Please turn in your Bibles to the 33rd Psalm, Psalm number 33. As you turn to it, may I welcome you, and we pray that the Lord will bless our hearts this morning as we hear His Word and study it together. Psalm number 33, and let's read the first part of this Psalm from verse 1 down to verse 9. Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright. Praise the Lord with harp, sing unto him with a psaltery, and an instrument of ten strings. Sing unto him a new song, play skillfully with a loud noise, for the word of the Lord is right, and all his works are done in truth. He loveth righteousness and judgment. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as in heap. He layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast." And we know that God will add his blessing. to the reading of His own precious Word. Now, we have been studying the doctrine of God, as you are all aware. We have focused on some of the major aspects of the Lord's person, His being, and His nature. And the last study that we considered a few weeks ago, two weeks ago, had to do with the decrees of God, and we were looking at the matter of predestination. When you come to study the decrees of God, we can sum up that subject in this way, God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. God is a sovereign God. He has existed from all eternity as the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is purposed according to His own will, everything that comes to pass. And therefore, everything that ever sees existence, everything that ever comes into being, it was purposed by God that that would be the case. God, in other words, decreed to create. And we've read from this psalm, Psalm 33, in which we have a tremendous portrayal in the language of the psalmist of the truth of creation. And the truth of creation is an extension of the doctrine of God. It's inseparably connected with the doctrine of God. So what we have been doing is looking at God Himself, some things about who He is, His being, the fact that He is eternal, that He is self-existent, that as He always was. and all of these great truths about His nature and His being. And therefore, by extension, we come now to look at some of His works. And first of all, we need to deal with the work of creation and the doctrine of creation. And as I say, the two are connected, the doctrine of God and the doctrine of creation. Turn with me now to Genesis 1, and it would be good for you to keep Genesis 1 open because we're looking at it quite a lot today in this study as the Lord helps us. So Genesis chapter 1, so get this into your mind that God is and God has created. And right in Genesis 1 verse 1, we have that great truth set before us. It says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This is essentially a two-fold statement, Genesis 1 verse 1. It's a statement of the existence of God, in the beginning God. And when you think about those words, they mean that God was there in the beginning, which therefore means that God always was, God always existed. So in the beginning God was there. That is a statement of the existence of God. Then the second part of the verse, God created the heaven and the earth. And therefore we have another statement of the divine act of the creation of all things. God created the heaven and the earth. Now this opening statement of the Bible, for it is the opening statement of the Bible, it's of tremendous importance. It is a declaration that God is. It says here in the beginning, God. And as we have set out to show you in this study and have brought to your attention on different occasions, the Bible nowhere sets out to explain God, for the simple reason that you can't explain God. But the Bible sets out to declare that God is, and that God is eternal, that God is sovereign, that He possesses absolute authority, and He possesses all power. And this is stated right here again in the opening words of the Bible. And then in the second instance, we not only have a declaration here, but we have an explanation. It explains this opening statement of the Bible, where all other things derive their existence. Namely, this God who is eternally existent is the creator of everything else. in every realm. So you can see this fact that I'm laying down. The doctrine of God and the doctrine of creation are inseparably connected. They're brought together here. There's the declaration that God is. There is the explanation of the existence of everything else that does exist. Now you see, here's a vital matter. There has to be an explanation for the existence of the universe and everything that it contains, any thinking man recognizes this fact. And when you think yourself right now, there has to be an explanation for the existence of the universe, the heavens, the earth, all of the universe and everything within the universe. There has to be an explanation for all that. And as I say, thinking men recognize that fact. Thinking men in the sense, well, men have got intelligence, they look around them, they see things, they know they're alive, they're in a world, they see the stars, they see everything that's to be seen, and they say to themselves, well, where did it all come from? They think, you see, and man has the ability to think. Believe it or not, we have the ability to think, and we say to ourselves, well, where did this all come from? Men then seek to give their explanations as to the fact that the universe does exist. And by the way, brothers and sisters, you will know this, I'm sure many of you, more and more as days go by virtually, astronomers are finding out the vastness of the universe. They're continually discovering at different points in time, and these points in time are very close together in recent decades. They're discovering at different points in time more galaxies and more heavenly bodies, and they're discovering that it just goes on and on and on. These huge telescopes and so on that have been invented and are actually of great use And they're discovering that way out there, as we would say, there is unlimited space and there is unlimited evidence of galaxy after galaxy and all of these constellations and so on. They're discovering these things and, of course, they're asking the question, well, where did this all come from? How did it arise? Well, there are different explanations, as we know. Men will say, it's not very common today, but it has been said that matter, that is the material that makes up the universe, is eternal. It was always there. That's one so-called explanation. And then others say that there was the… What they're saying, of course, is that matter had no beginning. It was always there. Then others will say they believe in what's called spontaneous generation and development of this material. In other words, what they're really saying is all that we see around us evolved from a tiny form. And then others say that the material universe, these are people who would call themselves religious, or some even would dare to say that they believe the Bible, but they would say that the material universe is what they call an emanation of God. In other words, it's the outworking of God Himself, which means that they bring God and creation together. Now, the most up-to-date form of that is what's called the New Age Movement. And you've heard of the New Age movement, I'm sure, to some degree, to one degree or another. The New Age movement is really what's called pantheism, and the word pantheism means all is God and God is all. And they say that God is present in creation or in the universe, and therefore they don't believe in the personality of God. They don't believe that He is a distinct person. They believe that He is incorporated into His creation, and therefore creation is really what they call an emanation of God, which is essentially pantheism. And we can make jokes about these people. going out and hugging trees and all this stuff because they believe that's God, that's God on that tree. You know, that's not something new. Ancient peoples believed those things. Pantheism, all is God and God is all. is not a recent development. It's an ancient pagan, heathen heresy, but it's very much alive still, and this is another explanation for the existence of the universe. It's really a form of God. But focus for a moment on this point. There must be an explanation for the existence of the universe. Furthermore, all these theories that I have mentioned, there may be others, but these theories that I have mentioned, they all face an insurmountable problem, and that is they do not deal with the issue of the first cause. They say, well, what I have explained to you, they come up with all these theories, but not one of them presents an acceptable explanation for the first cause of what they say in their theory. So in other words, if they say that evolution is how things came about, they do not tell you how that all began. They can't take you back to the beginning. They've got no explanation for the origin. And you see, men and women, this is vital. This is not a Bible believer's idea. This is fact in all human life. There has to be a beginning. There has to be a first cause. Things just don't happen without some cause. We dealt with this in an earlier part of this study. If you talk about things that happen or things that are in place, you're talking about effects. Every effect has a cause. The universe is an effect, therefore there has to be a cause. There has to be a first cause. Now evolution, because that's the most popular theory as to the existence of all things, evolution goes back to what they say is some primeval one-celled creature, or They will go back to what they call the Big Bang. And they'll say there was this huge explosion and then suddenly just things started to happen. Now anybody who believes that, I wonder at them. Because both those aspects of evolution, they fail here. They do not explain where that one-celled primeval creature came from. How did it start? What is its beginning? Or the Big Bang? Where did the gases come from that supposedly caused this Big Bang? In other words, they go back so far, but they cannot take you back and say that this is how it happened. And therefore their theories fail utterly because this is the vital issue. There has to be an origin for life. There has to be a beginning. And evolution or any other humanistic theory fails to account for the origins of the material universe and the life that the universe contains. They fail. But the Bible does address the matter of origins. At an earlier point in this study when I was looking at some of the arguments for the existence of God, we know that this truth, and I've mentioned it just a few minutes ago, the universe is a grand effect. It contains the evidence of design, and on that basis we have what's called the presupposition that there had to be a first great cause, there had to be a designer of it all. Now that is a fact of life, by the way. And the Bible refers to that in Hebrews 3, and it refers to it in 2 Corinthians as well, where Paul says, every house is built by some man. Then it goes on to say, he that built all things is God. And you see, there is a fact of life. Every house is built by some man. Your house just didn't suddenly appear one day where it sits. It just didn't happen that way. Somebody built it. Somebody also designed it. And you take that truth and you apply it to the universe and men, even unsaved men, unregenerate men, will stand in awe at the magnitude of creation or the universe. They will stand back and wonder at the glory of it, the beauty of it, the design in it. But they will not admit that there is a first great cause. They will say there was a big bang. And, or there was this little one-celled creature, and so forth. You see, that's an evidence of man's unbelieving heart. He just does not want to accept the fact that in the universe itself there's a reminder that there is a God, there is a Creator. He doesn't want to face that. Because if he faces that, then he has to face the question of, well, how am I related to that God, and what control does He have over me, and how should I respond to Him, and so forth. And then it brings in the whole issue of sin, and then eventually the issue of judgment. He doesn't want to think about that. So he lives in denial, even though the evidence is all around him. But you see, the Bible does show us, even in this way of these arguments that we have set before you, there is design, there are effects, and therefore there has to be the designer, there has to be the first great cause of all. And this fact is supported by what we have in the Word of God, such as we have right here in Genesis 1 verse 1. in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, or John 1, 1 to 3, where it says that the Word was in the beginning, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. So, what we're saying, brethren and sisters, is we believe that God created all things. The doctrine of God leads on to the doctrine of creation. God is who He is, God exists, and the Bible reveals to us these different features of His being and His nature, and we move on from there to say, well, here is the explanation as to where we came from and where all things came from. All have come, all things have come from the hand of God. Now, Genesis 1 and other Scriptures show us that creation is the work. of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Just look again at Psalm 33 and verse number 6. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. And in that verse three persons are in view. There is the Lord, that is Jehovah. Then it says, the word of the Lord, and that's one of the names of Christ in the Bible, and it goes on to say the breath of His mouth, and the word breath in the Hebrew language means spirit, so it can be read that way, the spirit of His mouth. So you've got the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in this particular verse. Now, if you look at Genesis 1, you will find in Genesis 1 the repeated words, and God said. Find it the whole way down the chapter, and God said. And when you read that kind of language, then you are reading a parallel with what Psalm 33 verse 6 says, where it declares, by the word of the Lord were the heavens made. And so in Genesis 1, where you read verse 3, and God said, let there be light, what you are looking at there is a reference to Christ. Because remember that Christ is the word. And that language, and God said, is equivalent to the name of the Lord Jesus, the Word. And God said, here it is, here's how it took place. God the Father is the one who purposed to create, God the Son is the one who created by speaking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who then formed it all. That's how it is. That's what the Bible teaches. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all involved in creation. God the Father determining to create. God the Son speaking. He's the Word, remember. He spoke, and we saw in Psalm 33, He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. The same as in other places. We'll see another couple of references in a moment or two. So, here's Christ, the Lord, working with the Father. There's a very powerful statement that ties in with this in 1 Corinthians 8 verse 6 where it says this, but to us, 1 Corinthians 8 verse 6, but to us there is but one God, the Father. of whom are all things, and we in him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." It's the same kind of language. It is God the Father and God the Son. And it tells us here, of the Father are all things, and Jesus Christ by whom are all things. There's a difference. Of the Father, in other words, the Father's will is there, it's His will to create, and therefore it's of Him, and then Christ's the one who creates, and it's by Him. And over in Colossians then, a book or two later, Colossians chapter 1 verses 16 to 17, for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him," Colossians 1.16, and this is Christ, all things were created by Him and for Him, it is for His glory, and He is before all things. The Lord Jesus was not created. He is an eternal person or being. He is before all things, verse 17, and by Him all things consist or hang together. So all that He made is in verse 16. Now in verse 17, the Lord keeps it all there. It all hangs together because He spake and it was done. In Hebrews 1 verse 3, He upholds all things by the Word of His power. Again, it's Christ. Christ spoke at the beginning and created all things and Christ continues to keep all things in place by His Word. It's wonderful. It's marvelous when we think of the power of our great God and Savior. the triune God of our salvation. And we also saw in Psalm 33 that by the breath of the Lord were the heavens made and so on. And then in Genesis 1 verse 2 you have this. We said that was the Holy Spirit. Genesis 1 verse 2, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. and God said, Let there be light." So what you find here is you've got the three persons of the Godhead in Genesis 1, and they're creating as the will of the Father, and then the Holy Spirit is there and He's moving, and the Word speaks, and together they create. Now there is the Bible's explanation as to origins. as to the existence of all things. Here's the Bible's declaration with regard to creation. It's actually interesting to look at the words that are used. If you take Genesis 1 verse 1, just read where it says, in the beginning, God created. God created. Verse 21, and God created. And verse 27, so God created man. Now the Hebrew word that's translated created in these three verses, and of course is used in other places, but the Hebrew word is only ever used in the Old Testament of God's activity, never man's activity. only God's activity, divine activity. Furthermore, the Hebrew word that's translated, created here is actually pronounced bara, but that Hebrew word means to call into being without the aid of pre-existing material. To call into being without the aid of pre-existing material. In other words, here is where we have the great biblical truth that God created out of nothing. You may have read in books the Latin term ex nihilo, from nothing, and that is a standard biblical belief. There was no pre-existing material. There was nothing. And you and I can't fully understand that we're so materialistic, we're used to material, substance, matter, we live on a physical earth, physical things are all around us, that's our environment. But you see, there was a time when there was nothing, I mean in terms of material substance or life. God is a spirit, remember, and therefore He existed, and therefore when He began to create, He created out of nothing. And that's the meaning of the word created. That's the sense of the word created. And what I'm showing you, brothers and sisters, is this. Either the Bible is right, or evolution is right, or some of these other theories. But they can't be right because they do not give you an explanation for origins. And that's where they all fail. They can bamboozle you with all kinds of data, but they cannot tell you how life began. Whereas when you come to the Bible, the Bible does tell you where life began. And the Bible's explanation therefore is such that we stand back and wonder that this God who always was came to what we call a point. He said, let there be, let there be, let there be, and He brought it into existence out of nothing. There's another Hebrew word that's used in this chapter, and it means to prepare out of existing material. In fact, there are two other words that have that sense to them. So if you want to see how this works, turn to Genesis 2 and look at verse number 7, and here is God forming man. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." The word formed there also means created, but it's a different Hebrew word. Remember the one that we saw means to create out of or to come into being without the aid of pre-existing material. This Hebrew word has the opposite meaning. It means to prepare out of existing material, and it's used here the formation of man or the creation of man. The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. There was pre-existing material and God took dust or soil and from it he made man with regard to his body. You know the only two things in the Bible that are said to have been made from dust are man and fleas. That's very humbling isn't it? You go to Exodus and you'll find that Moses took the dust and he turned them into fleas. So that brings us down a peg or two. But anyhow, I'm just showing you how there's a difference between the Hebrew words. But creation is the work of the triune God. Now here's an interesting thing I want us to look at. The days of creation. On the issue of the days of creation, there is a lot of debate. First of all, there are those who say, really there are two views. The first view is that the days of creation were vast, long, drawn out periods of time. That is the view of those who call themselves theistic evolutionists. A theistic evolutionist is a man who says, I believe in God, therefore the word theistic, it comes from the Greek word for God, theos. So he says he is theistic, he believes in God. But he says, I also believe in evolution. So what he teaches is God, He started the whole thing and then it just kept on going. And they say there's evidence for this in Genesis 1, because these days in Genesis 1 are not literal 24-hour periods, but they are long, indefinite periods of time. Well, is that right? The other view, of course, is, and the creationist view is, that these days are 24-hour periods of time. For one thing, let's just notice this, for one thing, notice the repeated words. For example, in verse 5, the evening and the morning, and you'll find those terms the whole way down the chapter, verse 5, verse 8, 13, and so on. But look at verse 5, and God called the light day and the darkness He called night, and the evening and the morning were the first day. Now, if these days are vast periods of time, then the evening would refer to a long period of darkness. Now remember, we're talking here about thousands, maybe millions of years according to this theistic evolution idea. So you've got the morning and you've got the evening. And God says that's the first day, the morning and the evening. We say that's a 24-hour period. They say, no, it's a vast, vast period of time. Well, if that is the case, then you take the evening part. That means that during a long, long, long, long period God was doing nothing. Furthermore, it raises the question, if these are vast long periods, thousands upon thousands, maybe millions of years as men say, then how would life have continued? If you go down through this chapter, you'll find on a certain day God made the grass and the trees and all the vegetation. So, He made that on a certain day, the third day actually, down there in verses 9 through to 13. Verse 13 says, in the evening and the morning were the third day. And on the third day, verse 12 tells us that the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed. There's the vegetation. So that means that when God made these things, then for vast, vast ages of darkness, because that's what the evening represents, that vegetation somehow or other survived. And we all know that vegetation cannot survive without light. It's utterly impossible. So that's another problem for them. And then if you go to verses 14 to 18, you've God creating what's called the great lights. Verse 14 says, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, and divide the day from the night. and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.' And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. I'm going to say how God set them in the firmament, etc. Now, surely these are 24-hour days proved by the fact here of the great lights being set in place to give the day and the night. And think about this. Here's what happened on the fourth day. God made these great lights to divide the day from the night. Now, either God's natural laws that He set in motion there changed, Or what we have today always was. In other words, if you take the sun and the moon, that's what's in view here. The sun generally shines for 12 hours, well maybe in other parts of the world, but that's the way it is around that kind of time period. Then the moon and the night and so on. So that's the way it is. And are we therefore to believe that when God made these great lights, that that wasn't the case, that that natural law was not in place at that particular time. Well, we don't believe that at all because if the days in Genesis 1 are not 24-hour periods, then verses 14 to 18 become ridiculous. They become absurd. And then another thing to notice is, go to chapter 2, and here's the seventh day. Chapter 2, where it says on the seventh day, verse 2, God ended His work which He had made and rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God created and made. Now to be consistent, if these people are right, then this must be also, this seventh day must be a long A vast age like all the others, but that raises the thought, well then God rested for ages, for maybe millions of years. Contradicting what? Contradicting what is laid down in the fourth commandment. You turn to Exodus 20 and you'll see what I mean. Exodus 20 verse 8, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The word Sabbath does not mean seventh as many people imagine, it simply means rest. So when you read this commandment, here's how it reads, remember the day of rest to keep it holy. 6 days shalt thou labour, and do all thy works, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work. And it goes on to say, nobody is to work on that day. Here's the vital verse. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rest at the seventh day. In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and he rest at the seventh day, and so forth. So what you find in the fourth commandment is the proof. that the days of creation were 24-hour periods. It's clear. Because God says to His people throughout all time, you're to rest on this day because God rested on this day. Furthermore, He says He made all things in the six days, and that means that what the six days are, so is the seventh day. And we've already proved that the six days can't be anything else but 24-hour days. And therefore the fourth commandment is a vital statement, not only of the issue of the sanctuary of a certain day. One day in the week is the Lord's. And on that day we're not to violate it, we're not to desecrate it. We all should know that. It's not a day for shopping. It's not a day for going here, there and yonder. It's not a day for sport or playing golf or whatever you care to mention. It's God's day. But I'm not preaching the Sabbath. I'm showing you from the commandment dealing with the one day and seven, you have the proof that these seven days were literal 24-hour periods. But then there's another thought before I close here. Turn back to Genesis, please, and look at Genesis chapter 5. Genesis chapter 5. If we take these days to be these long, drawn-out periods, then we've got a problem with Adam's age. So look at Genesis 5 verse 3. Let me just remind you Adam was made on the sixth day. That means that these days are long ages. Before the seventh day ever arrived, Adam was thousands and thousands and thousands of years old. What does it say here? And Adam lived 130 years. begatten a son in his own likeness." And on down, verse 4, he lived another 800 years, and verse 5, all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died. So you see the contradiction that arises when these people who call themselves believers in God espouse the theory of theistic evolution and say that the days of Genesis 1 are these vast ages, and you had all these problems, all these contradictions. My friend, the Bible doesn't contradict itself. When it says here that Adam lived 130 years, that means from the day God made him. I just think about this this morning again. It's a very interesting statement. At the age of 130, that is, when Adam was made, he was a full-grown man. God did not make Adam a baby. And I say that not facetiously, I say it in all earnestness, Adam was a full-grown man. And then he lived another 930 years. But when he was 130 years old, Seth was born. Prior to that, Cain and Abel had been born at some point. All these things already had happened. The fall had taken place, sin had come in, Cain had been born, Abel had been born, and so on. It's interesting. It's fascinating. You start to think about it. I wondered when was his first son born, Cain? You know, you start to think about these things, but it's all in there, 930 years. But the point is, if we even were foolish enough to take on board that those were long ages. Well, then we find ourselves in trouble here with Adam's age, because Adam is said to be 930 years old when he died, but he should have been now maybe a few million years old, if that theory is right. Brethren and sisters, God created. And I'm not going into this anymore, actually, because it's enough just to see Genesis 1, have an overview of it, understand it, what God is teaching is there. But it teaches us a couple of other things as I close. God, who made all things, is able to make sinners new creatures. That's what the Bible teaches us. Men need to be made new creatures because of their sin. Sin destroyed God's creation or marred it. Sin brought man down, but thank God the Lord is able to recreate man in His own image and make him a new creature. And the second thing is one day there will be new heavens and a new earth. Paradise will be restored in which righteousness will dwell on what a glorious and wonderful day that will be when the Lord ushers in the new heavens and the new earth. We have a lot to look forward to. We live in an old dark world, a world of unbelief and fallen humanity and all the calamities and catastrophes that follow from that. But brethren and sisters we have got a great God, a God who is over all, a God who is reigning A God who is in charge and one day He is going to restore all things and He is going to renew and we will rejoice. Those who know Him will rejoice with Him forever.