Thank you. You can turn this morning to
Genesis chapter one. We're going to be in the book
of Genesis primarily this morning. I'll introduce this message in
this way. I want to go back to 1969 when I got out of the army. And it doesn't seem all that
long ago to me, but it's getting to be a long time back. I went
to work in St. Louis, Missouri, where I live
for a big company named IBM, International Business Machines.
And I was supposed to be a salesman for this big, powerful and talented
company. And they, they instructed their
new salespeople, their employees, for 18 months. They taught you
the product they made all about computers. They taught you who
you're going to sell it to. And they taught you how to sell
it. And they expected hard work and demanded whatever it took,
whatever was required. And you did whatever it took
to get the sale. And fellas did work hard at it.
And whenever somebody sold a computer, they'd kind of have a little
celebration. There'd be a little hoopla and pat on the backs and
all that sort of thing going on. One morning in the office,
there was that little celebration going on. Not a big one, but
a little celebration going on. And people kept saying, Steve
got a Bluebird. And finally, I got one of the
older salesman inside and said, What's all this Bluebird business?
And he explained that, or I said, What's all this? What's what's
going on? And he said, Well, Steve was has this account over
here in town. And he said, their home office
is in New York. And he said the salesman up in New York sold
them this monster computer. And he said, and what that meant
was that Steve's office had to have a big computer to communicate
with that bigger computer up there. And he said, you know,
Steve's going to get credit. That's in his territory. And
he's going to get credit for selling that. And he's going
to get the commission. I thought, that's cool. That's
neat. You know, I kept thinking, boy, I hope I get some of those.
Finally, I said, well, what's the bluebird got to do with it?
He said, well, you know, I don't know how that got started. He
said, but here's kind of what it means. He said, you know,
we're all out there every day trying to sell computers. And
he said, it's sort of like trying to catch bluebirds. He said,
there's not that many of them around. And he said, when you
go to trying to catch one, he said, it can get to be a long,
hot, sweaty, tough job. You're walking all day, you're
carrying a net, you're setting traps, you've got a cage. And
he said, and you know what Steve did last night? That he went
to bed and when he woke up this morning, he said the blue bird
of paradise flew in his window and landed in his cage. He said
all he did was go over and flip the latch. And I remember thinking,
well, I want to get some of those blue birds. But look at Genesis
1 with me. And let me make an application.
I remember thinking, man, Steve's lucky. He's lucky. I remember thinking that. Of
course, I didn't know then what I know now, that there is no
such thing as luck or fate. Whatever happens in this world
has got nothing to do with luck or the pure results of our hard
work for that matter. Whatever happens is the sovereign
will of Almighty God, whatever it is. Whether we work our fingers
to the bone or it flies through the window, however it comes,
whether it's good or evil, whether it's sweet or bitter, whether
it's hard or easy, everything, absolutely everything, is under
the control of the almighty will of God our Father. Things happen
either at His direction or by His permission. They happen at
the discretion of His will. All things exist and have their
being. All things come to pass because
of His sovereign will. I'm going to show you that from
the very beginning. It's that way. It is now and
it ever shall be. Look at Genesis one and it begins
in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, that's
the beginning for us. And look at verse six, it says,
and God said, and you notice how often that phrase appears,
and God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and
let it divide the waters in the waters. And God made the firmament
and divided the waters which were under the firmament from
the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. Now you follow down through with
me and we're going to see, and God said, and it was so. Have you got verse 9? And God said, Let the waters
under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and
let the dry land appear. And it was so. Verse 11, And
God said, Let the earth bring forth grass and herb yielding
seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed
is in itself upon the earth. And it was so. Verse 14, And
God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven
to divide the day and the night. Let them be for signs and seasons
and days and years. And let them be for lights in
the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And
it was so. Verse 24, And God said, Let the earth bring
forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping
thing. beast of the earth after his
kind, and it was so. Verse 29, And God said, Behold,
I have given you every herb, bearing seed, which is upon the
face of all the earth, and every tree, into which is the fruit
of the tree, yielding seed to you. It shall be for meat, and
every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, and everything
that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life. I've given
every green herb for meat, and God said, and it was so." Have
you got the pattern here? Isn't that pretty obvious? He
didn't say it this many times by accident. It was on purpose. And all the verses here begin
with, and God said, and end with, it was so. Now, you and I may
say, we're going to do a lot of things. On a typical Friday,
I suspect that you ladies think, you know, tomorrow Saturday,
I'm going to work in my flowers. And you fellas may say, I'm going
to work in the garden, or I'm going to go fishing, or you kids
may say, we're going swimming tomorrow. But you know what? Your will, what you say, it may
not be so. Because if you get up Saturday
morning, And it's lightning and thundering and raining and carrying
on? What you said ain't going to
be so. You're not going to work in the garden in the thunder.
You ain't fishing in the thunder. You ain't swimming. You're not
going swimming in the thunder and rain, are you? No way. You
see, circumstances beyond your control can change your will. There is nothing beyond the control
of our God. Whatever He says, it's so. No one, no thing, nothing can
thwart the purpose or change His will. Listen to this. He's too mighty to be frustrated. He's too sovereign to be stopped.
And He's too wise to be wrong. That's three pretty good statements,
isn't it? He always does what is good. Let me show you here
in Genesis 1, turn back to the beginning of the chapter again.
Interlaced with, and God said and it was so, that truth is
another great truth. You see in Genesis 1, verse 4, And God saw the light that it
was good. Look at verse 10, the last phrase.
God saw that it was good after he made the dry land and gathered
the water and the seas together. Look at verse 12. And the earth
brought forth grass and herb, yielding seed after its kind.
The tree yielded fruit, whose seed was in itself after its
kind. And God saw that it was good. Look at verse 16. And God made
two great lights. the great light to rule the day,
the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.
God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon
the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide
the light from the darkness. And God saw. It was good. Verse 21, And God created great
whales and every living creature that moveth, which it doesn't
say that, by the way, that you children, it doesn't say those
whales evolved from little fishes, does it? Something else that
God made him, and it was so he made him. And God created great
whales and every living creature that moveth, which the waters
brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged
fowl after his kind, and God saw that it was good. Verse 25, And God made the beast
of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind,
and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind,
and God saw that it was good." There's another principle in
it, another truth that's pretty clearly expressed here. Let me
tell you what good means here. If you want to have, do something
interesting, go home today and get your, if you've got a strong
concordance, get out and look up that word good. It's about,
it takes about that much there. And every one of them applies
here. Everything it says, it says that
everything was beautiful. Everything God did was beautiful.
It was best. It was kind. It was loving. It
was pleasant. It was sweet. It was good in
the broadest possible sense, what God did. It was good. When He did it, it was good. But not just good. Let me show
you in verse 31 how He wraps up this whole creation, everything
He did. And God saw everything. You see
that word? everything that he made. And
behold, it wasn't just good, it was very good. It was good,
good. You kids ever eat something?
Man, that's good. It's good, good. It's just almost
better than good, if that could be. And it says, and behold,
it was very good. And the evening and the morning
were the sixth day. One of the old writers said,
that very good means it was perfectly good. Another old writer said
it was vehemently good. I mean, just you could shout
about it. It was so good. And I like this one best. One
of the old writers said everything God did, it was mighty good. Mighty. We understand mighty
good. Whatever God does is good, but it's mighty good. It's not
good because we think it's good or because we like it or agree
with it or whatever. No, that's not. That's got it
all backwards. Listen here. Whatever God does
is good. Period. It is not given for us
to judge God's goodness based upon what we think. God's good
because of who he is and whatever he does is good. Anything God
does is good. Everything God does is good.
Mighty good. When it says here that God saw
that it was good, that needs a little explanation. Let me
tell you what it doesn't mean. I was telling Stan this morning,
there's always something wrong with the house. If you own one,
you know, rent it or own it or whatever it is, the roof's going
to leak, the bomb's going to break or what have you. And I'm
not very handy. So if I get my tools and set
in on something, the water leaking or something. Well, I got to
turn it off and then try to fix it. And then when I'm done, I
go turn the water back on and stand back and see if I did a
good job. See if it's going to blow up or what? Let me tell
you, that's not the sense here in which God says God saw that
it was good. No, that would have it all backwards. Absolutely backwards. What this
does mean is that God didn't do these things and then back
away and go, well, let's see how this turned out. That's what
the evolutionists and the scientists would have you think, wouldn't
it? Well, what's going to happen if this one goes extinct? The
whole evolutionary scheme is going haywire. My God's up there
looking over the rails of heaven going, well, I hope this turns
out OK. Oh, that's so blasphemous and wrong. Oh, that wouldn't
be good. God, you see, saw the end From
the beginning. And that's how that's what it
means is the sense that whatever God does, he's going to see after
it that it turns out good. He saw that it was good, meaning
that when he did it, he saw an eternity that it was going to
be good. That's why I did it. Everything he does is good. And
notice this, that everything God did from the creation. He
first said He would do. That phrase was always in front
of that, wasn't it? And God said, and it was so. He spoke, and
it was so. And everything God has ever done
with regard to man, He has said He would do. Let me show you
that. In Genesis 2, look at verse 16. From the very moment God
made man, He spoke to man, told him what He'd do, and then made
it so. Genesis 2, verse 16, And the
Lord God commanded the man, He spoke to him, didn't He? He said,
Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of
it. For in the day that thou eatest
thereof, thou shalt surely die. Do you see that? God told him
what he'd do. When Adam did it, God did what He said He'd do.
It's just that simple. Adam ate, and what God had spoken,
it was so. Adam died spiritually on the
spot. And people deceive themselves because Adam didn't die physically
right then. You know, he didn't fall over
dead. They deceive themselves into thinking, well, if he didn't
die physically, then he should, you know, why, what, that means,
how can he be dead spiritually? Well, folks don't believe that he died
at all. But God spoke, God promised Adam that he'd die when he ate,
and it was so. And every man, woman, every child
born comes into this world dead in sin, dead in trespasses, just
like their father Adam. Because God said, God told Adam,
and He tells us. Now, we've been looking at God's
will, haven't we? His sovereign will. What about
man's will? Don't we hear a lot about that?
And I heard some guy on the radio come down here yesterday. Man's
got a free will. He's a free moral agent. Isn't
that what's being preached in our day? Every man's got a free
will. Well, let me see if I can illustrate
this for you. Does man have a free will? If
you take a bird, let's say you catch a bird and you put him
in a cage, and maybe it's a cage, you know, normal cage. In these
zoos, they catch all these exotic birds, don't they? And they put
them in an aviary. That's just a fancy word for
a big cage. You know, it might be as big as this room. But they're
still in a cage, aren't they? All cage birds are free to do
whatever they choose within the confines of that cage. You know
what sand is? It's our cage. It's our cage. Now, some folks may be as little
as fair amount here. Some maybe have Rocky Mount for
their cage. Some got Roanoke big cage. Some
New York City, really big cage. Some folks got the whole world,
don't they? It's still a cage. It's still
a cage. And does it shock you that God's
got sinful man in a cage? Why should it? Why should that
shock anybody? What do we do? If they catch
this fellow that killed that couple and took that little girl,
what are they going to do with him? They're going to put him
in a cage, aren't they? They're going to lock him up.
Throw the key away. Absolutely. Every man in any prison, every
inmate in this world has the freedom to do whatever he will
within his cage. And if that's what's meant by
free will, I agree we all got one. That's how free we are. But some protest that it's not
fair that we're in this cage because of what Adam did. It's
not fair to put me in that cage that's in for Adam's sin. Well,
don't accuse God of being unjust. No, He's good. We've already
established that. He's good. He's mighty good. Truth of the
matter is, this is a pretty nice cage we live in, isn't it? That's
His mercy. Compared to what we deserve,
this cage is pretty nice. You see, God would have been
justified in killing Adam physically as well as spiritually on the
spot, on the day he ate and disobeyed. But out of goodness, out of the
goodness of His love, He determined to have mercy on some. He let
us live in this cage. We chose the cage of sin for
a time that He might spare some for eternal life. Spare us from
eternal death. You still think it's not fair
to be condemned along with Adam? Well, let's do something here
now. Y'all listen to me. You kids can do this too. When you're a kid, you kids ever
play, do play like? Let's play like I'm a ballerina.
Boys, we used to play like cowboys and Indians. Play like we was
in the army or whatever. Well, let's just suppose for
a minute. Let's just suppose everybody in here this morning,
you got a clean slate. You got no sin charged to you.
Everything that you've ever done in the past is clean slate. Now, all you have to do is have
eternal life. All you have to do to go to heaven
is be with God. All you have to do is just keep two simple
little rules, okay? One is love God with all your
heart, soul, and mind. The other is to love your neighbor
as yourself. You know what? We wouldn't even get to the last
song before you lock yourself right back in that cage. I can prove it to you. I can
prove it to you. Let's just go back and say this
had started maybe 30 minutes ago. Has anybody in here let
their mind just stray off a little bit? supposed to be worshipping
god right this morning as uh... anybody been let their mind run
to that scoundrel of a boss you got anybody here thought just
had any fellow here thought you know she made us late again this
morning she can't ever get there on time any of you ladies thought
you didn't even pay attention to my hair you didn't even notice
my new dress you think i'm innocent Somebody's
nodding off a little bit, and I'm up here thinking, yeah, you
wish you'd listen one day. You see? And there's the ever
famous. Wish he'd finish up so we can
go eat. You see where I'm coming from? Every one of us. I mean, we'd no more put one
foot out of the cage and we'd be right back in there and shut
the door and stuff. It's what we are. It's what we
are. I'll tell you. We're a mess,
aren't we? I'm telling the truth. We'd all
lock ourselves right back in there. Let me give you this other
illustration to show you just how bad it is and also what we
need. My daughter's married to a young
man named Adam Simpson. What a fine fellow he is. I mean,
he's so good to Carrie and to their little girl. He's so good
to Rebecca and I. He's so faithful to the gospel.
I hate calling him my son-in-law, because he's a son in grace.
He's just as good as a gift. And we were having dinner there
recently, and he told this story. And while he was telling it,
boy, the wheels started turning. And I thought, man, that's a
good illustration. What happened to him is that he was loading
some stuff in the back of his pickup truck. And he kept hearing
this little, this noise. And he'd look and didn't see
anything. And finally he heard it again.
He thought, I'm going to see what's going on. And he got to
looking there. And he'd been hauling some spruce
branches earlier in the week. And here was this big wad of
sap, this golden sap that had stuck on the bottom of his truck.
And you know what was stuck to that? a little hummingbird. And it's little tongue was out
stuck to that sap. And that's everybody's first
reaction. I thought, well, boy, I hope
Adam, you know, you pulled his tongue off there and let him
go. And then like an idiot, I think, yeah, that probably tore his
tongue out and killed him. You know, that that didn't that,
you know. Let me tell you what Adam did.
You know what he did? He decided to have mercy on that
hummingbird. Now, he didn't have to, did he?
He didn't grab that hummingbird and pull out his tongue and stick
it to the sack. That hummingbird was in the condition
he was in because he got there himself. He did it himself. Didn't
he? All on his own. Adam stopped,
left his truck there, walked all the way to the house, turned
the tap on, got it warm, got him a glass, filled it up with
warm water, and he came back and he started pouring that warm
water on that hummingbird's tongue. And in a minute or two, boy,
he said, that tongue just sucked back in his mouth and he was
gone. That hummingbird was freed from its cage of death. That
hummingbird was fixing to die in the back of that truck. Here's
the application. Sin is to you and I just like
that sap. It looks so good. It smells so
sweet. It's irresistible. It pulls us.
There's pleasure in sin for a season. And we embrace that sin by nature.
And we'll die in our sin as a result. Unless someone wise and good
comes where we are, comes to the cage we're in, and does for
us what we cannot do for ourselves. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world to save us from our sins. He poured out His blood
that we might live, that we might be set free. He died for our
sins. He gave us new life, spiritual
life by His righteousness. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ,
we were doing play like a minute ago. The Lord Jesus Christ came
into this world with a clean slate. the son of Mary, a virgin,
he didn't have Adam's sin. He had a clean slate. You know
what he did though? He kept her clean. He never once,
never once went in that cage of sin in and of himself. Not one time did he. He never
sinned. And if we're in him, we can be
free. Free from sin. Not free to sin
again, but free from the penalty of sin, eternal death. Free one
day to go into the presence of God on the merits, the goodness,
and the mighty goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Mark
chapter 16 with me, just for a second. I tried to show you in Genesis
1 this ironclad principle, this truth of God's sovereignty, His
sovereign will, that God speaks, it's so. Let there be light,
it's so. God has always revealed His will
by speaking His will. You see, He would speak And then
sometimes instantly and sometimes in due course, in due time, he
would speak and his will comes to pass. Does anyone here desire
to know God's will for you? Anyone know that? Everyone here
this morning can find out what God's will is for you. Absolutely,
unequivocally. He's already spoken it. You got
it right there in your lap. This is everything he's ever
going to speak to you right here. God's not. You're not going to
get some voice in a dream tomorrow night. Not going to happen. No,
sir. He's spoken. He's already spoken.
And it's got your name on it. It's got my name on it. Everything
he said with regard to man. All we need to know spoken here,
the one we need to know spoken here, Mark 16, have you got verse
16? He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. You hear that? It is God's sovereign
will. Now listen to me. It's God's
sovereign will that some shall be saved. That some shall believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. What he did, why he did it, where
he is now. It is God's sovereign will that
some shall follow him in baptism. It is God's directive will. His
mighty goodwill is that some shall be saved. But he that believeth not shall
be damned. It is God's permissive will.
You understand? It's his directive will to save
some. It's his permissive will. to
allow all those who will not believe the parish. Simple truth
is, if you're determined, absolutely determined, absolutely determined
to perish, you shall. If you're determined to perish,
you shall. Turn to Acts 2 with me. Acts
chapter 2. Don't anybody dare blame unbelief
on God. Don't blame the Lord Jesus Christ
if you will not believe. Don't blame the Holy Spirit. We will not come out of that
cage. We will not call on Him to deliver
us from that cage. And therefore, we're responsible. We see that we're responsible
if we will not call on him. And let me ask a simple question.
Is there anybody here this morning? Anybody here? Who's never believed that wants
to believe on Christ? Well, by nature, you can. That's shocking, you know, we'll
hear that in a pulpit on TV today, are you? You can't do it. I understand you can't. You absolutely
can't do it. Because you don't have a free
will. You're dead. I'm dead by nature. Everybody
in here who has believed was dead at one time knows exactly
what I'm talking about, don't you? Huh? You didn't believe
because you couldn't believe. All they can do is stay dead
and unbelieve. But listen to me, the will of
God can cause a person to call upon the name of the Lord. And
what's the Lord say about that? Here in Acts 2, look at it. Verse
21. And it shall come to pass. That
sounds like a promise, doesn't it? It shall come to pass that
whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Shall be set free. coming out
of that cage. If a person won't, now here's
the summary of it, if a person won't call on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you know whose fault it is? It's their fault. If somebody
does call on the Lord Jesus Christ, you know whose fault it is? It's
God's fault. Can I put it that way? It's the
fault of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the reason it's that way
is so that the Lord Jesus Christ gets a credit, gets a glory for
it. Nobody is going to stand in glory
and say, yeah, I believed on the Lord. No, we're going to
say, boy, He called me. He did everything for me. He
caused me to call out His name. Every time somebody's saved,
it's the sovereign will of God. And if I've confused you about
what I've just said, let me try to give you one more illustration
to set this in concrete, to make it clear, I hope. I know it's scriptural because
the Lord used parables, didn't he? All the time. And I got to
admit, you know, when I read, I like those parables. I go,
yeah, I see what he meant there. So in preaching, I know it's
appropriate to use illustrations, but a man's got to be careful
because you can just get out and left field with one sometime
and it's not honoring to God. So when I was thinking about
this bird illustration, I was thinking, I don't know. And I
was on the highway and came to a big construction thing and
got slowed down to just a dead crawl. And it was real early
in the morning. And I looked over to my right and on this
little wire just off the road, you know what was sitting there?
A little ruby-throated hummingbird. I thought, man, look at that.
And I went on a little further and got slowed down again. I
looked over and I said, here's another hummingbird. I thought,
boy, that must be a good illustration. I'm going to use that one. I
went on a little further and slowed down, and here was sitting
on the wire a bluebird. I've seen two bluebirds in maybe
the last five years, and I like looking at birds, but I thought,
wow, that must be good, too. Now, let me ask you something.
Wasn't it lucky that I saw those birds? One hit lucky that they
just flew out of, all the way from Tennessee, one of those
bluebirds land on that line. Hummingbirds hardly ever sit
still and there was two of them. Isn't that lucky? Isn't that
luck? Do we see that? That's God's
good providence. Putting those birds where they
were to encourage and instruct a poor, weak man in something
that he couldn't do that he should do with confidence. You know, I can't preach, but
I can. Your pastor would tell you, he
can't preach. Boy, he can, can't he? Man, can
he preach. Paul, you know, everybody who
gets up to preach knows what Paul said when he said, who's
the fidget for this? Who can do this? The truth is,
we can't. But by His will and by His grace
and mercy, we can do it. So you see, nobody can sit here
in this morning. It says here, it shall come to
pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall
be saved. You can't, but you can. If you sit there and say,
I can't or I won't, then you won't. If you try opening your
mouth, opening up, you don't have to cry out this morning
loud. You don't have to come down front. You have this in your
heart. Just call on the name of the Lord. And you'll find
out you can, even though you can't. And the reason it's that
way is so that you and I get no glory. But the Lord Jesus
Christ is going to be glorified because He did it. He made us
call. He did everything for us. And
we see that. Well, the Lord is good. He's
good in all His ways, isn't He? I looked up the word bluebird.
I'll give you this and we'll go. And I was disappointed. Bluebird
wasn't in the Bible. But I found the word blue was
in there a lot. And colors mean things in the
Scriptures, especially in the temple. Crimson was the color
of the blood of Christ. It's a symbol of His atonement.
And purple is a sign of His royalty, His kingship. And the children
know these things. They've been taught this. Blue,
it looked to me like, was in the temple more than any other
color. It was blue cloth over the table of showbread and on
the wings of the cherubim and in the veil. All this blue. I didn't know this. You know
what it means? One of the old writers told me, blue is a symbol
of the deity of God. It's His, the King is Godliness. That blue is. And here's the
application from that, if we ever see that blue, see what
it represents, who it represents, the Godhead of the Lord Jesus
Christ, if we ever see who He is, and if I can use it this
way, if He ever flies in the window of your mind and perches
on your heart, He's there to stay. If you ever see Him, that
blue bird of paradise comes winging its way into your heart. Yeah,
then he'll take up permanent residence. He'll cause you to
call on his name. That's how it will happen. If
you see him, ever see him in the word, you'll call out. That's
how he enables his people to do it. They believe on Christ. They follow him in baptism. They're
grateful for the gift of his son. They realize they don't
deserve mercy and grace, but they get it in him. You see that salesman in St. Louis? What do you do to get
that sale? Not a cotton picking thing. Nothing. But he got credit. And
we get credit for what Christ did. And better yet, we get credit
for what he didn't do. You see that? And if you don't
like getting the blame for what Adam did, then you can't very
well like getting credit for what Christ did. See how they
go together? Like a hand in a glove. God's
good. This story's almost too good
to be true, isn't it? It's mighty good. Mighty good. The will of God is mighty good.
May the Lord enable us to call on His name. Glorify Him. OK, John, let's... You have a
closing hymn.