Let's go back to the book of
Genesis. And my subject this evening is
quite simply God created man. May I read to you my text? It is in Genesis chapter one
and verse 26, 27, as well as verse 28. Genesis chapter one,
verse 26, begins by saying, and God said. Just a little side note, in chapter
one of Genesis, we find the first ten commandments, because you'll
find that God ten times, that God the Spirit had Moses to record
these words, and God said. And as God said, whatever he
said, it came to pass. And so we read in verse 26, and
God said, let us, very important pronoun, let us make man in our,
another important word, image after our likeness, and let them,
another noteworthy word, have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth. So God created man in his image,
his own image. Our translators inserted that
word own, but for good reason and it is proper that that would
be there. So God created man in his own
image, though it is an unnecessary word because the image of God
was all there was. That's the reason the word own
wasn't in the original because there was only the image of God,
nothing else existed. So if man is to be made, he had
to be made in the image of God. In the image of God created he
him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them
and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the
earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish
of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living
thing that moveth upon the earth. And now let's go to the second
chapter and verse seven. as Moses is led now to kind of
repeat what he has said about the creation of man. And he says
in verse two, and the Lord God formed man. And I've told you
before, that is the idea of a potter who fashions, who forms, who
molds this vessel This vessel that God called man, he formed
him God as the potter and man as the clay. He formed man of
the dust of the ground. And then God breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living soul. The book of Genesis, as you know,
is the book of origins. It's the book of developments.
The word Genesis, of course, means beginning or source. And the one who created all things
is said to be in 1 Peter 4 and verse 19, our faithful creator. That's the reason I read that
passage there in Romans chapter 1 to begin with because it speaks
of the creative glories of our God and he is addressed there
by the apostle as being the creator. This one, this creator, he's
the one who loves his people with an everlasting love. He is the one who has an affection
for us that it cannot be calculated. He has a love for us, a love
that exceeds all other loves. A love so great, a love so deep,
a love so broad, a love so very high that He sent His only begotten
Son into this world in order to redeem the objects of His
affection. This is our Heavenly Father. And he has Moses begin this book,
the book of God, the book of all books, the Holy Scriptures. God has Moses to begin this book
with a simple declaration that in the beginning, and that means
right when time began, before that, or if I may put it this
way, before Genesis 1.1, there was no time. there was only eternity. God dwelling in the perfection
of himself. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit in his infinite glory. And then God to reveal
himself And in order that he would bring to pass his great
purpose of redemption, he then begins what we call time. And Moses says, in the beginning,
God created the heaven and the earth. Immediately, God would
have us know. He would have all men know. He
would have all women to know that He is Himself the Creator
of all things. And in this first creation, God
took great delight. He was very pleased with what
He did. When you make something, and
of course you cannot truly create something, because to create
something is to bring it into being out of nothing. But we
will say, you know, you created a dish, you who are cooks, you
created some, you had some project and you built something, and
you created it, and after you finish it, you look at it, and
hopefully you'll say, I did a pretty good job on that. Well, our God
made all things in six days. And these would be six 24-hour
days. He could have done it all at
once. There's no question about that. But I do believe that God
gradually brings everything into being as he pictures for us the
salvation of sinners from chaos from darkness, then God brings
us to perfection in Christ Jesus. But as God viewed all of the
things that he had made in six days, he then said in verse 31,
God saw that everything that he had made and behold, behold,
God said. Wasn't anybody else to say it? God said, it was very good, this
first creation. But if this first creation in
God's estimation, and that's the only one that matters, right?
God's estimation is the only one that matters. If this first
creation was in the eyes of God and to the heart of God, very
good. Oh, how much more pleasurable
and delightful is the second creation, which is the salvation
of sinners. Little wonder then that in the
book of Luke chapter 15, where we have the salvation of the
lost ones depicted by, and I just preached on this recently, of
course, by the lost sheep found by the shepherd, the lost coin
found by the woman, the lost son found by the father. Little
wonder then that it is written that there's joy in heaven over
one sinner that repenteth. If God rejoiced in the creation
of this physical, natural realm the heaven and the earth. If
this brought God great delight, oh, how much more delightful
it is to God as He beholds the trophies of His grace. You and
me, who are predestinated to be conformed to the image of
Christ Jesus. And in the end, when we are glorified
body and soul, God will look at us in great delight and He
will say to His own glory, these are my children. These are my
redeemed ones. These are the objects of my grace
and I have made them, I have conformed them to the image of
my darling Son. Oh, the great delight God has
in the second In this physical creation, it bears testimony
to the Son of God, for we read in Hebrews chapter one, by him
God made the world. John chapter one, all things
were made by him and without him was not anything made that
was made. You'll notice how the divine
record begins. Anytime you read a book, it's
always good to read the beginning. That lays the basis or the foundation
for the rest of it. You know, you and I, we have
the very great privilege, those of you who are the people of
God, those of us who are the people of God, we have the wonderful
great and high privilege to have the very beginning of the book
of God so we know how everything got started. We know how everything
began. God began everything and we know
from reading the book of Revelation all the way to the end in chapter
22, we know how all things are going to end. And so we can rejoice in our God
that He who from the beginning ordained the end, will govern
all things all along the way to bring His eternal purpose
to pass. And you see, that's the reason
that you and I, we may not be comfortable with the things that
are going on around us, the things in the world, and indeed we beseech
God about these things, as I did just a few minutes ago. And yet
we understand, we understand in our minds, and I hope in our
hearts we can find rest in this, that he who from the beginning
ordained the end is directing all things to the end that he
himself has appointed, and he will never lose control. And
this is what gives us peace. This is what gives us joy. And
if we ever lose sight of that, if we forget that even momentarily, that's when we lose the sweet
rest that we have in Christ Jesus. I love the way the divine record
begins as God speaks of his creation, as he lays it upon the heart
of Moses to write this, many years, of course, after this
creation happened. You'll notice it begins, in the
beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. He confines his
information of creation to these two locations, heaven and earth. And beyond that, he says very
little. Because you see, heaven and earth,
these are strategic locations that will be evidenced throughout
the book of God, all the way to the end. God has established
heaven as his throne. No wonder he begins by saying,
in the beginning God created the heaven. Now later he will
talk about the heavens. But now he talks about just heaven
singular. The heaven, that's the place
where God rules from. Heaven is my throne. And the
earth, that's God's footstool. Heaven is where he ordains all
things. That's his, could I put it this
way, the headquarters of his domain, though God inhabits eternity. Yet he himself, he declares that
heaven is his throne. And the earth, this is where
he's going to bring to pass his greatest work. He doesn't say anything about
creating hell, though he did. He doesn't talk about, in this
first verse, the creation of the various stars and planets
and those sorts of things, because though those are indeed his creation,
revealing his glory and his wisdom and his power, it is with heaven
that we ought to be occupied, because that is our ultimate
destination. and we ought to focus upon the
earth because this is where his son will come to from heaven. So he only names these two places,
heaven and earth. This is where his purpose of
grace is going to come to reality. Oh, indeed, he determined all
things before the world began. And because he determined them,
they're as good as done. We know that. But they must be
done. They must come to pass. And if
they are to come to pass, then there will have to be a heaven
to which we shall go someday. And there'll have to be an earth
where we shall live. And on this earth, this is where
we're gonna hear the gospel. And to this earth, that's where
the Son of God's coming. And indeed, 2,000 years ago,
he did come. From Genesis 1.1 to the birth
of our Lord Jesus is roughly 4,000 years. And during those 4,000 years,
everything was being made ready for the arrival of our Lord Jesus
Christ. So here in Genesis 1, we have
the divine record of the origin of all things. And by the way,
just to kind of give you a little bit of information, the best records from conservative
writers would be that from Genesis 1-1 to the end of Revelation
is about 4,100 years. And one of the amazing things
is 2,200 years of that is in the first
11 chapters of Genesis. That's a lot of time passes in
the first 11 chapters of Genesis. But with the opening words of
the sacred scripture, our God asserts his own presence and
his own power. That's very important. His own
presence in the beginning, God. When the beginning began, God
was there. He's the one who began it. and he's the one who created
the heaven and the earth. Oh, what authority, oh, what
omnipotence, which simply means power. Here we have the origin of the
universe. Here we have the origin of the earth. And of course, as you make your
way through Genesis chapter one, you have the creation of all
things by God. And this statement, especially
chapter one, but all of the rest of it as well, it's a statement
of fact. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth, and it's to be received by faith. It must be received by faith,
for there was no human witness to the creative acts of God. Now, the morning star sang together
in creation, so it would appear that when God created the heaven
and the earth, he then created the angels who marveled at the
wisdom of their creator as they worshiped him and they sang together. They blessed the name of the
creator as they beheld all of these things come into being
merely by the word of his power. in the beginning, in the commencement
of time, which shows us that matter had a definite origin. It had
a beginning. Matter is not eternal. By matter,
I mean the substance of which a physical object is composed. Matter is not eternal. God is
eternal. Only God is eternal and God created
matter. God is the only explanation for
the origin of all things. Matter did not invent itself. It did not accidentally come
into being. God created. We're very much aware of the
efforts of many so-called learned people, especially in the last
several years. They've made a concerted effort,
really, to get rid of God. There has been a very aggressive
push in education and throughout society. and ever increasing
insistence that either there is no God or whoever or whatever
God may be, he is certainly not the creator of all things and
he absolutely did not create man. That's pretty much the summation
of fools today. And not only is the creative
work of God denied, but so also his work of divine providence. You see, when you start denying
God, when you start insisting, no God, No creator. When you start insisting
that God didn't make all of these things, then the next logical
step is God doesn't control all things. We talk about luck. We talk about,
well, chance. And then if God doesn't, if he
doesn't have a hand in creation, and if he doesn't have a hand
in divine providence, the next area that has always been under
attack is God's greatest work of salvation. Behold how God has been forced
out of essentially salvation. because that which the things
that religious educators and so-called scholars today tell
us is that yes, God has wonderful things that he wants to do for
us, but he is totally held in check by man's free will. And you see, as I read in Romans
chapter one, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God. Men didn't glorify God. And you
start denying something about God, you start denying the creative
glories of God. Well, the next step is denying
the providential glories of God. And the next step is denying
the salvation and the glories of God in saving mercy and grace. And this is where we are. And yet, God still governs all
things. And of course, the effort continues
today to shove God off into a corner as one who is irrelevant. And
anyone who believes God, anyone who believes the Bible, Anyone
who believes not merely the Genesis record of creation, and be careful,
the biblical record of creation, because you see, the creation
of all things is not only found in the book of Genesis, it's
found throughout the word of God. You get to the book of Revelation. God created all things for his
pleasure. They are and were created. And you see, anybody who believes
God, anybody who worships God, anybody
who dares to say creation is God's work only, and God governs
all things by His power, and salvation is totally of the Lord,
anybody who says that today, the scientists And most educators
and so-called scholars, they say, people who believe the Bible
are simpletons and fools. But on the other hand, God says,
the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. And I'll tell you, he is a fool
whom God calls a fool. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. And then, as we get down to the
text for this evening, here is God's crowning jewel of creation. Have you noticed, and I'm sure
you have, that God made all things ready for the man and the woman. There wasn't anything that they
contributed. And you see this first creation,
it's very much like and typical of the second creation. All things
are of God. God prepared a beautiful earth,
specifically Eden's garden. And we still use the word Eden. It's the Eden of a state or whatever. It's a beautiful garden. We still
use that kind of language. God had everything ready for
the man and the woman and they made no contribution. And that's
the way it is in the new creation in salvation. It's all of God
and we make no contribution and God gets all the glory. I realized for many years, especially
today, the idea that there's a personal God who created man. It's under attack. There's an
aggressive, aggressive attack against the idea of creation.
And evolution is presented as truth. And the biblical account
of creation, especially the creation of man, is presented as a mere
theory. I'm not gonna spend a lot of
time on this, but let me say this. There can be no agreement. There can be no agreement between
creation and evolution. And it's for this reason, evolution
rejects the Word of God. And I'm gonna put it as simply
as I think it can be put. This issue of evolution versus
creation, I'll boil it down, it's as simple as I can make
it. It comes right down to this, do you believe the Word of man
or do you believe the Word of God? That's the bare bones of
it, Joe. That's just, that's the way it
is. That's where the rubber hits
the road. You gonna take the word of man? Well, this earth
is billions and billions of years old. And we started as a, little organism and over millions
of years and that divided and it fell into the sea. Well, who
made the sea? Beside the point, all of these
things are just chance and then survival of the fittest and over
all these millions and millions and millions of years, this has
progressed and look at us now and listen, we're not finished
yet, we're still evolving. Well, that's a bunch of foolishness. I'd much rather take God's word
for it. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. God said, let us make man in
our image. The Lord God formed man of the
dust of the ground, breathed in his nostrils the breath of
life. Man came to live in soul. Okay, that's good for me. It works for me. Evolution denies the authority
of God's word. You always remember that. And
there is no peace between the two. You say, well, there are
Christians who believe evolution. No. No. Because they're putting
the word of man above the word of God. That's deadly. And I'll tell you something else,
there could be no agreement between creation and evolution because
evolution is absolutely contrary to the gospel of God's grace.
There can't be any agreement. Creation and evolution are enemies
of each other. Evolution says man started way
down here at the bottom. And slowly, ever so slowly, he's come to be like we are today. Oh, but wait. Over the next few
millions of years, man will really be something. You see, evolution has us starting
at the bottom and then going up. God's word has man coming
forth from the hands of God as perfect. But then we fail and we're going
down. One says we're going up. The
other one says we're going down. There can't be any agreement.
It's contrary to the gospel. It takes the gospel of God's
grace to raise up a beggar from the
dunghill. We were coming forth from the
hands of God. We were perfect and beautiful,
lovely, knowledgeable. We used all of our mental faculties. As we'll see later in chapter
two, God brought animals to Adam and he called every living creature
whatever name he wanted to call them. Oh, the brilliance of Adam. No, he wasn't some kind of, I don't know, some kind of little
mess. No. And I'll tell you, there can
be no agreement between creation and evolution because man's a
whole lot different from animals. Over and over you read, you read
at your leisure in Genesis chapter one, God made some after his
kind, after his kind. Man's different. No animal has the ability to
reason, to think. If you have a dog, we're keeping
Susanna's dog. It's our grand dog. We've got
custody of our grand dog while they're on vacation. They have
taught Dixie how to sit, lay down, roll over, And they taught by means of repetition
and reward. Now, Dixie, I want you to figure
out some algebra problems for me. He has no ability to do that. Now, Dixie, I want you to build
a house. And make sure you draw the plans
out. That's foolish. He has no ability
to do that because he's a dog. God gave to man intellectual
abilities, the ability to reason, to think, to love. And he gave to man, he created
man a living soul. Animals die and that's it. We get attached to them, shed
a few tears, it's tough. But we know that's the end of
them. But when we die, that's not the
end of us, because we're different. Man's different. God made man above the animals. There can't be any agreement
between creation and evolution, because we're different. Man's
different. Although I will admit this, there
are plenty of people that seem to me like they're absolutely
stupid. And I see some of them busy today,
running the world and making decisions and such, but that's
a subject for another day. But I'll tell you this, there
can be no agreement between creation and evolution Because evolution
cannot really give any account of the origin of life. There's life everywhere. Everywhere. Mr. Evolutionist, where did life
come from? And I looked it up today on the
internet. Well, we're not really sure. That's basically what they
say. We're not really sure. Well,
isn't that pitiful? I felt so sorry for you. Because
all you gotta do is open up the scriptures. You find out what
God said. Man will believe everything except
the word of God. That's the truth. No matter how
far-fetched, no matter how, empty-headed men, no matter how they come
up with all kinds of stuff, men and women and young people will
swallow all of this stuff, hook, line, and sinker. But if you
preach to them, God breathed into the nostrils of man the
bread of life. Well, I don't believe that. That's because you don't believe
God. And you will only believe God
when He gives you the gift of faith. You'll bow to His Word. You'll bow to His way of saving
sinners. You'll bow to who He is. You
see, He says here, let us make man. God's Trinity. Let us make man in our image. That is, in the
image that God had already ordained for his son from before the foundation
of the world. You see, our Lord's body wasn't
patterned after Adam's. Adam's body was patterned after
the one God ordained for Christ Jesus. He's the firstborn of
God's creation. God made man a soul. Christ is
a living soul. He is the living soul. And he
has a body of all of us. You don't have a soul. You are
a soul. And your soul is robed. Your soul is, it tabernacles
in a body. And one of these days, the tabernacle
is gonna crumble and the soul will go back to God. And the
tabernacle, the earthly tabernacle is gonna have to be put out of
sight to await a resurrection. then
the body and the soul come back together. But that body and soul
made in the image of God, it's made in the image of the Son
of God, whom God ordained before the world began to be the savior
of his people. And we're ordained to be conformed,
we're predestinated, wonderful word, predestinated to be conformed
to the image of Christ Jesus. Body and soul. all to the glory of His grace. Well, I got some more things.
I'll keep them in reserve till next Wednesday, the Lord willing. And if we don't live till next
Wednesday, we'll have a much better teacher in glory anyhow,
infinitely better. But may the Lord fill us with
an awe of His majesty and His greatness and His glory. This is our Heavenly Father who
made 10 commandments. They all came to pass. And He
breathed into our Father Adam the breath of life. And that's
the life that we've got now naturally. And then by the Holy Spirit,
He breathed into us the breath of spiritual life, and that's
a life we'll always have. To the praise of the glory of
His grace. Our Father, bless the words that
have gone forth tonight. We have sought to magnify Your
great and glorious name, to speak of Your might of your wisdom,
of your creative glory, of your providential glory, and oh Lord,
of your saving glory. And though men and women of many
ages have taken a stand against you, we're thankful that you broke
us and you have humbled us and you
have caused us to rejoice in the word of God that liveth and
abideth forever. And let men say what they will
about us, but we will forever by your grace say, let God be
true and every man a liar. Keep us safe in Christ Jesus
the great shepherd of the sheep. Dismiss us with the benediction
of your love and mercy and grace. Gather us together at the next
appointed time. For Christ's sake we pray. Amen.