Amen. Thank you for that. I never hear that song without thinking about Billy Graham and George Beverly Shea. I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today. Well, we're continuing to look at the doctrine of creation. And of course, if I don't step up the pace on these articles in the 1689 will be here alone. We might be here until 2089. But I do want to continue to look at the paragraph today in creation. Of course, John one is the text that we are using. You see on the screen that it's that the sermon tonight should be the creation of man, and we will ultimately get there. But we need to look at the paragraph one and just break it down. So that's what I'm going to try to do for you tonight, that we'll break this paragraph down and then probably get to the creation of man next Sunday morning. But in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word was God. So the word was in the beginning, it was with God, it was God. The same was in the beginning with God, so here it seems a little redundant, but in the wisdom of Almighty God, through the inspiration of the Spirit of God, the disciple John continues to push this point home. He is the same. He's not like him, but he is the same. And of course, if you know anything about the history of theology, and the development of Christian theology from the time, the biblical time, the New Testament times until now. You'll know that early on through the Nicene and through the Nicene Council and the Council of Chalcedon that they dealt with the person of Christ. And so the Greek homoousia or homoousia Homo is the same substance. Homoe, with the eota, with the i in English, is like. So between, you know, that Jesus was the same as God or was a like God, and so it came down basically to two personalities. It came down to the personality of a man named Arius, and then to a personality of a man named Athanasius. Athanasius was right, but Athanasius' personality was kind of belligerent. He didn't have a very good personality. People really didn't like him. Arius seems to have had a great personality. People liked him, but he was wrong. Isn't that usually the way it goes? But in history, it said the whole world or whole All of Christendom was divided over an iota. Moi, homo, homoi, usis. Well, again, John pointing it out. And it seems as if historically we understand that John was dealing with Gnostics who believed that God would never come to the world, that he would never that he would never taint himself with any kind of matter, any kind of substance created. And so that was the heresy going around. And John, you know, is put right in the middle of that through the inspiration spirit of God, continues to say, no, now listen, this is God Almighty. He was in the beginning. He was with God, he was God, he was in the beginning with God. And all things were made by him. Now, for us, I mean, we've studied that, we've known that, we've read the Bible, we've memorized that, but to the Gnostic and to the early, or to those in the first century, I should say, this was a strange concept, strange idea. And then when it comes to verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. Surely that was right at the heart of this heresy. The only thing you can do when someone is wrong and when you have to contend with them and they don't like the truth, the only thing you can do is to give them more of it. And surely not to back down. And so here is this word, and he made all things. You see here again, kind of a redundancy. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. So you see, positively, negatively, no space, no room for wiggling, you see. Now, the article our forefathers wrote, and this is similar to the article of Westminster, similar to the article of Savoy, but somewhat different, because I had a little while to think about it. But here we read, in the beginning that pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, to create, or make, the world and all things therein. Now the idea of create and make is not exactly identical. That's why they put both of them in there. They're just not trying to fill this thing up with words. Each of these sentences are very tightly woven, not one word wasted. And so when you read something like to create or make the world, you don't want to just dismiss it. but they're making a point, so to create, to make the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days. So this visible or invisible comes out of Colossians chapter one, verse 16. The idea of, you know, again, of visible and invisible powers and principalities comes out of Romans 1.20. And so we see these things in the word of God. Our forefathers just didn't make these up. And then the criticism when you go through a document like this is that, well, he's not preaching the Bible, he's preaching the confession. But the confession is what our forefathers believe the Bible taught. They're teaching us the Bible. So it's kind of interesting to me that someone would criticize one for teaching what has come to us historically as true Christianity. At the same time, they're standing up there trying to teach people, which is, I mean, they're not just up there quoting the Bible. And in fact, the Lord wouldn't have us as preachers simply to just quote the Bible. We're given the illustration, we're given an example of how to preach, you see, that there when Ezra and then Nehemiah, You know, they spoke, they stood at a pulpit and they spoke the word and gave the meaning of it, you see. And so that's what preaching is. It's not simply quoting the Bible. It surely is referencing the Bible. It surely is using the Bible to inform your sermon. But it's also an explanation of what these things mean. And so we see here in In this one paragraph concerning creation, and basically this morning I gave you an introduction to this, but we'll look at the paragraph. The first thing it addresses is the question, who created? Well, it was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that created. That's who created this. Not just Father, not just Son, not just Spirit, but all three together, and surely I made that point this morning for you. that this is the work of God. Creation's the second work of God, the first work of God's decree. You don't see this so clearly in decree, though it surely was there in the eternal councils of glory. In fact, Jesus Christ talks to us, tells us in the word of God that he was there in these eternal councils with this glory that he shared with his father before the world was. And that's what it's talking about. And here, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has developed what should happen. It comes out of wisdom, comes out of divine wisdom. This is what it should be, you see. It's not just God arbitrarily or willy-nilly doing some of these things, you see. But it is God again expressing his wisdom and decree. But we do see it very clearly, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the creation. So we see that it is indeed Christ who is the one accomplishing this through the agency of the Spirit. That's how creation, and that's how providence, and that's how redemption is brought about. So we see it as the Father is the Son and the Spirit, that's who created. Now, why did he create? Well, I'm not trying to answer the question because sometimes we simply need to just say what and how and when and where. Often you can get in very difficult water, you can get into a very difficult place when you try to say why. And there are people that try to say, well, God, commanded, for example, God commanded us to eat certain things and to not eat certain things in his Bible, and the dietary, which we see is ceremonial, and the dietary instructions of his word. So they would say something, well, the reason he said don't eat whatever, don't eat a catfish because it doesn't have scales, or don't eat a pig because it doesn't chew a cud, and you know, the cloven hoof, so don't, and this is why God said not to do that. Well, again, that may be true, may not be true, but it doesn't matter. What infallible and errant book did we get these? No, we just obey the word of God. If God says eat this, then we eat. If God says don't eat this, then we don't eat that, you see. Now, of course, it comes over the New Testament, it's fulfilled in, in Christ and ceremonial law, but there's some things even in the New Testament, it tells you not to eat. You shouldn't eat things offered to idols, nor should you eat blood. That's the New Testament. I'm not, you know, I surely, I mean, you know, it doesn't matter as much of why God did it or said it or commanded it. as it matters that he did. Now, you know as well as I do that there are people that don't like certain things in the Bible, so they try to make some kind of argument why they don't have to obey it. And this idea of why, okay, so for example, they would say, well, the Bible teaches that women shouldn't speak in the church, that if they want to know anything, let them ask their husband at home. Well, again, you'll hear people say, but the reason is because women were not educated in that day. Women were not taught. I mean, they would even say, we're not taught how to read and all of that. So they're dependent upon men to lead them, to guide them, to instruct them. That's why. So therefore, if you have women who have education, then you don't have to obey that because the women have education now. Being a man that has lived with a woman for 50 years almost, I mean, it's husband and wife, four years ahead of that, so I guess I've already had my 50th anniversary. But I have found out that women can instruct men and can do it very well. If men are not hard-headed enough to reject it, But if they are soft-headed, maybe I shouldn't say soft-headed. If they are reasonable enough to listen to it. Go to Proverbs 31 and read the account of that woman there. Do you think that woman was uneducated? I don't think so. But you see where you get into the danger of the why. But here we know why. For the manifestation that is for the showing forth of His glory. God will always by His nature manifest His glory. It is that which He will share with none other. But this creation to manifest a manifestation of His glory, of the glory. Now what is this glory stuff? What does that mean? What does glory mean? Well, we use glory in many ways. Sometimes we use glory as an interjection, that if we're moved by some statement and we see the wonder, especially when it comes to God, of such a statement, we may shout glory. But glory is also that which is the essence of what God is, this glory. Now in the Old Testament, glory, the word glory in the Old Testament basically means heaviness. The idea of glory in the New Testament, doxa, means brightness, you know, He dwells in light inaccessible that no man can approach. Well, when Moses saw the Shekinah, that is the back part of the glory of God, you remember the story, God put him in the cleft of the rock, right? And he covered him there with his hand. Sounds like a hymn, doesn't it? He covered him there with his hand. And when he passed by, he dropped his hand Even the description of this is fantastic. God and a hand. God doesn't have a body like men, but here it is. The Bible says he covered him with his hand. That's the way that it's expressed to us. So obviously in that day, God had a hand. He covered Moses, protected him. Often God doesn't let us see what we desire to see to protect us. And he dropped his hand for just a fleeting moment, and he saw just the fleeting of this glory, of this light, to such a degree his face shone to where people couldn't even, the reflected glory of God in the face of Moses, people couldn't take it. They asked him to cover his face. There's a sermon in that. When the glory of God shows up, most people don't want to see it. But we also see the glory of God in the transfiguration when they were, when Christ himself glowed. We also see it in the conversion of the apostle Paul and when Saul of Tarsus was struck with a bright light, brighter than the noonday sun. Glory, the essence of what God is. And also that which we should give to God. Honor. We should give to God what is due His name. The glory of God to manifest the glory. The heavens declare the glory of God. And the firmament is handiwork. When I read that, I'm reminded of being in Mexico. When we first went to Mexico, there was no real light there. There was a few little light bulbs, but very little light. Well, obviously, the facilities, they were not in your room, so if you had to use one of the facilities at night, you'd have to walk outside. And the coolness of the desert at night surely gave some kind of manifest glory to the soul when you felt the coolness of that breeze after being so hot during the day. But then you looked up and you saw the brilliant, we don't see a lot of that here because there's too much light around us. But you get out somewhere where it's dark and no trees, and it was almost like you could pick and pluck a star out of the sky, manifesting the glory of our God. Standing upon this speck of sand, looking into the heavens, And dwarfed by the glory and the handiwork of Almighty God. Manifesting His glory. The glory of, first of all, His eternal power. So why did He create? So we could see His glory. We're blinded to that often. That glory not only is to us, but in us. For God has revealed it to us, but we suppressed it in our sin. But how was it created? Well, here is the glory of his eternal power. The word power here is dunamis. and then the Greek. It's also sometimes power, or exousia is translated power, but that's more like authority and right. But here is the dunamis. We actually get two English words from this Greek word, dunamis. We get the word dynamite, which is explosive powers, nitroglycerin. And once it's lit or jostled too much, It goes off in magnificent burst of energy. We also get the word dynamo from that. That is a power that's continuously generated, you see. Like an electric generator that continues to generate this power. And indeed, this power, we see it, we see both of it in creation. We see explosive power in creation. Now, I've been told again, I don't know too much about it, but I've read some things about it. I'm assuming that these things are true, that the sun every day has innumerable hydrogen blast like greater than the hydrogen bomb that we could have developed. Every second of every day, innumerable blast going off in our sun to make it what it is and our need to have it, you see. And that the earth, my understanding is, is that the earth is at a 22 degree angle to the sun. And if the earth was at a 21 degree angle, we would freeze. Let me see, it's 22. No, if it's at a 21 degree angle, we would burn up. If it was at a 23 degree angle, we would freeze. but it's at a 22 degree angle and it is held. What holds it? My understanding is that scientists really don't know why these things hang suspended in space. Where is the foundation of Jupiter? And yet it stands, always in its orbit, never getting out of its orbit. Why? How did it do it? I've read articles of, well, it's gravitational force We're in some kind of equilibrium and graduational force, and that's what keeps it in space. Then there's the others that say, well, we really don't know. We really don't know. I was telling someone this afternoon, we were talking about the wonder of creation, and I have been told by people that have degrees in geology and also have read this numerous times, that when every experiment that's ever been done to prove that the earth is in motion, that would be rotating or revolving, every experiment has proven the earth. to be at rest. Well, that's interesting. Now, I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what I've read. That's what I understand. I also understand that Einstein said, y'all know him, Albert Einstein, you ever heard of him? I think he's supposed to be a pretty smart guy, right? I mean, to such a degree that people would say to you, they would say, what do you think, you're an Einstein or something? But here's what Albert Einstein said in his theory of relativity, I'm assuming, that any point can be the center of the universe. Seems like to me, at least from our perspective, the earth is the center of the universe. It seems as if the account that we get of creation at the earth is the center of God's creation. Creation manifests His eternal power, the glory, not just His eternal power, but the glory of His eternal power. I don't want to sound too naive or too childish, but here's how a child would answer. And the little song, I haven't thought about the little song for a long time, but I remember as a child, it was a song we sang regularly. He's got the whole world in his hand. Remember that? Did y'all learn that song? Even the young ones are shaking their head they learned that song. He's got you and me, I think it's an old Negro spiritual. I'm not even sure that's politically correct to say that anymore, but who cares? I think that's what it was. How are these things so? Because God holds them with his power. How glorious is that? So when you go home tonight, I'll give you some homework. Just look up. Yeah, I think it'll still be dark by the time I'm finished, I hope. So just behold the glory of the power of your God. But not only the power, but the wisdom. How wise must God be to accomplish what he accomplishes? But it's not just wisdom, you see. It is the glory of his wisdom. Well, again, I could go on and on. I mean, each one of these phrases, the glory of his power, his eternal power, that could be a sermon in itself. The glory of his wisdom could be a sermon in itself. So we move on to the glory of his goodness. This has been created. Because God is good. He's good. To you. To us. And that's why when we pray, the first prayer of any Christian, when he matures enough to see the wonder of what he has, Our first prayer, that is the first sentence of our prayer, the first petition of our prayer, is to thank Him for His goodness. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread." The first petition. These other petitions are simply acknowledgments of the wonder of this God whose name is hallowed. He's good. We're sitting here tonight in a place that He has made. resting upon a foundation that he has made, resting upon the land, the earth that he has made, sitting upon a mantle that is so far down you would have to have massive machinery to get to it, that he has made floating and magma that he has made until you get to the core of this one little piece of sand. So you would have a place to live because he is good. And he's not only good to his elect, but because he has an elect, his goodness spreads out to all, which we call common grace. The reason that Adam's helpless race has the wonder that it has And I know that there are people suffering tonight. I know there are people that are having difficulty tonight. But of all the people of the world, the vast majority of them are enjoying what God has done for them in His goodness, even those that curse His name. Why? For the manifestation of His glory. And how? Because of His eternal power, informed by His eternal wisdom, motivated by His eternal goodness to you. Now, what was created? Well, to create or make the world. But not only the world, but everything therein. And not only those things that are visible, but those things that are invisible. Well, again, how do you, just in a few moments, talk about all of this? Well, he's created. To create or make, that's not just simply redundancy. That speaks to two different elements of what's going on. He created the world, you see. So in that sense, we could talk about his creation of the things. And at this point, the other confession says ex nihilo, or out of nothing. And that's true, we believe that, out of nothing. There was a creation out of nothing But once he made matter, then out of that matter, he, or once, maybe I should say, let me not get you too confused in this sentence, but once he created matter, then he took the matter created to make these things. You see, this pew here is made out of various forms of matter. That pew is made out of the things that were created. Now some man made that pew, but who made that tree? What's kind of interesting, I told y'all the other day, we went out to LSU and LSU's filled with these live oaks. And when you go out there at the time of the year we went, acorns everywhere. Now some years, more acorns than others, but this year, a massive crop of acorns to such a degree that they're squashed and stepped on and all of that. But here's these acorns. So Noah, who has been raised appropriately, I just want to say that, that Noah has really responded to his good raisings, and he's an LSU fan. And so he wanted to, just thought I would mention that, He wanted these acorns. So I saw him over there and he filled up his pocket with these acorns because he's going home and he's going to plant him an LSU live oak. I said, well, that'll be good. I'll be good, Noah. By the time it gets as big as these trees, you'll be 300 years old, but fine. You got to start somewhere. Well, he left. You know how kids are. At the moment, they were really excited about it, but then he left them in my truck. So I said, well, I guess when's the next time we see him? I don't know the next time we'll see him. And we'll forget, we'll go up there, we'll take the wrong car and forget the truck, and these acorns are gonna sprout in my truck. So we decided we'd mail them to him. 15 bucks. But guess what? Granny paid it. If G-Daddy had been there, I probably would have stuffed them in an envelope. But anyway, the little box, you know, so we mailed them. An acorn. It becomes a massive tree. How? Because God made it. I said, well, you're naive to think that, you know, we've learned that science has, you know, it germinates, and it sprouts, and there's two seed leaves called, I think, cotyledons, if I remember my science, and it grows, and then, you know, it's, but, you know what? And I'm sure that Ray could, you know, he has, for much of his life, sold to greenhouse things and people growing plants. You can plant a seed and you can plant a seed three or four times. That doesn't necessarily mean that seed's coming up. Or if it does come up, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll grow the way it should grow. But we know that these things are so because we've observed them. And when we've observed them, it has told us to understand that the Bible, before anyone has ever done any experiment on any seeds, that the seed of that fruit, that the seeds of that fruit had the life of that plant in it. Many different substances that God created, but then He made the tree from these substances. So, that was created. But not only that, not only the world and all the magnificence of this planet and of the stars and of the other planets, but everything that's in this, Everything that's in the world, everything is made by God. And I know that, again, that the world would just laugh about that and say how naive, but it is the truth. The Bible cannot lie. Not only did he made the world, made everything in the world, including you, including all the animals, the bacteria, the fungus, the mosquito. Yes, the Asian lady beetle, the dogs, the cats, the birds, well, you name it, everything. But not only that, but these things that we don't see. These things that are, we develop philosophical words, metaphysical things. He's also made these emotions. God made that. Love. Generosity. Mercy. Charity. You see, there is in us, and even it's reflected even in fallen man who's not become a Christian. There is this sense that we should help people, right? See people in trouble? There's a sense that you should help them or that you want to help them. But there's something even greater than that. There is the sense that you ought to help them. Not only a desire to help them, but there is some compulsion in your heart that you ought to help them, you see. And also there are things in this world that's unseen. This other realm. The realm of angels. That showed up on the night of Christ's birth. These angels. Where are these angels? From where did they come? Where are they now? What are they doing? Again, the humanists would say there's no such thing, but then how do they explain some of the things that happen? In fact, I was reading the other day, and I surely don't know too much about all of this, but I surely was reading the other day that UFOs are not extraterrestrial beings, and they're not military devices. Well then what are they? And one guy said they're demonic expressions. Is there evil in the world? I think we have understood that. In fact, I think that I have communicated with evil. when I have communicated with some of these people. I think evil shows up in the church. And I think often it shows up in the church in the form of a person. That evil has taken over the person. Not fully, not completely, but at some point or another. All of this created demons. I mean, are there demons? Of course, we're educated people, so we're modern people. But the scripture teaches clearly that there are demons. And Christ himself controlled demons. There's principalities in power. their darkness in high places. All of it's created visible, invisible. And what length of time did it take for this creation? Well, again, in the space of six days, Now, of course, that really runs up against modern scientific teaching or philosophical teaching for that matter. Now, have you ever wondered why it is that it's the preachers that are the ones who always are arguing against evolution? Now, there are some scientists, I'm very thankful for Ken Ham and the Creation Research Institute, and I'm very thankful for some of these people that are totally dismissed, out of hand, they will not allow them, they will not allow them to teach in these institutions because they're not politically correct. They're saying something that the political scientific community will not adhere to. that this thing could be done, first of all, by creation. They don't even believe in that. And we should give no deference to these things. You shouldn't embrace these things. You ought to embrace the Word of God. But sometimes Christians think they're doing well by embracing some less than theology or philosophy that this is you know, that it came in not by evolution, but it came in by basically an impersonal creation. And, you know, we have a name for it. You know, it's, you know, the creation that does not attach itself to God. It's not, you know, that which the Bible teaches us, and they surely are not happy, especially when we start talking about the space of six days. And so there are those Christians that think that they are doing well, some Christians that think that everything is fine, that we make some accommodation to science, So we say that though it does say days in the Old Testament, it does use the word yom in the Hebrew that cannot be 24-hour days. And they make an argument, well, you know, the day was there before the sun was there, so how could it be 24 hours and on and on and on. But you see, this thing is written after it happened. This thing's not written. They're not writing the Bible as it's happening, right? It's after it happened. And so when Moses, yes, Moses, wrote Genesis, right? Moses wrote it down, revealed to God, from God to Moses, and he wrote yom in the Hebrew, day and the evening and the morning was the first day. Well, they don't believe that. It has to be an eon. But again, I said this morning in Sunday School, most of you were in there, that they say, well, it takes billions and billions of years to get something like this through evolution, so it must be billions and billions of years old. Because we start with the answer, and then we make up the evidence. Now, if you don't believe the Bible, fine. I am not shocked that there are people in the world that don't believe the Bible. That doesn't shock me at all. In fact, most of my educational experience, yes, even at LSU, were by a bunch of atheists. Well, maybe they weren't theological atheists, but they surely were practical atheists. I remember Dr. Luke, that's an amazing thing that I had a professor named Dr. Luke, and Dr. Luke was telling me in my botany class that evolution is a good thing I meant that the Bible is a good thing. The Bible's a good thing to keep us behaving ourselves and getting along, but keep it out of the science room. That's one of the first classes. But you see, I recognized that. I knew that when I went to LSU that that would be the way it would be. I knew that these guys were not gonna honor God and honor the word of God, so I was not shocked or surprised. or undone. Now I tell you what almost did me in is when I went to seminary expecting to see faith there and did not by these professors, see. Then it really kind of rocked me a little bit. But thank God. You know what saved me at the seminary? The voice of that Sunday school teacher that said to a little boy in his class, let God be true, and every man a liar. So, if you don't believe the Bible, that's fine. Don't try to twist the Bible. As the apostle Peter says, that Paul has some things hard to be understood, that unstable men twist to their own destruction. Just simply say, I don't believe that part of the Bible. Now, six-day creation holds no candle and problem to the fact that Noah filled a boat full of every animal that was in the world. Even a man I truly love said he couldn't believe that. Well, it doesn't matter. You see, we used to say God said it, I believe it, that settles it. No, no. God said it, that settles it. It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. Here is the word of God, six days. That's how long into it. And if there's not a six day present or creation, then there's surely not a seventh day Sabbath. And I think some of this is about that. That's how long it took. Is that 24-hour days? Well, I don't know. Where did we come up with the concept of 24-hour days? Well, I guess we developed a clock that was around, that's 360 degrees, and we've divided it up into seconds, into minutes, and then that's what we say 24 hours is. Or you could say, well, 24 hours is the time it takes the Earth to rotate around. Well, OK. Or for the sun to get around the world. I don't know. But sometimes it's less. You ever heard the term equinox? There's a vernal equinox, spring. What is equinox? Well, it comes from the Latin word nox, which means night, equal, equal night. There's one day in the world, one day in the spring and one day in the fall when the night and the day are equal. They call it equal, equa, naps. They use the word day. Exactly the same amount of time it's dark as it's light. One day. So why should I be subject to 24-hour days The Bible didn't say 24-hour days. It could have said it, but it didn't. It said the evening and the morning. You know what that means? An evening. You know what the evening is? You know what the morning is? Or was it 24 hours? Or was it 23.6 hours? Or was it 25.7 hours? I don't know. But it was an evening, and it was a morning, and it was a day. You know what a day is? I think you do. You just don't want to believe the scripture. But here's what the scripture says. Six days. And what was the quality of this creation? Well, it was very good. Which means it reflected perfectly the image of God. Very. Well, he made the world and it was good, but then he made man and it was very good. It perfectly reflected the eternal goodness of our God. Let's pray.