All right, our text tonight is
Genesis 2, verse 7 through 9. The title of the message is The
Creating God, or The God of Creation. The God of Creation. Genesis 2, verse 7, says, And
the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living
soul. And the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden. There he put the man whom he
had formed, and out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every
tree. that is pleasant to the sight
and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the
garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Now as Brother
Chapman said before he read the first chapter of Genesis, when
the prophets of old, the psalmists especially, and the apostles
and other men spoke of God, generally they identified Him in this way,
the God who created the heavens and the earth, the creating God,
the God of creation. And this is all the way through
the Word of God. In the beginning was the Word,
John wrote, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,
and all things were made by Him. And without him was not anything
made that was made. And then I want you to look at
Colossians chapter 1. The Apostle Paul talking about
our Lord in Colossians 1 verse 15, verse 14, in whom we have
redemption. In Christ we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. who is the image of
the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him,
I listen, by him were all things created that are in heaven, that
are in earth, visible and invisible. That means spirits, demons or
whatever, angels, visible and invisible. That means Things
you do not see, electricity, the atoms, whatever, whatever
is visible or invisible, God made them all. Whether they be
thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, even rulers of the
darkness, spiritual wickedness in high places, God made all
things. All things were created by Him and for Him. Thou hast
created all things by thy power, and for thy pleasure were they
created. And He's before all things. In
the beginning God. Now remember that. He's before
all things. All things spring from Him. And by Him all things consist,
are held together. Now here we read that God made
man, and Adam was not an infant. When God made Adam, he made him
in his image, full-grown, a full-grown man, with all his faculties. God made Adam. Adam was not an
infant. Adam was not a savage. Now, there
have been savages on the earth. There have been heathen, pagan
savages. But sin brought that to pass.
That wasn't the way Adam was created. Adam was created in
the image of God. God made man holy and upright. perfect in every way. In the
image of God created he them, male and female. And he wasn't
a savage. He was intelligent. He was brilliant. He was beautiful. God brought
all the animals before Adam. He showed him the birds and he
named every one. He named all the animals. Adam
gave them names. He was a brilliant man in the
image of God. And Adam was not a sinner. He
was not a sinner. He walked and talked with God.
Look at Genesis 2, 15. And the Lord God took the man
and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep
it. He was an active man, to dress the garden, to keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man. God talked to him. Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for
in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, spiritually
die." Now, this man God made is a full-grown man in the image
of God, intelligent, brilliant, beautiful, holy, upright, perfect,
and he was not a sinner. God made him in his own image.
But most people do not believe that. quotation from our local paper
that was in there years ago. I found it in my notes recently
where it said that hardly anybody of any intelligence or education
or understanding held to the Genesis account of creation.
Hardly anybody in this day. Well, perhaps that's so. Perhaps that's so. But not many
people believe the gospel of God's grace either, but it's
still true. But many people do believe in what they call evolution.
And it's taught in many schools and colleges. And there's several
theories about evolution. There's several different theories
that men hold. But most of them agree, most
evolutionists, as far as I understand, agree that man was at one time
an animal, that he evolved into his present condition. You know
what most of them believe? This is what they believed when I
was in school, when I was years ago, when I was studying. And
this is what they were saying then. I don't know what to say
now. You young people may know, but
it's all similar. This is what they were saying
when I was in school. Somewhere, sometime, millions
of years ago, a bolt of lightning passed through gaseous vapors. and created a speck of protoplasm
so small it could not be seen. But this speck of protoplasm
fell into the ocean, and out of it came an amoeba, one-celled
animal. And out of that amoeba came a
fish, and out of that fish came an amphibian, land and He could
get up on the land and the sea. Out of that amphibian came a
reptile. This is over millions of years.
And out of the reptile came an ape. And out of the ape came
a man. Well now, that creates a lot
of problems and causes a lot of questions in my mind. Lots
of them. Lots of them. And I know the
evolutionist tries to go back millions of years. They think
by talking about this process taking place over millions of
years that folks will be impressed by that, that such a thing could
happen over a period of millions and millions and millions of
years. But no matter how many millions of years they go back,
they run into the same blank wall. They cannot account for
the beginning. They say somewhere. Where'd the
where come from? They say sometime. Where'd the
time come from? You see, they always run into
a blank wall about where did it start? You had to start with
something. Somewhere, sometime, a bolt of
lightning. Where'd the where come from?
Where'd the time come from? Where'd the bolts of lightning
come from? Passed through these vapors.
Where'd the vapor come from? They always run into a problem
about where this thing, where it started. Where'd the vapor
come from? And fell into the sea, into the
ocean. Now there is a problem. Who made the ocean? These are
problems. It fell into the ocean. Who made
the ocean? You see, we have, when we talk
about creation, we go back to the beginning. I don't care how
far you go back. In the beginning, wherever it was, God. In the beginning, God. Everything
starts with God. And here's another problem. When
that amphibian came out of the water and walked on the ground,
on the earth, what did he eat? Were there trees? Were there
fruits and vegetables? Were there other animals to eat?
What did he eat? The Scripture says before God
made man, he made everything that man needed. When we go back
how many years, thousands of years, if you want to a million,
I don't care. But you go back and you find
God, in the beginning, God. You don't run into a blank wall.
You know, how do they account, we account for life from God,
in the beginning God. But the evolutionist talks about
these lightnings and vapors and oceans and seas and life. Where'd
life come from? There's life everywhere. The
world teems with life. There's life in every drop of
water. You take this water and put it
on a slide and put it under a microscope and it'll move around. That's
right, there's things in there that you won't drink it after
you look at this city water under a microscope. There's things
moving around in there. I'm telling you, there's life
in water, there's life in the air. There's life in the dust. There's life in every speck of
dust. There's life in the ocean. There's life in the ice. In the
Arctic Circle, there's life up there. There's life in the desert. There's life in the rocks. There's
life in the plants. There's life in the vegetables.
There's life in the trees. Life, life, life. Did it all
come from that bolt of lightning? In the beginning, God created.
And I'll tell you something else, when they talk about this animal
business, did you notice when John was reading? Turn back to
Genesis 1. Let's look at a statement here.
Three words, it's used. I didn't count them, but how
many times are these three words used in Genesis 1? After his
kind. After his kind. Look at verse
12. And the earth brought forth grass,
and herb-yielding seed. There's seed, there's life in
every plant, but it's always after his kind. And the tree-yielding
fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind. Acorns, oak trees
produce other oak trees. Apple trees produce other apple
trees. Always produce after its kind. Look down here at verse
21. And God created great whales.
and every creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth
abundantly after their kind." Whales produce whales, not sharks.
Sharks produce sharks, not barracudas. Barracudas produce barracudas,
not snappers. You don't cross them. It cannot
be done after their kind. "...which the waters brought
forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged fowl after
his kind." There's sparrows, there's Mockingbirds, there's
finch, there's cardinals, there's blue jays, but every blue jay
that has a baby has a blue jay baby. Without exception. It's never been known any other
way. It's after his kind. God saw
it was good, and God blessed them, said, Be fruitful, multiply,
and fill the waters and the seas. Let the fowls multiply in the
earth. And verse 24, And God said, Let the earth bring forth
the living creature after his kind, cattle, creeping things,
beast of the earth, after his kind. It was so, and God made
the beast of the earth after his kind, cattle after their
kind, everything that creepeth upon the earth after their kind.
It's always that way. You have horses, you have ponies,
you have Tennessee walkers, you have quarter horses, Belgian
horses, You have Clydesdale, you have thoroughbreds, you have
all kinds, but no horse ever produced a cow. Never, never,
never, never. Horses produce horses. You have
poodle dogs and shepherd dogs and collie dogs, but no dog ever
produced a cat. Never did. And you have people
and you have animals and you have birds and you have fish,
But everything produces after his kind. And I'm asking this. We've got 6,000 years of recorded
human history. There's 6,000 years that we have
recorded history. I want to know if man, if there's
some crossing of the species, if there's some changing and
development from animal life to human life, where is the folks
in between here? Where are they? Where are they? It's not possible. It's not,
there's absolutely not one shred of, I know they keep digging
up bones and say this bone came from some kind of man, it was
an animal, but it can't, why aren't they still changing? I tell you this, how could a
man come from a beast when they're so different? Listen, they're
different in blood, They're different in bone, they're different in
flesh, they're different in mind and soul. Totally different. Turn to 1
Corinthians, chapter 15. Look at this. 1 Corinthians 15.
1 Corinthians 15. He's talking
over here about the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15.35. But some man will say, How are
the dead raised up, with what body do they come? Thou fool,
that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die. And
that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall
be, but bare grain. It may chance of wheat, or of
some other grain, but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased
him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same
flesh. There's one kind of flesh of
man and another flesh of beast, another flesh of fish and another
of bird. It's not the same. When that animal's soul is developed
into a man, it's an impossibility. Their hair don't have the same
flesh, same bones, same blood. Don't do it. You don't get any
blood transfusion from animals. Their eyes are the windows of
the soul, but not an animal. You don't
know whether that lion's going to eat you or leave you alone. He'll look the same. Man has
a countenance. He smiles. He laughs. He frowns. His eyes speak. He has the intelligence
of God in his face. But not an animal. No countenance. Just the same blank look. See, my dog, I can tell when
he's happy, he wags his tail. That's how you know he's happy. A man can reason. A man can invent. A man can discover. Animals follow
instinct. You say, that dog's smart. He
knows when the light comes on, he eats. They taught him that,
how to associate that light coming on with that food. Instinct. That's how birds build nests
and all. God gave them their instinct. But man comes from
the womb. He doesn't know how to build
anything when he's born. He learns. That's right. He learns. He has intellect. He has initiative. He can discover. He can invent. Now I want you
to listen to this. Man has something no animal ever
has. Nothing but a man, a woman has.
A hand. You ever thought about that?
A hand. A fish has fin. You can't do much
with a fin but swim. The lion has a paw. The horse
has a hoof. The bird has a claw. Man has
a hand. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing,
a hand. A marvelous gift. God gave him
that hand to handle a tool. He can do the most precise work
of precision with that hand. Skill. He can paint. He can paint
beautiful pictures. He can play that instrument.
Did you hear those girls playing the hand? Try it. He can play that horn. He can
operate delicate machines, computers. He can play musical instruments.
He can write letters. He can write books. He can do
delicate brain surgery with that hand. Skilled brain surgery. He can build houses and build
cities. God gave him a hand. That's not
by chance. That didn't just come along by
evolution. God gave him. God talks about
the hand of God. God talks about the heart of
God. The mind of God. God talks about
hearing and seeing. These are things he gave only
to man. And he gave man dominion over
the animals. That's right. Evolution has no
explanation for the mind or the soul of men and women. Where'd man get his conscience?
Animals don't have consciences. When he's in the process of changing,
when did he get that conscience? When did he get loyalty? Men
will give their lives for their families or their countries.
If a man, if a house is burning, a father will rush in there and
put out his child. Loyalty, principles of good. Where did man get his emotions?
He weeps. He rejoices. He laughs. He sorrows. Where did man get his love? Love
for God, love for parents, love for wife, love for children,
love for friends. Where'd he get that love? Where'd
that come from? In the process of change. Where man gives appreciation
for art, for beauty, for music. I'll tell you where he got it
from God. God gave him all those things.
And that's the only way you can account for in honesty. You say,
why do these people believe things like that? Because they want
to do away with God. That's exactly right. The fool has said in his heart,
no God for me. That's exactly what they said,
no God for me. And if you recognize God, you've
got to recognize the God of creation. Just got to. Dr. Criswell summed it up this
way, he said, Evolution says if you put a little two-cylinder
motorbike in a garage and shut it up and leave it in there for
two million years, at the end of two million years you open
the door and out will fly a spaceship with a full crew on board, headed
for the moon. You're laughing. Well, it is
amusing what man comes up with. It's amusing. But the chief error,
young people, the chief error and tragedy of evolution is this. It's a denial not only of God,
but of the gospel. That's what it is. It's the denial
of the precious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the
Lord God, the scripture says that God made man in his image.
Evolution said man began as an animal. The scriptures declare
that man was created holy, holy and upright. And because he sinned,
he became weak. He became a whole lot like animals. That's right, savages. Man's
inhumanity to man is because he sinned. That's not the way
God created him. He said, people live and act
like animals, they must have come from animals. No, that's
sin that did that. Wickedness in the heart, in our
hearts. But God created man holy and upright, and because he sinned,
he became a weak and sinful and dying creature. Man, instead
of going up, came down. Evolution says man was a beast
with no conscience, no principles, no mind, no soul, no understanding,
and he gradually developed all these things. And one day, if
you leave him alone, he'll be perfect. Well, I've lived 68 years, and I've
studied a little of the history of man, I don't think they're
any better off today than they were back yonder years ago, do
you? I don't believe they're any different. It actually seems
to me that the corruption and dishonesty
and evil, wickedness is worse now than it was back then when
I was a child. It seems that way to me. We're
not evolving. It seems like to me that Somebody
said, well, maybe these things existed back then, we didn't
know about them, they were covered up. Maybe so, but they aren't
open now. The reason I talked a while ago in Nepal, I meet
young people, you're living in a tough day. I mean, it's a tough
day. And I sympathize with you. It's
a hard time to grow up. You're exposed to things you
don't need to be exposed to. Why do they have it on television,
in the papers? Why do young people are forced
to grapple and cope with things that they don't need to be bothered
with. Just they need to have some time to be kids and laugh
and play and enjoy things and let the grown folks argue about
these other things. But evolution says man, he's
coming up. Well, the scriptures teach this,
that man cannot improve his lot, but his lot can be improved now. But he can't do it. He won't
do it. God can do it through a mediator, through Christ, that's
right. That's what we're talking about
here, is man fell. God made him in God's image,
perfect, holy, and upright. God had the whole world prepared
for man when he put him in that garden. And man fell, and he
went down. And God sent a mediator, God
sent the God-man, the second Adam. A body has now prepared
me, and Christ came down. And he lifted us. He came down
where we were. And he obeyed God's commands
and he lifted us. But evolution says that man doesn't
need a substitute. Man doesn't need a savior. Man
doesn't need a mediator. Man will get along fine without
the new birth or the savior. But that's a denial of God and
a denial of the gospel. But I want to show you something
in closing. four things, it turned to Genesis 2 again. Something
I noticed about this whole thing, in the years ago when the Lord
revealed the gospel to me, the gospel of His grace and His goodness,
the gospel of substitution, Christ Jesus the Lord, I read two or
three books. When I first was taught the gospel. I read
Jerome Zanke's Absolute Predestination. That thrilled my soul to read
that. I read Lorraine Bettner's Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. I read these books because I
had never heard this message before. I was in religion, I
was in all the traditional religion, but I never heard this message
of God's grace and glory in Christ. So I read these books that emphasized
this. Luther's Bondage of the Will.
And I read a book by Thomas Boston called Man's Fourfold State. Man's Fourfold State. There was
a state of innocence in which God made him, a state of nature
in which he fell, a state of grace in which Christ restored
his soul, and someday the state of glory. And I want to show
you that just briefly now, just bear with me a minute. And see
something here that's very beautiful. In Genesis 2, verse 8, And the
Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put man
whom he had formed, and out of the ground made the Lord God
to grow every tree that's pleasant to the sight and good for food. Now you think about that garden.
That's a garden. God planted that garden. No weeds. No briars, no thorns. God planted
it. It was perfect. No insects, no
bugs, no blight to mar the plants. No wintry wind, no cold snow
and ice, no scorching sun, no drought. It was watered by mist
that came up from the earth. No sweat on a happy brow. Man tended the garden, kept the
garden, enjoyed the garden. And everything grew perfectly.
And it says here, it was pleasant to the sight and good for food.
State of innocence. I don't know how long that lasted.
I don't have any idea. Nobody else does. But man fell
and was cast down into sin and shame and agony and sweat. Biers and thorns came forth when
he tilled the ground. God takes us to another garden,
over here in John 18. Turn over there. John chapter
18. And here we have another garden.
John chapter 18. Matthew and Mark call it the
garden of Gethsemane. The garden where our Lord sweat
great drops of blood. The garden where our Lord, our
Redeemer, laid hold of the throne of glory and prayed for his fallen
people, his lost sheep. Prayed for himself as our Lamb.
Oh God, he said, my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death, bearing
our sin and our shame. And he prayed for us and here
they arrested him. And took him out and nailed him
to a cross. Listen, John 18, when Jesus has spoken these words,
He went forth with his disciples over the book Cedron, where was
a garden in which he entered with his disciples. There's a
sad garden. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man,
bearing our shame and our sin, our evil nature, took on himself
our nature, the likeness of our sinful nature. And here he wrestles
under the judgment of sin. That's the state of nature. But
let me take you to another garden, John 19. Here's another one in
John 19. Let's begin reading in John 19
at verse 40. And then they took the body of
Jesus. Verse 40, John 19. Took him down
from the cross. He suffered under our guilt and
shame and our sins. Bore him in his body on the tree.
And they wound it in linen clothes with the spices as the man of
the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was
crucified, there was a garden. And in that garden, a brand new
sepulchre wherein was never man laid. There laid they Jesus because
of the Jews' preparation day. The sepulchre was nigh at hand.
Our Lord is put in a grave, in a garden. Sins paid for, put
away. The scapegoat bore them away,
the sin offering brought them out. Now he's lying in the grave. First day of the week, cometh
Mary Magdalene early in the morning, when it was yet dark under the
sepulchre, and seeth, the stone was rolled away. And Matthew
and Mark say, two men appeared to them, and one of them said,
Why seek ye the living among the dead? He's not here, he's
risen. And because he is risen, You and I are brought into a
state of grace. New creatures in Christ. A righteousness
before God. Risen because he lives, we live.
All of these graves one day in that garden will empty when his
dead people rise to be with the Lord. State of innocence. What a garden. Beautiful. State of nature. There the Lord,
see him there in the garden, weeping, sweating, blood running
out of his pores, what a terrible place. But the garden of resurrection,
he's risen. There's where in our hope lies
in the resurrected Lord. Turn to Revelation 22 and I'll
show you another garden. The one to which we're looking
forward. State of innocence, not long, state of nature, state
of grace, And here's the state of glory, Revelation 22, verse
1. And he showed me a pure river
of the water of life, pure as crystal, proceeding out of the
throne of God and of the Lamb. And in the midst of the street
of it, on either side of the river, was the tree of life,
which bare twelve manner of fruits, yielded her fruit every month,
and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
What a garden! And there shall be no more curse.
But the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and
his servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face.
And his name shall be in their foreheads, and there be no night
there. There need no candle, neither
light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they
shall reign for ever and ever." Old George Whitefield. went to an inn one night. He
was on his way to preach somewhere, and he stopped at an inn. And they told him there was a
man there who was very, very sick, and they would like for
George Whitefield to talk with the man about his soul. So Whitefield
went into the room where the sick man lay and talked to him
about Christ. The man was very interested in
what he had to say. And the next morning Whitfield went back to
his room and talked with him again. And he believed that the
man came to an understanding of the gospel, like the thief
on the cross, like the Ethiopian eunuch. He embraced Christ and
the gospel. And that afternoon the man died.
And Whitfield wrote to a friend and he said this, I stopped by
an inn and spent a couple of days. And there I met a man. in the state of nature, lost
and undone. But by God's grace, I saw him
in a state of grace, regenerated and redeemed in Christ. I left
him in a state of glory. That's what I'm talking about.
State of nature, fallen creature, state of grace, raised by Christ,
state of glory. That will be glory for me. God
bless that to your heart. I hope it's a blessing.