Genesis 1:1-8 // The Creation

we are in the book of Genesis so we're gonna be in Genesis chapter 1 and we're just gonna rip right through it hey not 1990s stuff and I have a I have a announcement that Chrissy told me to make we're gonna be doing a prophecy update on Wednesday and so that'll be this wednesday at 6:30 goes from 6:30 to 8:30 and what am I gonna she asked me to tell you what I'm gonna talk about I don't know it keeps changing so a lot of the stuff that happened last week it's it's like it's just pretty wild every time every time that I do this stuff there's new things that connect that crop up really quickly first service before the service one of the worship leaders actually Eric was saying you're gonna have to do your prophecy update from up front you're gonna have to be investigating the information as you tell it you know that kind of thing because I every year I'm like you know I've got articles collected through the year and they're all out of date by the time I get started on this stuff so it's pretty it's pretty cool so last week some things happen with Iran that's a major player in end times prophecy and so that's what he's talking about so anyway prophecy update this Wednesday and then we're gonna skip a Wednesday because I'm gonna be out of town the next Wednesday after that that's gonna be January 29th we're gonna have the second part of that and I'm gonna specifically be dealing with Iran and Russia and and all those guys actually I'm not gonna deal with it avi reg F is gonna deal with it he is my Israeli tour guide and he's also a colonel actually he's a retired colonel in the IDF and so anytime we get together we talk about things that are going on in Syria specifically and going on with Iran and that kind of stuff and so his perspective is going to be pretty cool so that's gonna be January January 29 at the same time okay so we're in Genesis chapter 1 let's all stand let's go through and read and we're gonna read down through verse ten not that we're going that far but verse one it says 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 then God said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light that it was good and God divided the light from the darkness God called the light day and the darkness he called night so the evening in the morning were the first day then God said 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 from the waters which were above the firmament and it was so and God called the firmament heaven so the evening and the morning were the second day we'll just stop right there let's pray thanks Jesus again for your word thank you Lord for these people thank you for hearts that want to hear from you and want to know what you have to say Lord we all come here to worship you and to learn from your word and Lord we just pray that you'd be the teacher this morning that you'd be speaking to us we've got a number of subjects that we're going to be talking about Lord and I just pray that you'd help me to be coherent and gathered that we could bring this stuff across in a way that just honors and glorifies you and we love you Lord just give you the morning pray that you bless it in Jesus name Amen you're gonna have a seat I'm gonna be talking about some science stuff all through chapter one actually all through chapter nine 1 through 9 there's gonna be there's gonna be science stuff that that we're gonna throw in here because these are some of the most controversial passages that you have in the Bible and obviously you guys know me I I love apologetics I love giving answers to people about these things but I'm not unaware of how useful apologetics is the best apologetic you're ever going to give to somebody is the work that God's done in your life it's something that can't be contradicted but for people to take you seriously there's going to be times when you have to answer questions you have to answer the the things that are kind of roadblocks in to them hearing about Jesus most people walk around this world in the fog and basically it's a fog of their own making they know right from wrong the Bible is clear on this God puts it in their heart they know right from wrong they know what what evil is they know what good is they know whether they're right or wrong and what they do is they throw up roadblocks to that so they don't have to deal with it and I call it being in a fog and so when I'm when I do when I get people answers first reason I have the answers it's not just to give it out I have the answers because I had the questions and so all this stuff that I that I'm giving you are things that I got myself because I had questions and I had problems with what with what the Bible said and so that's the first thing the the second thing about that is when I'm when I'm talking with people there have not been a whole lot of people that I have given the answers to and they've immediately repented all it does is it takes the fog away and now they got to deal with the fact that the Bible is what it says sins real God's real Devils real heads hell's real and what am I going to do with this stuff they can no longer hide behind evolution they can no longer hide behind you know long ages you know and all this stuff that people come up with it can't hide behind it anymore now they have to start dealing with stuff there have been only two people well you know what let me preface it with this whenever I'm doing studies like this and I start throwing science out usually that's kind of gender specific guys generally like the science stuff more than women do but that's that's not that's not totally that way either last week I threw in a bunch of archaeology stuff that kind of thing and I had a number of guys who came up and just what that was really awesome but I had a number of girls that came up and said exactly the same thing that was really awesome and all that to say this the only two people that I have ever answered questions for and they immediately got saved or women in in the whole time that I've been a Christian the only two people that I answer questions for they got saved immediately were women one of them was Ruby Ruby Chrisman she came up with us when we came up to start the fellowship she was single at the time and she came to my single study and you know new girl and after the study she asked me a bunch of questions and I thought that they were just questions she's in college and it's just your basic stuff and so actually some of the stuff that I talked about last week were questions there Ruby had and so I went through and I answered whole all her questions and what I didn't know for a couple of months is that afterwards she went home and gave her life to the Lord and I had no idea I you know I thought she was a Christian just going to college and was having questions well she wasn't even a believer and so she gave her life to the Lord after that the second person that this happened with was actually a prostitute she she had heard about me I don't know I can't remember she you know she told me in the course of the conversation but she came into my office because she'd heard about me either from the radio and and some and and some people had been witnessing to her and so she came in and talked to me and she specifically talked to me about creation/evolution those kinds of questions she had specific questions about it and I went through and I answered those things for her and she got saved in my office right there so those the only two people in the whole time that I've been a been a Christian where when I answered all their questions they got saved I don't think that the the answers save people I think that what saves people is Jesus working in their hearts and changing them causing them to have a desire to repent that kind of stuff and so what I use these things for is get them to get them to the point where they can actually consider this to get them to the point where they're not just disregarding everything I say because after all all I'm into is a religious trip all I'm into is an emotional trip what I actually do is I check my brain is that door and so everything that Steve has to say we can just negate because no he's a nice little boy and he you know he needs that stuff because he's got some emotional problems and religion does it for him get him past that and once you get him past that you can you can start dealing with some other issues and and you can finally come to the point where you talking about you've sinned you need to repent there's only one way you're ever gonna get forgiven and it's through Jesus Christ right and so that's that's a good stuff about this this is the the other thing about this is is that again when I first became a Christian I'm reading through the Bible and I'm having issues as I'm going through the Bible and my issues again started in chapter 1 and it was it was obvious that this isn't what I was being taught in school and I had to do something to figure that out okay so we're gonna get into this first thing I wanted to do was just kind of wrap up the introduction that I started last week and one of the things that I didn't show you was that we have bookends in the Bible Genesis is the front end of the Bible obviously revelation is the back end of the Bible and what you what you see given in Genesis and then lost is regained when you get to the book of Revelation so I got a couple of lists for you and I wanted to go through and show you these things the list on the left is out of the book of Genesis the list on the right is out of the book of Revelation and so in the old creation in the book of Genesis you have the division of light and darkness and one verse four and then when you get to Revelation and all these verses that are out of Revelation so I'm not gonna keep repeating that but there's no night there and so there's a difference between the old creation and the new creation there was a division of land and sea in Genesis there's no more sea when you get to the end rule of the Sun in the moon and then there's no need of the Sun and Moon because God is a light in Genesis you have a man prepare in a prepared garden in Revelation you have man in a prepared City in Genesis there's a river flowing out of Eden at the end there's a river flowing from God's throne in Genesis there's gold in the land and in Revelation there's gold in the city in fact it's pavement in Genesis there's the tree of life in the garden and in Revelation there's the tree of life throughout the city in Genesis there's Delian and the Onyx stone we all know Adele iam is right and all that was a joke how many of you know what Dell iam is raise your hands yes one person do you really know what Dell iam is okay I'm not telling it doesn't matter Delia min the onyx stone in the book in the book of Revelation you have all manner of precious stones in Genesis you have God walking in the garden in Revelation you have God dwelling with his people and then the second list I have is in the Old Testament you have a cursed ground in the New Testament in Revelation you have no more curse daily sorrow revelation 20:1 no more sorrow thorns and thistles no more pain when we get to the end at the beginning sweat on the face of your brow because of the fall and the end the tears are wiped away in the at the fall you're eating or in the beginning you're eating from the herbs of the field and at the end there's twelve manner of fruits and reveled in Genesis 3 you're returning to the dust in Revelation there's no more death in the fallen world there's evil continually and in the new heaven and new earth there's nothing that defiles they were given coats of skins and when we go to heaven we're robed in fine linen white and clean in Genesis you have Satan opposing us in Revelation you have Satan judged Satan banished to the lake of fire specifically in Genesis were kept from the tree of life in Revelation we have access to the Tree of Life in Genesis were banished from the garden in Revelation we have free entry to the city and in Genesis the Redeemer was promised and in Revelation we have the redemption accomplished by Jesus and so that's cool you have the you have the contrast and again bookends in the Bible so Genesis chapter 1 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 and then God said let there be light and there was light so in the beginning it says our God created the heavens and the earth the word for God in this passage is a plural word it's it's the word Elohim in Hebrew and it's a plural noun and so the I am on the end of that word is is the plural so in our language we have dogs our excuse me a dog and dogs dogs being the plural obviously in Hebrew that would be dog and doggy and that's that's what you what you have there and so you have this plural noun that is used of the singular God actually that noun is used of false gods in the Old Testament too and so it's just a word that means gods it literally means gods and so when you're going through the Old Testament and you find that term their turn at times when it's used of the one true God and then there are times it's used of false gods in the way that you can tell is because the grammar is bad when it's used of the one true God it's a plural noun used with singular verbs and so literally what that says in Hebrew is in the beginning gods he created the heavens and the earth and so plural noun singular verb and it's an indication that what we're dealing with when we're dealing with God is is a plurality that's this is where the doctrine the Trinity comes in first verse in the Bible contains indications that we're dealing with something that's different than what we see in the rest of creation as far as being being a single entity being a plurality at the same time we get to the New Testament we call them Godfather Godin or excuse me Father Son and Holy Spirit and so what you find when you're going through the Bible is that Jesus is called God the Holy Spirit's called God the Father is called God and the Bible says that we only have one God and we look at that and that just becomes a can of worms how can you do that how does that work that's not something that they made up in the 4th century that's something that's in the Bible cover-to-cover and so when you're when you're in the Old Testament or you're in the New Testament you see this plurality plurality taking place in the book of Colossians it's called the God edie the Godhead and so when when you're dealing with the God of the Bible he's somebody that's more than one he is somebody that's more than one and it's it's persons that were speaking about we're not just talking about forms we're talking about persons so you have one person of the Godhead Jesus praying to another person of the Godhead who's in a different place and you have another person of the Godhead coming down in the form of a dove all that all the stuff happening at the same time and it's really confusing and it's really weird but what God says is that you're made in His image and you have three parts you have body soul and spirit three parts and yet you're one person and what you do is you just take that put it in a dimension up and you got three persons and you have one God and that's that's the picture that you have in again in the Bible and so in the Old Testament you have God the Father pictured a lot of times he's called Elohim sometimes he's called Jehovah you have the Holy Spirit we actually see the Holy Spirit in verse 2 the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters and then we have the son in the Old Testament - most often he's called the redeemer the lord of hosts he's also called the angel of the lord that the word angel just means messenger the messenger of the Lord many times in the Old Testament you'll see the phrase angel of the Lord and you'll find out he's God and so when God appears on earth what the Bible teaches that is that it's always been Jesus who does that and so you have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all containing that one name here's a weird thing the name is used in what's called the Shema by the the Jews that is the phrase that they repeat over and over it's it's a it's a catch phrase in Judaism and it goes shema yisrael adonai elohenu adonai a thought and it what it means is here o Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one and it's it's a phrase that they use to maintain the unity of God the fact that they're that they have one and one only only one God well this is what it's actually saying in Hebrew in Hebrew it says hear o Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one and again it's the weirdest thing and the only the only time that when when you're going through the Bible and you see the plural name for God used it's always used with a singular verb when you're talking about the one true God if it's talking about false gods then there's a plural verb the gods they created is how that would that would have is how that would read and so Elohim is something that's pointing towards the nature of God as far as the Trinity goes and so you go I don't understand that and you know what there is nobody who does because if you could understand God then you just made him up is the deal and so God is like people have said he's multi-dimensional he's beyond dimensions and so he's never gonna be understandable to you there's nothing about God that you get and even his love you don't get his love either so don't tell me you do because the fact that he loves you that's crazy to me the fact that he loves me that's even crazier to me right okay and so again you have that and we could spend all day on that it talks about it uses the word created in this passage in the beginning God created the word for created there is bara and it means to call into existence that which has no existence God is the first cause it's called everything into existence there are other terms that are used in the passage for making and forming and so in verse 7 you have the term asau thus God made the firmament that's the word I saw and that means to fashion out of something else and in chapter 2 and verse 7 it says the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and again what he's doing is he's making something from something that already existed and that's the that's the term yachts are and so God creates in verse 1 everything out of nothing is what the Bible is picturing here and then after he makes matter and we're gonna talk about that in a minute then he starts forming everything else out of the matter that he's created and when you're talking about God God is the only one who can form something from nothing he's the only one you have to have a sufficient first cause to get anything so when your kid when you go out with your kid and you and your kid says mommy where did the mountains come from mommy where did this guy come from mommy where did the stars come from you have to have a sufficient first cause and the whole idea is everything came from nothing without nothing making the nothing into something is nonsense and so there there are there are issues that that come up and one of the things that we we have to be selective about when actually everybody not just we but everybody has to be selective about is when you're reading articles in scientific when you're reading article articles about science you you have to understand the difference between science and philosophy and so when you're when you're looking at the universe we all know that the universe came from nothing everybody knows this Christian's know this and people in the scientific realm know this and this is why they know this you you you have this stuff with the universe and I was talking about this last week and it still just blows my mind yeah you know you need to go outside sometime in the middle of the night in the darkest place that you can find and look up and think about what you're dealing with because what you're dealing with is things that are so far out there when you're looking out you're looking at things that are so far out there so distant so massive it's just overwhelming and you're not even seeing it that's when you're when you're seeing it with your eyes you're not seeing everything we're getting better and better telescopes and we're being being able to see further and further and one of the things that we know about the universe is that it's expanding or it looks like it's expanding let me put it that way and so you have this thing called redshift I've talked about this before when you're talking about redshift it's the idea that the light from from stars is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum you have the the blue end of the spectrum which is higher frequencies you have the red end end of this spectrum which is lower frequencies and I'm doing it from your point of view which is lower frequencies and when they look at the light of a star they know what it's made up of because it's got a certain spectrum and when they look at that spectrum it shifted and the reason it's shifted towards the red is because the light is going away from you if the light was coming towards you it would shift towards the blue it's the same thing that we have when when we have a train coming towards us that's called the Doppler shift this is Ana Doppler shift but it's the same principle when the light is coming towards you it's getting squeezed when it's going going away from you it's it's spreading out the waves are spreading out so you get a redshift and what we know what we can see when we look at the universe is that things that are closer to us the galaxies that are closer to us are moving away in general they're moving away and so they're slightly red shifted as you look further out there's more red shifted which means they're moving away faster when when you get way out there they're significant portions of the speed of light they're moving away really quickly and that's where you get the whole idea of expanding space it's not the it's not that the galaxies are moving through space it's that space is spreading out so we're kind of in the center of that we'll talk about this later we're kind of in the center and it looks like everything's everything that that we have around us is spreading out which is the space okay and so there's coming coming a point where we're going to have the best telescopes that we can have and you're never gonna be able to see the whole universe and the reason is because once you get something red shifted to the point where it's moving at the speed of light you can't see it anymore because the light can't get to you it's going at the speed of light and so the light can't move towards you anymore and if it's going beyond the speed of light it just totally disappears so the edges of what we can see the observable universe what happens is the light shifts to red totally to red then it just fades out and you don't see the rest of the universe and this is what I'm telling you what they can see of the universe isn't even a fraction of it well it is a fraction of it it's a small fraction of the universe this this place is vast and God spoke it into existence it's very cool thing when you're when you're when you're talking about light that becomes a problem with people and distances and that kind of stuff you need to know that a light year I'm gonna be talking in light years that's that's a distance it's about six trillion miles okay so I'm gonna be using that term it's it's not a time term it's a distance term which sounds weird because it's light year but it is a distance term one of the one of the weird things about the about space and all of this Kyle I'm not gonna talk about that you will get back to it in any case God made all this stuff he spoke it into existence the next word that I want to focus in on there is heavens the word heavens in the Bible now in in this instance there are no heavens in this story until we get to day four and stars are not called heavens and so you don't have here God creating the starry heavens and the earth what you have here is God creating space or better yet space-time there's there's no atmosphere here until you get to the next day when you look down at verse seven it says God made the firmament divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament and verse eight he called the firmament heaven so the evening in the morning were the second day and so he doesn't create that's that's obviously the atmosphere so you have the oceans then you have air for the heavens later on when when you get to what is verse 20 it says that God puts the birds and they fly through the heavens that's the heavens that he's talking about there that's the atmosphere well the atmosphere hasn't been created yet and so that can't be the heavens that he's speaking about so what this the heavens he's speaking about here are the heavens where you have where you have this it's just space actually it's space time it's he's creating space time and that's a that's a term that I'm gonna be using later on and you need to understand this you know a lot of times what we do is we take we take time and we take matter and we take space we take all these things and we separate them out and we don't we don't necessarily understand that they all go together and so when you're talking about space time and you're gonna you're gonna run into this when you're reading when you talk about this it's the idea that time and space are irrevocably connected they go together and that's why time can change depending on where you're at and how fast you're going and this all comes from Einstein stuff and and so you can take this stuff that's around us that we you know this is called space all this stuff out here if you take the atmosphere out it's it's a vacuum right and so you're out beyond the atmosphere in that space well will space bends if you if you have a large mass in it like the earth that's why you're sticking to the ground it's the weirdest thing you guys when you really start thinking about thinking about it why because I'm sitting on a planet do I stick to it why and it's been one of those questions that people have asked nine Stein came up with what's happening is space is bending the mass is bending space and so it's forcing you in a certain direction and so that has to do with space time not only that but you you bend space and what you do is you bend time to and I'm not being specific here I'm not I'm not even necessarily talking correctly but you but all these things are effective and so if you're on a planet your clock is different than a guy who's floating out in space it moves differently and so it slows down when you're on a planet because space time is being changed by the mass of the planet and when you're talking about going through space that changes to the speed you go changes time did you did you know you know it's like we were just talking about 13 billion light years out so we're seeing light from 13 billion light years out that's a distance light travels in a year and 13 billion times six trillion basically miles when when a light particle which is called a photon when a photon takes off from 13 billion light years away and comes to the earth when it hits my eye the amount of time it traveled from its perspective is zero it has no time and and so that's the kind of stuff that I'm talking about we live in a weird weird universe in those kinds of things and we're not dealing with those on day to day in day to day issues but it's absolutely true and so when when it talks about God creating the heavens it's talking about God creating space-time which brings up another thing when people ask you what was God doing before he created everything well time is connected to space it's not just space it's space time and so when God created space he also created time therefore there's no before so there's no before with God there's no after with God it's always a present and so God when he identifies himself he says I am the one who was who is who is to come on the Alpha the Omega that I am the beginning on the end he uses terms like that because he's speaking about the fact that he's outside of all creation which includes space-time okay so that the heavens that he's speaking about heavens in the Bible is interesting because there are three heavens that the Bible talks about one is the atmosphere and we already hit on that and so when you when you look in here in verse seven the firmament and the waters above and below and the firmament and he calls it heaven that's talking about the atmosphere more backup for that Jeremiah 425 I beheld and indeed there was no man and all the birds of the heavens had fled so connecting birds with the heavens that's the atmosphere obviously and then you have what's called the side aerial heavens or the or the or space basically Isaiah 31 1310 says for the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light the Sun will be darkened and it's going forth and the moon will not cause its light to shine so connects the stars the constellations the moon and the Sun to that heaven so that's a second heaven the heavens where space is and in the third heaven is heaven the dwelling place of angels God God's throne and all of that and so the Bible says in Hebrews 9 24 for Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands which are copies of the true but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us so that's the third heaven and so just like just like the atmosphere is not space and space is not the atmosphere the heaven where the Angels dwell is not space there's not a planet out there someplace where the angels are hanging out it's the 3rd heaven and so that has to do with dimensions that's something that's that we have the physical dimension we have the spiritual dimension and so heaven would be in the spiritual dimension ok and again it's something that's created by God reason I'm telling you that is because you're going to talk to the nice young men who used to come around on bicycles now they're allowed to use cars but they have little tags on this a elder on it and they come up to your door and they'll talk to you about the three heavens and would you like to go to the highest one and so in Mormonism it time Mormons teach that there are three heavens there's the lousy heaven there's the heaven that's a little bit better then there's a really good heaven that you go to if you're a Mormon and I'm I don't know I'm not I'm not saying that to make fun of it but that's not something that the Bible teaches but what they'll do is they'll go to go to a passage in 2nd Corinthians 12 where Paul says this I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago whether in the body I don't know or whether out of the body I don't know God knows such a one was caught up to the third heaven and so then I'm gonna tell you all about the three heavens well the three heavens I just went through and listen to listen them to you so it's a heaven where the where the birds are flying it's the heaven where the planets are and then and finally the third heaven is the heaven where the throne of God is you notice I'm being specific about that God doesn't dwell on the third heaven because God is everywhere and a God by definition is outside of his creation so the third heaven the place where the throne of God is is actually something that God made for the dwelling place of angels and the souls of men who've departed that's what that heaven is for and gods outside that also God's best it's just just a really cool thing and so in this passage you have all three mentioned it's so space you have that mention here and in verses 14 through 18 you have the atmosphere in verses 6 through 9 and verse 20 and then finally you have heaven referred to in chapter 2 verse 1 thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished that phrase all the hosts of them can apply to two stars but it can also apply to angels and so you have that then you have God created the heavens and the earth and the earth there is word Eretz in Hebrew and that can mean the planet it can mean ground it can mean field that can be land it can mean soil and the next verse makes the point that the earth was without form and void and that is an indication that it's formless at this point and so you're talking about is matter there so God creates space God creates matter in in this instance one of the one of the things that is interesting about matter when you're when you're talking about science is again I've been referring to Einstein Einstein came up with with the equation you know this equation equals MC squared right okay that's an interesting equation here's why biggie there means energy and so energy equals the mass of something from our perspective that's your weight mass change mass does not change when you when you're in space though okay and so mass is basically your density okay so right now it's your weight times the speed of light which is a huge number 186,000 miles per second times itself so you that that number on the right hand side is your weight times the speed of light times itself that's a huge number and that's where you get nuclear explosions that that whole thing right there is pointing to the fact that if you take matter and you turn it into its energy form huge explosions that's why you can take small amounts of plutonium and blow up cities cities disappear and actually I did this first service and all the guys from Hanford you guys I'm trying to keep it simple though so they caught they started coming up to me and talking and talking to me about the binding forces do you guys want to know all about the binding forces okay so I'm trying to keep it simple basically actually it's not that you're converting matter to energy in a nuclear explosion you're pulling you're you're pulling the matter in an atom apart you haven't even dealt with the matter in the nuclear explosion and so lots of energy there there's lots of energy there and so that's that's kind of a cool thing well the other thing that you have is that you can turn that equation around and so mass you take you you take the speed-of-light square it you put it on the other side of that equation and what you're doing is you're doing division now and so mass large amounts of energy equals small amounts of mass and that again is what you have in the creation basically when God starts off with everything he can start off with energy and he can make everything everything and so again that's a cool thing you know I was I was talking earlier about the the whole idea of the of the universe expanding and again in when you're when you're talking about the the universe that we have the Bible teaches that again it comes out of nothing that God made things out of things that we can't see that kind of stuff and that can be on the atomic level actually there's a passage in Hebrews 11:3 it says by faith we understand that the worlds were framed they know that there's worlds 2,000 years ago the worlds were framed by the Word of God so the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible and you know when you're when you're talking about anything just basic science class this this looks solid but there's lots of space in between the atoms that are there this is mostly space and right here too mostly space right every everything dog dogging everything that we see is mostly space and and so even the things that that we could see are things that we can't see unless you you know there's things that we've never seen you know and so when you're talking about subatomic particles like that kind of thing we have seen molecules but when you start get down to atoms there they are so small that there can't be seen and so with a again what the Bible says is absolutely true it says Psalm 33 six through nine by the word of the Lord the heavens were made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth for he spoke and it was done he commanded and it stood fast and it's the idea that God just spoke this stuff into existence okay so something from nothing when you're talking about science and doing something from nothing the reason that they finally got there and it took them a while to get there is because that whole thing with the redshift and so if I'm looking out this way and everything's moving away this way everything's moving away this way this way everywhere I look everything's moving away from me and when you get to the edges of the universe high speed moving away from me you take a video of that and what you're gonna see is everything spreading out if you take the video and you reverse it like you're gonna do when you go home to watch the Seattle game you when you when you when you reverse the whole thing then what you're gonna have is everything compressing that's where the whole idea for the Big Bang came from in the early 20th century they saw that everything was moving apart they went there had to be a beginning and that beginning has to be a point in space and then the question is where where did the stuff come from that was in that point of in space and that's been the question ever since and so guys have come up with things like string theory that kind of thing it's a theory and Sheldon abandoned it so you have things like your string theory that kind of stuff and they they talk about quantum farm and maybe there's multiple universes universes upon universes and they bubble up every once in a while and this is stuff that you see in the literature and like I was saying before you have to be able to separate philosophy from science and the science is everything spreading away there had to be a beginning that's the science and that's again what you see in the Bible you you have a beginning and the only thing the only one who can bring something from nothing is God himself and so you have that now in this passage normally you would think that this is the first things that God made okay in the beginning God made the heavens in the earth but that's not actually so it's it's not the it's not the the beginning beginning there is there are things in existence before that obviously for God to create everything God has to be there right and so you have the existence of God but not only God but again you have the existence of Jesus too and when you when you're looking at what the Bible says about that it says in John chapter 1 verse 1 it starts out exactly the same way way in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and God literally was the word the Word was with God and the Word was God he was in the beginning with God then we get to verse 1 of Genesis and all things were made through him and without him nothing was made that was made and so you have two verses in John before you get to Genesis chapter 1 and it's the pre-existence of the son we've talked about that a whole bunch so I'm not gonna beat that to death here's another thing that happened before all of this Ephesians 1:4 says just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world so before the world was ever formed God chose you very cool thing God was looking down before he made any of creation looking down through the ages and he saw me and he wanted me he wanted me to come to him and he wanted me to walk with him and me to love him and him to love me and even you to write we're all in position where God looks down through the ages and he sees you and he cares about you that he picks you he chooses you if you've given your life to Christ that's where you stand there's another passage in job 38 I've referred to this one all the time and so I'm not gonna beat that up either but in job 38 verses 4 through 7 it talks about the angels watching God create and it says Joe got talking to job actually rebuking job and he says to him where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth tell me if you know so much who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line what supports its foundations and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the Angels shouted for joy and so you have to eat the angels there in Chapter 1 of the book of Genesis watching God form all this stuff lets you know that the third heaven was created before before the creation of the earth third heaven was created first so you have angels in the spiritual realm watching the creation of the earth and so those are things that are happening before that then you have the next verse and the next verse is the the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and so you have this whole issue of the earth being without form and void this is one of those things places where people have gone to try to reconcile what you see in our world with what you see in the Bible because one of the things that we're gonna run into as we're going through the book of Genesis is that you can't go back a very long time when you're dealing with the numbers in the book of Genesis and so back in the early 20th century in the early 1900's it was being taught that the earth was hundreds of millions of years old actually in the late 1800s early 1900s the earth was hundred hundreds of millions of years old by the time it got to Steve whinnery in high school it was 4.5 billion years old now it's four point five seven billion it's getting older as time goes on it's crazy and I'm not that old you know and so you had the earth being hundreds of millions of years old well if you're a Christian and you want to take the Bible seriously and all the scientists are telling you that there's all this stuff out there that proves that the earth is ancient what are you going to do with it and one of the things that they did with it was they came up with what's called the gap theory how many of you have heard of the gap theory raise your hands okay and so for those of you that don't know the gap theory is the idea that there's a gap between Genesis 1 and 2 and this gap is billions of years long and so you can take all the dinosaurs you could take all the uniformity uniformitarian ages that are that are used in the deposition of sediment and that kind of stuff you realize that there are miles of sediment on the continents miles of sediment so when you're talking about the Grand Canyon a canyon that canyons been cut through sediment that's a mile deep there was over a mile and a half of sediment on top of it that got sheared away before the Grand Canyon ever started so you're talking about two and a half miles of layers of deposited sediment so how all that stuff get there will scientists back then we're saying that everything continues as it always has and so over long periods of time rivers like the Columbia River meandered back and forth and deposited the sediment like that kind of thing and so that's where it came from well you got Christians who are looking at the Bible and going what what are you gonna do with that and then on top of it you got all these weird animals like dinosaurs and and those kind of things and they're in there too and what are you gonna do with those and so what they did was they threw them in a gap threw them in that little Canyon up on the screen and just got rid of them and said you know there's a gap between the - God created the world that it became without form and void and so God started over and when he started over after he destroyed the dinosaurs and destroyed all the people who lived during the dinosaur ages all the monkey men after he destroyed all them then he started over with Adam and Eve and that kind of thing and that's that's called the gap theory and so that's one of those things that I looked at when I was when I was looking at this well maybe there was a gap maybe the earth became without form and void maybe that's the issue and so again you have the gap theory there's problems with that though when you get to the New Testament where to death come from that's from Adam it's from it's from that sin in the garden and so Romans 5:12 therefore just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin thus death spread to all men because all sinned first Corinthians 15:21 for since by man came death by man also came the resurrection of the dead now you got to tied in with the resurrection of Jesus man brought death Jesus brings life and so you have that and then you you have the issue of what the Bible says about that world and the world before before the flood was destroyed by the flood it says 2nd Peter 3:6 that the world would that then existed perished being flooded with water ok so when you're looking at the fossil record it looks like actually in the early 1900's it looked like all those fossils were really really old and that there was a whole lot of them and they were all piled up in fact when you you know you've seen the cliffs of Dover right nothing but dead things when you're talking about chalk you're talking about small small shellfish that have all been piled up and you have huge cliffs that are nothing but dead things and so you got a problem there because at the end of this whole thing God looks at everything and says it's very good God lets you know that death came from from sin and sin came from Adam and so you've got that whole thing but the problem is that we have a bunch of dead things in the crust and so where the dead things come from and is that a contradiction and so you have that and you know we rule will go on and and talk about some of that other stuff when when we get next week I just looked at the clock and so we need to do communion for you but in any case when when you're looking at the when you're looking at the world again there are problems with the whole gap theory thing and then when you on top of it there's some bad exegesis that goes with this there's one other place where it uses the term for without form and void it's in Jeremiah chapter 4 verse 23 and so they like to use that passage but the problem is that's a that's a tribulation passage it's not talking about the creation of the world it's talking about the end of the world and so it's really hard to use that in any case what ended up happening with me was I had to give up the gap theory because it doesn't work very well and again you have a situation here where God pretty much says what he says here's something you need to remember about the Bible are you smarter than God are you better at communicating than God is is is there anything that God's having a problem with that you've mastered okay so talking have you mastered talking in a way that God has not right and so it's a very simple thing to say by the way the earth was destroyed and I started over and he doesn't say it it's a very simple thing for God to say by the way when I'm talking days I'm not really talking days I'm talking billions of years that's a very simple thing and I can say that very simply and can God do that and what happens is he doesn't do it and there's not even indications of that in the passage and these are all things that I dealt with when I was going through this stuff and so again I'm just like anybody else I'm going through and I'm trying to reconcile my worldview with the biblical worldview and trying to come out with how could this stuff work and I don't understand and and all that kind of thing and I don't care where you are on that scale what I'm telling you is that the Bible says certain things and when God says something it's factual everything that I've run into in the Bible when God has said it it's not necessarily couched in scientific terms but it's absolutely scientific God framed the world's first century using things that we can't see huge implications there and no way that Paul the writer of the book of Hebrews I believe could know that no way he could know that that had to come from the Lord so that's very cool stuff anyway when we're when we're talking about the original world you guys can come on up when we're talking about the original world one of the things that that again you see about it all the way through is God God does an act of creation and he looks at it and he sees that it's good and he makes the pronouncement this is good this is good this is good like I said last week except for Monday he didn't do it on Monday I think that's probably a precursor and in any case he goes this is good and when he looks at the end of it verse 31 then God saw everything that he had made and indeed it was very good so the evening in the morning were the sixth day when we get to chapter three it all becomes bad it all falls apart and one of the one of the cool things that we have as we're going through the rest of the Bible is it's a story of redemption got taking the good things that he had made the good things that he had formed and man had caused to fall and taking those things buying them back and making them new and so let me just end with what we started with you know we lost the right to the Tree of Life and God gives it back we lost the right to eternal life and God gives it back we lost the right to fellowship with God and he gives it back he buys it back and that's what communion is about so when you when you're talking about what Jesus has done for us most times we're talking in terms of just us you know my life was messed up and Jesus came in and he and he changed it completely valid a very cool thing he didn't just change me he's gonna change the universe it isn't doesn't just change me he changes the whole creation when he did the buying he's buying everything everything that he had that he had that he gave to us that he put within our hands to use he's bought it back and he's gonna take it and he's gonna make it right what happens with this old heaven and this old earth is that it's all wrapped up like a scroll at the very end and then God starts with a new heaven and a new earth and you're in it and it's nothing but good you guys nothing but good and it's it's gonna be an awesome thing so when we partake of communion we're looking at what Jesus did to buy us and not only us but the whole creation he woke he goes to a cross he pays the price for sin and then finally he dies and to show that it was going to be a deal that was actually going to be made and we could trust him in it he rises from the dead so we can know that this is this is this is the real deal these things are going to happen we're going through Revelation on Sunday nights and one of the things that you see over and over in the book of Revelation or these little editorial comments where God basically says this is happening and he goes oh main a main so be it so be it he says these things are going to happen and that's again what you what you have with this God's gonna make it good sometimes we're going through life and it's really hard and you know messed up in all kinds of ways it's all coming out in the wash you guys it's all coming out it's gonna be good and you think the first creation is good I used to backpack when I had knees awesome just awesome going out into the boonies trees look up the skies blazing just awesome and it's fallen it's messed up and it's still awesome just imagine what its gonna be like when it's not and so things that we're looking forward to let's pray and we'll pass this stuff out thanks God again for your word thank you for your love for us god I really like the passages that talk about before you ever started this whole thing before you ever began before you laid the foundations of the earth you were looking down through the ages and you were seeing everybody in this room you saw them you look down through the ages you loved them you decided that you wanted them you chose them and you brought them to you and Lord we're just so thankful for that and the Lord is we're taking of communion we just want to honor you and that you're good to us and you deserve our praise so we're gonna praise you Jesus name Amen

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

Views: 3,147

Rating: 4.8222222 out of 5

Keywords: The Creation Story, Genesis, Did God create the heavens and the earth, Truth, The Bible, Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities, Steve Whinery, Gosphel, God, Biblical Prophecy, Jesus, Science and the bible, God creating everything, Evidence of A God, Bible teaching, Sermons, verse by verse bible teaching, Good bible teachers, Beginning of the universe, 6 days, creation, did god rest on the 7th day, Evolution vs the Bible

Id: q-jyOnd1Igo

Length: 57min 30sec (3450 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 24 2020