Well, I think this study in Genesis,
if nothing else, will teach us how that God's revelation from
beginning to end is a redemption story. From day one, and literally what
we'll look at tonight is day one. God has been declaring the glories
of His Son in His redeeming grace towards sinners. The title of the message tonight
is, The First Day. Do you remember the first day? Look at Genesis 1-1. 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. The literal
language there is this, God said, light be. and light was. 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. The only message I ever heard
on Genesis chapter 1 in my entire life up until this past week
when I was studying in preparation for this message, was preached
by a false preacher, a heretic, who used it to prove creation
versus evolution and in the process wasted an hour of my life. Certainly
we are to acknowledge here and rejoice in the glory of God in
creation. No question about that. David
said in Psalm 19, 1, the heavens declare the glory of God. Miss
Virginia noticed on the way over here the glory of God in just
what He's created. And she mentioned it to me, and
I thought about His glory and what He's made and the beauty
of His creation. In Psalm 8, 3, David said, When
I consider your heavens, Lord, the work of your fingers, the
moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, What is man that
thou art mindful of him, and the Son of Man, that you would
visit him? The God who made the heavens
and the earth is Himself God with us. He is the one that the
psalmist just spoke of there in chapter 8, who was not only
mindful of us, but who visited us in person. Emmanuel, God with
us, the Son of Man, the Child born, who is the Son given, the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is the One who created the
heaven and the earth. John chapter 1 says, "...of the
Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us, by Him were all things
made, and without Him It was not anything made that was made.
We have the Lord Jesus Christ to thank for the beauty that
we see and for this bountiful world that we live in. The environmentalists
are always afraid that we're going to deplete the natural
resources. Let me tell you something. We've been using what God made
since the beginning and we hadn't used it up yet. His creation
is glorious and bountiful and plenteous. There's something
that is even more plenteous than that, that we'll talk about tonight. We exalt and worship Him as Paul
did in Hebrews 1-2. God hath in these last days spoken
unto us by His Son, Paul said, by whom He also made the worlds. He appointed Him heir of all
things, and He made these worlds that we see by Him. We do worship
Him in that. But as with all Scripture, from
Genesis 1-1 to the Revelation, the last verse. As with all Scripture,
the highest and best understanding of it is a spiritual one. And this creation account is
deliberately and gloriously typical of the new creation, God's salvation
of His people, in which salvation Christ also is preeminent and
is Himself the author and the finisher Without Him was not
anything made that was made, and there's nothing about me
worth talking about. It is not attributable to the
glory and power and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, my Savior,
my Mediator, my Substitute. He is the Alpha and the Omega
in both creations. Ephesians 2.8, by grace are you
saved through faith. You're saved because God wanted
to save you and gave you faith in His Son. It is the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are His
workmanship created. I didn't get off by myself this
week and think, oh, you know, this kind of sounds like the
new birth a little bit when I was studying Genesis 1. God said,
in the beginning He created, and when He saved you, He created. Created in Christ Jesus unto
good works which God hath before ordained, that we should walk
in them. 2 Corinthians 5.17 If any man
be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away. All
things have become new. Christ is still the Creator.
Did you know that Christ is still creating? Every time He takes
a sinner, a without form and void sinner, darkness being upon
the face of that sinner, and by His Holy Spirit moves upon
them and speaks in power to that sinner and says, Let there be
light! He creates a new creature. 2 Corinthians 4, 6, here's what
takes place when the gospel goes forth in power and effectual
grace. Here's what happens. God who commanded the light to
shine out of darkness like we just read. He said, let there
be light and there was. That God hath shined in our hearts. He came to a place that was without
form and void and darkness prevailed there. And He said, let there
be light. And when He did, He gave the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of His
Son, Jesus Christ. That's what happened. God created
something that didn't exist before. A child of God. The old creation, as glorious
as it is, And as great a display of the greatness and power of
God as it is, it is merely the stage setting upon which God
would display His greatest glory, which is the new creation. The greatest miracle and the
greatest display of God's glory that He ever revealed to a sinner
was when He turned a black-hearted, God-hating rebel into a loving,
worshipful, submissive Son of God. It's the stage setting and so
much so that even the very event of the old expresses, typifies,
sets forth and reveals the new. The first thing we learn about
the new creation as we examine the old is that it is the work
of God alone. In the beginning, God. And look
at all of the verses. Turn to Genesis 1 if you're not
still there. You look at all of the verses of this chapter.
I don't usually see any reason to have a subtitle for any of
my messages, but I have a subtitle for this one. The title of the
message is, The First Day, because there was a day when the Lord
Jesus Christ came to me and spoke in power, and that was the first
day. But I have a subtitle. You know what it is? Look at
it with me in Genesis 1. Verse 1, God. Verse 2, God. Verse 3, God. Verse 4, God. In the latter part of verse 4,
God. Verse 5, God. Verse 6, and God. 7, and God,
and God, and God, and God. This is the work of the Almighty. The new creation as well as the
old. It's a display of His power in
Godhead. We see His glory in it. And there's
no room for anyone else to glory in it. It's God who did something. And we worship Him for it. In
the beginning, God. This proclaims the glorious truth
that Jonah did from the whale's belly. Listen to what Jonah said
from the belly of the whale. Jonah 2.9, I will sacrifice unto
Thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I'll thank you and praise you
from now on. I'll pay that that I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto the fish,
and it spit Jonah out on the dry land. The moment Jonah said,
if I'm going to be saved, God's going to do it. And God spoke. And Jonah was saved. God created. And then the next
phrase, look at it in verse two, and the earth was without form
and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Now the
word was there at the beginning of chapter two, it could be read
this way, and rightly so I believe, and the earth became without
form and void. And you may have heard that before.
This is the basis of what is called the gap theory. It's something
that's not worthy of any of your time to research. Whether God
deliberately created the earth in this state without form and
void and with darkness upon it, or created it beautiful and perfect
and then at some point made it this way, is of no consequence. People talk about it, people
dedicate years of their lives to the study of it, and it's
a waste of time. It doesn't make any difference
whether He did or not. I know this. In the beginning, God created. And I know this. The earth was
without form and void before God said, let there be light.
Some have said that God never creates anything without form
and void. And I say, if He did, He has.
He can if He wants to, can't He? And He especially could and
would do that in order to teach the glories of redeeming grace
in picture and type if it's His will to do so. He could have
created it that way or He could have made it beautiful and then
it became in His will and purpose and decree that way. But either
way, we see the story of redemption in it. God made Adam perfect
and beautiful, didn't He? And Eve, His wife. And they were
holy and righteous before God. And by the fall, by Adam's fall,
they became without form and void and dark. Without form means
chaos. It means a wasteland. And void
means emptiness or waste, that which God created in perfection
and beauty and holiness became this way. Darkness was upon the
face. And this is the picture, the
clear picture of how God finds the fallen, dark-hearted sinner
when he first comes in creating power. And we are in the condition
we are in because of our sin. How did God find you when he
came where you were, desolate, barren, dead, wasted, dark, a
frightening place. Don't you imagine? How would
you like to have lived on the earth in such a state? With no
light and chaos, a howling wasteland. It was uninhabitable. And so
was my heart when God came where I was. If Christ is going to
dwell there, he's gonna have to do something for me first
Ephesians 417 this is what he did listen to what Paul said
to these folks here in Ephesians 417 he said this I say therefore
and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other
Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind you know what that
word vanity means? empty devoid of truth, without
form and void, empty, a wasteland, useless. They walk in the vanity
of their mind. That's how all of us walk, by
nature, because our minds are empty and useless and devoid
of light, having the understanding darkened. Darkness was upon the face of
the being alienated from the life of God. God spoke later
in Genesis 1 and did what? He breathed into a man's nostrils
the breath of what? Life. And He gave all forms of life
on this earth, but by nature alienated spiritually from the
life of God. Through the ignorance that is
in us because of the blindness of their heart, who being past
feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to
work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ."
Remember that word learned. We're going to talk about that
some more. If so be that you have heard Him, God spoke. and have been taught by him as
the truth is in Jesus. That you put off concerning the
former conversation the old man which is corrupt according to
the deceitful lust and be renewed. The earth was without form and
void and then God came and renewed it. Renewed in the spirit of
your mind and that you put on the new man which after God is
created. Not patched up, not the old nature,
an old dog learning some new tricks. Created. The new man is created. When God created the earth in
the beginning, what was there before? When God created the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,
what was there before? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And then, consider this language
in the creation story. Particularly, darkness was upon
the face of the deep. This represents spiritual darkness. God commanded the light to shine
out of what? The only thing that was there.
Darkness. It shined out of darkness. Light
will never come of it unless God speaks it in creative power. Light doesn't spring out of darkness
except by an act of Almighty God. Do you know what darkness
is? It's an absence of light. And
the opposite is not true. Light is not an absence of darkness. Darkness is an absence of light. Do you know what spiritual darkness
is? It's an absence of Christ, who is the light. He said, I'm
the light of the world. 1 Corinthians 2.14, The natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them. because they
are spiritually discerned. Without spiritual light, there's
no spiritual discernment. Just as without natural light. What would you have seen if you
had looked upon the earth when it was in this condition? Nothing. It was dark. There'd be nothing
to see. Neither can He know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. And then Christ speaks. and says
in John 12, 46, I am come a light into the world that whosoever
believeth on me should not abide in darkness. John 3, 19, this
is the condemnation. This is our problem. Here's our
trouble. Light has come into the world and we love darkness
rather than light because our deeds are evil. You know what
it means to love darkness? It means to love me because that's
the condition I'm in, darkness. Then what is God's first move
upon the sinner? What's his first move? Somebody
got to make a move if there's going to be any hope for us. And the earth didn't say anything.
The earth didn't speak or cry out, but God made a move. just because it was his will
to do so. And how did he do it? The Spirit of God moved. The Lord Jesus Christ, in teaching
Nicodemus about the new birth, said, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit. You're in water, aren't you?
You're encased in water when you're born the first time. You've
got to be born of that water. You've got to come out into the
realm of life where air is breathed and experience life in this world. Well, there's got to be another
birth if you're going to enter the kingdom of God. You can enter
the kingdom of men by water, but you will not enter the kingdom
of God except by the Spirit. And he told Nicodemus, the wind
blows where it listeth. It blows where it wants to. You
can't control it. You can't make it go where you
want it to go. Thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. So
it is with everyone that's born of the Spirit. The Spirit moved
upon the face of the deep. Turn to Ezekiel 37 with me. Here is a picture, like the old
creation is, a picture of redeeming grace, of God's work, His powerful,
almighty work in the saving of sinners. In Ezekiel 37.1, Ezekiel,
God's prophet, said, The hand of the Lord was upon me, and
carried me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down
in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, and caused
me to pass by them round about. And behold, there were very many
in the open valley, They were very dry. And he said unto me,
Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou
knowest. Again he said unto me, prophesy
unto these bones. Preach to them. And say unto
them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Isn't that
what God said to dead, seedingly dry sinners? This is my Son. Hear Him. How are they going
to do that? God's going to have to do a miracle
of grace. That's how. And thus saith the
Lord God under these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter
into you. You know what the word breath is in the original language?
Spirit. And you shall live and I will
lay sinews upon you and I will bring up flesh upon you and cover
you with skin and put breath in you and you'll live and you
shall know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded,
and as I prophesied, there was a noise. I imagine there was
a noise when the Spirit moved upon the face of the deep. He
troubled the waters. Something's happening. And the
bones came together, bone to His bone. And when I beheld,
lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin
covered them above, but there was no breath in them. And then
said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man,
and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God. Come from the four
winds, O breath, and breathe upon these flame that they may
live. So I prophesied as he commanded
me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood
up upon their feet in exceeding great This is God saving dead,
exceeding dry sinners. By the breath of His Spirit,
they said on Pentecost, the Spirit of God came and there was a sound
as a rushing, mighty wind. Have you ever heard that sound?
Spiritually speaking, we have, haven't we? He's come where we
were and breathed into us as He did Adam in the beginning,
only spiritually so much more gloriously. He breathed into
our soul the breath of His life by His powerful Spirit, by the
grace of the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit must blow
where you are. He blows where He wants to. If
you're going to live, He's going to have to go where you are and
give the breath of spiritual life unto a sinner that was dead
before, and trespasses and sins. What was it that the Lord Jesus
Christ said to his disciples? It is the spirit that quickeneth,
the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. It's the spirit that gives
life. And so God moves upon the sinner
by the power of His Holy Spirit and gives life where there's
none before, where there's only death, emptiness, and chaos,
and waste. And then what's the first thing
He gives the sinner? What's the first gift that He
gives once He comes in the power of His Spirit? Let there be light. Let there be light. Genesis 1.1
begins a creation account. Does it not? So does John 1.1. Turn there with me. John 1.1
begins a creation account. Listen to the language of it.
In the beginning was the Word. In Genesis 1.1, in the beginning,
God. Here, God the Word. Because look at the rest of verse
1. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the
beginning, God. The same was in the beginning
with God, and all things were made by Him. And without Him
was not anything made that was made. In Him was life. Do you see how the account is
the same? One physical and one spiritual. The spirit moved upon
the face of the deep. In him was life. And the life
was what? The light of man. And the light shineth in darkness. He's not talking about sunshine
here, my friends. He's talking about that light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in his face. And the darkness
comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God,
whose name was John. The same came for a witness to
bear witness of that light. And all men through him, through
that light, not through John, but through that light might
believe. How are you going to believe?
You're going to have to have some light, aren't you? Light doesn't come in response
to faith. Faith comes as a result of life
and light. John was not that light. They
said to John, are you the light? He said, no, I'm not the light.
There's the light. Christ is the light. I just came
to bear witness of the light. He hath shined in our hearts
to give the light of the what? You see that in our text here
in John 1. The darkness comprehended it not, but somebody came to
bear witness of that light that all men through that light might
do what? Believe. Comprehend. Know. Understand. The light of the knowledge of
the glory of God. Where is the glory of God? seen
in the face of a person. And this is life eternal, Christ
prayed to the Father in John 17 3, that they might know Thee,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. This is the light that He gives
spiritually, a knowledge of Himself, revealing light. You can see
because there's light. By this light, you can see who
God is. Oh, that's light there. By this
light, you can see things as they are. You can see the very
face of Jesus Christ. And in that face, the glory of
God. What light has shined out of
darkness. 1 John 5, 20. We know that the
Son of God has come and has given us an understanding. The light
came and the darkness comprehended it not, but He gave us a comprehending. He gave us an understanding that
we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true,
even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life, the light of the knowledge of His glory. Isaiah prophesied
in verse 18 of chapter 60 and said, this is God speaking here. He said, violence shall no more
be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders. void, without form and void,
it's a wasteland. Not anymore. Not anymore, he
said. But thou shalt call thy walls
salvation, and thy gates praise. The sun shall be no more thy
light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto
thee. Oh, the sun will still be shining, but that's not our
light. But the Lord shall be unto thee
an everlasting When we go to that celestial city, the city
of God, New Jerusalem, you know what it says about that place?
There's no need of the sun there, because the Lamb is the light
thereof. The Lord Jesus Christ shall be
unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. shall no more go down, this sun
doesn't set. Neither shall thy moon withdraw
itself, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and
the days of thy mourning, M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, sorrow, sadness, regret, shall
be ended. Thy people also shall be all
righteous, They shall inherit the land forever, the branch
of my planting, the work of my hands, and God, and God, and
God, he said, the work of my hands, this is my work, that
I may be glorified. Immediately and irresistibly,
he spoke and there was light. How does God bring spiritual
light to sinners? Turn to Matthew chapter 4. I'm
almost through. I want you to see this though.
Matthew chapter 4. This is the fulfilling of the
prophecy that God would send light to His people as He did
to this dark, barren earth. Matthew 4.12, now
when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed
into Galilee. He doesn't leave himself without
a witness. John's in prison, John can't go preach. He departed
into Galilee and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum,
which is upon the sea coast in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim,
that it might be fulfilled. Him going to these places and
beginning his public ministry, his ministry of preaching the
gospel, it fulfilled a prophecy which was spoken by Isaiah the
prophet, verse 14, saying, verse 15, the land of Zabulon and the
land of Nephilim, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee
of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness saw great light. And to them which sat in the
region and shadow of death, light is sprung up. Well, how did him
just go into these places, fulfill that prophecy? From that time,
Jesus began to preach. He began to speak. How did God transform? How did
he create in the beginning? By speaking. He began to preach and to say,
repent for the kingdom of heaven is in him. You see how that fulfills
the prophecy? Light is sprung up. Those that
sat in darkness saw a great light. How are they going to see light
in darkness? The glorious gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ is going to go forth in power, in the same creating
power that the Word went forth with in the beginning. And light is going to be given
to dark centers. Now look at this and we'll be
through. He divided the light from the darkness. Did you see
that? In verse 4, God saw the light that it was good and God
divided the light from the darkness. There's still darkness in me.
How about you? But it's divided, isn't it? The
darkness didn't have anything to do with the light and the
light doesn't have anything to do with the darkness, does it?
The only thing in common they have is they're both in here.
They're both right here. What fellowship, what communion,
Christ asked, hath light with darkness? Absolutely none. They have nothing to do with
one another. They strive the one against the other. They're
at constant warfare. What fellowship? None whatsoever. But look at what God saw. There's
light in me. There's darkness. They're divided.
But look what God saw. in verse four, the beginning
of the verse, and God saw the light that it was good. Why doesn't it say that he saw
the darkness and it wasn't good? Because the result of the new
creation in Christ Jesus is this. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob. He sees no darkness in his new
creation. He beheld the light and said,
it's good. When he created me anew in Christ
Jesus, when he spoke in power to my wretched heart and said,
let there be light. He looks upon me from henceforth
and throughout all eternity and says, it's good. It's good. Well done, thou good and faithful
servant. Enter thou into the joys of thy
Lord. And he speaks this way and sees what he sees because
when he looks at me, he sees his Son. He sees only the light and the
light is good. Thank God for redeeming grace.
Thank God for the light. Thank God for coming to this
dark, barren, howling wasteland of sin and depravity and speaking
in mercy to my soul and giving the light of the knowledge of
His glory in the face of His Son. What mercy. And from the very beginning,
He has exalted, set forth His Son. in his glorious redemptive work.
Everything that he has done and everything that he has said,
he has done and said in order to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ
in the redemption of sinners by his almighty sovereign grace.
Let's bow in prayer. Lord, thank you for your book. We open it to the first page
and we see and are caused to rejoice in the glory of the Lord
Jesus in redeeming us, in coming to us in power, sovereign, coming
where there was only death and giving life, coming where there
was only darkness and being our light. Thank you for this glorious
gospel, which is declared all through that book. It is truly
a hymn book. It concerns your Son, Jesus Christ,
and us in Him as we see ourselves in every sense of the word saved
by His redeeming grace and blood. Bless us as we contemplate these
things and as we study this. What an undertaking for a mortal,
finite, so so we can foolish human beings to undertake to
study your word. Give us grace that we might have
light upon this. You are the giver of all light,
and we see only by thy light. Let your word be a light unto
our path, a lamp unto our feet, and cause us to worship you as
we look into these things. In Christ's precious name we
ask.