Alright, turn with me to Genesis,
the first chapter. Primarily tonight, I want us
to look at verses 6 through 8 in Genesis chapter 1. And this describes
these verses, all these verses here in Genesis chapter 1, describe
the order, set forth the order of creation. By way of introduction, I want
to make just a few observations about what we've already talked
about. Not that you don't know these
things, but to make them fresh in your mind as we begin to look
at this second day. And the first observation is
this. We find it back in verse 1 where
he says, In the beginning, God. Now, I think these first four
words are probably some of the most important words in this
Bible because without an understanding of that, the rest of the book
makes no sense. Everything in this book is by
a supernatural power. Everything that it talks about
is beyond your limitations. It's beyond your ability. It's
beyond your comprehension. These are eternal things. These
are spiritual things. Things that man's born with no
understanding of. And it's important to know that
even back yonder in creation, when He stood there and commanded
that the light shine and so on, it says this, in the beginning,
God. God. And when we talk to folks
about the gospel, we believe that's the first place we're
going to have to start. In the beginning. God. It's where it
starts. It don't start with you. It don't
start with the preacher. It don't start with a song. It
don't start with somewhere in the middle. It begins with God.
It begins with God. He said, I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end. And He's the beginning because
there was none else. He said, I am God and beside
Me there's none else. He said, who's been my counselor?
Who do you think I took counsel with when I stood to create the
world and fulfill my purpose? Who do you think gave me counsel?
You think I talked this over with somebody? In the beginning,
God. It's God because beside Him,
He said, there is none other. None to counsel Him, none to
help Him, none to resist Him, none to solicit Him. Just God. And whatever it is that's seen
and has become a recorded fact in time at its beginning right
here. In the beginning, God. I don't
care what it is. It doesn't matter what it is. And because He is the Maker and
beginning of all things, all things are answerable or accountable
to Him. When Paul deals with the absolute
doctrine of sovereign election by grace in Romans chapter 9,
he presents two questions. The first one is, why doth he
yet find fault for who hath resisted his will? That's the first one. He said, Nay, but, O man, who
art thou that replies against God? Shall the thing formed Say
unto him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath
not the potter power over the clay? When he says in the beginning
God, he's setting here a precedence of authority. He's establishing
his authority and our accountability as creatures to him. He's the
potter, we're just the clay. We're just the clay. We don't
call him into question, he calls us into question. We don't give
Him wisdom, He gives us wisdom. And then the second observation
in these first few verses is the Lord commanding creation.
It says, "...and God said..." The believer, this is the end
of all strife to the believer. Paul said, "...let God be true,
and every man a liar." It doesn't matter what men say. It don't
matter what the majority says. It don't matter if there's ten
thousand to one. It doesn't make any difference.
I look at Israel and there's two and a half million people
standing there in that wilderness and there's two men who want
to go in and the rest of them don't. Who do you reckon was right?
The two guys that wanted to go in? That multitude and majority
don't mean anything. Let God be true. It matters what
God said. God said, go in. Let's go. Let's go. These two men saw the
same thing everybody else saw. They saw the same walled cities.
They saw the same giants. They saw all their weapons of
warfare and all their machineries of warfare. They saw all those
things. They said, let's go. Because
they believed God. God said, go. He said, go, God sees. Only God has the authority to
say. John, I step out here in the
yard and say, let there be till I'm blue in the face, ain't nothing
going to be. My words will just go out and fall on the grass.
Ain't nothing happened. God stands with nothing. With
nothing. Total chaos, darkness, nothingness. He stands and He commands, and
it is. That's what I love about these
first several verses here in the book of Genesis. It says,
and God said, and there was. And there was. If God says, whatever
it is He says to be, gets its being. It gets its being from
Him. owing to that authority and purpose
of God that commands it to be. When Paul stood on Mars Hill
and talked to those philosophers and those wise men, those Greeks,
here in Acts 17, verse 24, he said, God that made the world,
you see where he starts? He said, let's talk about this.
I'm going to tell you about this unknown God. You've got a headstone
down there. Just in case you left somebody
out, it says, to the unknown God. That's the one I'm going
to tell you about. This unknown God, he said, that
made the world and all things therein, saying that He is Lord
of heaven and earth. Nobody else could make it except
the Lord of heaven and earth. seeing that He is Lord of heaven
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands, He is not worshipped
with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing He giveth
to all life and breath and all things. And hath made of one
blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the
earth, hath determined the times before appointed, set the bounds
of their habitation, that they should seek Him. You're going
to seek Him for counsel, seek Him for authority. You're going to seek Him for
purpose. You're going to seek Him for grace. Whatever it is
you need, you're going to seek Him because He's the One who
set the bounds. He's the One who spoke and it
was done. He's the One who created and
gave life. He goes on to say, in Him we
live and move and have our being. In God. In God. And we're accountable to God
because of it. And then thirdly, when God spoke,
the first order of His voice brought light into the world. Let there be light. When God
speaks, there's light. A silent God is an unknown God. I've heard the old writers, they
refer to those 400 silent years Between the Old Testament and
the New Testament is the Dark Ages. Some of them call it the
Dark Ages. A God who is silent is hidden
in the darkness. Paul said, if our gospel be hid,
it's hid to the lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded
their mind. They covered it up to where they
can't see, that's life. And the same God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness must shine in their hearts to
give them that light. God must speak. And when God
does speak, and in the purpose of God, He's purposed to speak.
And when He does, there's light. No matter what it is. I don't
care what it is. Clear back yonder here in the beginning, there's
light. There's light if God speaks. And then when light comes, there
begins to be divisions. There are no true divisions until
God speaks and light is given. A fellow told me, well, I was
talking with my nephew one night. He was on a project down here
in Mississippi and I was pastoring in Alexandria and I drove down
to see him and we got to talking and he said, I just don't see
how in the world you could settle on anything. He said, there are
so many religions in the world. I said, there are just two. No,
he said, there's Catholics and Baptists and Methodists and Nazarenes
and Church of Christ and Episcopalian churches and all these things. He began to start to name all
these churches and he said, that's just the Christian religions.
And then he said, there's spinoffs on them. You know, there's these
little Pentecostal churches and there's just all kinds of religions
in the world. I said, no, there's just two. One religion says, by something
I do, I can merit the favor of God. I don't care if they worship
Mohammed. That's the basis of their religion.
Something they do, they merit salvation. And then there's salvation
by grace. That's it. They're just two religions.
You can call them whatever you want to call them. There's works
and grace. That's all there is. All there
is. And this light sets a division.
Night and day, light and darkness, nothing in common, opposite in
nature, cannot mix. And then let me add this to these
other things that I've already said. These things set a precedence
for all that God will do in time. Whatever it is, if the purpose
of God in salvation, that's no if, it is the purpose of God
in salvation to redeem a people for the glory of His name. And
when He calls that people out and recreates in them, gives
them a new heart, that new creation, speaks that light into their
soul, He's going to do it in exactly the same order that He
does here in Genesis chapter 1. The Spirit of God is going
to come in that dark soul and move. He is going to move in
there and prepare him to hear the Word of God. And then God
is going to speak. And when God speaks, He is going
to shine a light in the soul. And when He does, you are going
to receive it. Exactly the same order in the new creation that
it is in the old creation. These things set a precedent.
Because our God is immutable. He cannot and will not change.
And whatever the order is in creation, it will be the order
of the new creation. You see, the purpose of God arranging
and coming, He comes to the place where He is going to create and
all those things. He does exactly that in this
new creation. How shall you hear without a
preacher? How shall he preach except he be sent? It's God's way and it won't alter,
it won't change. Now tonight I want to go ahead
here and look at these verses. Let's read verses 6 through 8
here in Genesis chapter 1. And God said, let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from 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. And God called
the firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning were
the second day. Now, what on earth is a firmament? What on earth is a firmament?
I sit and look at that for the longest time. And I don't guess,
I've read some books that talk about this and talk about that,
but I don't guess I ever really sat down and just said to myself,
what is a firmament? Have you? I've read through this
thing, read through it. The firmament is the environment,
it's the atmosphere, that's what it is. It's the environment, it's the
atmosphere that covers and seals the earth, that's what he's talking
about. That's what a firmament is. And without this atmosphere
in which we live, not even sound can be transmitted. Did you know
that? These guys go into outer space and they sit out there
and do this all day long. It ain't a sound. Not a sound.
In order to transmit sound, you have to have an environment such
as we've got here. What a miracle of God whose intention
is to manifest His glory through the preaching of the gospel creates
an environment in which sound can be transmitted. Go anywhere
else in the galaxy, no sound. No sound. Now you can put on
a suit like they wear in outer space and you can talk into a
little radio and that radio will talk to the other guy, but if
he takes that suit off, ain't nobody going to hear anything.
Nothing. Just silence. Dead silence. Without this atmosphere in which
we live, sound couldn't be transmitted or heard. Rain wouldn't fall.
Going to outer space, there ain't no rain. Ain't no rain out there. You plant crops on the moon from
now to the end of time, they ain't going to grow. Ain't no
rain. Rain ain't going to fall. Ain't no air debris. There's
no color. You ever notice they go into
outer space and you look out there and there ain't any color?
But you look at their pictures, they look back at the earth and
it's a big old blue ball sitting back there with all kinds of
colors in it. But ain't nothing else. Look out in the galaxy,
there ain't no color. Ain't nothing out there. In order to manifest the glory
of God, he created a place for life to abide both before, and
think about this, and after the fall. When he created the firmament,
John, he created it for a man that he knew was going to fall. He knew he was going to fall,
but he could still exist in that firmament. He could go right
on breathing, Right on living, right on eating, right on planting,
right on doing what he had to do to survive. He survived because
of his environment. He didn't die. He didn't die. And God so ordered this environment
as to regenerate itself. and preserve itself and maintain
itself until His purpose would be fulfilled. It just keeps going.
It doesn't run out. It looks like God created this
thing back in the garden. It looks like He just has to
keep commanding it, but He didn't. He didn't. He purposed it in
such a way that it maintains itself and keeps regenerating
itself. And people from every generation
have stood up and said, Oh, the environment is going to pieces.
The environment ain't never going to fold up until God gets done
with His purpose. Because this is the place where
God put His elect to preserve them until His purpose be fulfilled. And then he said the elements
are going to melt with the fervent heat in that day. Ages and generations and floods
and catastrophes and disasters and pestilence and pollution
and all these things, yet it stands and it houses the life
of God that He creates and upon whom He is going to manifest
His glory. And the firmament, like the light,
is set for division. You see that in that? The firmament
is that which stands between the great deep and the vast unknown
and the waters down below. It divides the waters from the
waters. There is a division set. You
see, apart from this atmosphere, the light of God would burn you
up. That sun would burn you up. They're
talking now about a degeneration of the ozone and with what little
degeneration there is in that ozone, look what it does. It
just burns men up. Burns them up. But God's created
a firmament, a shield, between that light that would burn you
to a crisp and that light refracts, this
environment refracts that light, a better word might be soften.
It softens that light. So you can stand it. And you
can see in it. And you can feel its warmth without
being burnt to a crisp. It breaks it down. It breaks
it down. And it diffuses it in such a
way as to generate colors. That light shines through, and
when it does, it divides into colors. What am I saying? I'm saying that this environment
glorifies. You see the glory of God in it. You can't help but look at it.
He said the heavens declare the glory of God. He just read it
to us just a little bit ago. And the firmament showeth His
handiwork. This firmament, all around us. Everything that man requires
to live is provided and maintained and made available to him in
the atmosphere and the environment around him. And it's a picture of God's sovereign
grace. That's what it is. I want you
to think with me here for just a little while. Turn with me
over to John chapter 1. It's been a few months since
I I brought this lesson, but I want you to look at it again. Over in John chapter 1 and verse
14, he's talking about the Word of God that was with God and
who was God, who was with God in the beginning. And he comes
down here to verse 14 and he said, "...the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us, And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bare witness of Him and
cried, saying, This was He of whom I spake. He that cometh
after me is preferred before me, for He was before me. And
of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace." Grace is
an attribute of God. His attributes is what makes
God, God. His attributes. He's sovereign. Take away sovereignty is not
God. Take away any one of His attributes,
He cannot be God. His attributes is what makes
Him God. That's what makes up His name.
That's what makes up when we talk about the name of God, we're
talking about His attributes, we're talking about His character.
And His name is who He is. And grace is an attribute of
God. It's not a thing, it's an attribute. It's His character. So when we're
talking about grace, I'm talking about God. And when he said,
"...the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and of His fullness
we received." And grace for grace, he's talking about Christ, the
divinity of Christ bringing that grace to men. That's what he's
talking about. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace. Grace. It is in the Son that God has
given all spiritual blessings. Before a living soul had its
being on this earth, the God of glory provided them a place
in which eternal life could exist and be maintained and preserve
all that He has purposed and given to these men. And that place is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That is where that grace is.
That grace is the same as this environment. It's the same as
this atmosphere that covers this globe. God put us in Christ. He put us in that grace, if you
will, back before the foundation of the world, back before He
ever created anything, before He even set in motion to make
a picture or declare or bring into light anything. He put us
in Him. Putting us in Him put us in His
grace. So when we talk about grace,
we're talking about Christ, what we're talking about. There is
no grace outside of Christ anymore, and there's air outside this
atmosphere. Once you leave here, you better take air with you,
because there ain't no air out there. You better take water
with you, because there ain't any water out there. You better take something to
heat you up, because there ain't no heat out there. There ain't
nothing out there. That's just nothingness. It's all in this
environment. Even so, he said in Ephesians
chapter 1, that the Father blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ, according as He had chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. wherein he hath made us accepted
in the blood according to the riches of his grace." You see
that? His grace. His grace. There is grace before grace.
That is what John the Baptist is talking about. of His fullness,
have we all received that fullness of purpose, that fullness of
redemption, that fullness of justification, all the fullness
of the purpose of God, His adoption, His predestination, everything
that we talk about in this book, all those spiritual blessings,
all of it put in Christ. And then He took us and put us
in Christ. To have the grace, you have to
be in Christ. You see what I'm saying? You
can't take a book and learn about grace and then all of a sudden
you know all about grace. No, that ain't how it works.
You want to have grace, you got to have Christ. The only way
you can have Him is for God to put you in Him. Just to put you
in Him. Just to put you in Him. He alone, it says, is full of
grace and truth. He is the grace by which grace
comes to men. Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. Listen to this over in Ephesians
chapter 1. I quoted that to you a while
ago. being accepted into blood to
the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us
accepted into blood. Verse 7, In whom we have redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. And if you read these next verses
carefully, you'll come to see something that most people don't
see. He talks in these verses about giving to us a knowledge.
those that He blessed with these spiritual blessings and made
acceptable in the blood and gave out of the riches of the glory
of His grace and gave those things, He abounded toward them in all
wisdom and prudence, having made known unto them the mystery of
His will. And He began to show them some
things. And it was to this end, verse
10, that in the fullness of time He might gather together in one
all things in Christ. Everything that He put in that
grace and preserved in that grace, He is going to gather to Himself. All things in Christ, both which
are in heaven, which are on earth, even in Him, in whom also we
have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated, according
to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel
of His own will." Now listen to this. Take this home and read
it 50 times, if it takes you that many times to read it. But
get an understanding of what this says. Verse 12, "...that
we should be to the praise of His glory who first trusted in
Christ." trusted in Christ. God determined
to do all these things before the foundation of the world,
and He trusted those things to His Son. Now, He's not talking
about us who first trust in Christ. A lot of folks want to read that
that way, but if you'll go back and read the very next verse,
it says, "...in whom you also trusted after that you heard."
He's not talking about us who first trusted. He's talking about
God who first trusted. Well, what on earth is he talking
about? He's talking about everything from that point where God trusted
those things into His hand is grace from there on. Pure, 100%, unmixed grace from
that point to the end of time. Clear through to the end of time.
Turn with me over to Romans chapter 3. It is this confidence that
God the Father had in God the Son that allowed a world of fallen
sinners to exist until Christ came and accomplished what God
had purposed from the beginning. Grace. Grace. It is this confidence in Christ
the Lord that enabled God to justify and call guilty sinners
to Himself and take them into glory thousands of years before
Christ ever appeared on this earth. Enoch walked with God. Huh? And he walked right into
glory, didn't he? Able. Able. How far back is that? Able. offered unto him a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness
that he was righteous. How in the world could he be
righteous? Christ hadn't died yet. Christ hadn't lived under
the law. He hadn't become a man. How could he obtain witness that
he was righteous? Because God trusted that work
into the hands of one in whom he had confidence in that he
would accomplish what he gave him to do. And upon that trust,
God received those men by faith in His name, right into glory. Thousands of years before Christ
ever come to this earth to die. Listen here in Romans. Watch
it. We're talking about, here's what
we're talking about, we're talking about an environment in which
life can be created and maintained even after the fall of man. We're talking about an environment,
we're talking about a place in which life can be created and
preserved until the purpose of God can be accomplished. Now
watch this here in Romans chapter 3 verse 21. Paul said, but now
the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the law and the prophets, been witnessed since
the beginning. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by the faith of. I want you to look at that. By
faith of. What in the world is he talking
about? Some men read that by the faithfulness of Christ. That's
okay. I don't have a problem with that.
And one writer I read said this, it was by God's faith in him. And that's what we're talking
about. That's the subject. That's what he's about to state.
That faithfulness, or by God's faith in him, Jesus Christ unto
all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference. Now
watch this. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to
declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God." He is talking about
Old Testament saints. Old Testament saints. You can
call it what you will. Call it saved on credit. I heard
one man say that. But the truth of it is this.
God trusted those things to him before he ever created anything. Put them into his hands to fulfill. And they were as good as done
in God's eyes because the one in whom he trusted, he knew could
accomplish the work. Paul said, here was Paul's confidence
that he was saved. He said, I'm persuaded that he
which hath begun a good work in me will perform it unto the
end. So was God. So was God. Same confidence. And that's what
Paul is saying here in Ephesians chapter 1 to these people in
whom he trusted. He trusted everything. He trusted Him with all those
spiritual blessings. He trusted Him with His glory.
He trusted Him with everything. And everything from that moment
on is pure 100% grace until it was accomplished. And that's
grace that brings it. It's grace that reveals it. It's
grace that applies it. It's all grace. All of it. Beginning
to end. Listen to this. Hebrews 9, verse
12 says, He entered in once into the holy place having obtained
eternal redemption for us. We weren't born yet. Huh? I wasn't born yet. It's going
to be a couple thousand more years before I walk on earth.
There may be another thousand or so years. I don't know how
long it's going to be until the end of time. But when He walked
in this holy place, Offered his soul a sacrifice for sin, he
obtained eternal redemption. He obtained it. Listen to this,
Romans 4.25, "...who was delivered for our offenses and raised again
for our justification." God raised him and justified all for whom
he died. I wasn't born yet. I ain't believed yet. I haven't
done any of those things yet. You see what I'm saying? It's
all by grace. It's by grace. God knew He was
going to accomplish those things. He wasn't worried about it. He's
not worried about it now. What if things don't work out?
He's sitting in heaven expecting till His enemies be made His
footstool. He ain't worried about it. He wasn't worried about it
then. He wasn't worried about it before
creation. He wasn't worried about it when the fall took place.
He wasn't worried about it for Ever how many thousand years
it was until Christ died, and he ain't worried about it today.
It's right on schedule. It's doing exactly what it's
supposed to do, and it's doing it by sovereign grace. Now that's what we're talking
about. When we talk about grace, we're talking about Christ. Christ,
who can do all things. Grace gives and gives and preserves
and brings life because of whose grace it is. and the confidence
he has in his son to finish what he gave him to do. Listen to this, Romans 5, verse
15. But not as the offense, so also
is the free gift. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. That same grace. Just as that
sin reigned and killed and brought them down, even so this grace
is going to restore and give life and glorify God. Same grace. God has commanded in Christ a
habitation wherein His people can abide and His glory can be
seen. Light shines into creation. But God, He takes this like,
you know Moses said, show me your glory. God told Moses, He
said, no man can look on me and live. You can't look at my face
and live. But He said, I'll put you in
the cleft of the rock and I'll pass by and you can see my hinder
parts. I'll show you a little bit of
my glory, a little bit. And that's all you can see. It
refracts that light. It softens that light. It brings
that light to where you can receive it and to where you can benefit
from it. And I look at creation through
the glass of the Gospel. And I see all these parts and
pieces. I used to make cabinets and things. We had a little cabinet
shop up there in Lexington, a fellow I worked for. weekends I'd go
over and do little home projects and things, and sometimes I'd
do side work for people. And I was in there one day, and
I always wanted one of these, kind of like you seen back in
New York back in the early 1900s, you seen these little vendors'
carts with the big tall wagon wheels on them and the little
handlebars, and they'd push them around. Well, I wanted to build
one of them, but I'd never built a wagon And so I've been studying
about it for weeks and weeks, and I come up with an idea for
a jig to make a wagon wheel. And so I had all these little
parts laying here and there. You know, when you make cabinets
or projects, you have all these little jigs, and I had wood.
Some of it wasn't even planed yet. It was laying over in a
pile, and I had some over here getting glued. had some spokes
over here. I'd cut it out, got what I wanted
for a spoke and put it over here. And I had parts to the wheel
cut out so I could join them together and make that round
wheel and jigs and bore holes. And he come in, my boss seen
my truck, and he come in and he just kind of walked around,
you know, and he was looking at all this stuff. And finally
got the best of him and he said, what on earth are you building?
What are you building? Now, he didn't have a clue what
it was I was doing. But he could look at all these
parts, and it fascinated him until he asked the question.
When we look at creation, that's what we see. I don't know exactly
what God's doing, but I'll tell you this, He's building something.
Yeah, He's building something. There's too much glory involved
in this thing. There's too many pieces and parts
and things laying around that God's put together. He's building
something. And I think I know what it is
He's building. He said, upon this rock will I build my church,
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And then
over there in Ephesians 2, he said, when that building, when
it's all fitly framed together, it's going to make a habitation
of God through the Spirit. When he puts it all together,
it's going to make a habitation. That's what this environment
is. It's that habitation. He puts this thing up He said
in Psalm 19 that he read there a while ago, he said, it's like
a tabernacle for the sun. It's like a building. It's like
a temple that is built. That's what it is. And it preserves.
Inside this environment you can live. You can breathe. You can
move. You can think. You can have a family. You can
raise children. You can beget children. All kinds
of things can go on inside this environment. Move outside of
it, you're a dead man. That's what grace is. That's
what grace is. Grace is in Christ. Get outside
of Christ, there is no grace. You can put all the names on
your church building you want. I'm starting to see grace on
buildings now everywhere I go, but they're not preaching any.
Grace is in Christ. It's in Christ. God help us to
know that, understand it, receive it, and rejoice in it. Over in
Zechariah, his vision, I think it's in the fourth chapter. He
said he didn't understand this vision, and God said, well, here's
what it means. It's not by power. It's not by
might. It's by My Spirit, saith the
Lord. And old Zerubbabel, when he comes, he's going to say that
mountain, get out of the way, and that mountain's going to
move. And he's going to carry a headstone, and he's going to
put it on this temple. And the people are going to stand
back in that day when the temple's complete, and they're going to
say, Grace! Grace unto it. Ain't that what he said? Grace
unto it. It's all grace beginning to end.