Turn with me this morning to
Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1. And may our hearts and minds
be stayed upon Jehovah. What a great reminder that our
minds are prone to wonder. Our hearts are prone to wonder
from the God that we love, like Thomas. He said, Lord, you know
I love you. I know we, and it's our shame
we don't act like it sometimes. We don't talk like it. We don't
look like it. Bless God, he's caused his people
to love him. Were it not for him causing us
to love him, we'd hate him, as all men do. Genesis chapter 1,
the first four verses, no, we read the first five verses. We
tried to bring the message from this passage last Sunday. We'll take our text this morning
in verse 3. 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
walkers. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. 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 greatest miracle to me, revealed
in the scriptures, is the salvation of God's elect. The creation, all the Old Testament
miracles which He performed, the incarnation of the Lord Jesus
Christ, which encompasses His birth, His life, His death and
His resurrection, The miracles which he performed while he was
here on earth, the miracles which he performed by the apostles,
the miracles which he performs today, which for the most part
we're unaware of, because he hides them in his providence.
If he did not, men would glory in themselves. But all of these
points, too, are connected to the and are pictures of this
one miracle, the importation of the life of Christ to dead
sinners. This is, and I know this is so,
it's not just that it is the way I see it, but this is the
way God sees it, because this is revealed in the Scriptures. This is the end of the revelation
of God's eternal glory in the salvation of sinners. This is
why everything exists. It is to show forth the praises
of the glory of His grace. And in the dispensation of His
grace, there must be objects of His grace. And the objects
of His grace are those elect sinners. And Him showing His
grace and mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ to them, glorifies Him,
and this is what this is all about. This is why this world
exists. This is why we are here. This
is why we preach His gospel, is to the glory of His grace,
the salvation of His people. In Psalms 14 verse 5, says it
like this, Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works, many
are, many of them, which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which
are to us put. They cannot be reckoned up in
order unto thee, I would declare and speak of them, they are more
than can be numbered. all of these wonderful works
toward us, to usward. Many are the wonderful works
which you've done. Many are the wonderful works
which you are doing. Many are the wonderful works
which shall be done. But they're all to usward. They're
all to usward. The host of God's saints, which
are a multitude which no man can number, When we all stand
in glory, when we all stand in heaven, we will be nothing more
than the mere trophies of God's sovereign, everlasting, eternal
grace. This is what angels will look
upon, is the church of the living God, as they are displayed to
the glory of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And throughout
eternity, all beings will take notice of God's great work among
men, because they're to us. God is long-suffering to us,
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Not all men, but to us, to us,
His people. You know, often, this is one
of the arguments of the Armenian, that passive scripture that I
quoted, that God is not willing that any would perish. Not one
man, He's not willing that anybody perish. But that's not speaking
about just anybody. That's speaking of His people. And this is what we find in these
verses. The first account of scriptures,
God created something out of nothing. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. In the beginning of time, God created. In this passage of Scripture,
we see a beautiful picture of regeneration in the Lord Jesus
Christ, in verse 3. And God said, let there be light,
and there was light. In the beginning God created
heaven and earth, and the purpose that He created it for, I've
just tried to give you a little outline of that purpose. For
His glory and the salvation of His elect. In 2 Peter 3, 5, for this they
are willing and ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and
the earth standing out of the water and in the water. This is a picture of how it was
in the beginning. This is a picture of how it was when the Lord first
created the heavens and the earth. before it was really inhabited. And God was not alone in this. God the Father was not alone
in this. This speaks of the blessed Trinity. God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Spirit. Here it says God created the
heavens and earth. In the beginning, God did. In
John chapter 1, the scriptures tell us the Word was with Him.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And
we see in this passage of Scripture, the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the water. We see the sacred Trinity, the
blessed Godhead, all involved in the creation of all things. And as it was in the creation
of the heaven and earth, so it is in our regeneration, so it
is in our salvation. Man, we see here a picture of
man in his fallen state, the earth without form and void.
Even though God created man, he fell. And what we look like
is a picture that we see here in the early part of the scriptures. Without form and void and darkness.
And we see then the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the
waters. And then we see God sovereignly saying, let there be light. And there was light. By the word
of the Lord were the heavens made. By the word of the Lord
were we made. By the word of the Lord we were
saved. And all the host of them by the bread of his mouth. By
his sovereign power and glory and omnipotence. He spoke into
existence, worlds, and the heaven, and all the things that are made
by His great power and Godhead. He gathers the waters of the
sea together as an heap. He layeth up the dead in storehouses. Let all the earth fear before
the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of
Him. For He spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood
fast. You see, what this is teaching
us is that salvation is of the Lord. In the very beginning,
in the first chapters, the first verses of the Bible, we're taught
this lesson. And this lesson runs like an
unbroken thread throughout all the scriptures. That salvation
is of the Lord. Nowhere in the scriptures does
it teach The salvation is by works. It's always by the grace
of God, by the work of the Lord. This passage of Scripture teaches
us that man is dead. Absolutely dead. That he's void
of the Spirit of God, void of the life of Christ. That he is in spiritual darkness
and death. And he cannot recover, he cannot
retrieve himself, he cannot create himself, he cannot bring himself
to approach the true and living God because he's dead. It teaches
us the salvation of the Lord. It teaches us this, that God
is sovereign. It teaches us there is no life
apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. The scripture says by faith we
understand. Only by faith. It's only by faith that we can
look in the verses before us and see these things that we
have spoken of. Through faith we understand that
the world were framed by the Word of God. By faith we understand
that. I don't have a problem with creation,
do you? I don't have a problem with God
creating everything. He's God. Only omnipotent power
can create. And only omnipotent power can
save a sinner. It takes the same power to save
a sinner, to call a sinner from darkness to light that it did
to speak the Word into existence. It takes the sovereign power
of Almighty God. We understand by faith that the
world was framed by the Word of God. So the things which are
seen were made of things which do not appear. Do you understand that? Well, I
understand a little concerning that. Not a lot, but a little.
I understand that what appears was made out of nothing. And only infinite sovereign almighty
power could perform a miracle such as this. We look at this
in awe and in wonder, and we're amazed by it. But boy, the greatest miracle
is that God would save a sinner, someone who by nature hates Him,
someone who is dead, someone who is so self-centered and so
righteous and so adverse to God that God would bring that person
into His fellowship and into His company and into His house
and commune in fellowship with Him. That is an amazing thing. And only God in His wisdom could
do something like this. Always the triune God is involved
in all things. It says in the beginning God,
especially here in the first verse of the Bible, is speaking
of not only God the Father, but Christ. That's very important.
Don't forget that. That the Lord Jesus Christ is
not left out of the picture. He's always in the picture. It's
just that sometimes we can see but one or the other, But they're
always there. And as it was in creation, so
it is in regeneration. There's three or four things
I want you to consider in this verse that said, God said, let
there be light, and there was light. First of all is the darkness
of man, which we spoke on the depravity of the human heart
last week. But I think it necessary to mention
this again this morning in the introduction of this message.
Man is in darkness. Man is in total darkness. He
cannot see. He is absolutely blind to the
things of God. In 1 Corinthians 2.14, the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they
are foolishness to him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually Man, no matter how religious
he is, it doesn't make any difference
how much he knows. It's not by intellect. It's not
by religious duties. The salvation is by God giving
light and life where once there was darkness. Man is in total
darkness. He cannot understand. He cannot
believe. He cannot come into agreement
with God. He might say that he does. He might try to act as
if he does. But man will never come into
agreement with God as long as he is in that darkness and that
death and that blindness. He cannot do it. He is as much
in darkness as a man that's lying in a coffin. You walk by a coffin of someone
that has passed away, he can't see you. You speak to him, he can't hear
you. You touch him, he can't feel you. He's dead. And I know that's
hard for us to comprehend that man, a powerful work of almighty
grace, is void of the life of Christ. He is in darkness. He is so far away from God that
he can never, never come back. Someone said, how far did man
fall? Incomprehensible. I can't tell
you, but he fell so far that he can't come back on his own. It's like the song that Brother
Eric sung when he was here. Dark the stain, the soil of man's
nature, long the distance that he fell, far removed from hope
in heaven, into deep, disparate hell. But, he said, there was
a fountain open, and the blood of God's own Son purifies the
soul and reaches deeper than the stain is gone. So, as far
as we fell, and as much darkness and blindness and death are we
in, we are in. The grace and the mercy and the
blood and the Power of God reaches deeper than that darkness and
death. But man is in darkness. Matthew
6, 23, But as thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full
of darkness. Therefore the light that be in thee is darkness.
How great, he said, is that darkness. So dark that men can't see God,
they can't see Christ, they can't see themselves. They just cannot
see. If a man is blind, we must conclude
that he can't see. If a man is in darkness, we must
conclude that he can't see. He's in darkness. Darkness. This whole world, the scripture
says, life in darkness. What about that person that's
so much alive, and so religious, and so much living, and doing,
and busy in this world? If they don't know Christ, they're
dead. Dead spiritually. Dead to the
things of God. Job said in Job 10.22 that man lives in a land of darkness, darkness itself, and of the shadow of death without
any order. The earth without void, without
any order and darkness. And man lived as light was darkness. That's when they see light, they
don't comprehend it, because men love darkness rather than
light. Man is in darkness. This is the
situation of all men apart from Christ, is in total darkness,
total blindness, total ignorance, death, no way to change themselves,
no way. That's total depravity. Absolute,
absolute death. This is a condition of mind.
If that's so, if that's so, then there must be a miracle if a
person can ever be any otherwise. Is that not right? This, you
know, the gospels all make sense. You get it, if folks would follow
the scriptures, to the conclusion. This is the only thing that makes
sense. See, the scriptures teach that we're dead. Dead in darkness. And if that
be so, and it is, then it takes a miracle. It'll take a miracle.
It'll take something we can't do to be otherwise. And that's what we see in this
passage of scripture. The earth was out forming void and darkness
on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the water. This is significant here. You
know, sometimes God moves when we don't see Him moving. Probably more when we don't see
Him moving than when we do, or when we're aware of it. And here
the earth was lying in darkness and death. I can't imagine. I've tried to imagine what it
looked like, but I can't imagine what it looked like. But there
was no life. Total darkness. But the Spirit
of God was there. You understand that? The Spirit
of God was there. Consider this. Darkness. Death. Void. The Spirit of God was moving,
hovering. Hovering over that darkness. Doing something. Doing something. You know what?
Before we were brought to faith in Christ, the Spirit of God
was there. Not indwelling as he does in
regeneration, but he was there. And then at just the right time,
just exactly when he had predestinated, ordained and decreed, God said,
let there be light. Let there be light. And there
was light. And that's how it is in regeneration.
with dead and trespasses and sin, you hath be quickened, given
life." God said, let there be light in their wild light. And we awoke as one that had
wakened out of his sleep. We awakened as one that had risen
from the dead. And we saw that light, that light,
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters. If the Spirit of God don't move,
there will not be work accomplished. The Spirit of God is the divine
administrator of our salvation. The Spirit of God is the one
that unlocks the keys to this book. The Spirit of God is the
one that comes to your heart and my heart and gives faith. The Spirit of God is the one
that comes and gives understanding. The Spirit laid it down, not
the Spirit of God, there none of this. If we have not the Spirit
of God, where none of this. So the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light. This said, God said, we've seen
nine times in this first chapter. God said. God said, let there
be. And it was so. God said, you
know, I could stand here and talk to this podium and try to
tell it to do something, it'd still sit there. What I say don't
change things, that's what I'm telling you. What you say don't
change things. But God said, let there be light. And there was light. What power? What glory, what omnipotence. Let there be light. And there
was light. God said. This is what happened in the
early days of creation. God said let there be light.
And there was light. And that's what happened in our
salvation. We were in darkness and God said. Wouldn't it make you wonder what
the preacher said? That wasn't going to change the preacher.
And I've learned, I'm finally catching on, it don't make much
difference what I say. I used to think that I could make a
lot of difference what I said. That I could change people by
what I say and make them see things by what I say. And I'm
learning after 58 years that ain't nobody going to do what
I say. And it's not going to change you or me or nobody else. But God said, God said. What more can you say? In this phrase, we see the holiness of
God, we see the power of God, we see the sovereignty of God.
We see the purpose of God. We see the Lord Jesus Christ.
God said, God said, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was
with God and the Word was God. God said, let there be light. God said. The Lord Jesus Christ
went to the tomb of Lazarus and God said, Lazarus come forth. The Lord Jesus Christ said, Thy
sins be forgiven. They said, nobody can forgive
sin but God. God said, Thy sins be forgiven.
God said. The preacher said, Come to the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I say. I'm telling
you this morning, come to Him. And any gospel preacher knows
the gospel and preaches Christ. He's going to say this, come
to Him. Come to Christ. That's what Paul said, what the
apostles said. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
commissioned us to say, come to Him. Don't come to me, don't
come to anyone else, come to Christ. But you're not going
to come, just for me saying that. But when He says come, God said,
come, you come. That's what gives us confidence,
Brother Terry, is that, see this, I feel the responsibility and
I feel the awesome burden of the message
of the gospel. But yet on the other hand, I
know that the work is His, Success of it's his, it's all in his
hands. It's all in his hands. So, that gives us confidence. When
we go to him and pray, we pray for Joe, Jim, whoever, we pray,
call out their names to them. Lord save them. Then we say,
Lord, your will be done. I want to see them know you. I want to believe the gospel.
I want them to love you. I want us to have fellowship
in the gospel together. I love them. Lord Satan. But your will be done. My praying ain't going to save
them. They don't want to misunderstand me. We're to pray. We're to pray
for the lost, pray for the sick, we're to pray for our lady, we're
to pray for one another. Because we love one another. Because he commanded us to. We
desire to. But my praying is not going to
save anybody. My preaching is not going to save anybody. Even though God said God has
chosen the foolish to preach and slay them out of the way,
it's not by preaching that it's special. It's God said. God said. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, and he'd make reference here to Genesis
1, the passage that we read. God commanded the light to shine
out of darkness. He said, let there be light. This 2nd Corinthians
4 and 6. has shined in our hearts. The
same God that commanded the light to shine out of darkness, He
commanded the light to shine in our hearts, to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Wasn't no more an effort to do that, just do this. A great miracle, even though
as great a miracle as it was created, It's a great miracle
of regeneration and impartation of life. There was darkness there
and darkness here. He commanded the light to shine
and the light shined. He commanded the light to shine
here and the light shined. 2 Timothy 1-9, who has
saved us? Who saved you? That lady asked
me once, she said, how many people did you save last Sunday? You
know, I felt like this was a regular job. I mean, how ignorant can you
be? How could I save anybody? Who saved you? Well, I was baptized. I joined the church. You know,
I go to church every once in a while when I ain't got nothing
else to do. I give a little when I ain't
got a little left. Even though folks don't say it, that's what
they do. And I'm pretty good. I'm not
perfect. I do some bad things, but I do
some good things. And I hope most of the good things
I do outweigh the bad. Who saved you? I think I'm saved. Who saved you? Well, I preach and I study and
I pray. What does God say about that?
What does God say about that? Who saved you? He has saved us. Not what we
done, what we didn't do. You know the fellow that does
a lot and the fellow that does a little is going to both be
damned together. Isn't that something? That's
going to disappoint somebody. That really is. I've done a lot
more than he did. You know, in Matthew chapter
7, these people are going to stand before God. And they're
going to say, we've done many wonderful works. God, would you
look. And this is the attitude that's
displayed in these people. And let me, permit me to indulge
you with my imagination for a moment. These are Baptists. They're good
Baptists. Well, he's a good Christian. Whatever a good Christian, he's
a good Baptist. He's a good Baptist, good Christian. Good upstanding
church members. And they've done a lot. And they're
going to stand before God and they're going to say, God, don't want all I've done amount
to something. I mean I got up and I remember
one Sunday morning I was real sick and I went to church anyhow. And I let a bill go to put money
in the offering. They cut my lights off, power
off, and I had to take a bath in cold water because I put the
money in the church. I sacrificed. Done many wonderful works. Priest
and prayed and all these. That's not going to save the
man who doesn't live or the man who doesn't light. It don't make
any difference. Unless God says, let there be
light. Salvation is of the Lord. God
commanded the light to shine out of darkness as shine in our
hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. This is salvation. This is God's
salvation. God said that to be light the
earth that formed void, dark upon the face of the deep, the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said,
now so far, and I don't know if you've got this or not, I
suspect you have, so far man has not done anything. So far
this earth that we stand upon, this orb that we stand on, so
far God has done everything that's been done to it. It was just
without form and darkness. And void. And God saved. The beginning
God created. God saved. God saved. God saved. God saved. He saved us and called us with
a holy calling. Who has God? Not according to
our words. You know, that's probably one
of the last things that we'll be in agreement with God on,
is that we're not saved by words. I know folks say they believe
that, but do we really believe it? Not according to our words. In any shape, form, or fashion. Period. Our works had absolutely
zeal to do with our salvation, nothing. But it was by His works. But according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus when? Before
this account of Genesis right here. Before the world began. As God ordained and predestinated
purpose to earth to be created and He would create it, And time
would begin, so did he predestinate, foreordain, and purpose his people's
salvation. And so it is. And God said, let
there be light. And there was light. The first
thing produced. God created heaven and earth out of a foreign void.
The first thing that God did in this earth and its And it's
uninhabitable, darkened condition. The first thing he did, he said,
let there be light. And there was light. You say,
well, I remember when I first began to see error. I remember when I first began
to see some truth. Well, I'll tell you something.
Before you even saw it, the Spirit of God was moving. And he said,
let there be light. And he began to see some light.
You see more light, more light. And we continue to see light. We see more truth, more truth.
Let there be light, first thing produced. John said the same. He said, I came for a witness,
to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might
believe. That all men through him might
believe. What does that say? That all men are going to believe?
No. I say the light's there as the light was then. But it's there because God said,
let there be light. And this is one thing you don't
say God created light. He created the sun, but this
is before the sun was made, the S-U-N. He said, let there be
light, and there was light. Do you know when light came into
this world? When the Lord Jesus Christ came
into the world. Now the Spirit of God moved, and the earth was
fixed with shadows and tithes, and men were saved by grace.
But they were saved by faith in that light. And John said,
I come to bear witness of that light. And when the Lord Jesus
Christ appeared, he said, there's the light. He said, behold the Lamb of God.
That's the light. He said, I'm not that light.
And he said, I come to bear witness of that light. That was the true
light. He was in the world, and the
world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He made the
world. We read that account here, where
the Lord Jesus Christ made the world, and the world didn't know
Him. And then He said, Let there be
light. And there was light. He made us. We didn't know Him
until He said, Let there be light. Paul said, I thank God who separated
me from my mother's womb. But Paul didn't know him until
the separation of his mother's womb. Paul didn't know him until
he was thirty-something years old. And then, on the road to
Damascus, there was a great light. A great light. Who was that light? The Lord Jesus Christ. Then spake Jesus unto them, saying,
I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." He is that
light. John said, I'm not that light.
And I'm telling you, I'm not that light. But he's that light. God said, let there be light,
specifically light. Light is life. That's what light
is, life. If you look in the Scriptures,
Where there's light, there's life. Without the sun, there'd
be no life. I guarantee you, if the sun went
out, we'd die. Because we've got to have that
light. Without light, plants won't grow. Without light, there's darkness. And where there
is light, there's not darkness. You see, the hardest thing, and
I, you know, if Sass can get this done, figure this out, you
know, I believe about anything they'll do or tell me. Now, if
they can take light and darkness and put them together and let
me see it, that's the impossibility of it. It's so impossible they're
not even trying to do it. If they had a suggestion box,
I'd send them a suggestion. You put darkness and light together,
let me see it. It's an impossibility. Life and
death can't exist together. Either you're dead or you're
alive. Somebody said, well, I'm almost
saved, or I'm almost a Christian or something. No,
that's not. No, we're either dead or alive. You know, we do say sometimes,
well, he's almost dead, or I'm almost dead. Well, no. I'll have to disagree. We're either dead or alive. We
may be near the end of life, but either man's dead or he's
alive. Life is truth. Light is truth. White is truth. Darkness and error, truth and
error don't go together. Happen to walk together except
they be agreed. Truth and error can't go together.
Truth going one way and error going another way. That's the
reason I'm going to say something here. I hope this don't offend
anybody. But Armenians cannot really worship
with someone believing in the solemn grace of God. They just
don't go together. Somebody believes in the free will of man, which
is our meaning, and someone believes in the free will of God, they
go in two different directions. Now you tell me, how can someone
that really believes in their heart and rejoices in the Lord
Jesus Christ and the doctrines of His grace and the gospel of
His grace, how can they fellowship with those that believe that
salvation is in the hands of man, that Christ died for everybody,
and salvation is up to you, and put everything in man's hands.
That just don't go together. It don't go together. We might
fellowship talking about a ball game, or something that don't
have anything to do with this, but not... We can't have spiritual
fellowship, communion. No, just can't do it. It's just,
light has no communion with darkness. Truth has no communion with error.
Light signifies understanding. Understanding. By faith we understand. By faith, what it takes, faith,
God-given faith to understand the things of God. It takes faith
to understand. God must give that faith. And
that faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Life is in Him. Truth is in Him. Understanding
is in Him. Faith is in Him. Where there's
light, there's a work of grace in the heart. The light already
existed. It was not that Christ was not
there. It was not that Truth was not there. It's not that
there was no truth. Christ was there. The work was
done. The fact was that we were in
death and darkness and didn't know, didn't understand, didn't
believe. And if God said, let there be
light, it's a work of grace, not a miracle of grace. The darkness
comprehended not. The light shined in darkness
and the darkness comprehended not. In 2 Timothy 1.10, but is
now, the gospel, the truth is now made manifest. Now made manifest
is something you see, something that appears, something that's
undeniable, it's manifest, it's before me. It's manifest, it's
in front of me. I see it, I understand it, I
believe it. There it is. It's manifest by the appearing
of our Savior Jesus Christ. and brought abolished death and
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel through
the gospel the earth was without form and void and darkness upon
the face of the deep the spirit of God moved upon the face of
the water and God said let there be light and there was light
the Lord Jesus Christ who Who do we see? Who do we look to?
We look to that light that John spoke of. That light is capitalized. Who do we see? The Word. That
Word is capitalized. The beginning was the Word. Who
do we hear? We hear that voice. That time
is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of
the Lord. And they that hear shall live. John said, I am the
voice of one crying in the wilderness. It was John that was crying in
the wilderness because of that voice. The voice of the Lord God came
walking in the garden through the day, and said, Adam, where
art thou? You see, God said, Let there be light, and there
was light. You see, all is not lost, because
God said, when He says, It's so, it's done. His counsel shall
stand, and His work shall be established. from all generations. That's about it.