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So we're going to open our Bibles
to Genesis 2 verses 4 through 7. This should be quick because
it's right up front. It's a couple pages in. And just for clarity's sake,
we're going to go over only verses 4 through 7 today. We'll continue
into the next verses next week. But we're going to read the entire
chapter so that we understand what the context is of what we're
going through this morning. So Genesis 2 starting in verse
1. Thus the heavens and the earth
were completed and all their hosts and on the seventh day
God completed his work which he had done and he rested on
the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then
God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because on it he
rested from all his work which God had created in making it.
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when
they were created, in the day that Yahweh God made heaven and
earth. Now no shrub of the field was
yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet grown, for
Yahweh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there
was no man to cultivate the ground. But a stream would rise from
the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. Then Yahweh
God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life. And so the man became a living
being. And Yahweh God planted a garden
of Eden toward the east, and there he placed the man whom
he had formed. And out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow
every tree that is desirable in appearance and good for food,
the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river went out
of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided and
became four rivers. The name of the first is the
Pishon. It is the one that went around the whole land of Havilah,
where there is gold. Now the gold of that land is
good. The Delium and the Onyx Stone are there. And the name
of the second river is Gihon. It is the one that went around
the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river
is Tigris. It is the one that went east of Asher. And the fourth
river is the Euphrates. Then Yahweh God took the man
and set him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep
it. And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, from any tree
of the garden you may surely eat, but from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, you should not eat from it. From
the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die. Then Yahweh
God said, it is not good for man to be alone. I will make
a helper suitable for him. And out of the ground, Yahweh
God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the
sky, and he brought each to the man to see what he would call
it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its
name. And the man gave names to all cattle and the birds of
the sky and every beast of the field, but for Adam there was
not found a helper suitable for him. So Yahweh God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. Then he took one of
his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. And Yahweh God
fashioned the rib which he had taken from the man into a woman,
and he brought her to the man. Then the man said, this is one
finally is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one shall
be called woman because this one was taken out of man. Therefore
man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his
wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife
were both naked and were not ashamed. This is the reading
of God's word. Less than a week ago, I saw a
Mormon's advertisement on a Facebook buy and sell group for a free
book of Mormon. I commented on this post, of
course, for those of you who know me, I would do this. And
I said, stop peddling your false religion. And then I listed out
several reasons as to why it's a false religion. That was the
first day. Then I saw the Mormon's advertisement,
same Mormon, same advertisement in a different cities by cell
group. He must have gotten kicked out of the first one. I commented
the exact same way. This is a false religion. Stop
peddling your cult to everybody. Here are the reasons why. That's
the second day. The Mormon then reached out via
messenger about why I called Mormonism a fake religion. And
that he would be open to meeting with me to actually speak about
this, so long as I wouldn't be contentious. I know, you're laughing for the
reason. I agreed to that, though, and I arranged that he and I
would meet for a meal. He wanted to bring his cohort
along. You know, they always are in twos. And so I agreed to that. That was the third day. Then
the Mormon, who I'll name Jay, and his fellow missionary, El,
met me for dinner to talk. We had a great discussion, and
throughout the hour and a half, almost two hours, I saw a lot
of conviction in their faces. And that was the fourth day.
Now, after all that happened in the previous days, here's
an account of what happened during the dinner that we had. I asked
them what they believed to be true about the Bible. I wanted
to make sure that we were starting from the same understanding.
They claimed that they believed the entire Bible to be true from
start to finish. I then started talking to them
about the scriptures that they said they believed and showed
how it contradicted their Book of Mormon and the Doctrines and
Covenants, which are the writings of their so-called prophets.
I discussed the purpose of the Levitical priesthood and the
priesthood of Melchizedek in the scriptures and what the meanings
are and then showed them how their view of it is completely
wrong, that those Mormons can't actually be priests doing temple
work in the same way that Levitical priests did or in their view
of Melchizedek. We discussed many other points
at this dinner including who Jesus actually is in the Bible
versus the Jesus they believe in. We talked about Hebrews 9
27 that that every man's appointed wants to die and then the judgment
where they believe that every man's appointed wants to die
and then they have a second chance to receive Jesus at that time
before the final judgment. I then finished as I typically
do when I speak to cultists and I say this as genuinely as I
possibly can and say, you guys know that you will be in hell
for eternity if you don't repent and believe the true gospel.
I know you think you're doing God's work. I know you believe
in the religion you believe in, but you are wrong. And I pray
that you wake up to this fact because you will actually be
in hell for eternity. Yes, I finished that way in most
of these conversations. Now, the dinner then ended with
a handshake. They thanked me for dinner, even
took a selfie with them. And that ended the dinner and
haven't heard from them since. Now, some of you may have picked
up what I did here. I told a story in such a way that Moses does
the same thing in the book of Genesis. This is a true story
of what happened to me this past week. Now the book of Genesis
is also a true story. What we see in Genesis 1, what
I covered in previous sermons, is that Genesis 1 gives us overall
overview picture of the six days of creation. And then into the
beginning of Genesis 2 we have an overview of day 7. without
a whole lot of detail. How did he make the frogs? I
don't know. I mean, they're complex creatures,
but, you know, the animals just poured forth by his spoken word,
and it was so. What then happens though in Genesis
2, as we're going to start into today, is that the writer takes
a specific view or a specific point that he wants to deep dive
into and he expands upon that. So similar to how I expanded
upon the dinner portion of the first part of my story and gave
lots more detail about it, this is what happens with Moses in
Genesis 2. So what we see from our previous sermons in Genesis
1.1 through 2.3, this is our overview of the six days of creation
and day seven, which is the rest. Genesis 2 verse one specifically
says, thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all
their hosts. This is a statement that God
is using to just, this is what happens in chapter one. Everything
that was made, heavens and earth and all their hosts were completed.
So the heaven was completed as much as it's going to be completed.
The earth was completed as much as it's going to be completed.
But then their hosts or all their hosts means everything that God
planted into the heavens, sun, moon, stars, everything he planted
on the earth, animals, birds, the water, the dry land, everything
there is also in its completed forms. So much so that by the
time we get to Genesis 2 and Genesis 2 verses 2 and 3, he's
now chronicling the seventh day of his now rest. He's resting
from all his creative works. Creative works are done. So when
we look at the hosts that were completed in heaven and earth,
those hosts were also completed. There's no evolutionary process
that's continuing to go on. Everything that we understand,
the kinds of animals, are completed the way they are. The kind of
cats was completed. Everything that comes from our
kind of cats will be more cats going forward. Same thing goes
with our birds, same thing goes with our fish. Everything is
after its own kind from the beginning. There is no new evolutionary
process that's going to happen beyond that. Now, just so we understand about
work, God's work was done in terms of creation by the time
we get to day seven. But make no mistake, God is continuing
to work today. We see this in John 5 verse 17,
where after Jesus healed the men of Bethsaida, or Bethesda
on the Sabbath, he answered them, my father is working until now
and I myself am working. So Christ and the Father and
the Holy Spirit are continuing to work in creation, even though
the creative acts of creation are done. And that's what's being
stated here in these couple of verses. We also know Christ in
Colossians 1 verses 16 and 17, that in him all things hold together. So everything that was already
made, Christ is holding together in this creation. He's continuing
to work in the creation. Now, thus from Genesis 1.1 to
2.3, this is our overall picture of the created, completed acts
of God. When we start into Genesis 2-4
here in a few minutes, going through the rest of the chapter
over the next several sermons, we're going to see a different
view of creation. And this is going to be an in-depth
view into some of the specifics, especially about day six, and
most importantly, about the creation of man, the pinnacle of his creation. And so as we walk through today
in verses four through seven, I want us to think about three
different points of this here. Our overall thesis is that this
is the personal touch of Yahweh God being spoken of in Genesis
2-4 through the end of the chapter. And our three points are going
to be the personal touch of Yahweh God in the creation account,
the personal touch of Yahweh God in the creation of the field
for Adam, and then number three, the personal touch of Yahweh
God in the creation of man. Point number one, the personal
touch of Yahweh God in the creation account. Now, before we walk
into our verses, there's something that has to be addressed here.
There are many theologians, incorrectly by the way, who say that Genesis
1 and Genesis 2 are alternate creation accounts. And they go
even further to say not only are they alternate, but they
are conflicting alternate creation accounts. And the reason why
some people do this is there are compromising Christians,
a term I've used before, of people who try to take millions or billions
of years and smash it into the scriptures. Trying to take humanity
and humanism and, well I say secular humanism, millions of
years of evolutionary thought and tries to jam them into the
scriptures where it doesn't belong. And one of the ways they try
to jam it in there is by just saying, well, the creation account
really is just a storytelling. It's not actual historical narrative
to us. And the proof of that is Genesis
1 and Genesis 2 conflict. Well, I'm here to tell you they
don't conflict. And we're going to show you that this morning.
We also see atheists using the exact same argument. This should
actually make professing Christians cringe a little bit, that the
same arguments that the atheists use, they are using. Because
atheists will also say that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are conflicting
creation accounts in order to dismiss Genesis and therefore
dismiss the rest of the Bible. This is a very common tactic
that's out there. And the reason why they do this
is because they look at the creation of man, which is in Genesis 2.7
here. So again, a specific account
of creation of man. And it says that Yahweh God formed
man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life so that the man became a living being. They
then skip two verses forward and go to verse nine where it
says, and now the plant sprang up. And they're saying, aha,
we got you. There's man and then the plants
later. Whereas Genesis one says the plants sprang up on day three,
man was on day six. Now this is really easy to reconcile
as we're going to talk about here in the next couple of verses.
This is not speaking of the plants throughout the world that sprang
up on day three of creation. These are plants specific to
a field that would house Adam and the garden of Eden. The other
area that they point out as a conflict would be, again, Genesis 2.7
is where man is created. You go down to verse 19 and it
says, and out of the ground Yahweh God had formed every beast of
the field. So they skip over the verb tenses
and they say look man was created first and now animals are created
and therefore that's out of order compared to Genesis 1 and this
must be conflicting accounts therefore we can throw away Genesis.
But the words here, as we'll get into in a future sermon,
had formed is that the animals had already been formed by the
time Adam comes around. And the purpose of this passage
is about Adam naming those animals that had already been formed.
Not that the animals all of a sudden sprang up out of the ground.
Again, that'll be for a future sermon. The reality is it's bad
hermeneutics. When we're taking Genesis 2 out
of its context of the way it was meant to be written, the
way it was written, it's bad hermeneutics at best, it's dishonesty
at worst, when people claim that there's two alternate creation
accounts. Now this brings us to a point
then, why did the writer do this? Well, we often see this in the
Hebrew of this literary device being used. It's a type of recapitulation,
which is similar to what I did in my intro. So I gave an overall
synopsis of what happened. and then I dove into some specific
parts of what happened that I thought were the most pertinent. We see
in Genesis 1 an overall picture of creation, and now Moses points
at Genesis 2 into the creation of man, because that's the most
pertinent part of the creation account in Genesis 1. Now we
also see some other major differences between Genesis 1 and Genesis
2 that should help us out in this understanding. The focus
of Genesis 1 is the glory, the majesty, and the power of God
as creator. God's attributes are fully seen
in the let there be statements. He is the creator is the main
focus of Genesis 1. Genesis 2, we see a little change
in that type of focus. The focus is still on God. But
while Genesis 1, the focus was on the mightiness of the Creator,
the power of the Creator, Genesis 2 now, we see a personal touch
of Yahweh God. We see that personal touch with
man. And And so rather than God's
power being accentuated, we're going to see the more personal
and tender side of God on display. And this should give us a lot
of warmth about who God is. When we speak to people who are
of false religions, take like the fake God of Islam, for instance.
You talk to a Muslim, you witness to him and ask him, how do you
know you're gonna go to paradise one day? And usually the inherent
Islam will say, well, I hope I'm gonna do enough that it'll
be pleasing to Allah and that I'll be able to go to heaven.
It's a distant God. We can take the fake god of Mormonism,
a god that they have to wear special holy underwear while
they do temple work for years, and that they hope they've done
enough work to please who they call Heavenly Father in order
to allow him to the highest level of heaven to become gods on planets
one day. Again, it's an impersonal god.
This is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is a personal
God that we actually can know. That if you today here are born
again, you know God. He has revealed himself to you.
He has a relationship with you. That's a personal God. That is
the type of God we're seeing coming out here in Genesis 2. Christian, if I ask you today,
are you going to heaven when you die? That should be the answer,
right? Yes. Why? Because it has nothing
to do with you. It has nothing to do with your
works if you've been good enough. It's because you are good enough
the moment God has replaced your heart of stone with a heart of
flesh. He has placed all his love on you that he could possibly
place on you. That is the personal God that
we know. And he's revealed himself in the scriptures that we can
know him better. That's our God. And that's what's being revealed
now here in Genesis 2. Now, we can see this because
the name of God changes here in Genesis 1 going into Genesis
2. See, from Genesis 1.11 through
Genesis 2.3, the word for God in the Hebrew that's used is
Elohim. This means powerful or mighty one creator. But some
of you may not have noticed that it changes, especially if you're
not reading the LSB, it changes when you get to Genesis 2.4 through
the rest of the chapter. And in fact, we see this distinction
throughout the rest of the Bible, is that Moses now switches from
Elohim to Yahweh Elohim. Why? Because this is the personal
name of God. There's a whole different understanding
just in the way the name of God is changed here or used in Genesis
2. So these aren't alternating accounts,
Genesis 1 and 2. We just see a different side
of the creation account, more detail of the creation account,
the personal side of God and his relationship to man in this
creation account. Now what other textual proof
do we have between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 that they're not conflicting
accounts, but they are indeed one and the same? Well, when
Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees about divorce and remarriage
in Matthew 19 verses 4 through 6, and then of course the parallel
passage in Mark 10, he said this in starting in verse 4, Have
you not read that he who created them from the beginning made
them male and female? and said for this reason a man
shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and
the two shall become one flesh. So they're no longer two but
one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let no man
separate. Jesus quoted directly from Genesis chapter 1 and directly
from Genesis chapter 2, put them together in his answer to the
Pharisees. Jesus did not believe these were alternating accounts
of creation. Jesus saw that they were perfectly
harmonious accounts. One, overall picture. Second,
detail. And so now while we won't be
covering all of these points this week or even next week,
from Genesis 2-4 through the end of the chapter, I do want
to give us an overview of what's actually happening in this chapter
so that when you decide to study this on your own and read it
on your own, you can see what is going on here. In Genesis
2-4, we get the overview of what's about to happen. We'll talk about
that here in a minute. In Genesis 2 verses 5-6 you'll see that
the field for Adam is being prepared. So there's a special field among
the entirety of the earth that's being prepared for Adam. In Genesis
2-7 Adam is actually created now. The Garden of Eden then
is created in Genesis 2 verses 8-9. The description of the river
system is given in Eden in Genesis 2 10-14. Adam now is put into
the garden and given instructions, just as Genesis 2 verses 15 to
17. Adam then names some of the kinds of animals that were already
created earlier, verses 18 to 20. God creates Eve, verses 21
to 22. So all of these things, by the
way, happened before Eve is actually created. This is some of the
detail we have. Genesis 1 just says male and
female, he created them. There's actually a difference
in time from when males were made versus when Eve was made.
So God creates Eve, and then there's a description of Adam,
Eve, and marriage in verses 23 through 25. That's our overall
picture of what's happening chronologically in these verses. So now let's
start into our text verse four. These are the generations of
the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day
that Yahweh God made heaven and earth. Now the word generations
here can trip a lot of people up because oftentimes it means
human genealogies like we see in Genesis 5 where it chronicles
Adam all the way down to Noah and then his three sons. But
the word generations can also mean an account of, which is
how it's being used here. And the NASB 95 actually uses
the account of the heavens and the earth for this verse. And
so this verse deals now with what's coming next. So these
are the generations of the heavens and earth when they were created
in the day that Yahweh God made the heavens and the earth. These
are what's coming next. So the details of the creation
account in Genesis one that Moses wishes to share with us are coming
out now. So in the day is a phrase we
have to deal with as well. So these are the generations
of the heaven and earth when they were created in the day
The word here for day is Yom, that Yahweh God made the heaven
and the earth. Now this is a point of contention
for a lot of people. When you hear what I would again
call the Christian compromisers, people like John Piper and Hugh
Ross and the late Tim Keller, they did not believe in a literal
historical account of Genesis, 6,000 year old earth. And there's
many others that actually follow suit. And one of the ways they
try to do this is to dismiss what the word Yom means in Genesis. Now we cover this in full detail
about Genesis 1 through those sermons that the word Yom means
day. Most of the time it means a 24-hour
literal day. Sometimes it could mean a certain time period. but
it always depends on the context of how the word day is being
used. Genesis 1 was clear. Each day of creation, evening
and morning, first day. Evening and morning, second day.
Evening and morning, third day. We always knew it was a 24-hour
literal day. So they come here to this passage
and it says, in the day. There is no evening and morning.
There is no ordinal number. And they say, aha, here is a
place where the word yom doesn't mean a literal day. It means
a period of time instead. So they then take that definition
for Yom and try to impose it into Genesis 1 and say, look,
if it doesn't mean 24-hour day here, then it can't mean one
in Genesis 1, therefore we have an old earth. That's being dishonest. The context here in the day,
are they right about the first part of that? Does this actually
mean a time period versus a literal day of creation? Yes. Let me
read it again to you. These are the generations of
the heaven and the earth when they were created in the day
that Yahweh God made the heaven and the earth. So the in the
day here is literally speaking of the creation account in general. It's a period of time. It's not
supposed to mean an actual literal day here. So again, they're just
being dishonest when they try to say that. So back to verse
four again. These are the generations of
the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day
that Yahweh God made the heaven and the earth. So this sets the
stage now for what's happening through the rest of Genesis 2.
And as I said already, the word for God now is Yahweh Elohim
or Yahweh God. So we're seeing the personal
touch of God in creation going forward. Now, we talked about
this one thread a few times already, that the thread of the creation
account is God. It is about the mightiness of
God in Genesis 1. It is about the personal side
of the creator in Genesis 2. But there's a second thread that
I talked about in previous sermons that I want to bring out again
today so that we get even more clarity on what's happening in
Genesis 2. In Genesis 1-1, the first verse
of our Bible, it says that in the beginning God made the heavens
and the earth. The subject of this sentence
is God. The verb is made and then the
objects are the heavens and the earth. The reason why earth is
separated from the heavens in this statement is because there's
something special about the earth. And it's not the earth, it's
that man was going to be made and then have dominion over that
earth. And so that's what happens in verse one. And then as we
go on, we see day one, that light is created. It is for the purpose
of the earth, but ultimately for the purpose of whom? Man,
we go to day two, the atmosphere is created, benefits the earth,
also benefits man. Day three, the waters are gathered
and dry land appears. The earth brought forth vegetation,
which would serve as food. This benefits the earth and man. Day four, the sun, moon, and
stars are created. Fills up the heavens. You might say, okay,
well, this is something not to do with the earth. But as you
remember, or may recall, Genesis 1, 14 and 15, what's the purpose
of the sun, moon, and stars? Well, it's to be for signs and
for seasons, for days and for years. Let them be lights in
the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. The
stars, sun, and moon were for the benefit of man. Day five,
the birds and water creatures were made. Benefits the earth,
but again points to man. Day six now, we get to the land
animals being created, separate from man, we're not animals.
For the purpose of filling the earth, for man. And then at the
end of day six is when man and woman are created. who now, before
God utters the words, it is very good, gives the dominion mandate
to Adam and Eve to multiply, fill the earth and subdue it,
control it, rule over it. So all of Genesis 1 is about
God as creator, but also about what he is doing for the pinnacle
of his creation, man. This is the same thing that is
going to pick up now here in Genesis 2, 4 going forward. So this is our first point, the
personal touch of Yahweh God in the creation account. Now
point number two, the personal touch of Yahweh God in the creation
of the field for man. And as we work further into Genesis
2 here, again, we see this narrowing, this focus towards the personal
relationship of the Creator God to man, the pinnacle of His creation. Verse 5, Now no shrub of the
field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet
grown. For Yahweh God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,
and there was no man to cultivate the ground. Now, there are some
theologians who have not gotten this right, and they say that,
well, these plants worldwide have not grown yet, so they either
have a false view of the creation account, again, as I said earlier,
it's an alternate account, or sometimes they say, well, the
plants haven't grown yet because rain hasn't come down yet, and
it leads to something called a canopy theory that has pretty
much been debunked by both theologians and creationists. We reject the
canopy theory now. Some guys still believe it hasn't
rained up until the Noah's Ark and the flood. Some theologians
think it has. It doesn't matter for this text
a whole lot which way you go. But the point of this verse is
not referring to the shrubs so much as it is the field. And
so this is the field separate from the rest of the earth to
which Adam was going to be placed. The shrubs of the field that
did not pop up here because God didn't let it rain and because
man has not been created yet, this is the field he is preparing
for Adam as he comes along. And so this is the field that
we're gonna find later on in this chapter that the Garden
of Eden is actually planted in. where man's going to be. And
that the view of this verse is that this is the special field
for Adam. This is the special field for
the Garden of Eden for Adam. Now, how do we know that this
is about the special field for Adam and it's not about the plants
over the entire earth? Well, we have one more textual
clue here and that's speaking about the rain upon the earth
and that Adam's going to be responsible for the Garden of Eden. We're
going to find that a couple of verses later there is a special
river or stream that's going to pop up and water this land.
Adam was only going to be responsible for cultivating this land and
have a water source provided for him. He wasn't going to be
responsible for cultivating the entire earth. So when we see
this again, now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth and
no plant of the field had yet grown for Yahweh God had not
caused it to rain upon the earth. and there is no man to cultivate
the ground. We have to remember the shrubs in day three of creation
have already popped up. This is the special field that
Adam is going to be placed in and the only ground that he is
responsible for is this field. And that's how we know it's not
the entire earth. Now one commentator stated it
this way, the best interpretation of this passage recognizes that
with Genesis 2-4, Moses shifts from the broad account of Genesis
1 to a more specific account of the creation and placement
of man within the world. In this context, it makes sense
for the Hebrew root for earth here to refer to a particular
land rather than to the earth as a whole. This understanding
alleviates the tension between 1.11-13 and 2.5 as we just talked
about. Moses is not saying in chapter
2 that no plant life existed on earth before the creation
of man. He is saying that in our particular land, particular
kinds of plants had not yet begun to grow. The plant of the field
probably refers to edible plants that a farmer cultivates. The
field does not always refer to cultivated fields, but it often
does. And this seems to be the best sense of this context. So
again, this is a specific field that's being planted for Adam,
made for Adam. Now, two more interesting points
in verse five, where it says, and there was no man to cultivate
the ground. If you're not looking at the Hebrew with the English,
you'll miss this point. But for those of us men who are
going through the series with Abner Chow, he actually mentioned
this. The Hebrew word for man here
is Adam or Adam. The Hebrew word for ground is
Adama. So there's actually an etymological
connection or a word origin correlation between Adam and the ground from
which he was made to cultivate. I find that to be absolutely
fascinating. Now there's one more connection to Hebrew as
well. The Hebrew word for blood is dam. Thus the basic meaning of Adam
is literally associated with the Hebrew words for ground and
blood. Verse number six, but a stream
would rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the
ground. So this special land for Adam, a stream would be made
to rise up and cover the entire surface with water for him. It
would cause new vegetation to grow and the need for a man to
now have to cultivate these specific grounds. In Genesis 1, day three,
God just caused all the plants to spring up on their own as
part of his creative action. Here, he's preparing a specific
field again with specific plants for Adam to cultivate and eventually
eat from, as we see in verse eight of the planting of the
Garden of Eden. So now with the field and with
the water source being present, God now gets to the creation
of Adam specifically. And so, so far we've covered
points number one and two, the personal touch of Yahweh God
in the creation accounts and the personal touch of Yahweh
God in the creation of the specific field for Adam. And now point
number three, the personal touch of Yahweh God in the creation
of man. So verse seven, Then Yahweh God
formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life, and so the man became a living being. The first five days of creation
are complete. The land animals are made on
day 6. The field in which Adam would be placed is now ready
with a source of water to plant to the Garden of Eden. And so
now here comes the creation of man. 7a Yahweh God formed the
man from the dust of the ground. So Yahweh God we can picture
literally forming Adam from the dust or from the clay. The Hebrew
word here for formed is yasser, which often describes the action
of a clay potter. It's the same word that's used
multiple places in the Old Testament, including Isaiah 45, 9 through
12. And not only is the same Hebrew
word for potter used here, but we also see this passage connecting
the potter to the creator, who is the one and the same of the
heavens and the earth. So Isaiah 45 verse 9, Thus says Yahweh, the Holy One
of Israel and His Maker, ask me about the things that are
to come concerning my sons, and you shall commit to me the work
of my hands. It is I who made the heaven and created man upon
it. I stretched out the heavens with my hands and I commanded
all their host. And you may have even recognized
a part of this passage as Paul quoted directly from it in Romans
9, 20 through 21. So here, Yahweh God, like a potter,
fashioned man from the dust of the ground. Unlike the rest of
creation where he just spoke and it came into existence, God
actually took the dust and made man, fashioned man. The numerous passages in the
Old Testament also show that this dust that Adam came from
will be the same dust he returns to. It comes as early as Genesis
3.19, by the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return
to the ground because from it you were taken for you're a dust
and to dust you shall return. So we see an acknowledgement
here right after the fall in Genesis 3 that Adam was taken
from the dust. Oh, and guess what? He's going
to be returned to that same dust. Now, why am I pressing on this
point about dust? Because if you thought about
this, why dust? Why not the gold that was in
the land of Havilah to fashion man out of? Or diamonds, or pearls,
or any other what we would call precious material. Why dust?
Well, I would say this, because dust displays that man has nothing
to boast about. We're from the ground. We're
going to return to the ground. There's nothing to boast about
there. And so it's a humble material that we're made out of that causes
us to have a full dependence on the personal God of the scriptures.
Again, what can the clay pot say to the potter? So even though Adam and the ground
are made out of the same substance, we would all acknowledge that
there is a value to man. What is that value? Well, Calvin,
I think, says it best. He, Moses, now explains what
he had before omitted in the creation of man, that his body
was taken out of the earth. He had said that he was formed
after the image of God. This is incomparably the highest
nobility. And, lest men should use it as
an occasion of pride, their first origin is placed immediately
before them, whence they may learn that this advantage was
adventitious. For Moses relates that man had
been, in the beginning, dust of the earth. Let foolish men
now go and boast of the excellency of their nature. Concerning other
animals, it had before been said, let the earth produce every living
creature. But on the other hand, the body of Adam is formed of
clay and destitute of sense, to the end that no one should
exult beyond measure in his flesh. So there is no value to us because
of dirt. The value comes in in the breath
of life. Verse seven, then Yahweh God
formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life and so the man became a living being. The breath of life is what separates
man from the rest of the animals. It's how God made everything
with breath in the nostrils alive. And so there's a difference though
between the animals and humans. God took us from the dust fashioned
man. He then gives life to the man
by breathing into the man, into his nostrils. And through that
is the image of God being breathed into man. not the animals, not
the fish, not the birds. Even though the same phrase living
being or nephesh haya in the Hebrew is used for the fish,
the birds, the land animals and humans. What separates us is
that this breath of life is comes directly from God breathed into
us. And that when we understand what's
being said here, this is the living soul. of man. Different than what the animals
have. We have a soul that has attributes that are given to
us like God in the attributes like love and justice and mercy.
Imperfectly, but certain communicable attributes that we have from
God made in his image. Attributes that are not shared with the
animals. We are literally a special part of the creation. And so
back to this verse, then Yahweh God formed man of the dust from
the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
And so the man became a living being. Some translators actually
say this is living soul. And in fact, when Paul quotes
from it in first Corinthians, he translates this as living
soul, distinguishing this breath of life and the spirit that we
have different than all the other animals. Now, as a creationist,
I should park here for a moment just to get an understanding
of how special we actually are and how unique and how specially
designed human beings are. Our human bodies are made of
60 trillion cells as an adult. That's a phenomenal amount. Each
cell within our body has millions of distinctly designed machines. that every one of them are needed
to work with one another. Each one of those millions of
machines has millions of specifically designed pieces for the body
to work. An evolutionist wants to say
that on a pond scum, these things just happened. And we say, hold
on a second. How in the world did you have
a heart rise up the exact same time as the blood that it takes
to make the heart alive, but yet the heart still has to pump
it at the exact same time? How does that occur? Magic, right? Gets even better with our bodies.
If we could unfold all the tissue in our lungs, because we require
a lot of oxygen. To stay awake this morning takes
a lot of oxygen for our brains. If we unfolded all the tissue
in our lungs, each lung would make up, surface area-wise, about
half a tennis court. That's how much oxygen is required
for us to live and breathe God's air. We have over 60,000 miles of
blood vessel through our tissues. 60,000 miles to be able to carry
the oxygen around our bodies for our lungs to take in. And
then we have a heart that pumps 100,000 times a day to push the
blood and the oxygen around for us to stay alive. And as one
famous apologist said, God made this heart, this machine that
pumps 100,000 times a day, and it can even run on donuts. Don't eat donuts, by the way.
Terrible for you. But these are just some of the
facts, like when we understand what's going on here in Genesis
and God forming man, the pinnacle of his creation, there is so
much more than just gathering the dust together and then breathing
life into it. That we are specially designed
creatures from the mind of God. We are then breathed into us
this living soul that's part of our bodies. allows us to smile,
to think, to love, to laugh. Also gives us one that allows
us to do right from wrong. And before I get into all that,
there's one other question that has to be addressed. Did Adam
have a belly button? Now, I have to bring this one
up because this is actually a common thought out there. Did Adam have
a belly button? I don't know. I think it might be the second
question I ask Adam before, why did you let your wife eat the
fruit? Or just let him show me. I don't know. Did he have a belly
button? We don't know. I break this up because it's
talked about a lot in creation circles. On one hand, he didn't
need a belly button because he wasn't born from a woman. So he shouldn't need a belly
button. Belly buttons is where the umbilical cord attaches.
On the other hand, if we cut out our belly buttons and the
tissue below it, we would have a lot of trouble because a lot
of muscle attachments in our abdomen actually go right to
that spot. So I'm not sure which. Did Adam have one or not? Not
really sure. Now this passage displayed three
main points about the personal touch of Yahweh God. In the creation
account specifically, the creation of the field, and then the creation
of man. Now as stated here earlier, if
you're a believer today, you not only serve the one true God,
you have an intimate relationship with the personal God of the
scriptures. one that you walk with, one that you know, one
that you can speak to at any time, one that speaks to you
through his scriptures, a personal relationship with God. However,
if you're not born again today, if you are somebody who is not
repented of your sin and put your trust in Jesus's death,
burial, and resurrection, I know why you don't have a personal
relationship with God. I know why you feel distant. It's because you are. It's because
you don't actually know God. You view God in the same way
that every false religion views their God. A distant and personal
God hoping you can please through your actions. And I'm here to
tell you that can't be the case. Your actions are nothing but
filthy rags. There's nothing you can do to earn God's grace.
It is strictly through repentance and faith that's a free gift
of God. As I said earlier, the specific creation of man in Genesis
2-7 is referenced by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 45. So also it is written the first
man Adam became a living soul. Paul then goes on to say the
last Adam became a life giving spirit. Adam would soon fall
after being created. He'd return to the dust. In fact,
every one of us is going to return to the dust. Our soul will live
on. Our soul is now an eternal soul
that will live forever. And for those of you who are
saved, your eternal soul, while you shed the dust, your eternal
soul goes on to live with Jesus forever in eternal bliss. If
you are somebody who doesn't know Christ in a salvific way,
You're going to return to dust, your body, like everyone else,
but then your soul is not going to be in eternal bliss. Your
soul is going to plunge to the depths of hell for eternity.
Your soul is going to rightfully be punished for all of the sins
you've committed and have not been paid for. And so you're
going to spend an eternity in hell for your sins to be paid
for on your own. And so I beg you today, that
before your body returns to the dust, it doesn't cease to exist,
your soul. It doesn't just get obliterated,
annihilated. Your soul will live forever.
And that today is a day of salvation. Today is a day to repent and
put your trust into Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. Because
it's either he paid that eternal fine on the cross himself, or
you're going to pay it in hell for eternity on your own. Lord,
I just thank you so much for gathering us together today and
just starting to work through this passage. I know we couldn't
do it justice with so many details there, Lord. I just pray that
You bring clarity to those who don't have clarity in this passage,
recognizing the personal account of creation here, starting off
in these verses and continuing through the rest of this chapter.
I pray for anybody in here who does not know who you are so
vividly that today they repent, they put their trust in you,
that they recognize their need for their sins to be paid for,
and that you have done that and give that payment as a free gift
of your grace. Lord, I thank you for everything
you've done for us. Thank you for everything you've given to
us in this life. And I ask that for those who
are still breathing in here who know you, that you continue to
motivate them and burn that fire in them to go out and share that
precious gospel with all the lost souls that are out there
before they return to the dust and go to hell for eternity.
It's in your holy and precious name we pray, amen.
The Personal Touch of God in Creation
Series Genesis
| Sermon ID | 1232422865887 |
| Duration | 51:10 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Genesis 2:4-7 |
| Language | English |
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