In the Beginning, the beginning
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Genesis 1:1-25
Genesis 1:1-25
Brief explanation about why I chose to start in Genesis
Talk about the reading schedule on church calendar
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
What happened before the beginning?
Numerous theories from secular science and even the Christian world that try to add dialogue before the beginning.
What is a theory, a speculation.
In the beginning God (period).
This is the beginning of creation.
In the beginning, God created.
This is the beginning of history as we know it.
If God wanted us to know anything before the In the Beginning, He would have told us.
We must be careful to not add anything to the text that is not there.
We have a tendency as humans to try to fill in the dots.
Remember the warning Jesus gives us in Revelation.
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
These verses begin to summarize the acts of creation.
God began to speak over the earth.
V. 2 states that the earth was formless and void.
In the Hebrew the words formless and void are tohu and bohu
Tohu: emptiness, nothing, barren
Bohu: lack of order
2. God speaks order into chaos.
God, in His act of creation began to speak order
He spoke order over nothingness and brought it to life
God created ex-nihilo: from nothing
if God can speak order out of nothing, He can bring order and peace into your heart.
As God spoke order over matter, He can speak order over your life.
compare v 3 and v 14
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
This Light was revealed
The Light was distinct and separate from the darkness
Compare these verses to v 14
Remember how the Bible talks about scoffers
Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;
Scoffers will point out that Light already entered the picture
How can there be any light without the sun?
The Light in verse 3 os not talking about the Sun
It is talking about the Light of Life
It is talking about hope in darkness
The Light of life can drive away darkness
in the light there is not darkness
Click for #3
3. In Genesis1:3 God is saying let my presence be known.
Who is the light of life?
Jesus is the Light of Life.
Jesus is the one who can restore order in chaos
Jesus is the one who separates the darkness from the Light
in Him we can find hope
In Him we can find order
There is no contradiction between verses 3 and 14
Verse 3 is speaking about the presence of God being revealed over His creation
Verse 14 is speaking about physical objects
Sun, moon, stars
What does Genesis 1:14-16 say about these objects
Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.
The sun, moon and stars served as markers of time.
They serve as a means for us to keep track of time
and to mark the changing of seasons.
Look at Matthew 24:15-31
“Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. “Whoever is on the housetop must not go down to get the things out that are in his house. “Whoever is in the field must not turn back to get his cloak. “But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! “But pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath. “For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will. “Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short. “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him. “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. “Behold, I have told you in advance. “So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them. “For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. “Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. “And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
A sign of the return of our Lord is that the sun, moon and stars will be darkened.
The created forms of light marking the changing of season will no longer be necessary
Time will cease to be
God in this event is deconstructing creation
He is revealing the One true Light
He is allowing all to see the Light of Life
Reverting back to the creation account when only His presence was the source of Light
Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
The term for water is mayim
it can mean water, but it also connotes a fluid substance like air or water vapor
God separates water from the other flowable material
God begins to give definition to His creation
God sets boundaries
Without boundaries, we have chaos
4. God gives definition to creation to avoid chaos.
Sermon or sermons just on this topic
An act of grace by God is to set boundaries
God acts in love when He sets rules
In Gods order we can find peace
The enemy wants us to worship the self.
the devil wants us to define ourselves according to our own sinful desires
the enemy wants us all to become narcissists
Narcissus myth
the enemy wants us to be so consumed in our own definitions that we drown in pride of the self
click #5
5. If we reject God’s definition, we drown in chaos.
While this topic is not pleasant, it is vital to consider
God does not give boundaries to squelch creativity
God sets boundaries because the alternative is disarray
Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
God continues to give definition
the word I want to key in on in these verses is kind
Genesis 1:14-19 we already talked about
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.” 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. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
In these verses God defines how biological creation is to function
He uses the word kind to define how plants, trees and animal are to reporduce
The word kind in the Hebrew is the word
4786 מִין (mîn): n.[masc.]; ≡ Str 4327; TWOT 1191a—LN 58.21–58.30 kind, class, species, i.e., a type of entity in contrast to other entities (Ge 1:11–25 passim; 6:20; 7:14; Lev 11:14–29 passim; Dt 14:13, 14, 15, 18; Eze 47:10+), note: in context always used in a taxonomical system, cf. 9454
6. The term kind - 4786 מִין (mîn) is a scientific term.
It is a term of classification
similar to the term genus or species
Evolution did not happen
God created animals according to His design
We have no evidence of evolution
We do have evidence of genetic mutation
Charles Darwin is credited with researching evolution
His book “The Origin of Species”
Full title of Darwin’s book is “The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.”
Darwin was a racist
He believed that people who had darker skin tones were less evolved
Our skin tone has nothing to do with evolution
Our skin tone is determined by the amount of melanin in our skin.
Darwin was a racist and yet we look to him as the father of evolutionary science
which is a fallacy
Darwin did not discover evolution
He discovered genetic mutation
Explain Darwin’s birds
7. Genetic mutation occurs when genetic information is changed or lost.
When aspects of an animal adapt or mutate, information is always lost or rearranged, it is never gained.
We have no observable scientific evidence of evolution whatsoever
There has never been an account of one species evolving into another
God created order
Animals reproduce after their own kind
we did not evolve from a lesser organism
8. God created us to be just as we are, His children.
I do not read books on genetics
I do read books on Christian Apologetics
While we are on the topic of those who are deceived and therefore attempt to deceive others, I want to talk about a man named Richard Dawkins
Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist
He was a professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University until 2008
He is now an author and lecturer
He is also a devout atheist
He is one of the leading critics of Christianity alive today
He spent the majority of his life trying to disprove God
He wrote numerous books denouncing Christianity
Most notably the book titled “The God Delusion.”
A quote from Dawkins
“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
“In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
From Dawkins perspective, Life has no purpose.
9. From the perspective of an atheist, life is pointless.
We are either lucky or bound to suffer
no justice
no reason
just pitiless indifference
This is the outlook of an atheist
nothing matters
No point to life whatsoever
no true joy
no hope
no creativity
stuff just happens
Imagine if this was your outlook?
life from this perspective is to eat, sleep, work, watch tv and repeat
we came from nothing and we will go back to nothing
all that we think, do in the middle is pointless because life is meaningless
What a dismal view of life
We know that this cannot be true simply because we an experience love
We have hope
We recognize order, even though we fight against it at times
Dawkins himself knows that there is a God
He chooses to harden his heart
Turn to Romans
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
God tells us that those who proclaim their own wisdom have become fools
They exchanged the glory of an incorruptible God for the image of corruptible man
They choose to worship the created rather than the Creator
From Dawkins perspective and from the perspective of an atheist, they cannot know the origin of life
Big bang and then nothing exploded into everything
Recently, Dawkins has begun to waver on his stance that we evolved from nothing
He knows the truth, he just chooses to suppress it
Here is a summary of what Dawkins now suggests
He now believes that an extremely distant civilization of highly advanced lifeforms from a distant planet came to earth millions upon million of years ago and planted the beginning of life and then they disappeared never to return.
Dawkins knows that God exists, he is just to prideful to admit it
We all know God because we can recognize His attributes.
10. In the beginning, God created.