the nations are
as a drop of a bucket, they're counted as a small dust of the
balance. Behold, He takes up the isles, the islands, as a
very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient
to burn, nor the beast thereof sufficient for a burnt offering
for our God. All nations before Him are as
nothing, and they're counted to Him less than nothing and
vanity. To whom will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare
to Him? There's no way. There's nothing
on earth or all of creation that resembles God. There's no point
in trying to make something that looks like God or resembles God.
Because there's nothing that can be compared to Him. He's
describing our Lord Jesus Christ as God, and He's doing it for
a purpose. So that we would see that when
He describes the God who created all things, that we would know
that this One is our Almighty Savior. He put away our sins. He defeated our enemies. How
much more shall every child of God be saved by His life? So
He goes on, and He says this. Verse 19, he mocks the idols.
He says the workman melts a graven image and the goldsmith spreads
it over with gold and casts silver chains. He that is so impoverished
that he has no oblation chooses a tree that will not rot and
seeks to him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image that
shall not be moved. Haven't you known? Have you not
heard? Hath it not been told you from
the beginning? Have you not understood from
the foundations of the earth? It is He that sits upon the circle,
the globe of the earth. And the inhabitants thereof are
as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain,
and spreads them out as a tent to dwell in, that brings the
princes to nothing. He makes the judges of the earth
as vanity. Yea, they shall not be planted.
Yea, they shall not be sown. Yea, their stock shall not take
root in the earth. And he shall also blow upon them,
and they shall wither. And the whirlwind shall take
them away as stubble. To whom then will you liken me? Or shall I be equal, saith the
Holy One? And yet in Philippians 2.6 it
says, The Lord Jesus Christ thought it not robbery to be made equal
with God. He is the one spoken of here.
Lift up your eyes on high. Behold who hath created these
things, that bringeth out their host by number. He calleth them
all by names, by the greatness of his might, for that he is
strong in power, not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and
speakest, O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment
is passed over from my God? When God's people suffer affliction,
and adversity, and anything, they wonder, why isn't God judging? Why do you say that? He gives
power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increases
strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young
men shall utterly fail. But they that wait upon the Lord,
they trust in Him, they look for Him to do what is His to
do, and only He can do. which is to save us to the uttermost. And so we call upon him. They
shall renew their strength and they shall mount up with wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk
and not faint. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the word of the Lord who created all things by his mighty
power. Back to Genesis. And so we see,
and you can read through Isaiah, over and over in the book of
Isaiah, God emphasizes that He alone created all things and
He alone is the Savior. Because two things are joined
together in scripture. The Creator and the Savior. God is the only Creator and He's
the only Savior. Now when you look at Genesis
chapter 1 verse 1, who is in the beginning with God? There's
none with God. He's alone. He creates all things. Now if God created everything,
that means the only thing not created is God. Isn't it? If God is the one who created
all things, then He did not create Himself. You can't not be and
suddenly call yourself into existence. That's a contradiction. That's
foolishness. God can't create himself. God always was. He was in the beginning. And
so that's why it says in John 1 that all things were made by
Him. And without Him was nothing made
that was made. What does it mean then when the
Lord says in the beginning that He created all things? It means
that God was uncreated and that He was by Himself. And that He
existed before time. He's eternal. He's everlasting.
And He's the only one who is eternal and everlasting. Psalm
90 verse 1 says, "...Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place
through all generations, before the mountains were brought forth.
Wherever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from
everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." Thou art God. Because He's the Eternal God.
The Eternal God, He says in Deuteronomy 33, 27. The Eternal God is thy
refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. God alone is
eternal. Only the Eternal God can create
all things. And so in Romans chapter 1, He
says that when men look at creation, they're to understand God's eternal
power and Godhead. How could this all be? It could
only be created by one who is himself eternal and almighty. God's eternal power and Godhead. In Psalm 19 it says, "...the
heavens declare the glory of God, the earth shows forth His
handiwork, day unto day uttereth speech, night unto night showeth
forth knowledge." And there's no language where their voice
is not heard. God has made Himself known through
creation, through His work. And how did He do it? He did
it by Himself. No one gave God counsel. No one
said, do it this way. No, don't do it that way. Create
this first. Do that second. God did it by
Himself. No one gave Him counsel. It was
for His own purpose. And He did it. Why did God create
all things? For His own glory. Let me take
you to a couple of verses so you can see this. Proverbs 16,
4. Proverbs 16.4, he says, The Lord hath made all things
for himself, yea, even the wicked, for the day of evil. The Lord
made all things for himself, even the wicked, for the day
of evil. Look at Revelation chapter 4. Revelation, why did God make
all things? For himself. Look at Revelation
chapter 4. In Revelation 4 verse 11, he
says, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and
power, for Thou hast created all things. And for thy pleasure
they are and were created." Why did God create all things? Because
it pleased Him. It seemed good to Him. And if
God only does good, then you know what God did is good. In
creating the world for Himself. Look at Colossians chapter 1.
Colossians chapter 1. He says this. In verse 15. He says, who, Christ, is the
image of the invisible God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
image of the invisible God. He's the one that we can see.
When you look, when you see Christ, you're looking at the Lord, at
God Himself. Who is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of every creature. It doesn't mean He was born as
we are born. It means that He's the one who
has the preeminence. Although He was born as a man,
not as God, He was not born. But verse 16, listen to verse
16. For by Him, our Lord Jesus Christ, were all things created
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
All things were created by Him and for Him. And He is before
all things, and by Him all things consist. You see how our Lord
Jesus Christ is eternal God, the Almighty. Revelation 1.8,
I am the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, the
Almighty. This is our Lord. And if He is
Almighty, if He created it for His purpose, and He came into
the world and He says He came to save His people from their
sins, do you think that the Almighty God can fail in His purpose? If God's Word could fail, God
would cease to be God. Hebrews chapter 6 says there's
by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to
lie. He made a promise to Abraham.
His word cannot fail. He swore by himself and he cannot
fail. And so the Lord created all things
for himself. He did it by the Lord Jesus Christ.
He did it by his word and he's the source of all things. And
you can look over and over in scripture about this. Now, it says here in Genesis
1-1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This
was the beginning of time. This is when time began. When did time begin? When God
spoke. When God created the heavens
and the earth. God did it. And how did He do
it? How did God create? Did He do it? Did He start with
something like the Big Bang Theory? Well, there was just something
really dense and so dense and small that no one could find
out how small it was or how dense it was. Amazingly small. And
had the whole universe in a little tiny packet. Boom! It blew up
and that's how we got here. How much harder is that to believe
than Scripture? Men work hard to deny the truth,
don't they? That's why God calls their imaginations
vain and empty. But anyway, so time began when
God spoke. But how did God do it? Well,
remember what it says in Hebrews 11, verse 3? Through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the word of God. So that things which
are seen were not made of things which do appear. God spoke out
of nothing. He created all things out of
nothing. He didn't start with something.
That something would have had to have been part of creation,
wouldn't it? It would have. Because He created all things.
Without Him was not anything created that was created. Therefore
He had to start with nothing. And if He started with nothing
and His Word commanded it, what does that mean about God's Word?
That means that God is Almighty. Everything obeys His Word. Isn't
that amazing? Ecclesiastes says, where the
word of the king is, there is power. I love to think about
that. God is so powerful, and everything
must obey his word. He just spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. Psalm 33, verse 9. By the word
of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them
by the breath of his mouth. He just spoke it out of nothing.
And when the Lord created it initially, I want you to look
at this. When the Lord initially created it, look at verse 2 of
Genesis chapter 1. He says, "...and the 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, and God
said, Let there be light, and there was light." So when the
Lord created the world first, when He says in verse 1, in the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and then in verse
2, and the earth was without form and void and darkness was
upon the face of the deep, there's two interpretations of that verse. One is that when God created
the world, He created it and it was without form and void.
And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And from there He
created, He brought it into formation. He populated it. And the other
one is that He created it in verse 1. And then it was destroyed
and recreated in verse 2 and 3 and following. And so, the
second view is, men will point to Isaiah chapter
45. In verse 18, where it says this, I'll read this to you.
Isaiah 45.18, it says, For thus saith the Lord that created the
heavens, God himself that formed the earth and made it, he hath
established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to
be inhabited. I am the Lord and there is none
else. Isaiah 45.18. And the word here, he created
it not in vain, the word vain is the same word that's used
here back in Genesis 1.1 where it says, it was without form
and void. But here, I think it's helpful
to understand a couple of things. When the Lord created in verse
1 and 2, it's true that in verse 2 it looks like when God first
created it, that it started out with formless, vacant, void and
darkness. And so people will say, well
God does everything perfectly and it's all full of light. He
wouldn't have done that first. Especially when they look at
Isaiah 45.18 where it says that He didn't create it in vain. He created it to be inhabited.
So how do you reconcile those things? What they do, what men
will do, and you can read about this in some commentaries. Arthur Pink is one. He said,
well God created it and then it fell. Creation fell somehow,
maybe that was when Satan sinned and God cast him
out of heaven and so on. And so it was destroyed then
and God recreated it. But in Isaiah 45, verse 18, when
the Lord says this, the Lord has created the heavens, God
Himself that formed the earth and made it, He established it,
He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited. He's
talking about the purpose for which God created the world.
He didn't make it for a purpose of vanity. He didn't make it
for the purpose of being empty and vain and darkness and void
and formless and vacant. He created it to be inhabited. That's the purpose for which
He created it. But in Genesis, what He does
here is He tells us the initial form it was in when He created
it. Which was it was without form in void and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. So I don't believe that God created
the world in verse 1 and then it was somehow destroyed and
He recreated it in verses 3 and following. First of all, there's
no other evidence in scripture of that happening. And it would
be very much of an imposition on the scripture to put all that
between those two verses. Yes, it does lend itself to our
salvation that we're dead in sins and God brought light into
the darkness. But so does the natural order
in which God created all things. In fact, to me, it shows us in
the way that God created the world how He works in our salvation
and in the world. Look at Isaiah 45 and verse 7,
in fact. Isaiah 45 and verse 7, he says
this. Another verse that sometimes
is misunderstood. He says, God says, I form the
light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil.
I, the Lord, do all these things. And so, some will draw the conclusion,
well, see, it says God creates evil. Therefore, he created evil.
That is, he created the opposition in the universe against his own
self. Which is what Satan is. No, that's not what the Bible
teaches. God didn't create sin. It says that when He created
evil here in verse 7, He's speaking about the calamities and the
afflictions and the adversities that come in the world. And He
also says He creates light and darkness. So when God created
the world initially, He did create it. in darkness, and without
form, and vacant, and void. It was formless, yet He brought
order out of that formlessness. And He populated in its vacancy. Because He had a purpose that
it might be inhabited. And His purpose went more than
just inhabited. He wanted to create the Church. The Bride of Christ. Because
that's what the new heavens and the new earth is all about. God
is going to destroy this present earth. with fire that he might
recreate the new heavens and the new earth. And so we as the
people of God look for a new heavens and a new earth. 2 Peter
chapter 3 verse 5 through 13 talks about that. But here the
Lord is simply saying this is the way He did it. Can we explain
what happened between verse 1 and 2? How God created the heavens
and the earth in an initial form that was incomplete and imperfect.
And then brought it to perfection? No. And we don't have to. All
we have to do is just read it and accept the fact that God
did it this way. But we can learn from it. What
we learn from this is that... In fact, look at Exodus chapter
20. A very plain scripture. Exodus chapter 20. This isn't
neglected by those who hold this other interpretation. But to
me, it's just as plain as day. Exodus chapter 20 and verse 11,
when he's talking about the Sabbath, it says, for in six days, people
wonder how long did God take to create the world? This is
what Moses said, in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day
whereof the Lord, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day
and hallowed it. How long? Six days. What did
he create in six days? The heaven and the earth. And so, in its final form, God
didn't initially create it. Could God have simply said, everything
be, boom, and it's all perfect? He could have, couldn't he? Well,
if God didn't do it that way, He had a purpose for doing it
in a progression, in a process. It was an orderly, stepwise process. God did it. And He did it this
way. He describes the initial form
before He commanded the light to shine. And then out of that
vacancy, out of that lifelessness and darkness, then God called
for the light to come. And that's when He created everything
else from that form. But this is how God works. This
is how God works in our lives, isn't it? God works in our lives,
and we think about this as believers, and is a comfort. The Almighty
God, the Creator. When we look at our lives, we
think, sin is everywhere, and I can do nothing about it. It
seems overwhelming to me. I'm confused. My mind is dim,
and my thoughts are all over the place, and even my actions. What am I to do? Go trust your
eternal Creator. The One who is your only Savior.
And look to Him. He brought creation out of void
and darkness and vacancy. Out of nothing. He created all
things by His Word. And we look to Christ the Word.
And we see His almighty power and creation. And we trust Him.
That's what it says in 1 Peter 4.19. He says, Commit the keeping
of your souls to a faithful Creator in well-doing. We, in patient
continuance in faith, look to Christ, our faithful Creator,
and trust that He will bring about His perfect will. Even
though in the darkness and void of our own experience, we don't
see it. This is what 1 John 3, verses
1 and 2 says. It does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when He shall
appear, we will be like Him. Now we see through a glass darkly,
but then, face to face, we are being conformed to the image
of His dear Son. All things work together for
good. You see, God works all things like this to our good,
but not all at once. He wants us to see that He brings
life out of death, light out of darkness, order out of chaos. Salvation where there was no
possibility in ourselves to save ourselves. And that is meant
to comfort us and to keep us looking to Christ. And thank
God that He's done it this way. There was nothing wrong with
what God did. It was perfect. But He did it in a stepwise fashion
in order to teach us. Remember what Jesus did when
He healed the man born blind in John chapter 9? A man blind
from birth and Jesus spits on the ground. And then He takes
the clay, the dirt and the spittle and He mixes it together and
He makes clay. And then He smears it on his
eyes. Why did He do that? Why didn't He just say... You know, no he spoke. He spit
on the ground and then he put it on his eyes and he says, go
wash in the pool of Siloam, which meant sent. Because the Lord
Jesus Christ, in doing what he did, he wants us to learn from
it. His spit on the ground was to indicate that when God, remember
in Numbers chapter 22, when God was teaching Miriam who who had
spoke against Moses and made her a leper. And God says, well
if her father but spit in her face, she'd be separated for
seven days. So put her outside the camp.
When he spit on the ground and made clay of the spittle, he's
showing us that the Lord Jesus Christ himself had to be cursed.
He had to take on our nature in the likeness of sinful men.
And by that act of His condescending and taking our sin and being
made sin for us and fulfilling our righteousness before God,
He smears the clay on His eyes and He says, go wash. To the
pool called Scent. To the one who is Himself Scent
of the Father. Go to Christ and when you go
to Him and look, you'll see. And so the Lord does it in a
stepwise fashion to teach us. It teaches who He is and how
He saves His people from their sins. It's a glorious thing.
It's a picture. When the artist looks at the
canvas and he wants to tell us the message, he creates that
picture. And everything in it has a meaning.
I used to hate it in school, in art. Sitting in an art class,
looking at a picture. What does it mean? I don't know
what it means. What do you think the artist
had in mind? I have no idea. It's just a picture. But God
had something in mind when He created the world. He had a picture
behind it all. He had something He wanted to
say, and that something. was what his son would do, and
saving his people, and how he would make his people his son's
bride, and make them his own sons. The Lord teaches us these
things. Remember the other blind man
in Bethsaida. He took the man by the hand,
he led him out of town, and he spit in his eyes, and he asked
him, do you see anything? The blind man said, I see men
as trees walking. And Jesus put his hands on his
eyes again, and he made him look up, and then he saw all things
clearly. That's the way God works in our
lives. Don't you see it? Isn't it a comfort? Isn't it
a comfort that the Lord could create light out of darkness,
make peace, and create these things in order to teach us His
greatness, His power over sin, power over the evil. He has power
over all things, our great Savior. Our Creator, He can't fail. If He could create all this out
of nothing, if He did it, and put us in it, and He makes the
sun and moon and stars to shine upon us from heaven, And here
we are providing all things for us. What should it cause us to
do but fall down in our face and worship Him for His goodness
towards us? We deserve nothing. And that's
what salvation is teaching us in the prototype of creation.
What a blessed Savior we have. He's able to do this out of nothing.
The one who required, who by his own word could bring the
world out of nothing. Required himself to die in order
that he might save us from our sins. How great then must the
evil be of our sin and how helpless we must be to save ourselves.
Oh that we would fall in our face and worship the Lamb of
God. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we pray that you
would do as you did in creation, speak light into the darkness
of our hearts, and keep that light on. Lord, show us yourself,
bring us to yourself, perfect us, and bring us to your presence
with exceeding joy, without fault, and look at your work, and rejoice
in it as the lamb brought from straying. As the coin found in
the dark room, as that son who went astray from his father,
bring us to yourself, Lord, and rejoice over us for saving sinners
from their sins and causing us in our heart to love you for
your great love to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.