Sermon Tone Analysis

*Creation is about the Glory of God the Creator*

*Genesis 1:20-23*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on July 8, 2007/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

 

20 Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens."

21 God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

22 God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."

23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

Revelation 4:9-11 (NASB95) \\ 9 And when the living creatures *give glory* and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, \\ 10 the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying, \\ 11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive *glory* and honor and power; *for You created all things*, and because of Your will they existed, and were *created*.”

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Creation is all about the Glory of God.

The creatures are designed to exalt their Creator.

There’s a lot of things we can talk about and have talked about in relation to Genesis 1 and origins, but this message which I have seen all over the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and that I want to major on today is that everything God’s Word does is concerned with revealing and magnifying God.

The reason creatures exist is to glorify God. 

 

- Isaiah 43:7 says God created us for His glory.

- Verse 20 of the same chapter says “the beasts of the field will glorify [God], the jackals and the ostriches” (these were made in day six of our text)

- It’s not just man, but all the creatures that God created on days five and six of creation, as we’ll learn today, everything God made was for His own glory.

- Psalm 19 says even the heavens declare the glory of God. 

- Or as the song says, “The universe declares your majesty”

 

And the result of creation should be that we as God’s creatures, would join with the living creatures in Revelation 4:9 in giving glory to Him who sits on the throne.

What God has done in creating the creatures of Genesis 1 should cause us like this scene in Revelation to fall on our faces and worship and sing again “Thou art worthy O Lord to receive glory and honor and power for thou has created all thing and for thy pleasure they are created, thou art worthy O Lord.”

I hope you paid attention to some of those words we sung earlier:

“Praise to the Lord the Almighty the King of creation, O my soul praise Him”

 

Or as we sang in another hymn about creation “Field and forest, vale and mountain, flow’ry meadow, flashing sea, chanting bird and flowing fountain call us to rejoice in thee” – all of creation calls us to rejoice in God and worship Him

 

~*~*The biblical application and point of creation is that God would be glorified and worshipped

 

Romans 1:20-25 (NKJV) \\ 20 For since the *creation of the world* His invisible /attributes/ are clearly seen, being *understood by the things that are made*, /even/ His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, *they did not glorify /Him/ as God*, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and *changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man*—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and *worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator*, who is blessed forever.

Amen.

This is the application of Genesis 1. Romans 1 is the classic N.T. commentary on creation and God’s glory and how God eventually abandons individuals and even nations who practice the sins mentioned in this chapter.

Verses 22-23 are an indictment which would apply to scientists or any who profess to be wise but are foolish when they exchange giving glory to the Creator God, and instead make images of corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things, including those on their evolutionary icons and charts and diagrams – it also applies to idols of /your /heart as well.

According to Romans 1:21, mankind knows God; there are no consistent atheists.

You don’t have to prove God, man already knows instinctively there is a God whether he attends Harvard or is in some jungle in Africa apart from any civilization.

God does not begin the Bible trying to prove His existence – it is asserted and assumed and absolutely stated.

Someone asked about apologetics last week in the Q&A, and I just want to reiterate that pure evidences do NOT makes someone born again.

There must be God’s sovereign grace.

Jesus said in John 6:44 no one can come Him unless God draws him.

The natural response of depraved men in Romans 1 is to suppress whatever truth points to God, it is not just an intellectual issue it is a moral issue.

And there must be regeneration to produce and preserve true faith; and faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God so we always want to seek to bring unbelievers to the Word, not just facts and arguments.

It’s not just initial creation that is only due to God’s calling forth, man’s re-creation, man’s salvation is also only due to God’s calling forth.

Both are monergistic (a work of God alone) and to the glory of God alone (soli deo Gloria).

Romans 1:21 says “they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful” – let’s shift the focus from the secular world to us.

It’s one thing to talk about those people out there, but I want to address you personally and pointedly: Are /you /thankful to God for His creation and the blessing of life you have?

Is your life marked by thankfulness to God? Do you glorify God for it?

My prayer is that none of us in this room would be guilty of failing to glorify and thank our Creator who is so clearly understood in what He made, that none of us would change the all-sufficient, all-satisfying glory of God for anything else here on earth.

The highest issue here is bigger than apologetics, it’s not even winning a debate about intelligent  design.

The ultimate concern of this chapter, this sermon, and all of God’s truth is that Christ our Creator would be glorified, magnified, and worshipped.

And when we honor His Word and Works, He is glorified.

One writer has summarized it this way:

God’s chief end in creation was Himself, and identifies his chief end as being His glory.

Because He is the God of glory, He created in, of, by and through His glory.

Edwards further explains that creation is an emanation of God’s own glory and excellence.

Thus in creation God’s glory has burst forth in such a way that His glory can be identified and experienced, albeit in a small way.

Creation has emanated from His glory for His glory.

In this way we can say that creation is His glory.[1]

/5 Ways the Creator is Revealed and Magnified in His Creatures/

 

*1.

The Effectual Word of God – v. 20-21*

*2.

The Blessing of God – v. 22 (we’ll only cover these first two this week)*

*3.

The Goodness of God – v. 23-25*

*4.

The Plural Persons of God – v. 26-27*

*5.

The Praise Deserving of God – Ps 148 (Rev.

4:11)*

 

*1.

The Effectual Word of God – v. 20-21*

<Read v. 20-21>

 

Notice the pattern “Then God said … and it was so” – see v. 3, 9, 11, 14-15, 24

 

Each time God says something, it happens just that way, He creates it by the Word of His power, and He sees it is good, it is perfect.

One of the amazing ways God is revealed and magnified in this passage is that He speaks and creates out of nothing, ex nihilo, by divine fiat, by merely saying “let there be”

 

Romans 4:17 says God “calls into being that which does not exist.”

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Hebrews 11:3 says (ESV) “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God” \\ \\

It is also by faith that atheists and naturalists believe the universe was not created by the Word of God.

It is by faith in /their /words that scientists understand the world was prepared a different way, that an explosion created the exquisite order and harmony and things they cannot explain like retrograde orbits and data from astronomy that defies their theories.

Let’s be clear, the supposed conflict between religion and science is not faith vs. /fact/, it’s faith vs. faith.

Evolution is a religion, a dogma, make no mistake about it, it’s a faith as much as anything else.

Two religions going head to head, two faiths in conflict.

And the more we learn about the irreducible complexity of God’s creation, the more scientists are unable to find intermediate forms, the more faith it requires to believe there is no Intelligent Designer.

Origins science is outside of the observable, testable, repeatable, scientific method.

So this issue is one of faith, not just facts.

You can have a bunch of PhD’s after your name, you can have all the academic credentials, you can have more degrees than a thermometer, but God’s question in Job 38 would still apply to all the most brilliant men of any day “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the world?”

And essentially the message of the end of Job is “if you weren’t there, you need to close your mouth and listen to what God says.”

Since God is the only one who was there, shouldn’t we trust Him in what He said about it?

Going back to the main point of God’s Effectual Word, the spoken Word of God in Genesis 1 not only reveals God’s glory, it also reveals His sovereignty.

In verse 10 when it says God named the dry land earth, this speaks further of God’s greatness and superiority.

In ancient orient, act of giving a name meant exercise of sovereign right.

This expresses God’s claim of divine right and lordship over what He created.

God’s Word in creation was not merely a voice; it was not just a verbal thing.

John 1:1-3 (NASB95) \\ /1 //In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.// \\ 2 //He was in the beginning with God.// \\ 3 //All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.//

\\ … 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us/

 

When our Lord Jesus commands, not even demons can disobey.

While He walked this earth even the wind and seas obeyed Him.

It is true that God sovereignly allows sinful man to disobey His /written /scripture, but when we speak of our Lord’s spoken Word, His /effectual/ Word, we are talking about sovereign commands not suggestions.

In other words, God’s effectual call or command is effective, it’s efficacious, it’s irresistible, it is invincible.

When the Lord calls and commands “Lazarus, come forth,” Lazarus doesn’t say “no thanks” (nor does Saul of Tarsus at God’s effectual call).

God’s call also causes what it calls for.

 

2 Corinthians 4:6 says the same God who commanded light from darkness in Genesis 1 does a very similar thing in our own dark hearts in bringing the light of the gospel and the new creation.

God’s Effectual Word is life-giving, it is powerful, it accomplishes its purpose and doesn’t return void.

Over and over again, this chapter says “Then God said, ‘Let ….’” – and each time a following phrase describes how it happened just that way.

The powerful effectual Word of God is one of the ways God is revealed and magnified by creation.

Psalm 33:6-9 /6/ /By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all their host ... /

/8 //Let all the earth fear the Lord; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.

//9 //For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast./

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It doesn’t say that God spoke, and then millions or billions of years later, things gradually formed by naturalistic processes.

The Hebrew grammar in Genesis 1 has a close connection between God saying and it happening – it is emphatic here.[2]