Genesis 1 - 2009 - Skip Heitzig

[Music] father for some people this is a discipline that they have never undertaken to sit for a protracted period of time without the gymnastics of a homiletic one two three point sermon but to go line upon line and verse by verse to just soak in the sections the phrases the verses inspired by your spirit written by servants throughout the ages and preserved for our edification we pray that as we do we would be edified you would be glorified and the Word of God would spread we ask it Lord in Jesus name Amen according to Guinness Book of World Records the Bible is the best-selling and most widely distributed book in all of the world since 1815 according to Guinness the Bible has sold and different ones have distributed 2.5 billion copies it has been translated into two thousand two hundred and thirty three dialects so it's everywhere a significant book and it is this significant book that we study tonight and every time we gather together if you are to tally up all of the verses in the Bible he would discover there's thirty one thousand one hundred and seventy three verses about twenty three thousand in the Old Testament and about eight thousand in the New Testament if you were simply to read those verses from Genesis to Revelation you could cover the entire Bible reading at what we call pulpit speed just reading it out loud you cover it in 71 hours now it's going to take us longer than 71 hours we're not going to obviously go longer than the set hour that we have for tonight we're going to end on time trust me on that or relatively close to being on time no we'll end on time we have other commitments we have to keep but it's going to take us way longer than 71 hours it's going to take us several weeks and since we want to study and compare turn and get the text that we read elucidated it's gonna take us quite some time we're only doing one chapter tonight now we'll speed up our pace and certain portions of the Bible we'll do two three four five chapters when we get to lots of genealogies we'll just kind of notice some of the highlights instead of trying to wrestle through all of the names we will speed through those sections more quickly but the idea is to read it and to feed on it to study it I have several Bibles and I've kept them for years and the reason I have several is because they get worn out and so when I teach I will find one of the Bible's that isn't doesn't have a page coming out of Genesis and I'll use that for because I have a Bible it's all good but the book of Ephesians has fallen out and then another Bible where Ephesians is intact but several of the chapters of Acts have fallen out and that's okay it's not that you want to become Bible abusers you just want to become Bible users like Charles Spurgeon used to say a Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to somebody who isn't so read it use it and we'll be doing that in these studies and comparing as I said Scripture with Scripture now we're looking tonight and every time we read the Bible at pure revelation there's two basic types of Revelation there is general revelation and there is special revelation Genesis has both God communicates to mankind generally through the created world around us but then we read that God spoke and God said and when God speaks and God said that's special revelation both are highlighted in this book both are celebrated I think perhaps best in Psalm 19 the psalmist begins by talking about general revelation the heavens declare the glory of God the firmament shows his handiwork day after day they utter their speech night after night they reveal knowledge there is no voice there is no language where their speech is not heard their line has gone throughout all of the earth that's general revelation God speaks through the created world but there's something much better much more secure much more direct what much more informative and that is special revelation and that's the Bible the same Psalm Psalm 19 as it goes down says the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul the testimonies of the Lord are sure making wise the simple more to be desired are they than gold yea than much fine gold so as we study through the lens of special revelation tonight the creation of the heavens and the earth will study general revelation through the lens of special revelation just understand that God gives us both and both are talked about here now in the Bible we have a sweep from eternity past in the beginning God created the heavens in the earth Genesis 1:1 to eternity future new heavens new earth new jerusalem revelation 21 talks about that so it gives us the full sweep but it would if you understand that there's one main subject and that's one person and that is Messiah the Lord Jesus Christ he is the one person that the Bible highlights more than anything else that is the theme of all of Scripture one person and two events event number one Jesus first coming the event number two Jesus second coming at event number one Jesus came into the world to take care of sin to die on the cross to pay for the sins of the world the second time Jesus comes he will come to reign over those who have been cleansed of their sin and that is the theme of all of the scripture but the Bible is also divided in sections as you can see there's an Old Testament and there's a New Testament but let me suggest five sections with that one theme or that one person or that one subject and here's five divisions for you preparation is number one that's the whole Old Testament it's all in preparation prophetic of anticipating Jesus coming section number two manifestation those are the four Gospels the life of Jesus is highlighted spoken about discussed celebrated section number three propagation that's the book of Acts the message of Jesus manifested in the Gospels is now taken through Jerusalem Judea Samaria into the ends of the earth by the apostles fourth section information those are the epistles of Paul John Peter and others they fill in the gaps they tell the story for the church and then the fifth division is consummation and that's the last book of the Bible the book of Revelation it talks about how God will fulfill his plan throughout all of the ages and that which was in the beginning will have its end and God will have a new creation new heaven new earth so those are the five sections now we're dealing with the Old Testament and we will be for some time in the Old Testament there are four categories are you with me so far four categories of special revelation now if we were Jewish I would tell you there are three categories the law the prophets and the writings and you'll see that distinction even written in the Bible but we have come in the Western world to divide the Old Testament into four categories of literature number one the law genesis exodus leviticus numbers deuteronomy first five books of Moses or the Pentateuch number two history beginning with Joshua judges all the way to the book of Esther is the second division that is the historical books of the Old Testament the third category or division is poetry or you could say wisdom literature from the book of Job all the way through the Song of Solomon it is written in that Hebrew metre Hebrew parallelism and those are the books of poetry or wisdom literature and the fourth division is prophecy beginning with Isaiah and ending with the last of the twelve minor prophets the book of Malachi and you have the 39 books of the Old Testament with those four categories we are at the ground level tonight we are in the foundational book I suggest you really won't understand anything else in the Bible until you understand Genesis and I can prove that by simply pointing to this fact the book of Genesis is quoted two hundred-plus times in the New Testament more than any other biblical book it is foundational it tells us everything the origin of the universe the origin of man the origin of sin and the fall of man the origin of marriage the origin of human government the origin of the nation of Israel through whom the Messiah would come it tells us all of those original beginning things it is foundational and thus it is quoted much in the rest of the Bible now Genesis covers 2500 years of human history I'm gonna say at least maybe more there is some controversy as to when the beginning was how long ago that was but it covers at least 2,500 years of history let's say from the fall of man in the early chapters to the death of Joseph if you were to divide this book up there's a number of ways you could do it I'll give you the two easiest ways that I know you could do what G Campbell Morgan did the Prince of preachers who preached in London England eighty a hundred years ago he divided Genesis up into three main divisions number one generation chapters one and two generation God creates second section chapters three through eleven degeneration and then the last chapters 12 through 50 regeneration so generation degeneration and regeneration so you have Genesis divided up into three sections or you could make it even more simple and say the chapters 1 through 11 cover primeval history chapters 12 through 50 patriarchal history Abraham Isaac Jacob and Joseph okay that's enough set on the Bible an introduction to the book let's begin in the beginning in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters in the beginning you can't go back any further than that that's as far back as it's possible to go in the beginning the question is when was in the beginning well depending on who you ask you'll get a number of answers some and I would say most evangelicals would believe in a young earth no more than ten thousand years old many of them will say in fact some of them will be very dogmatic and say it is six thousand years old they say this because they believe that the genealogies in the book of Genesis are closed genealogies that is they are a complete genealogy and as they go through and they extrapolate out the ages and the generations they've come up with six to ten thousand years old now others would disagree others would say the beginning of the universe is two billion five billion up to twenty billion years old now I have read a lot on the different ages that are postulated and the disagreements and I notice that both groups are very animated and dogmatic and they argue back and forth over this issue vehemently and what comes to my mind is what God said to job at the end of the book of Job God starts speaking after joven his three friends had talked for a long time and God says who is this who darkens counsel by words without wisdom prepare yourself like a man I will question you and you will answer me and here's the question where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth tell me if you have understanding you see the problem none of the experts in how old the earth is were there only God was so we can speculate and have fun doing it I I just decided to get out of this speculation business I don't know in the beginning was but I know that in the beginning God in the beginning God and that's how the Bible begins it doesn't begin with philosophical arguments for the existence of God juses in the beginning God it assumes his existence and he is the only one who can speak with real authority because he was the only one who was there in the beginning God created the heavens in the earth some people can't say in the beginning God they eliminate God completely in the beginning they say with space and gases gas is floating in space but if you try to eliminate God you have a problem where did this space come from where did the gas come from and you can go back and back and back into infinite regression but you still haven't answered the question until you acknowledge there must be some first uncaused cause in the beginning God now why is it that people have sought to eliminate God from the beginning or from the universe well Romans chapter one tells us it says they did not wish to retain God in their minds in their thinking because as soon as you acknowledge there is a God who is responsible for all of this and I live in a personal world made by a personal God it means I am ultimately mortally accountable so it's more convenient to just say well in the beginning gas is floating in space and a big bang and explosion happen instead of in the beginning God but this is the doorway to the Bible you can't get to any other part of the Bible unless you go through Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 and it says in the beginning God created the heavens in the earth now if you just believe that the rest of the Bible is going to be easy for you Jonah and the Whale piece a cake compared to this I don't know how scientifically how a manga survivin ok in the beginning God created the heavens in the earth that's a bigger trick if you can get this verse down Jonah and the Whale the floating ax head of Elijah Jesus walking on the water all of it a piece of cake a walk in the park compared to this glorious majestic first act the first uncaused cause God created the heavens in the earth back in 1903 a scientist by the name of Herbert Spencer categorized all that is knowable into five categories that is he said and he was the one by the way who came up with some of those taxonomic phyla categories for Biological life but he said everything knowable can be placed in one of five categories time force action space matter now I want to say congratulations Herbert that was really good we applaud you Herbert wonderful that you could add to the scientific knowledge of the world however you just articulated Herbert Genesis 1:1 in the beginning that's time god that's force created that's action the heavens that space and the earth that's matter and what we start discovering as we go to the book of Genesis is that it's very precise and these scientists come lungo Wow look what I just discovered everybody goes wow give you a prize dude on Nobel Prize and yet I submit to you that the man or woman of faith is miles ahead of the man or woman of science you see it says in Hebrews chapter 4 or Hebrews chapter 11 by faith we believe that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible did you hear that he just made a statement of faith by faith we believe that everything in the material world is made up of materials you can't see we call those atomic and subatomic particles if somebody came along and discovered that all matter is broken up into these invisible particles and that's what everything's made out of and they come along and they say we just made a discovery and we go we've always known that the Bible tells us plainly that everything we can see wasn't made up of visible but invisible particles so the person of faith will be further ahead than even the person of great science now if you can combine science and faith and I believe you can quite well you can be pretty far ahead of the game but in the beginning God created I know that we've just barely covered one verse and we'll speed it up as we go but this is pretty foundational something else one of the things we discover and I'm milking it for this reason God doesn't tell us a lot about his creative process he doesn't give us much information if you were to count there's only 630 words God uses to describe the origin of everything this is an abridged version of creation he spent far more time and space talking about Abraham far more time and space talking about the tabernacle just a few words speaking about creation but the purpose of Genesis isn't a biology lesson how many in Moses day or Abraham's time would have understood it if it were God and the author through the Holy Spirit has an agenda to show us briefly the origin of all things and then to take us quickly to the origin of the Hebrew nation true which genealogy would come the savior of the world the Messiah so the book has a definite agenda as it takes us through so in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth okay this is where you lose most people the modern mind today believes that evolution is such a done deal in such a closed case it can't even be argued and if it is argued it's by idiotic fundamentals who happen to stupidly believe in the literal inspiration of the Bible and I'm one of them but they think it's such a done deal everybody knows try it and talk about this publicly with someone everybody knows they will say that evolution is a fact it's a known fact it's a done deal it's a closed case not so fast some of the most brilliant minds in the scientific community would say not so fast it is not a closed case it is not a done deal it is still a theory and it is still speculative for example molecular biologist Michael Denton said and I quote the evolutionary theory is still as it was in Darwin's time a highly speculative hypothesis entirely without act factual support close quote if you studied the origin of the species bar Darwin and some of his other writings you know that one of the glaring problems Charles Darwin saw with the evolutionary theory was the fossil record he knew that there were huge gaps inexplicable by him in the fossil record that paleontology did not agree with his theory but he also believed and stated the time would vindicate him that the more we study the fossil record the more we will know that evolution is a fact well then 120 plus years since Darwin's time David rabe curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago writes and I quote we are now over 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded we now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much we have fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time now I'm gonna tell you story billions of years ago and this thing took a long time billions of years ago there were gases and explosions and fluids and other explosions and great upheavals and cataclysms and eventually a tiny particle of rubber was formed it took a long time and it took a lot of processes but a little tiny particle of rubber was formed and then over thousands and even millions of more years a tread formed on the rubber it became more complex and four of these things formed sequentially and then other explosions and gases and metal formed in anyway over billions of years a car formed and came up out of the earth now you're laughing and that is the right response it's stupid it's silly you look at a car you look at a beautiful automobile it belies design it's been designed and if it's been designed there has to be a designer it's the teleological argument for creation anything designed must have a designer so if that's true of a car or a watch what about a brain a complex human being just happened a fortuitous occurrence of accidental circumstance randomness over billions of years that's not smart that defies logic it defies good science now I will also admit something to you because I studied the sciences I discovered in my classes and my courses in my work before I got into the ministry that most intelligent people do believe in evolution and that's stunned me it was an eye-opener but then I discovered why I I truly believe this most intelligent people believe in evolution because they believe most intelligent people believe in evolution they don't want to be an outcast they don't want to be considered controversial or stupid easier to fit in instead of go against the system that many scientists dare to do if you believe in evolution I will congratulate you right here and right now you have way more faith than I have you're a great man or woman of faith for you to say that over billions of years just randomness is responsible for a highly complex carbon life in this biosphere takes more faith than to believe in the beginning God the first son cause--'cause created force the heavens and the earth and that's how the Bible begins and that's what the Bible appeals to and can I just say this too so so maybe we won't make it through Genesis 1 but but but let me just say this too deep do you realize do you realize what you will be able to live through in life with great confidence if you believe this can't can you fathom the kind of stability you can have if you believe this you know in Acts chapter 4 when they were arrested in Jerusalem and the heat was on do you remember how they prayed Lord you are God you created the heavens the earth the sea and everything that is in them that's how they begin their prayer now they're gonna pray for a pretty hefty thing but they couldn't have prayed for that pretty hefty thing unless they made that beginning statement you created the heavens the earth the sea and if you did that then that is is my basis of my prayer if you did that then you can certainly answer this here's my issue and before I bring to you my issue my problem I'm recognizing who you are and if you believe that that's who God is you're gonna find faith comes quite easily you have a relationship with the one who made the heavens in the earth sky is the limit okay verse two the earth was without form and void two Hebrew words tow hava bohu tow who means ruined or empty bow who means vacant the earth was ruined empty vacant and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters it was without form and void it was unfinished in shape it was uninhabitable by creatures that was in the beginning now some people see a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 they see an initial creation in verse one and then a subsequent recreation in verse two and that is because the word in verse two the earth was you see the word was it's the Hebrew word hi-yaah which can be and often is translated became and the earth became without form and void it wasn't made that way in the beginning but it became that way now follow me here they will then point to Isaiah 45 and I'm gonna read a section of scripture to you I've a Isaiah 45 verse 18 for thus says the Lord who created the heavens who is God who formed the earth and made it who established it who did not create it in vain he did not create it Tohu his degree is the Hebrew word he did not create it in vain who formed it to be inhabited I am the Lord and there is no other so many will point to some cataclysmic pre-adamic catastrophe between verse 1 and verse 2 and this is where they will fit the fall of Satan the fall of Lucifer Lucifer son of the morning light bear who fell with the third of the angels and was cast to the earth and some will even say there was a whole human race headquartered in the Garden of Eden over which Lucifer was overseeing and then he fell and there's all sorts of stories now it is possible that Satan did fall between verses 1 & 2 and that the earth became without form and void there was a subsequent judgment before a recreation but I just got to say I don't know I wasn't there again the question of job where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth I have to say I wasn't there so it is a possibility it is a theory it's called the gap theory I'm not sure so let's keep going and look at the six days of creation beginning in verse three then God said let there be light and there was light it's even more emphatic in the original God said light be you know God didn't go now how am I gonna do this what is the recipe again for light how do I work this out just he spoke very first words of God recorded in Scripture here let there be light and light happen light was 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 evening and morning were the first day now notice the phrase let there be if you were to count them up I've counted them for you they appear 10 times in this chapter we call these the 10 commandments of creation let there be let there be let there be let there be God said that 10 times and he framed it by his word and it happened God said let there be light and there was light notice in verse 5 God called the light day day ok can I just give you a little bit of pre information for the rest of the Bible you're gonna find three usages of the word day in the Bible Hebrew word is youma you've heard of yom kippur the day of atonement yom is day three way it's it's used in the Bible one is the portion of the 24-hour period where there is light that is called the day that's number one number two the Bible uses the term day for a period of time that is several days or weeks or months or years the term the day of the Lord is such a usage it covers a whole bunch of events that don't happen in a 12 hour or 24 hour period but years the day of the Lord or the day of Christ is another but then the third usage is I believe this usage a 24-hour period and whenever you find a numerical adjective like first day second day third day fourth day fifth day like you do in Genesis it refers to a 24-hour period thus I do not believe in theistic evolution you could see where I was going with that I don't believe that it took God millions of years and billions of years and he called that period a day and then more stuff took place and he called that a day God did it in six 24-hour periods and I think that was a long time I mean God could have done it in 6 seconds he took a whole day to do that so he took his time so I believe in these 6 days 24-hour periods because it says and evening and morning were the first day and evening and morning were the second day now in hearing that you might think didn't the author get that backwards shouldn't it be in morning and evening where the first day instead of an evening and morning were the first day well apparently not in fact the Hebrews because of this verse reckon the beginning of their day at Twilight Sun Goes Down they see the first three stars that's the beginning of the day and it goes all the way through to the next evening when it's Twilight again so if you're in Israel and you want to celebrate Shabbat Sabbath which is Saturday it begins Friday evening you better get home quickly an evening and morning were the first day brings up a question God said let there be light yet we don't find the Sun Moon and stars created until the fourth day so how could there be light in our universe without everything that we know as the source or the reflection of light to be present that's a good question I can only answer it by saying I don't know but I can speculate and I do want to say I'm giving my opinion now there's a couple of things here the Bible says God dwells in unapproachable light there it was in the Old Testament this thing called the Shekinah glory of God this visible light filled presence of God that appeared in the tabernacle later in the temple for a period of time it was this manifestation of God and it was in light that could have been that before God created the Sun Moon Stars in day for that day one it was simply his Shekinah glory if you've studied the electromagnetic spectrum you know that radiation that travels at 186,000 miles per second photon energy goes all the way from radio waves up through infrared than visible light and then ultraviolet rankin a graphic rays gamma rays cosmic rays but even in that visible light there's there's a range of size and and and length of of waves so that even without the Sun even without the moon there certainly could have been just God emanating here's another explanation that on day one God created the Sun stars moon etc but they didn't become visible because of the canopy the shroud around the earth until the day for that's what many speculate but I'll just say I don't know God called the light day and the darkness he called night so evening and morning were the first day now here's day two then God said let there be a firmament or a vault or a dome is be the Hebrew translation of the word rakia let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters thus God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament and the waters which were above the firmament and God called the firmament heaven and so evening and morning were the second day now it's believed that there was at this time a canopy a water canopy of vapor canopy like a dense fog above the atmosphere in the ionosphere that that did a number of things it encircled the earth it created sort of a greenhouse or hothouse effect you'd have temperate mild warm climate worldwide you'd have no barren deserts you'd have no polar icecaps that there was this uniform temperature created by this hothouse effect because of the vapor canopy that watered the earth by the way there's a lot of water up there even without the canopy kawaii' there's a rain forest in kawaiii that boasts of 200 inches of rain per year there's a lot of water up there well at one time it is believed that this canopy of a vapor of water that watered the whole earth it would keep mass air movements from being created winds hurricanes etc it would filter out the ultraviolet radiation that very short wavelength radiation that either causes or helps in shortening the lifespan of man so that would account for the longevity of people upon the earth and so that there was the earth this unformed mass God created light then God separated the vapor canopy above the atmosphere creating this greenhouse effect so that carbon-based life could flourish upon the earth and he called the firmament heaven okay there's another word be beware that in the Bible the word heaven is used three different ways just like day sometimes the Bible speaks of the heavens is the atmosphere that firmament of space above the earth Jesus spoke about the birds of the heaven sometimes the Bible speaks of the heavens being outer space the heavens declare the glory of God Psalm 19 David said space was James T Kirk's final frontier remember that space the final frontier well not really that's only the second heaven the Bible speaks about yes the terrestrial have in the atmosphere the celestial have in the space outer space but there's there's a third heaven the Bible speaks about the third heaven second Corinthians 12 Paul said I was taken into the third heaven now that's the heaven of heavens that's God's heaven that's the place where God's glory dwells in its fullness but this is the heaven of the atmosphere and above that firmament was thought to be this canopy now the third day verse 9 God said let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear it was so God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters he called seas and God saw that it was good so there must have been some cataclysmic upheaval shifting of the surface of the earth and the tectonic plates and the water was plunged downward and gathered into what we call seas by the way the term seas is a general term for all bodies of water lakes rivers bays oceans not just oceans but it includes all of that God saw that it was good and boy it is good because water is so essential to our life three-quarters of this planet is covered in water sixty-five percent of your flesh is made out of water 90 percent of your blood is made out of water it is essential to digestion reproduction respiration everything we do we need water in the air etc etc that's why when I read revelation 21 I am so disheartened when it says and I saw new heaven and a new earth and there was no more sea and I'm thinking that that's heaven and if I was writing the book this is how I'd want to describe heaven and there will be no more cities but lots of sea and lots of beach but apparently it indicates that it's not going to be a water-based planet the new heaven the new earth that will be created after this one is destroyed because we're going to have resurrected bodies and not depend on the same elements that we have that there's not going to be any need for it and before you get too bummed out realize that the oceans have been part of the separation that keeps one people group from another people group there'll be no more separations no see instant access but that's the book of Revelation and judging from how we're going it's gonna take a while to get there God saw that it was good and God said verse 11 let the earth bring forth grass the herb that yields seed according to its kind whose seed is in itself on the earth and it was so and the earth brought forth grass the herb that yields seed according to its kind and the tree that yields fruit whose seed is in itself according to its kind and God saw that it was good God already established the reproduction in the plant world seeds obviously when they were made then there was a certain age that was built into that creation because they had seeds in them able to then reproduce and have other plants like it according to its kind now something you will notice in the creation though it's done just in a few words very briefly there never is a movement vertically though there are certainly movement horizontally that is it defies the evolutionary theory which believes in the principle of transmutation that over a period of time the species changed in tales fell off and limbs grew et cetera the only problem is there's no real evidence as I said in the fossil record to show that if that were truth there wouldn't just be evidence there be an abundance of transmutate of forms in our world and there's not in the strata there's plenty of room for horizontal movement and horizontal latitude micro movements not macro movements back in 1934 they were able to cross a loganberry and a raspberry and a blackberry and come up with a raspberry I mean boysenberry so they took those three berries and they were able to make this hybrid cross of a boysenberry so it's still a berry they didn't take three bear and make an orange they were able to move laterally in small increments not macro but micro increments not transmutation but crossing and mutation and there is a big difference between mutated forms and trans mutated forms which there's a glaring lack of so it's according to its kind according to its kind according to its kind and though there can be micro movements there's certainly no vertical movements God saw that it was good so evening and morning were the third day verse 14 and God said let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and seasons for days and years and you know what we still use them the original calendar was the lunar calendar based on the movement of the moon our calendars the solar calendar based upon the relationship of the earth to the Sun for science let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth and it was so and God made two great lights the greater light to rule the day the lesser light to rule the night he made the stars also and he set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness and God saw that it was good so evening and morning were the fourth day the Milky Way galaxy is this strangely shaped cluster of luminaries that sort of resembles a a wide very thin watch the Milky Way galaxy in measurement is 10,000 light years by a hundred thousand light years and where the earth is situated scientists have discovered it's just situated perfectly for the kind of life that we now have now people say well it just so happened okay it just so happened that the earth is 93 million miles away from its Sun that has a surface temperature of 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit just so happened if we were as close as Venus the surface temperature on Venus is 850 degrees Fahrenheit we burn up we couldn't last if we were as far away as Mars the temperature dips to minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit on Mars but it just so happens that were 93 million miles away from a surface as 12,000 degrees just so happened and by the way it just so happened that the earth makes 365 revolutions as it makes his journey around the Sun why not 30 well all the days would be ten times longer there would be alternate burning and freezing and carbon-based life this kind of life we enjoy in this biosphere would not be sustained and it just so happened that that revolving sphere is tilted 23 and 1/3 degrees on its axis in relationship to the Sun to give us four beautiful seasons Oh something else it just so happens that the makeup of the atmosphere is a percentage of oxygen to nitrogen 79% to 20% with 1% of variant gases that makes breathing just a pleasure what if it worked 79 to 20 what if it were 50 to 50 50 percent oxygen 50 percent nitrogen well the first guy to light up a cigarette talk about the Big Bang Theory you'd be all over in a flash and it just so happens that this water Laden earth if the oceans they tell us were half of the present dimensions that they are now there would only be or there would be less than a fourth of the rainfall that we have on the earth life couldn't be sustained if they were just a bit bigger like an eighth bigger the earth would be a flood all of the things are just right and it just so happened it's it's a wonderful accident no back to the car losing out of the ground it's a marvelous design by a creator and by the way this galaxy it speaks about the galaxies and the stars and the moon and the Sun but the center of it is earth that's right we are the center of the universe as far as life is concerned it's a pretty big universe I said it's ten thousand by a hundred thousand light-years if you could hop on a ray of light and go 186,000 miles per second you could go around the earth at that speed you could do it seven and a half times in one second if you're doing that speed and you shoot out to the moon in 1.5 seconds you'll sail past the moon going the speed of light in two minutes and 18 seconds you'll sail past Venus in four minutes you'll sail past mercury in seven and a half minutes you'll get past the Sun in four hours you'll go to Pluto but in four years and four months you'll make it from Earth to the nearest neighbor star Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri is 4.3 light years away from the earth but if you're travelling 186,000 miles per second it'll take you a hundred thousand years to get from one end of your Milky Way galaxy to the other end of it 100,000 years at 186,000 miles per second and if you do that you haven't even left the front yard because they tell us there are a hundred billion more galaxies beyond but God is interested in the earth and all of these serve his created life upon the earth now how does that make you feel I hope you said one well I don't know about life being such a bummer and I'm go I'll be careful and I'll be quick God said let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens and God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves with which the waters have bounded according to their kind every winged bird according to its kind and God saw that it was good and God blessed them and that Great God blessed the birds and blessed the whales and the squids and the Sharks and said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas let the birds be multiplied on the earth so evening good morning were the fifth day and God said let the earth bring forth living creatures according to its kind cattle these are domestic animals is the better term and creeping things and the beasts these are non domestic animals wild animals each according to its kind and who was so and God made the beasts of the earth according to its kind cattle according to its kind in everything that creeps so all the creeps were made on the sixth day as well according to its kind and God saw that it was good I'm just gonna plant something in your brain because I'm at a time it would appear then according to the Bible the dinosaurs which did exist is plenty of evidence and man were created on the same day and thus lived at the same time now I'm planning that in your mind because you have seen signs in Natural History Museum's that are before a dinosaur skeleton and say that dinosaurs reigned for a hundred and forty million years but quickly died 60 million years before the advent of man on the earth well the Bible this agrees with that and I believe science disagrees with that and I'll show you why next time then God said let us make man in our image according to our likeness let them have dominion over the fish of the sea over the birds of the air over the cattle over all the earth over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth and so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them and God blessed them and said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth and God said see I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of the earth and every tree whose fruit yields seed to you it shall be for food also to every beast of the earth to every bird of the air to everything that creeps on the earth in which there is life I have given every green herb for food and it was so and God said God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good so evening and morning were the sixth day so I wanted to say I did Genesis one tonight now let's pray and we'll we'll pick up on some of the finer details and chapter two and maybe three next week Heavenly Father we thank you for your revelation we thank you for how you have revealed yourself in the world the natural world we look around and as Paul said in Romans we would be without excuse not to believe in a designer behind the design but a thinker behind the thought and we discovered that we don't live in an impersonal world but a personal world made by a personal God who wanted to make creatures in his image according to his likeness lord thank you that in this vast place called this universe the heavens in the earth we can know the Creator and if the art hanging in the sky is as glorious as it is the artist himself must be amazing and so it all leads us back to worship of you in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Calvary Church with Skip Heitzig

Views: 29,736

Rating: 4.8217821 out of 5

Keywords: Calvary, Albuquerque, Skip, Heitzig, Jesus, Genesis, Sermon

Id: 3ajCmJ09D4g

Length: 60min 22sec (3622 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 19 2018