Most of the religious people
you know, most of those that I know, believe in creation by
design, creation by divine design. That is, they believe the Genesis
record of creation, that God created the world out of nothing
by the mere exercise of his will, his word, and his power. And the fact that our public
schools teach the silly notion of evolution causes religious
folks who believe in creation to get plum mad. They'll march
and protest and fuss with the legislature and fuss with the
teachers and they're angry, angry because they teach evolution,
that horrible, horrible, thing called evolution in the schools.
And then they'll go to the pulpit on Sunday morning and they'll
talk about the new creation and will dare to assert that the
new creation is really an evolutionary process that God sort of starts
and then you, you improve and you make yourself
better and with the mere exercise of your will you become a new
creature and then you really start to do good and you begin
a process of sanctification and you get holy and holier and holier
and holier until at last you're right for heaven and God takes
you home. Does that seem a little inconsistent
to you? Of course it does. Turn with
me to Genesis chapter 1. It takes an incredible fool to
believe in evolution, either natural evolution or spiritual
evolution. It takes an incredible fool. Brother Don, don't you know this
is going to be aired all over the world? Let me say that again
just in case they missed it the first time. It takes an incredible
fool to believe in evolution. An incredible fool. In order
to believe in evolution, you have to believe what you couldn't
convince any child of. A fellow walks along in the woods
and he finds, what kind of watch is this? I can't make it out.
She got it for me. It must be a pretty good one.
It's a Seiko. And you find that Seiko watch
laying in some leaves. You pick it up and you say, well,
what's that? And then you start to look at
it a little bit and see if it fits on your arm. Man, somebody
must have made that thing. Do you realize every day that
thing will go around 12 times and it never misses a beat? And
does it twice? Every day? Every day? Or you could say, wow, just imagine
sometime millions and millions and millions of years ago, there
was a glob of mess and it splattered out everywhere. And this just evolved. We'll call
it a watch. Why, that's silly, isn't it though?
Isn't it though? David declares, I am fearfully
and wonderfully made. And what he says of himself,
we can say of God's creation. It is fearfully and wonderfully
made. I suppose what got me started
thinking about this message I was reading last week, I'm not a
scientist, but I was reading something that I thought was
just astounding. 10 facts, 10 facts with regard
to this world. The Earth is tilted just exactly
right, 23.3 degrees. Any more or any less and it would
be destroyed. The Earth is spinning at just
the right speed, a thousand miles an hour. Doesn't seem like it's
going that fast, does it? Spinning on its own axis. a little
slower or a little faster would destroy everything. The earth
is wobbling just right, just a little wobble, just right,
up and down. If there's any more, the ice
caps would fall off. They'd melt away. The ocean's
depth is just right, 30,000 feet. Any more, no oxygen. The earth's
crust 8,000 miles through. If it were 10
feet thicker, it'd be fatal. The earth is racing around the
sun at just the right speed, 64,800 miles an hour. If it slows
down, we're going to burn up. Mr. Gore will be right. The earth is just the right distance
from the sun. 93 million miles away. Now, I don't have any idea how
they measured that, but that's what they tell us. Ninety-three
million miles, and if it was just a little closer, we'd burn
up. Our climate is just right for the process of producing
oxygen photosynthesis. Our moon, just the right distance
from the earth, 240,000 miles, and our galaxy, is spinning in the universe at
just the right speed. And nobody has any idea what
it is. Nobody has any idea. The title of my message tonight
is Creation by Design. Creation by Divine Design. But
I'm not here to talk to you about science or even really about
creation. Creation by Divine Design and
the design to portray the new creation. God created the earth
as we read in Genesis chapter 1, and he created the earth designed
to be a picture of how he creates sinners new in Jesus Christ the
Lord. As the creation of the world
was the work of God alone, So the making of men and women new
in Christ Jesus is the work of God alone. Now, this evening,
I want to show you three things in the first 31 or at least 31
chapters or 31 verses of Genesis chapter one. First, I will talk
to you about the creation and the creator and then confusion. Of God's creation and the fall
and the restoration of God's creation and the new creation. First, the creation and the creator. Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. In
the beginning, God. If you care to look it up in
a concordance, the word is Elohim. It's in the plural. In the beginning,
gods. But our God is one God. There
are not multiple gods, no, but there are three persons in the
Godhead. And in the beginning, God, the
Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit created the heaven
and the earth. And that's how the book begins.
That's all we're told concerning creation. There's no argument
given to prove it. No argument given to prove God's
existence. No argument given to prove how
God created the earth. Just a simple statement of fact. A simple statement of fact to
be believed. God Almighty is and God is the
creator of all things. How long did it take him to create
the world? We're not told. How old is the world? We're not told. We're simply
told in the beginning. When everything got started in
the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. in the
beginning. Now that's the foundation of
all truth. Everything begins with God. Everything in creation, everything
in providence, everything in grace, everything in salvation,
everything begins with God. All human religion, all human
philosophy, begins with man and maybe works its way up toward
God. The scriptures begin with God
and work the way down to man. And that's the way all things
are. If we're to understand salvation, if we're to understand anything
at all concerning God's salvation, we must begin with this understanding. Everything in this thing called
salvation begins with and is accomplished by God alone. God
created man and put him in the garden. And there Adam sinned,
and sinning brought death into God's creation. Man died, brought
a curse upon God's earth. The earth began to bring forth
thorns and thistles. But God wasn't taken by surprise,
because there is another beginning. a beginning before the beginning,
a time called before the foundations of the earth, a time that's spoken
of in the concept of eternity. And yet a definite time that
began in the beginning was the word. This is not that's not
a declaration that as God created the world, that he created the
word. Oh, no. The one who created the world
is the word who was in the beginning, who was God. John, chapter one,
verse one. Well, then there must have been
a beginning before this beginning of time in Genesis 1-1. A time
in the beginning when Christ stood forth before ever the earth
was made. Before ever God created the sun
or the moon or the stars or angels to inhabit the heavens. God Almighty
held forth his son as wisdom. Wisdom in whom his soul delighted. Wisdom, who is the wisdom of
God for us, the communication of God to man, the one by whom
God would save sinners. He stood forth as the lamb slain
from the foundation of the world as the last Adam before the first
Adam was ever made. I've said all that to make you
understand that the fall of Adam in the garden did not take God
by surprise. Christ was the lamb slain from
the foundation of the world for the saving of people who would
fall in our father Adam when God created the world and created
man upon it in time. In the new creation, the sinner
who is saved by grace repents, believes on the Lord Jesus, and
walks with God in the newness of life. But it began before
the world began when God chose a people in Christ whom he loved
with an everlasting love. A people whom he accepted before
the world was in his son. A people whom he blessed with
all spiritual blessings in Christ before the world was. A people
predestinated to be conformed to the image of his dear son.
A people whom he adopted as his sons and predestinated to the
blessed enjoyment of being the sons of God forever in resurrection
glory. And these people God Almighty
looked upon having accepted them, having chosen them, and he created
the world for them. The book of Genesis is the book
of beginnings. Someone said, I don't know who,
the book of Genesis is the seed plot of the Bible. That is, in
this book, we have a in seen form, everything later taught
throughout the scriptures. Everything later taught is essentially
taught in the book of Genesis. God is revealed, our creator
God, the covenant keeping God, the triune almighty God, the
possessor of heaven and earth, the Lord God, the creator of
the earth, his father, son, and Holy Spirit, the origin and character
of man, is here set forth. Where did we come from? Men and women are born into this
world with a God consciousness which compels them to know we
came from God and we're headed back to God. And you have to
be forced not to believe that. Somebody's got to come along
and teach you otherwise. Men and women are born with a
God consciousness. That's where we came from. God
created us. And then, as man is seen here,
he's a fallen sinner. A fallen sinner brought back
to God. No sooner had the man sinned
than God sought him out and brought him back. Finding grace in God's
sight, he's restored to fellowship with God and he walks with God
and made to be the friend of God. Abraham, a fallen sinner
called the friend of God. Satan is exposed in the book
of Genesis, the archenemy of our souls, the deceiver, the
accuser. He calls into question the word
of God. He causes men to doubt God's
goodness. He raises suspicion about God's
veracity. God's sovereign election is demonstrated
in this book as well. Adam and Eve had two sons. God
chose Abel and he rejected Cain. There was a man when the whole
earth was corrupt, and sentenced to death and destruction. There
was one man. One man. Did you hear me? One man who found grace in the
eyes of the Lord. God's elect in Noah's day were
very few. Very few. One man. And Noah,
building the ark, saved his family. But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Then the Lord God called a man
by the name of Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees and his nephew
Lot. Among all the idolaters, they
and they alone were the objects of God's grace. Abraham had a
boy named Isaac and a boy named Ishmael. God chose Isaac and
said, throw Ishmael away. God loved Jacob, and God hated
Esau. Christ is set forth clearly as
our Savior. He is the Lord God who came in
the garden and sought Adam and said, Adam, where art thou? He
exposed their sins, he stripped off their fig leaves, and then
he killed an animal. and took the skins of the animal
and made garments to clothe the naked pair, describing how he
himself would be slain in the room instead of chosen sinners,
and we would be made accepted with God through the merits of
his righteousness, clothed with the garments of salvation. Abraham
took his son Isaac, as we saw just the other night, and he
offered him upon the mountain that God showed him. portraying
how that Christ, our God, would provide himself a lamb for a
burnt offering to die as our substitute. Abraham, we're told
in Genesis, was justified by faith. He believed God. And believing God, it was counted
to him for righteousness. Not that his act of believing
made him righteous, but the one whom he believed was that one
who is the Lord, our righteousness. And so Abraham was justified,
received free justification by faith, just like we do. The believer's
security marvelously displayed in the ark. Noah and his family
are brought in the ark and God shut the man. And all heaven
and hell broke loose against them. God poured out his wrath,
his judgment, and all the floodwaters beat against the ark. The rain
fell on the ark. The terror floating on the earth
was in that ark. Can you imagine how Noah and
his family must have felt as they were tossed here and there
inside that ark? But no matter how they felt,
not one drop of the water of God's judgment fell on Noah.
And Christ is that arc of safety for his people. He gives to us
eternal life and says they shall never perish. Everything in the
book of Genesis, this book of beginnings, is about Christ. Everything is about Christ. Christ walked with Adam in the
garden. Christ is the tree of life in
the garden. Christ is that one with whom
Enoch walked and pleased God. Christ is that ark of salvation
portrayed in Noah. Christ was Abraham's friend.
The Lord Jesus Christ is our great Joseph. Everything in the
book of Genesis as throughout the book of God speaks of Christ. Christ is the book of beginnings
and the book of beginnings is about him. Let's look at our
text, Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. In the beginning, everything
was created by our God. And then something happened.
Look at verse 2. And the earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. What? God created the heaven and the
earth. And the earth was without form and void. Turn to Isaiah
45. Let me show you something. Isaiah
45. We read in Genesis 1-2, the earth
was without form and void, but it was not created that way.
Isaiah 45 verse 18, for thus saith the Lord that created the
heaven. God himself that formed the earth
and made it. He hath established it. He created
it not in vain. He formed it to be inhabited.
I am the Lord and there is none else. Now that word vain. Turn back to Genesis chapter
1 verse 2. Just fold your Bible over and look at it. And the
earth was without form. That's the word. Vain. Useless. A chaotic mess. Void. But God didn't create it
that way. He created it not void. He created
it not without form. But rather, it became without
form and void. And the word was, in Genesis
1-2, the earth was without form. is most commonly translated,
not always, but most commonly translated became. God created
the heavens and the earth and something happened and the earth
became a void place of darkness, chaos, uninhabitable, without
life, a place that was without form and void and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. Now, I have no interest at all
in trying to answer the quibbles of godless evolutionary scientists
and philosophers or godless evolutionary religious folks either. But whatever
the catastrophe was, perhaps it was the fall of Satan, maybe
not, I don't know. Whatever it was, something happened
that caused the earth to become chaotic. after it was created. I have no idea how long ago God
created the earth. The interval between Genesis
1.1 and 1.2, I have no idea what it is. But if it could be irrefutably
established, and it has not been, if it could be irrefutably established
that the earth were hundreds of thousands or millions of years
old, there'd be no contradiction at all to what we just read.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and
then it was without form and void. It became a place of emptiness,
desolation, and death. We have no indication of how
long the interval was. It's certainly wide enough to
embrace any period of time. Somebody said, well, do you believe
in all the things with regard to dinosaurs? No, I don't. I really don't. I really don't.
Well, you're a fool. Well, I'll tell you what, if
you believe in their existence, if you believe in their existence,
you believe in a shoebox full of bones men had put together
and decided this is what fellows looked like. That's exactly what
you believe in. Now, you can take your choice.
You can just take your choice. What they were, what they were
not, what the prehistoric things were or were not, I do not know
and don't really care. Don't really care. But I am interested
in what God teaches here in Genesis 1.1 and 1.2. I know that whatever
that period of time was is insignificant. But when God recreated the earth,
and if you'll notice between Genesis 1.3 and the end of the
chapter, there's another word that's used. throughout the chapter
is not create but made. And there's a big difference
between creating and making. God created the heavens and the
earth, and the earth became without form and void, and then God made
everything new. That's a pretty good picture
of what God does for sinners in his grace. In six days, Moses
tells us in Exodus 20, The Lord made heaven and earth, the sea
and all that in them is. He didn't say in six days God
created the heaven and the earth. In six days he made the heaven
and the earth and all that in them is. In other words, as Arthur Pink
put it, out of the chaos was brought the cosmos, which signifies
order, arrangement and beauty out of utter chaos, brought to
pass by judgment, falling on God's earth, brought to pass
by some catastrophe that happened after God created things beautiful
and perfect in their pristine beauty. Then suddenly everything
turned to chaos. And now God turns everything
around. He just he turns everything around
and brings forth order and beauty. That's a picture of the world's
history and it's a picture of the history of our souls. In
the beginning of time on the sixth day, God created man. What a creature he was. Man created
in the image of God. Who can imagine it? created in
the physical image of him who would come the last Adam, who
is himself the image of the invisible God, but created in the moral
likeness of God, created to be the representative of God in
his world. Man was created and God looked
at the man he created and said he's very good. Very good. Man created in God's image. with
no sinful heredity, no sinful principle, no sinful stain upon
him, no sinful environment around him. Man and his wife worked
together with God in the bliss of perfect uninterrupted communion. Man delighted with God and God
delighted with man. And then something happened. Everything's destroyed. In Genesis
chapter 3, the man God created dared to lift his fist in defiance
of God's right to be God. Adam was not deceived. Eve was deceived in the fall,
and she brought the fruit to Adam that God had forbidden and
said, here, have a bite. And Adam looked at his wife Eve, and he looked to God in heaven,
and he said, God, you got no right to do this. You can't take
her from me. This is a right. I will decide
what's right and what's wrong. And Adam sinned against God and
the race was plunged into sin and death and destruction. And
everything from that day to this was out of kilter. Oh, what a
catastrophe. The fall of man again is verified
by every man's experience. God made man upright, the wise
man said, but man has sought out many inventions. Man now
is alienated from God. He's depraved at heart. His heart's
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Man is born
spiritually dead. Genesis 1-2, without form and
void. That describes the state of all
men by nature. Man's born in a state of confusion.
Man born in a state of emptiness. Void means incapable of life. Not just has no life, incapable
of life. Not just fruitless, incapable
of bearing fruit. If you could come along and sow
some seed on the ground that's void, It'll stay there forever
and never germinate. It's void. It's incapable of
life. That's the state man's in by
nature. And darkness. Darkness. Oh, the darkness. The darkness of the human heart.
The darkness of the mind. No one really recognizes that
except those who've experienced grace upon whose hearts light
has shined. Shelby and I were talking after
our nap this afternoon. The darkness of our hearts still. Saved by God's grace, yes. Made new in Christ, thank God,
yes. Redeemed, yes. Made righteous
by God's grace, yes. with our hearts. Not one of us
has an inkling of an idea how dark and depraved these hearts
by nature still are. Darkness is upon the heart of
man. Now thirdly, in verses 2 through 31, I want
to look at just a few things here. and show you the restoration
of God's creation and the new creation. There's an exact correspondence
here between the creation restored and the new creation of God's
people in Christ. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. How is it that he makes us new
creatures? First, We're told in verse 2,
the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. No doubt the earth moved in its
orbit, rotated on its axis. If it hadn't, it would have dissolved. So the earth was moving. It was full of motion, just like
it is now. But all the movement and motion could not mend the
chaos and the confusion. The earth had to be moved upon
before it could bring forth life. And the spirit of God moved upon
the face of the deep. He moved upon that which was
without form and void and gave life to the earth. So it is in
the new birth. How is it that men and women
are born again? The motions and movement of the flesh have nothing
to do with it. It is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. The
spirit quickens, the flesh profits nothing. The new birth is not
accomplished by man moving toward God. It is accomplished by God
moving toward and moving into the man he's chosen. Number two,
God said, let there be light. And there was light. How often have you experienced
this? and witnessing the folks, trying
to minister to them, you talk to them and you tell them what
God's done for you and you read the scriptures to them and you
teach them and you bring them to hear the gospel and they talk
and it's this obvious nose on your face, they still hadn't
got a clue. They just don't have a clue. And then all of a sudden, just like a bolt of lightning
struck them, just like that. They begin to see, and the scriptures
open, and the word of God is meaningful. The gospel of God's
grace is meaningful. It's not just theory and speculation
now. There's something else. It's
called life. God turned a light on, and now
they see. We began to see when God spoke
and said, let there be light. Now mark it down. These two things
always go hand-in-hand. The ministry of the Holy Spirit,
who gives light and life, and the ministry of the Word of God,
by which light and life are given. God could have simply willed
that there be light. No question about that. Will it, it's done. Just will
it. But the scriptures are specific. God said, by him who is the word,
let there be light. And the lights came on. And there's
a reason for that. God Almighty gives sinners light
by the light of his word through the power of his spirit. Look
at verse four. And God divided the light from
the darkness. He separated light from darkness
in the old creation, and he still does. Our Lord says, you are
children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the
night, nor of darkness. We are God's people walking in
light as he is in the light. Those who are born of God know
light from darkness. They discern truth from error.
They know Christ from Belial. They know the difference. They're
children of light. Number four, look at verse 11.
And God said, let the earth bring forth fruit. Where there is the work of God,
the Holy Spirit, Working by the word and the light of grace.
There is fruit. Fruit. Is the result not of an
effort on man's part? But a condition. I said a little bit ago with.
You had taken. Good seed. And put it in the
earth. In Genesis 1-2, when it was without
form and void, it was incapable of life. But now, if you take
and get you a peach down at the grocery store. You go to the
store, buy your peach, and take the pit out of the peach and
go out here in this field and bury it. If you can keep Bobby
from running over it with his lawnmower, in just a few years,
you've got him to pick peaches off the tree. How come? Cause
this is a different kind of soil. There's life in that soil. There's
life in that soil. It's been rejuvenated. It's been
made new. You who are born of God have
fruit in you. Coming forth in you. All who
are born of God Have it either in the seed or in the ear or
in the full grain in the ear, but the fruit is there. Love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith, temperance. These things characterize God's
people. They are not the result of an
effort on our part. How can I say this? You cannot teach yourself to
believe God. Rex, how often do you find it
to be true that you want to believe God and you can't? You want to love the Savior.
You want to walk with Him in blessed communion. and it's just
beyond your reach. And yet, that faith, and that
love, and that peace, and that joy, and that long-suffering,
that gentleness, that goodness, that meekness, that temperance,
is in every child of God. And it rises up in that child
of God, not as a result of effort on his part, but because the
ground has been made good by grace. God's created us new in
Christ Jesus, where he has sown his seed, the word by his spirit,
and it brings forth life. Look at verse 15. And God said,
let their lights Be in the firmament of heaven to give light upon
the earth. Put the sun here and the moon
here and the stars there to give light on the earth. And they
have to be above the earth to shine down on the earth. And
you are risen together with Christ. Living in this world above it. as lights of the world shining
upon the earth. Let your light so shine before
men that they beholding your good works may glorify your father
in heaven. The light of the gospel will
shine forth upon this dark earth and the light of life devoted
to Christ. The light of life consecrated
to God shines forth upon the earth. so that men are shown
the way of life. Verse 27. We're told in verse
26, God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness
in verse 27, God created man in his own image. Here's the climax of the creator's
power. God made man in his own likeness. He made him out of the soil of
the earth, that earth that had become without
form and void, that earth that he had now rejuvenated, he gathers
that same earth together and he forms a perfectly molded body. and breathed into it and gave
it life. And that's where man came from.
He said, well, that's just beyond belief. Is it now? I'm talking
now to you who believe God. Is it? Bill Raleigh, here's something
heapsight more amazing. He took you. depraved, God-hating rebel, you. That which was without form and
void, incapable of life, but capable of every evil, and breathed
His Spirit into you, made you new in Christ Jesus. That's how God creates sinners
new. He puts Christ in us. By resurrection, life, he gives
us life. As the result of Christ's redemption,
we're made to live before God Almighty and live forever. One
last thing, look at verse 29. God blessed the man he made and
gave him dominion over everything. God said, behold, I have given
you every green herb bearing seed, which is upon the face
of all the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of the
tree yielding seed. To you, it shall be for meat
and every beast of the earth and every fowl of the air and
everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life. I have given every green herb
for meat, and it was so. And God saw everything that he
had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and
the morning were the day of man, the sixth day. God took Adam
and Eve out, and he said, Adam, my friend, see that? This whole thing. That's yours. That's yours. See the ground? See the vegetation? See the herbs? See the fruits? See the birds
flying in the sky? The beast walking in the field? The creeping thing in the earth? The fish in the sea? You can
eat anything you want to. It's all yours. It's all yours.
It's all yours. Just one symbol of my authority. Don't you eat the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God gave Adam dominion over everything. Everything. Everything. And soon,
to you who are Christ, the Lord God will put everything under
your feet. Everything. give you dominion
over everything. In my lifetime, I've received
a few cards that I remember so well, some humorous, some tender,
some very, very serious. When I was sick with cancer many
years ago, and doctors thought I was dying, and I was about
convinced. I couldn't hardly put my shoes on. I got a card
from a friend, a friend I knew when I was in college in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina, and opened it up. Didn't even sign his name.
Didn't sign it. Just opened the card up, and
it had just this inside the card. Nothing printed inside there,
just this. The God of Peace. shall brew
Satan under your heels shortly. Joe DeBusk. Soon, oh soon, the God of peace
shall brew Satan under our heels. And God, blessed And when God has brewed Satan
under our heels, that which remains is everlasting, blessed Sabbath
rest. Amen.