The Creation Story | Genesis Explained Bible Study 5 | Allen Nolan

[Music] [Music] they the creation stored from the traditional perspective what's the traditional perspective well it's the perspective that most conservative Christians use to interpret the creation story so if you believe in a young earth the way I'm going to interpret it interpret Genesis chapter 1 it's going to be very familiar to you because it's what you've been taught all of your life in Sunday school now those of you who believe in the gap theory what I'm going to be teaching is gonna be the very same thing with one exception instead of believing that the earth is young you believe that the earth is old because there's a gap in time between verses 1 & 2 & Genesis chapter 1 and the reason there's a gap is because the original earth that was created in verse 1 was destroyed by God as a result of divine judgment when Lucifer rebelled against God God destroyed the earth with the great flood much like the flood at Noah's time and the earth became without form and void and that's in verse 2 and so if you believe in the gap theory you believe that there was a gap of time between those two verses so you're thinking well how in the world can I agree with what you're going to teach tonight well you need to understand that from verse 3 on the story of how God created the earth is the very same thing that you've been taught with one exception instead of believing that God created the earth this way you believe that God recreated the earth this way does that make sense so my point is this from verse 3 on you interpret Genesis chapter 1 the same way as those who believe in a young earth again the only difference is you believe that the story in Genesis chapter 1 is the story of the recreation of the earth rather than the creation of the earth but from verse 3 on the interpretation is the very same does that make sense and what about those who believe in the Genesis big gap theory well they also interpret Genesis chapter 1 the very same with one exception they apply the law of relativity to the story in other words they believe the time is relative because time is being from different perspectives in the universe so from God's perspective in the universe verse looking forward into time creation only took six days but from our perspective in the universe looking back in time creation took about 16 billion years but this is what I want you to grasp generally speaking from verse 3 on the interpretation of the creation story is basically the same for all three groups now there are those that would argue with me about that but I want you to notice as we go through each verse explaining what has happened what happened on each day of creation those who believe in the young earth they're going to be nodding in agreement yep yep that's just the way it happened those who believed in the gap theory we're gonna also be nodding in agreement yeah yeah that's exactly the way it happened and those who believe in the Genesis Big Bang Theory are gonna nod their heads - yeah yep that's what happened why because generally speaking we all agree on the sequence of events that occurred from verse 3 on and we all agree on the basic interpretation of those events does that make sense that's why I taught all three theories because instead of having this disunity I wanted to come in and have unity and show you that with the exception of a few small things when we get into the days of creation which we're doing tonight we all basically believe the very same thing if you believe the Bible does that make sense good so let's jump into the creation story verses three four and five cover what happened on the first day so go ahead and turn there and just follow along with me as I read these verses they're gonna come up on the screen or you can go ahead and open in your Bibles and take notes of the margin and 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 darkness and God called the light day and the darkness he called night and the evening in the morning were the first day and God said let there be light and there was light now theologians refer to this as creation by Fiat now that's kind of bad and the reason why I say that's kind of bad is we do we pronounce it differently Fiat is actually a Latin word and if you pronounced it correctly it would be Fiat but we don't do that in America so they refer to it as creation by Fiat Fiat as I said is a latin word and it means one let it be done or two to order or three proclamation so basically God ordered light to appeared in appeared now it only makes sense that light was the very first thing that was created otherwise everything else would it be would have been created in darkness so light in a sense was the prerequisite for everything else now there's been a lot of debate as to exactly what this light was because the Sun the moon and the stars are not even mentioning to the fourth today in fact what I'm going to do right now is we're gonna jump ahead to day four and then we're going to come back to the first day look at verse number 16 if you would God made two great lights the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night he also made the Stars now what is the greater light that governs today the Sun that's not too hard not a trick question what is the lesser light that governs the night the moon so verse number 16 is saying that on the fourth day God made the Sun the moon and the stars so if the Sun Moon and stars weren't made into the fourth day then what was the light that God created on the first day anyone will believe it or not it was the Sun the moon and the stars well wait a minute pastor Allen I thought it said in verse number 16 that God didn't make the Sun the stars in the moon until the 4th days well I'm gonna show you why I say that the light that was created was the Sun the moon and the star when we get to the fourth day right now I just want you to trust me can you do that and I promise that I'll show you how I know that the light was the Sun the moon and the stars when we get to day four now remember on Wednesday nights you're not a church on Wednesday nights you're at Bible College so in Bible College we go a little bit deeper we're gonna go a little bit deeper into the meaning of the words and also the syntax of the words and I will be able to prove to you who we get today for what I just said now let's go back to day one and see what else happened on the date on the first date look at verse 4 and God saw the light that it was good and God divided the light from darkness now I want you to underline the last part of that verse God divided the light from darkness now I want you to notice that darkness was not eliminated I don't know why but sometimes when we read along there are certain things that we just automatically think of there are certain things that we assume and we shouldn't do that because that's not what the word says God divided the light from darkness but darkness was not eliminated it eliminated it was only separated from the light giving us a period of day time in a period of night time look at verse number 5 and God called the light day and the darkness he called night and the evening in the morning were the first day so this tells us that the earth began rotating on its axis on the very first day and it tells us that there was a main source of light on one side and not on the other so as the earth rotated one side of the earth would have light in the other darkness but it was constantly rotating a period of light a period of darkness a period of light a period of darkness and God called the light day and he called the night of dark at the time of darkness at night so now that the earth is rotating on its axis we have a way to measure time on the earth from the very first day all of the sudden in the way that God created this we now have a way to measure time on the earth in fact all of our major measurements of time are based on astronomy with one exception our day is based on the time that it takes the earth to rotate once on its axis that's why every 24 hours you're going to have a period of light in a period of darkness but our day is basically the time it takes our earth to rotate once on its axis the year is based on the time it takes our earth to orbit around the Sun 365 and whatever days our months are based on the orbit of the moon the only major measurement of time that's not based on astronomy is the week that's right the week is not an astronomical measurement of time it's based on God's timetable turn to Genesis chapter 2 verses 2 through 4 and let's see what it says after the six days of creation notice what it says beginning in verse 2 on the seventh day God had finished his work of creation so we rested from all his work and God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy because it was the day when he rested from all of his work of creation this is the account of the creation of the heavens of the earth from the Lord God made the earth and the heavens and what's interesting is we find out later that guy comes along and he says we're to have a Sabbath there's gonna be six days of work and then a Sabbath and then we start all over again six days of work and a Sabbath so it was God who instituted the week but this week is not based upon our solar system it's not based on any type of astronomical measurement of time but every other major measurement of time is based upon men now turn back to verse number five and let me show you one more thing before we move on to day two and God called the light day and the darkness he called night and the evening in the morning were the first day underline the word evening if you would that word is translated from the Hebrew word Arab which means sunset now because of the order of which this is stated the Jews believe that a day ends at sunset and a new one begins so the Jews reckon a day from sunset to sunset based upon Genesis chapter 1 verse number five so if you ever go to Israel you'll notice that everyone is rushing on Friday and all of the sudden when the Sun Goes Down everything just kind of stops you walk outside of your room you think I'm gonna go get some ice the sun's gone down it's Friday night I'm gonna go out you hit the door on the elevator and nothing happens and then about ten minutes later it finally opens up so you get inside the elevator you press the button but it doesn't matter none of the buttons are working the elevator stops on every floor it opens in it's programmed to do that why because they're not allowed to work on the Sabbath and pressing a button on the elevator is work so they programmed all of their elevators to be able to open and close so no one has to work on the Sabbath and then you go out and people aren't doing anything and no one's around why is that because as soon as the Sun Goes Down a new day begins and so on Friday night as soon as that Sun Goes Down on Friday night the Sabbath begins and that's when they begin their Sabbath meal now on Saturday as soon as the Sun sets well Sabbath is over it's Saturday night no no no no a new day has begun now we don't do that we we start our days at midnight so it goes from midnight to midnight but the Jews don't and they do this based upon Genesis chapter one verse number five it's the way that God reckoned time it's the way they're going to reckon time now let's look at day number two turn to verses six seven and eight and God said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters and 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 and the evening in the morning were the second day now I'm going to show you an easy way to be able to interpret this but let's go a little bit deeper first and they're going to use our whiteboard so you'll understand what this is the same I want you to remember the first two totus that the earth was void or or was without form and void in other words it was a wasteland and it was void of inhabitants and darkness covered the entire earth so God had to make the earth suitable for life in other words habitable so on the first day what did God do God created light and he separated the light from darkness so the next logical step is to create an oxygen atmosphere in which plants animals and men can live so on the second day God created an atmosphere conducive for life now this was a very unique atmosphere and let me explain why I say that I want you to underline the word firmament it's translated from the Hebrew word rakia rakia literally means expanse or to spread out it's what we think of as space if I was to tell everyone in here and you're already doing that but if I was to tell everyone in here let's spread out what I'm really saying is let's make more space between us and that's what this word rakia means it means to spread out it means to make space now most scholars believe that in this context it means air space or space with oxygen because God refers to the space as heaven in verse number 8 so in this context rakia means space consisting of air or consisting of oxygen now notice that verses six and seven tell us that the firmament or this space separated the waters let's read that again and God said let there be a firmament in other words let there be space a space of air in the middle of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters and God made the firmament he made the space and he divided the waters which were under the space from the waters which were above the space and it was so so what you got is you've got this air space that separates the water on the earth from the water above the earth that is everyone completely lost I'm gonna make it simple in just a minute just stick with me in other words you've got an atmosphere of oxygen surrounding the earth and above that oxygen is a canopy of water probably more probability water vapor because the space that God created divided the waters in fact let me if you don't mind draw your little picture let's say that this is the earth now verse number two tells us we're going to find out a little bit later we see here but water covered the entire earth there was not any dry land so what I'm going to do is I'm going to draw this to symbolize water on the outside of the earth does that look like water looks more like a kid's rendition of hair on a person right but anyways let's suppose that that is water so the Bible tells us that God created the heavens and the earth and then he tells in verse number two that the earth was without form and void and darkness covered it but it also tells us that there was water completely around it and there was no dry land so guess what God did God said let there be a firmament rakia let there be space and he said let this space be in the middle or separate be in the middle of the water so right here in the middle of the water trying to do a good job doing that does that make it can you see that space that I just erased alone there so all of a sudden what God did is he said I want there to be space in the middle of the water so half of the water is still surrounding the earth but the other half he had this space come in and push it further and further out you still got a little bit of water around it but now the sudden this firmament is going to divide the waters it's going to push that water out and now half of the water that had been around the earth is now out here and you've got space between the two waters as everyone with me that's why said this was a unique atmosphere it's not something we see today these verses are describing an earth that is surrounded by a water canopy by water vapor you see in our atmosphere we actually have a troposphere the stratosphere and the mesosphere the tropas troposphere actually goes up 11 miles high so basically on our earth today if we were to turn this around on our earth today we're going to have 3 different ones atmosphere from the earth out to the troposphere is about 11 miles and then we get to the second part of what is we consider our atmosphere which is the stratosphere it goes from about 11 miles to 30 miles does that make sense so we'll say 11 to 30 and this is 11 and then we have the mesosphere that goes from about 30 miles to 50 miles that's around our earth you didn't realize we went to the book of Genesis but you were going to learn so much science did you are you smarter than a 5th grader alright now here's what's interesting you had all of this water around but what God did was he said let there be a firmament let there be space and I want this space to be in the middle of the waters that's surrounding the earth and then he said let's let that firmament divide the waters that's above it the waters that's below it and all of the sudden this is our atmosphere but the water that's above it becomes water vapor and most scholars believe it was in our stratosphere now this was this great atmosphere that was very conducive to life because in this case we have an ideal situation for sustaining life as an example with this water vapor that he's describing here in Genesis the first chapter it acts like a global greenhouse it maintains a warm uniform temperature all over the earth there are no cold temperatures anywhere there is not a North Pole that's freezing there is not a South Pole that's freezing everywhere on the earth is like this huge greenhouse and so you can have lush vegetation everywhere the whole earth is nice with this uniform temperature great air masses are inhibited therefore you don't have any of these great wind storms or these tropical storms these hurricanes tornadoes all of these things we see and with no global air circulation there's not going to be any rain well how we're gonna come in here and and and water everything well the planet would maintain this comfortable uniform humidity by means of a daily local evaporation and condensation and this happens each day night cycle so you wake up in the morning and everything is watered this nice humidity is there and everything can be lush all over the earth there would be this vegetation all over the world with no no deserts no ice caps and then this vapor canopy also filters out much of the dangerous ultraviolet rays from the Sun contributing to greater health and also what longevity is it an amazing we go back into the Old Testament and we see during this period before Noah these men were living seven eight hundred nine hundred years how could they do that well they didn't reckon date no no they reckon days the same way I told Lisa what could you accomplish in a lifetime of seven eight hundred nine hundred years but you see with this water vapor out here when it took the waters in the space separated it made this water vapor out here and it protected the earth had this global greenhouse you've got all these people living alone a long time now again most conservative scholars believe that precipitation from this water vapor from this water canopy is what caused the great flood and though it was time it had never rained before the end now can you imagine here's no one we're gonna kind of study this when we get to the great events and we get to Noah's Flood here God tells him to build an ark and everyone thinks he's nuts I mean the way things are our water is the dew comes up and you tell us that frames gonna come you're crazy man and he has 80 years to preach this 80 years to build this Ark and to get this thing going and everyone thinks he's not but the majority of scholars believe that it was the precipitation from this water vapor that actually caused the flood and Noah's time in other words the rain that lasted for 40 days and 40 nights came from this water vapor that surrounded the earth now do we have this water vapor today no we don't but this water canopy is what I meant by a unique situation after the flood of Noah that's no longer there now what we have is the things that we talked about troposphere stratosphere and mesosphere but not in the original creation now as I said in verse number eight God referred to the firmament as what not space we refer to it a space Rick rakia what did he refer to it as heaven he referred to it as heaven but as we read through the Bible we find that there are three heavens the first heaven refers to our atmosphere Jesus is talking he talks about the birds of heaven does he mean the birds of heaven work dwell snow you know someone might read that and they said we birds in heaven now that's not what Jesus was talking about when he's talked about the birds of heaven he's talking about the birds in our atmosphere so we talk about heaven in the first heaven the atmosphere the second heaven refers to outer space in the Book of Psalms the Book of Proverbs throughout many of the books in the Bible we see it talking about the stars of heaven now are those stars in our atmosphere no do you realize that our Sun is just an average star in size there are some stars that are a hundred times larger a hundred times larger if we had any of those those stars in our atmosphere then what would happen well it's just not gonna happen but it refers to the stars in heaven that's that's the second heaven and then you have the third heaven the third heaven refers to where God dwells in fact this will help you to understand what Paul wrote in the book of 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 verse number 2 go ahead and turn with me if you would to the book of 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 verse number 2 Paul says I know a man in Christ who do you think the man he knows in Christ who do you think he's talking about here himself I know a man in Christ can't know anyone any better than knowing yourself I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven that's a literal translation there third heaven whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know only God knows now let me kind of tell you the story of what happened here Paul was stoned and if you remember the story in Acts where he was stoned that drugged him out of the city they thought that he was dead but he came back alive that's the story that Paul is talking about he says I know a man in Christ and 14 years ago he was caught up to the third heaven in other words he was caught up to where God dwells I can't tell you whether it was in the body or it was out of the body all I know is I was there for God dwells I walked in heaven I saw it and then I came back that's what he's talking about so the Bible speaks of three heavens it talks about the first heaven which is the atmosphere the second heaven which is actually outer space where all the stars and the planets are and then it talks about the third heaven so when we're going through the Bible and it refers to heaven we always have to determine which heaven is a talking about now here in Genesis chapter 1 he says he caused the firmament heaven what he means is he called this atmosphere heaven but he's talking about the first atmosphere does that make sense so on day 2 God created an atmosphere able to sustain life plant life animal life human life and of course as I've already told you this water vapor ceased to exist after the flood during Noah's day so now all we have troposphere stratosphere mesosphere day 3 I'm doing good turn to verses 9 through 13 before I do that did I make that simple enough go back and read those verses take out the word firmament rakia right above it space if you just used the word space everything makes sense when you read it all right and God said let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place let the dry land appear and it was so and God called the dry land earth and the gathering together the water at waters called he seas and God saw that it was good and God said let the earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself upon the earth and it was so and the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind in the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind and God saw that it was good in the evening and the morning were the third day and of course Jews are gonna follow this timetable so again we see the same timetable evening is first so when the Sun sets today begins now up to this point water covered the entire earth Wow even after it was divided even after God came on the second day and he took the space and he put it in the middle of the waters and then he allowed it to divide the waters and one became water vapor above the earth and one continued to be water upon the earth what we need to understand that even when it was not after it was divided half of it became water vapor surrounding the earth but the other half still covered the entire earth there was no dry land at this time so on the third day God said let the waters under the heaven what does that mean under the firmament under the space that God has created let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place and let dry land appear and it was so now when this says let the water be gathered together in one place it doesn't mean that there was one huge ocean because in verse number 10 he called the places where the waters gathered sees the word seas is plural more than one so there were more than one places where the water gathered does that make sense there were more bodies of water than just one huge ocean that makes sense so when it says the water was gathered together in one place it simply means that the water no longer covered the entire Earth instead it was contained to certain areas to certain seas now what made the dry land appear and what made the water drain to the lower areas does anyone know well God said ok God said but what made it do that well turn to Psalms chapter 104 verses 5 through 9 and let's find out because God gives us a more detailed picture of what took place on this third day notice what it says you place the world on this foundation so it would never be moved you clothe the earth with floods of water water that covered even the mountains now what's this telling us it's telling us exactly what Genesis chapter 1 said at this time the water covered the entire earth and there was no dry land Psalms 104 is telling us that then he goes further at your command the water fled at the sound of your Thunder it hurried away mountains rose and valleys sank to the levels you decreed then you set a firm boundary for the Seas so they would never again cover and even though it doesn't say it in the Hebrew it implies it never again cover the entire earth but I want you to notice that at the time this is talking about the waters covered the entire earth but at God's command mountains moved and valleys sank and the waters drained to the lower areas that God had prepared for them now I just happened to meditate on this as I was studying I was thinking wouldn't it have been neat it's hard for me not to get emotional to be there on the 3rd day and to see God do this and all of the sudden you see these mountains all over this earth they begin to rise and then as these mountains are rising you're seeing these valleys and if you got to remember says and at your Thunder then when God came down on Mount Sinai it sounded like thunder and so God is speaking and commanding this to happen these mountains are rising up valleys are forming and this water is going to these places that God has decreed man can you imagine seeing that take place what an awesome God we serve and in verse number 10 God names the dry land earth and he calls the great bodies of water seas so at this point the physical structure of the earth is finished and the basic dwelling places for the various life-forms are now complete you had the skies for the birds and we're not even talking about the oxygen that's now there for all of life but we have the sky for the birds we have the large bodies of water for the sea creatures and now we have dry land for plants animals and the pinnacle of God's creation what would that be man man the creature that's going to be made in the image of God the creature that God has created to be an eternal being the creature that will either spend eternity with God or separated from God but all of this is being created in order for the earth to be inhabited and so now that all of the physical structure all of the basic dwelling places are now complete now it's time for life to appear because God created the earth to be inhabited look at Isaiah chapter 45 verse number 18 for thus saith the Lord that creates the heavens God Himself that formed the earth and made it he hath established it he created it not in vain he formed it to be inhabited so from the very beginning we see that the whole purpose of God creating the earth that we live on is for it to be inhabited so at this point guy commands the earth to sprout vegetation it's time for life to come look at verse number 11 again Genesis chapter 1 and God said let the earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself is in itself upon the earth and it was so now there's something I want you to notice here the creation of plant life is not ex nihilo what does that mean it's not created out of nothing instead got this something very unusual here and he's only going to do it this one time God empowers the earth with generative capacity and the reason I say that is because the Hebrew verb to bring forth Dasha is written in the Highfill stem which is causative so if you translated verse number 11 literally this is the way it would read let the earth cause vegetation to shoot forth now let me put stress on a different part of the sentence let the earth cause vegetation to shoot forth so what this is saying is that the earth is the thing that caused the vegetation to sprout but it was at God's command now from this point on all other life-forms will be created or made by God alone now why is this different anyone know why when it comes to all other life-forms God will have to either create it or he'll have to make it but here God could command the earth to bring forth plants anyone know what separates us from plants what separates animals from plants breath life spirit God's gonna have to create ex nihilo spirit for the animals for humans but here it's not that way now I'm not gonna take any further now I don't tell you what I think I means I just let the Scriptures speak for itself but I thought I should point this out because God commanded the earth itself to sprout vegetation and the earth caused according to the - stem caused these plans to come forth now what's interesting is that the vegetation has the innate ability to reproduce each plant already has its seed in itself and it's able to reproduce itself but he continually says this after its own kind in other words each type of plant has its own unique structure of DNA and can only reproduce after its kind and the same thing is going to hold true for the animals all living organisms reproduce after its own kind now there's going to be a lot of room for variations and here's what's kind of interesting when you go to the book of Genesis here's what you'll notice you can literally breed within its own kind Adams job was to take care of the Garden of Eden if he did not cultivate it and take care of it then guess what happens this law of entropy would have came in and it left to its own it would not produce the best but what you did was you came in and you made sure was selective breeding that you get the best you could even create these various types within its own kind in fact when we study this - the story of Jacob Jacob tells his father law says you know I've worked for you I've done all these things I think it's time for me to have my own wages and I think that I need to have my own herd and so his father-in-law says hmm well I'll tell you what because his father-in-law's not as smart as Jacob I don't mean that bad but he's not he says you're gonna get all of the animals that have and he gives this some of them are speckled and then he's going to change it so many times but the reason he does that is because he thinks oh they won't produce very many of those but Jacob understands breeding and he says that he made them breed in front of the poplars what that means is he made pens he made Corral's and what he did was he took the ones that was specifically breeding create these type and the father lost his scratching his hand he says wait a minute his herds are growing in mine or not and so he comes to Jackson we got to change this and then he says yours will be and he does that so what does Jacob do he starts breeding this type-y because God created these things to have seed and has a unique DNA and it's able to reproduce after self and there's much variation within its kind but it can't go out of its kind does that make sense verse 13 in the evening in the morning were the third day now next week we're study the fourth fifth and sixth day of creation and of course the sixth day of creation we're going to get to the pinnacle of creation which is the creation of man [Music] [Music]

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Id: a62keLmgWH8

Length: 41min 51sec (2511 seconds)

Published: Wed May 27 2020