I knew I couldn't hear my voice,
so I figured you couldn't either. It's good to see you all out
this morning. Welcome our visitors from all
over. A reminder, next Sunday is the last Sunday of the month.
We'll have the Lord's Table and dinner, no afternoon service.
That's next Sunday, so remember that date if you will. Let's
begin our worship service with hymn number six, Come Thou Almighty
King. ? Come Thou Almighty King ? Help
us Thy name to sing ? Help us to praise ? Father all glorious
? O'er all victorious ? Come and reign over us ? Ancient of
days Come thou incarnate Word, gird on thy mighty sword, our
prayer attend. Come and thy people bless, and
give thy word success, spirit of holiness, honesty, ? Come holy comforter ? ? Thy sacred
witness bear ? ? In this glad hour ? ? Thou who almighty art
? ? Now rule in every heart ? ? And name from us depart ? ? Spirit
of fire ? To the great one in three, eternal praises be. It's evermore His Sovereign Majesty, After scripture reading and prayer,
we'll sing hymn number 474, Only a sinner saved by grace. If you have your Bibles turned,
read the first book in the Bible, Genesis. Read one verse, verse
one. In the beginning, God created
the heaven and the earth. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven,
blessed Lord and Savior, merciful, kind, gracious, tenderhearted,
you loved your people with an everlasting love, and because
you loved them, you drew them to you. You came to this world
to die in the womb instead of your elect, purchasing their
salvation fully with your death, your blood. We thank you, Father,
that we can approach the throne of grace boldly, not because
of who we are or what we are, but because of who He is and
what He has accomplished. And He has preeminence in all
things, that in Him dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
And we thank you that we are complete in Him, having need
of nothing. Father, we ask today that you
might be pleased to meet with those who are sick, with those
who have been added to the prayer list, these Adam Parker family,
Adam Pearman, and Sharon's request yes please thank you good result
Kathy's operation pray lord continue to minister her there's brother
and suffered spanked operation watch over him bring back pray for ourselves this day,
Father, as we gather here. We pray that you'd cause us in
our hearts to worship you. Praise your holy name. Give thanks
for who you are and what you've done for us. You're worthy of
all praise. We're worthy of nothing. Father,
help us to appreciate what we have in you and what you've done
for us. Cause us this day to honor your
name. Enable me to preach the gospel
of Jesus Christ. me up and don't leave me here
by myself. We pray your spirit upon the things of God. Watch
over us and lead us and guide us in all truth and take the
things of Christ and reveal them unto us. We ask this in his precious
and holy name. Amen. Hymn number 474. Lord, have I gotten but what
I received. Grace has bestowed it, and I
have received. I'm only a sinner. Save my grace. Only a sinner. Save my grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my story. To God be the glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. ? Once I was foolish and sin
ruled my heart ? ? Causing my footsteps from God to depart
? ? Jesus hath found me, happy my case ? ? I now am a sinner
saved by grace ? Only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my story. To God be the glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Years unavailing, no merit had
I. Mercy had saved me, or else I
must die. Sin had alarmed me. Fear in God's face But now I'm
a sinner Saved by grace Only a sinner Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my story. To God be the glory. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Suffer a sinner whose heart overflows. Loving his Savior to tell what
he knows. Wants more to tell it. Would I embrace? I'm only a sinner Saved by grace
Only a sinner ? I'm only a sinner saved by grace
? This is my story to God be the glory ? I'm only a sinner
saved by grace Stan and Steve would you sit
in the office this morning please? Let us pray. Father in heaven,
we come in the name of Jesus Christ, our great and glorious
Savior, the perfect gift given from above, from the Father of
lights and heaven, there's no variable, there's no shadow of
a turning, unspeakable gift, the gift that you've given to
all your children, and with it, you've freely given them all
things. We have nothing, this sign of the hell that we deserve, but what you have given us. We've received it at your kind
hand, so it belongs to you. We return it to thee that which
belongs to you. Let us do so with joy and thanksgiving to
know that you have given us this privilege. We pray in Christ's
name. Amen. and and and You. I invite your attention back
to the first chapter of this book. Genesis chapter 1 and verse
1. Tyler, my message is four great
words. And those four great words are these. In the beginning,
God. In the beginning, God. There
are no words in the human language that are more profound and precise
than the first four words of this book of Genesis. These words
are not embraced, believed, and regarded in the worship that
is due the one of whom they speak. The entire remainder of the Bible
will fall into the realm of myth and fable. This short description
of the beginning of all things, all things material, sets forth
the beginner in a preexistent, sovereign, singular, self-sufficient,
and worthy of all worship and praise. God is if you come to
him you must believe that he is in the reward of them that
diligently seek him. He is the eternal being. The
being. I think it was Larry, I can't
think, Simpson said he's the great isness. He is. He is. What follows these four
words is the account of creation. That account is designed to cause
men to fall down and worship the one who accomplished it in
six days, creation and making of all that is. How simple and
sublime are these words, yet they cannot be understood and
embraced, saved by God-given faith. Men may look at this,
but never truly understand the meaning of it or appreciate it,
apart from God-given faith. Paul said in the Hebrew letter,
Hebrews 11, verse 3, by faith we understand. that the worlds
were formed from nothing. That's how we understand it.
We don't understand it by empirical proof. We don't go to some creationist
who writes a book about creationism and how the earth was formed
and how it proves the Bible. No book proves the Bible. This
Bible is proof and only received by faith. These words do not
and cannot ever fit into the realm of human logic. In a true
sense, they're a trap for the mind of fallen men and throughout
the ages proved to be so. Yet they stand glorious and bright, a joy to the believer and a bane
to human intellect. In the beginning, God. want to know how all this got
here. I remember Evel Knievel. Some of you might remember him.
He was a goofy person who liked to jump cars on a motorcycle.
Had every bone in his body broken. They asked him what it was all
about. He says, I just got three questions. Where'd I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? Pretty profound questions for
a man who didn't know much, except to jump over cars on a motorcycle
The answer is simple. In the beginning, God. Men won't answer about the beginning. Astronomers look to the heaven
and see some distant explosion that resulted in a solar system,
so-called, that is conducive to life as we know it. Hand in
hand with the evolutionists, they look back to the earth and
speak of the primordial ooze that spawned the paramecium that
mutated into a tadpole and time sprouted legs and eventually
walked upright, and now counts its tadpole self to be the be-all
and end-all of the world. The result is plain. The ooze
worships the progenitor, Mother Earth, and the elect worship God. But
in the beginning, when there was nothing but God, He spoke. And all things began. All things
began. Men have given God different
names. Disregarding the idiocy of phrases like the man upstairs
or other spewings of simpletons, there seems to be a willingness
to change the name of God to make him more palatable, maybe
perhaps to political correctness. The same folks who just a while
back desired to teach creationism along with evolution, who spoke
of putting God back in schools as if they could put God anywhere,
are now opting for more readily acceptable terminology. They
no longer speak of creation, a term that suggests the sublime.
They speak of intelligent design as a phrase that, to their thinking,
speaks of God without mentioning its name. Now how clever this
is, man has found a way to keep God in schools without even mentioning
his name. Here's a way to have faith without
knowing who you believe, I guess. Such word masonry serves only
one purpose, and that is to allow the creature and avenue by which
he is not bound and accountable to worship the God who made him.
He's not a higher power, he's God. He's not a supreme being,
he's God. He's not an assistant to your
paltry existence, someone you can invite into your existence.
He's God. He is not your better self. He is God. He is not that feeling
in your heart that gives you self-esteem or makes you feel
like you have found your niche in this universe. He is God. Before there was anything, there
He was. He's God. all that you see sitting
here today and as you drove here today, these glorious mountains,
this wonderful place in which we live, all that you see, all
that you see, all that inhabits the earth, no matter where you look, finds
its origin in Him, in Him, in His creative power,
miss this and you've missed it all together. In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth. The earth is not our mother.
I hear people talking about mother earth. The earth is not our mother.
It's a thing God created. Called into being. And according
to the remainder this first chapter was created for man. Man is to be the caretaker of
it. not the other way around God
granted that to man but also granted we've not done such a
great job since we fell in Adam but the fact is it's not going
to get better folks stop wishing that it will it's been on a downhill
run since Eden and things will wax worse and worse and the love
of many shall wax cold This is a doomed thing, this
universe. It's to be replaced with a new
heaven and a new earth. Man is the caretaker, but he
hasn't done a good job. We plucked the leaves as Adam
did and hid in its foliage to cover our sin, hide from God,
and we as a race are still abusing it in the same way. If we can
preserve its leaves and its bushes, we can count ourselves righteous
while we're doing nothing more than still hiding from God. That God created the heavens
and the earth is a fact, though it is only received by faith.
The fact of it leaves man without excuse. Nothing in nature saves
you. The heaven and the earth declare
its handiwork, his sovereignty and his eternal being. They say
with boldness and a resounding voice that they are created and
have created it as God who did it. And herein lies the rub. The fact is, the fact of it is
not the meaning of it. Many embrace as far as they are
able the fact that God created the heavens and the earth, but
do not and cannot know what that means. This book is a spiritual
book. This book is not about facts.
This book is about redemption. This book is about Jesus Christ
from Genesis 1, what we just read, to the very end in Revelation
22. It's about Christ. In Him dwells
the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Who created the heavens and the
earth? Jesus Christ did. He's very God of very God. That's
what it says in the beginning. and the word was with God, the
word was God, the same as in the beginning, with God, and
nothing was made that He didn't make. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He said to the Pharisees who
studied the Bible and lived by it, tried to use it as a guide
for life, that's the law, it's not a guide for life, it's a
revelation of the reason you should die. It was added because
of transgression. In the beginning are the words
that are employed to describe the beginner of all things and
that with a particular end and purpose. He purposed the end from the
beginning it says in Isaiah chapter 46 verse 9. He declared the end from the
beginning. What does it mean? before he started this thing,
he declared how it was going to end. I know we get all troubled
about what's going on, I do and you do, and circumstance invades
our existence and our minds too often, and we want to admit we
claim to love and believe and bow to the sovereignty of Almighty
God, but we get troubled about so much because we are poor,
frail creatures. but we know how the story we've
read we know how the school more come
again call with the words of his mouth call out of existence
this thing called into existence and make everything new in the beginning are the words
of creation. Men do not like to think of purpose
and absolutes. They like to think of sovereign
alignment of everything and everyone has an appointed end and in God's
economy and all the humanity that has resided upon this earth,
everyone has exactly served the purpose that he was designed
and created to serve. They prefer to think of the words
in the beginning in a sense of the old deist used to think,
the deism. They assert that God began this
thing as if he wound up a clock and it will tick and tick until
the mainspring is fully relaxed and all things will then end.
They have heard that he has no personal interest or input in
the outcome but rather is a watcher as events unfold. With each tick,
I remember a song was popular back in the 90s, I think it was.
A lot of the local high school choral sang it, God is watching. He's not only watching, He's
controlling. Ruling, reigning, manipulating,
moving, herding, gathering, doing all those things with His creation. The idea of deism took on a big
deal during the French Revolution when this theology became popular.
People who dealt with time, especially watchmakers, were considered
gods. They were considered gods. The beginning is not about the
ticking of time, it's about the creator of time. Time is created
and that time is for one thing, redemption. Vengeance, the Lord
said, is in my heart. But the day of my redemption
has come. Jesus Christ came to preach the
acceptable year of the Lord. The heavens and the earth would
merely serve as tools that reflect the history of redemption. God
is working all things together for good to them that love God,
to them that are called according to His purpose. Now everything
is a thing. So everything is working for
the good of God's elect and for the glory of His namesake. Everything. Everything. It's a story of redemption. Redemption suggests ruin or captivity. Thus we see the story unfold.
Genesis 1-1 reveals Adam before the fall. In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth. That's a picture of Adam before
the fall created in innocence and beauty. Verse 2 is a revelation
of the result of the fall. The earth was without form and
void. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep. The Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters. when Adam plunged the entire
human race into utter ruin. Whatever Adam was before the
fall, the devastation of his disobedience was such that the
after effects proved that the definition of true humanity was
so utterly marred that it's not even discernible, simply without
form, void, and in darkness, as Alice described. Adam went out full and came back
empty, created in the image of God, but now he bore the image
of a vacuum. Void, vanity, is value lighter
than ether, as insubstantial as empty space. We cannot describe
the majesty and greatness of God, so no words can describe
the result and consequence of the fall of man. We use words
like utter depravity or total depravity or utter ruin, violence,
corruption, impotence, words like that to describe man's situation. But they do not scratch the surface
in describing man's perverse potentiality as an astounding
aptitude for all things evil. Man is ruined, he's lost, he's
evil by nature. Without form. Void. Darkness was upon the face of
the deep. Without voluminous capacities bound. What voluminous
capacities bound up in the concept of the word deep? Deep down where
light can find no purchase. Deep down where demons freely
delight. Deep down where the unimaginable
is the order of the day. Deep down where the heart is
blacker than a thousand midnights down in a cypress swamp. Darkness
was upon the face of the deep. Darkness. Darkness. This is where man fell. This
is where man must remain. Unless, of course, this too is
a part of the purpose of God to grand scheme the end that
was declared from the beginning. What if in the beginning God
chose us, some of this fallen race, to be trophies of His grace,
of His heretofore unrevealed grace and love and mercy? Could
it be that in the beginning the salvation was purposed as well
as the fall? Can we charge God with such absolute
sovereignty? Can nothing slip up on Him, blindside
Him, so that He must alter His plan to adapt to this sinful
ruin of creation? What if this creation included
the fall and spoke of another creation that was not physical
but rather spiritual, where circumcision or uncircumcision availed nothing
but a new creature, a new creation? What if before the fall, the
recovery of redemption was already purpose? What if? Why would that
be? That would really involve some
sovereign muscle and omnipotent wit, I would say, to have the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, in the beginning,
God. For whom he did, for know he
did also predestinate, being conformed to the image of his
Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. For whoever
whom he foreknew, he also did predestinate. call, justify, and glorify. When? Before the world began.
He predestinated it. If you are here where you are
today as a child of God, it's by divine predestination. Predetermination. God did it. God did it. Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in Jesus Christ according as he chose
us in Christ before the world began. that we should behold him without
blame, before him in love, having predestinated us to the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ unto himself, to the praise of the
glory of his grace. Brethren, beloved of the Lord,
we are bound to give thanks for you, because God has from the
beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the
spirit and belief in the truth, whereunto he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Who is a God like this? in the beginning God. How might this great spiritual
creation take place? Look at the last phrase of verse
2. When the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. The Spirit of God. Who is the
Spirit of God? He's the other spirit of Christ,
what Christ said. He said, I'll send you another
comforter when I come to you. He's the other spirit of Christ. The spirit moved upon the face
of the deep. What's the face of the deep?
Well, evidently it's void and nothing but darkness. But to
the sovereign spirit, according to Psalm 139 and verse 12, light
and darkness are the same to him. He created them both. I create the light, I create
darkness. I do all these things, He said in Isaiah chapter 45. Water is synonymous with the
Word of God, washing of the water of the Word. Water is also used
to describe the nature of man, unstable, always taking the shape
of whatever container it's in, always seeking the lowest place
and always running the course of least resistance. This is
man. The Spirit moves upon the elect with the Word of God. The
result of beginning is the new beginning. It's called the new
birth. The miraculous thing itself defies description. God uses
the term birth so we can look at a natural birth and get some
idea of what went on there. We don't fully understand, but
that's how it worked. This is God's doing. It's a miraculous
thing. It's God's doing. It's marvelous
in our eyes. When a man is brought to faith, we can say no more
than the spirit moved. No aspect of his new birth, his
new creation can be attributed to anyone but God the Creator.
You're born not of flesh, not of the will of man, but of God. Born. Whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved, how shall they call on
him whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe on
him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?
And how shall they preach except that they be sent? So faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. I don't understand that, but
it's so. In the wisdom of God, he made it so that the wisdom
of the world could never find God. But it's through the foolishness
of preaching he's pleased to save them that believe. That's
what it says in First Corinthians 121. of his own will beget he
us, birthed us with the word of truth. I don't know how that
works. I have no idea. I know I don't
cause it. No man causes it. It's this thing
here, this thing we hold in our hands, this marvelous, wonderful
tome that God has put in our hands. The word of God. Power. Power. You're born not a corruptible
seed, but incorruptible seed, even the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you. What is this word employed by
the Spirit that brings about the new creation? It's the word
of God commanding light to shine and dispel darkness. We read
in verse 3, God said, Let there be light. And there was light. There it was. That's not the
sun. That comes several days later.
Ain't the moon and the stars. That comes several days later.
This is Jesus Christ. He's the light of the world.
He's the light that lighteth every man that cometh to the
world. Let there be light. His word is light. His son is
light. And it comes to the elect by
command of revelation. this light is Jesus Christ, the
glory, the revelation, the sovereign salvation by Christ. Let there
be light and there was light. Light had to be and what happens
when light comes? Darkness is dispelled. Darkness
is dispelled. You can go to a dark room, light
a match, darkness goes away. It just goes away. Where does
it go? It goes away. Let there be light, and there
was light. The psalmist said, the entrance
of thy word, the entrance of thy word giveth light and understanding
to the simple. And in case you wonder who the
simple is, that's us. That's us. That light shines in the face
of Jesus Christ as the glory of God according to 2 Corinthians
4 through 7. The creation is but the story
of our salvation by the sovereign will and work of Almighty God
in the beginning of our creation. God created the heaven and the earth. And we were without form and
void, and we fell in Adam, and darkness was upon the face of
the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon
the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light, and
there was light. Everything in this book is the story of our
salvation. It is the operation of the triune
God He had fore and upon His ruined elect to bring Him to
the first day of life in Jesus Christ, the new birth. What do you know about that life?
What do I know about that life? I know I have it because God
gave me faith. Can I define it? Cannot. Can
I prove it exists? Cannot. In fact, I don't know
much about it because the word said it's hidden with Christ
in God. But it's there. salvation is of the Lord, the
Creator. When did it happen? When did it begin? In the beginning,
God created the heavens and the earth. Father, bless us to understand
and pray in Christ's name, amen.