Our Father, all-knowing, gracious,
and sovereign, we come before You this evening asking that
You still and quiet our hearts before You. Lord, that all distractions
might be taken away, that our minds might think and focus for
a while upon the Word of the Lord and divine spiritual things. We pray that You might feed our
soul We pray that we might be blessed, that we might rejoice
at hearing of Thy greatest work of all, that of creation. We pray that You will bless these
things to our heart, and that we may believe them, Lord. Help
us not be faithless, but believing. Lord, let us not be atheistic
about creation, but let us believe the testimony of our God and
of His Word, For these things we ask in Christ's dear name,
and for His glory we pray, Amen. Alright, looking at Genesis 1,
1 through 5, and let's read this beginning in the Scripture. 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 water. God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God
saw that the light, and 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. Particularly verse 1, In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth. We must, I believe,
view our text from the standpoint of the principle of first mention. This is something that we learn
in theology, that the principle of first mention, that means
the first time that a particular thing is mentioned somewhere
in the Scripture, it usually determines how the thing is to
be understood in later places where it is found. But it contains
the seed of that particular matter or of that particular doctrine. And that is the principle of
first mention. And no matter how many times
it may appear again, or how it is expanded or expounded upon
by the later authors of the Scripture, It is usually the principle of
first mention that contains in it the seed of the truth of God. And I want to give some examples
of that. All of them are to be found here
in the book of Genesis. The first example that I will
bring before us is that of Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Genesis 6. And verse 8, and here
we have that the deliverance of man from the wrath of sin
and from the wrath of God is by the grace of God bestowed
upon men. Secondly, just look at this man
called Enoch. Enoch walked with God. Genesis
5. And verse 22, and here we have
that men may have fellowship with God, that they may know
Him and walk in communion and fellowship with Him. It's thirdly
that we find in the book of Genesis, Abraham believed God and it was
counted unto him for righteousness. Genesis chapter 15 and verse
6 tells us that. And herein lies the doctrine
of imputation and herein lies the great doctrine of justification
by an imputed righteousness. Even the doctrine of suretyship
we find in Genesis chapter 43 and verse 9. Genesis 44 and verse
26 shows that it contained in it all that
we need to understand what it is to become a surety for another,
and thus our Lord is the surety of the better testament. Then
the pattern is set for marriage in the book of Genesis. Here
it has its beginning. The relation of male and of female
is found here in the book of beginning. Even so, with all
of that in our mind, we recognize that the Bible, in the very first
verse, mentions both God and creation. And it declares there
that God is the Creator of the world. Therefore, Genesis 1 and
verse 1 may be as important a verse as we ever meet with anywhere
in the Scripture. has rightly been called by some
sound theologian a foundational book. Yes, a foundational book. Or the very word Genesis, the
word itself, the name of the book, means a beginning or the
origin. That is the meaning of the book
of Genesis as it is called. And in Genesis, We have the beginning
and we have the origin of such things as follows. The world
and all of the universe, mankind, marriage is established and begun
here. We have the fall or the beginning
of sin in the human family declared here. We have set forth for us
religion and the worship of God in this book. We have in this
book the institution of civil government, that the governments
are to have leaders. We have the nations established
in this book of Genesis. We have an example of the judgment
of God in the flood. We have examples of sacrificing
as a means of putting away sin. So how profoundly important,
then, is the book of Genesis? And how much impact it has on
the rest of the Scripture, including even the New Testament? Now,
here's a little research that I ran across. Some research,
and someone tallied up the influence of the book of Genesis on the
New Testament itself. It is said, A, that there are
more than 150 times in the New Testament that there is either
implied or a direct reference to the book of Genesis. 150 times. Secondly, someone
has said that every book in the New Testament except three, only
three books in the New Testament, that have no reference to the
book of Genesis at all. They are the little book of Philemon
and 2 and 3 John. Then there is reference from
43 chapters of Genesis to be found in the New Testament. There
are 60 to the first three chapters of Genesis references in the
New Testament. There are 14 references in the
New Testament to the flood in the days of Noah. Over half of
the New Testament references are from Genesis 1 through 11. That is, the first 11 chapters
of Genesis are referenced more than any other. Christ referred
to events and teaching at least eight times out of the book of
Genesis. And there are over four dozen
references to the one man Abraham himself in the New Testament. So the question we raise in light
of that, what does this say to those who have tried to do away
with the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis? I remember
when Southern Baptists almost every year in their convention
had this fight about whether or not the first eleven chapters
of the book of Genesis were genuine. Are they not worse than the king
of Israel who took out his penknife and cut sections out of the Word
of God in Jeremiah chapter 36? No wonder they want to get rid
of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, because here we have sin and
the fall and original sin and God and creation and no room
for evolution and on and on. So let us now sum up the impact
and the importance of the first chapter of Genesis, and particularly
the first verse. Now here in the first chapter,
we have a day-by-day account of creation. And brethren, they
are seven literal days. It includes the creation of the
heaven and the earth. The formation of the atmosphere
was made. The division of the waters above
and below. The dividing of day from the
night. The stars, the moon, the sun,
and all of those things that we can behold. We look at the
very first verse of this book of Genesis. The opening declaration
of the Bible is, In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. Now this presupposes the existence
of God to any and all else that might have been later created.
That God was before all other. That God was before all matter,
before all things, and before all creatures. It also ascribes
creation wholly to God alone. We notice that it clearly states
that God created the heaven and the earth. and that the word
created is the word used in Genesis 1 so often, bara, B-A-R-A, and
it means to create something out of nothing. It means that
something is created that did not exist before, that no pre-existing
materials are used, but that God, in His sovereign power,
simply by His Word, spoke into existence all things out of nothing,
bringing the world into existence by the word of His power. And furthermore, that this creation
consisted in what Moses called the heaven and also the earth. Something else here also is worthy
of our consideration. that the word God here in Genesis
1 and verse 1 is a name in the plural number. It is Elohim,
from which some see the Trinity by use of the plural Elohim in
Genesis 1. In the beginning, Elohim. who
created the heaven and the earth. But John Gill adds this, that
the word from the root form is Arabic, signifying to worship. That is, this is the One that
is to be worshipped. The One that deserves worship
is the One who created the heaven and the earth. Be that as it
may, Genesis 1 and verse 1 describes what Christ refers to as the
beginning of the creation of God. In Mark chapter 10 and verse
6, for beginning does not describe the beginning of God, for God
had no beginning, for He is the eternal God. These things were
created by the Word of the power of our God. By the power of His
will and the power of His Word. They were brought into existence. By the power of that Word of
God, He was able to speak into existence the earth and the universe
and all those things. We read in Psalms 33, verses
6 and 7, By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all
the hosts of them by the breath of His mouth. So great was the
power and the will of God that he only needs to speak and it
comes to pass. God spoke and it was done. But he thought it and it was
so. He willed it and it came into
existence. Now before we venture any further,
we must speak a word of a dogmatic nature. And that is this. If
you cannot, professing to be Christ, if you cannot accept
the message of Genesis chapter 1 And verse 1, then there is
no need for you to proceed any further in the Scripture or any
further in Christianity. It will not help you to jump
from here to the Psalms or to Daniel or to the book of John,
for they declare one and the same thing. In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth. to reject the instantaneous,
the creative week of creation by the Almighty God, is to make
one an unbeliever in the Scripture. So if you reject this form of
creation, or some form of evolution, then my friend, fare thee well,
for thou hast nothing more to do with the Word of the Lord. Now, Genesis 1 and 1 does not
in the least strain the faith of the children of God, does
it? We read that and we stagger not at what we read. We believe
the heavens were formed by the Word of God. We read in Hebrews
chapter 11, And verse 3, they were framed by the Word of God
so that the things which are seen were not made of things
which do appear. That is, they were made out of
nothing. Now in this chapter on the efficacy
of faith and belief in creation is the first example of what
faith believes. That is Hebrews chapter 11. The first example of what faith
believes is faith believes that in the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth, made it out of nothing. There are
no Christians who deny immediate creation, or if there is, they
are in serious error. For as soon as one is a believer,
as soon as one has the faith of Christ, Then do they believe
that God created the heaven and the earth. Neither can they be
a pantheist and think that God is mixed up in all of those things
that have been created. They cannot believe in theistic
evolution either, that God created by a process of evolution. He is no Christian who holds
to any form of evolution, that God created by the process of
evolution, is as bad as evolution itself. The Scripture declares
that God created out of nothing. Then the Scripture declares that
God took dust and made Adam, and that He made Eve from a rib
of the man, the ground to make the animal, Yet He used no pre-existing
matter to create the heaven and the earth. Rather, God formed
or created the matter that became the substance of the earth. It was once non-existent. There was a time when the earth
was not, as we know it now, not inexistent. It was non-existent
altogether. It became existent, called for
by the power of God's mighty Word and the breath of His mouth. Now, if one could prove the existence
of pre-existent matter, of a mass of matter, before the creation
of the earth, it would instead favor the theory of evolution. But Scripture lays its existence
to a created work of God. He made all things out of nothing
by the word of His power. Again, Hebrews 11 and verse 3,
they were not made of things which do appear. Job 26 and 7,
He stretched out the north over the empty space and hanged the
earth upon nothing. No, Hercules is not down there
or a large turtle holding it up. Psalms 33.9, He spoke and
it was done. He sent forth His Spirit. The Hebrews 11 and 3 passage
very clearly declares that the things which are seen, that is,
the earth, the sky, the seas, the mountains, the stars, and
all of that, indeed were made by God, but not out of pre-existing
matter. So since we often use the word
create or creation very lightly in our society, we hear someone
speak of a creation, and by that they simply mean some kind of
an arrangement, that they have arranged something in a certain
manner or in a certain order. Now, this creation is a truth
set forth in both of the Testaments of the Word of God. Old Testament,
Saint, were taught it and believed it. New Testament saints taught
it and believed it. Often, Scripture speaks of God's
act of creation ascribing the existence of all things beside
Himself to an act of creation by His power. Besides the Genesis
1 and 2 record, there are at least 64 mentions of general
creation in the Old Testament. At least 20 New Testament declarations
to support creation directly by the power of God. Plus the
many more that teach that God created man and God created mankind
and His place to dwell. Thus the Bible takes the position
that God created both men and the world in which He would have
them to dwell. Rightly, therefore, is God called
so often Creator. Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 1 said,
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Isaiah 43
and 15, I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator. Romans 1 and
verse 25 calls Him the Creator. 1 Peter 4 and verse 19 refers
to Him as a faithful Creator, the God of heaven. In the beginning,
God created the heaven and the earth. Robert Dabney once said,
God created a world where there was nothing before. That's what we're trying to say.
God created a world out of nothing where there was nothing before. It may be so correct to say God
made it out of nothing, and rather call it into existence which
never before existed, but this is the truth of their existence. To repeat, He used nothing at
all to form the earth. He had no material before Him,
no matter before Him at all as He formed the earth. The heavens
here evidently refer to the heaven as the place where God dwells,
but likely to which we would call the heavens or space as
we look out in the vastness of the universe. But Moses takes
note of a fact about the earth. Moses writing the book of Genesis,
in the beginning God created the earth. Then notice what he
said, the earth was without form and void. In the second verse,
and darkness was upon the face of the deep. He said it was not
in the form that it now is, or that it later became. Some versions
render Genesis 1 and 2 in these words. For example, the ASV,
the earth was waste and void. The NASV says formless and void. God created the heavens and the
earth and it was formless and void. You notice the marginal
notes of the Geneva Bible say, quote, as a rude lump and without
creature on it." It was not yet suitable for habitation, but
it would be made so, having yet no day or night or sun or growing
vegetation or atmosphere. And so Calvin called it a confused
emptiness as it was at that time, because as yet nothing he said
was solid, stable or distinct. And that later became by the
power of God. Was it all mixed together? How
hard it would be to say. Lange's commentary said, this
has spoken of its unarranged original and fundamental state. In other words, these things
were yet missing what would soon be that God pronounced good when
He had put it in its Proper order. Order. Arrangement. Symmetry. God brought out of that. Light. Not just sunlight, but a light
of God's creating as well. Light. Creatures to inhabit the
earth, but man and beast being the leading ones of the earth. As to the first order, look,
the earth was without form. It had no certain or finished
or definitive form, unformed at a time as to the second life. Darkness upon the face of the
deep, verse 2. And the third, life and void,
empty, no inhabitants upon it. Dr. Henry Morris, who has written
so much about creation and against evolution, in his book, I believe
I took this out of the Genesis flood, had this to say, The essential
meaning is, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the
earth, which is equal to space and matter, and the matter so
created was at first unformed and uninhabited." And the words
here, without form and void, drew this comment from Lange's
commentary. The first word, form, denotes
the lack of shape or form, the second word, void, the lack of
content in the earliest condition of the earth. It seems the earth
mass was enclosed by a watery encasement for a while, matter
being a distinct or cohesive body. For soon then, God did
divide the waters above, the waters below, and the earth and
the dry place from the waters." In chapter 1, verse 6 through
verse 8, God divided the water from the water. In Genesis 1,
verse 9 and 10, God divided the water, the dry land, and the
seas were gathered together. May there well be that the two
expressions in the second verse, face of the deep and face of
the waters, refer to one and the same thing. It is clear,
however, from the account that this was a six-day creation in
Genesis chapter 1, that the earth did not at first immediately
appear in its fruitful present form. It was first unformed,
first unsuited for habitation of man, and even at first the
state described in verse 2, not capable of bringing forth vegetable
life or sustaining the fowl or the heaven or the creatures of
the sea, and was even perhaps without the heavenly bodies for
a time. It was in the six creative days
that God arranged and created all things that would constitute
what we call the earth or the world or the globe. So that Genesis
2 and verse 1 could triumphantly exclaim, quote, Thus the heavens
and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. This
finishing work, or this final arrangement, commenced in Genesis
1, 2, and 3. The Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the water, and God said, Let there be light, and
there was light. Before we go on any further,
let us dispel a great heresy, I think, concerning Genesis chapter
1 and verses 1 and 2, known as the gap theory by a lot of people
in our day, especially popular with those of the fundamental
persuasion. It is their belief that something
ruined the original creation, and that God, therefore, had
to reconstitute it and remake it again. A. W. Pink said that
this Gleaning in Genesis book, that it was received and popularized
by the Scottish theologian Thomas Chalmers. It is the footnotes
of the Scofield Bible. It is accepted as dogma by many
throughout the years. and the years. They claim a large
gap there. Then God reordered everything. And they describe that a lot
of times to the fall of Satan that he came and destroyed and
disturbed greatly what God had made. I will show, however, that
this is a compromise between evolution and creation. Scott
Hughes wrote in his book on creation The gap theory endeavors to reconcile
biblical creation to the evolutionary framework. We need to watch out
and be careful for that. Well, thus we have science telling
us how things came to pass, and it's kind of odd that a lot of
Christians would say, well, we need to go to science to find
out how all of these things were formed. I remember reading in
Larkin's dispensational book He simply says, we must go to
science for the answer to these things. And he subscribed to
the gaseous mass, you know, and the explosion that came, and
the earth was the result of that. This must be rejected, for it
is a halfway house to evolution, because God is said to be the
Creator of all things. Notice what it said, the Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the water." It is the word, I
understand, brooded, like the Spirit of God brooded upon that
mass. The word moved is very expressive. It can have the meaning hovering
or brooding, but it means more. It is a moving brooding over
the great watery mass yet unformed for the habitation of man. with
some motion or some vibration, I could not tell you. For this
same word, moved, is translated in Deuteronomy 32 and verse 11
as fluttereth, as that one fluttereth over her nest. And in Jeremiah
23 and 9, the same word is translated by shake. It may describe the
Holy Spirit energizing, the Holy Spirit working to greatly energize
that which God had created and would make habitable for man
and the living of the human family. Therefore, the Spirit of God
had a part in that as well. We learn that all three members
of the Godhead were active in creation. Christ is said to be
Creator. And the Spirit of God moved and
brooded upon the face of the water. Psalms 130, verse 4, Thou
sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created, Thou renewed the
face of the earth. Psalms 33, verse 6, By the word
of the Lord were the heavens made, and the host of heaven
by the breath of His mouth. Maybe there is an analogy here
in the origin of Adam. First, God created Adam. But
then he was without life at first. God created him. He was not then
alive. And then God breathed into Adam
the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And from this
place forward, the Holy Spirit as presented as a divine personality
with attributes, with creating power and equal divinity, with
God and with Christ. His first creative act being
the acting upon the earth and the world that God had created
to prepare for the separation of darkness and of light, and
to bind together the substance of each kind that it might therefore
be what God had intended it to be. None move later upon the
spirit of the water and the face of the earth. But it is not a
twofold declaration of God's sovereignty, is it not? That
He created the heaven and the earth out of nothing, and that
the Spirit of God brooded, breathed, moved, hovered up over that creation
and brought it into the form that was pleasing to our God. And the earth hath He given to
the children of men in the beginning, God created the heaven and the
earth. We never doubted that since the
day Christ put His faith in our heart and made us new by regeneration. We might have been atheists and
infidels before, but as soon as faith is put in us, we accept
the Bible testimony, God made the heavens and the earth. By
faith we understand that they were formed not out of things
which appear, but out of things which are not seen. We believe
in direct creation. And would you believe, would
you believe, I guess you would if you listen to news, what a
fight, what a fight there is between creation and evolution
in the educational systems, in the schools, and such like as
that. And politicians are afraid. to
stand on the side of creation and must give evolution a hand
in it as well. It is a great fight. It is a
great divide. And it is an important matter
for the Christian to be on the right side, on God's side, in
creation. All right. Let's bow our heads
together, please.