Please open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1. My hope is to confirm you more strongly in the truth of God's word and the goodness of God in His revelation. Chapter 1, dealing with the fourth day of creation, verses 14 to 19. This is the word of the living God. God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, Let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. Let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And it was so. 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. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day." Thus far our reading this morning. Let's pray. Father, You have spoken to us, and all of Your revelation, both that in Your spoken word, special revelation, and in the revelation that we learn in general from Your works, creation around us, environment in which we live, all that You reveal is revealed in truth and in sincerity. You love us and you want us to know you. And being the infinite incomprehensible God, there is no way we can know you unless you condescend to reveal yourself to us. And so, O God, just this very word that we have in our hands, which we call your Bible, is proof to us that you want us to know you and knowing you to love you. and loving You to serve You. We pray, O Lord our God, that You would convict us deeply of Your desire to be known by us, of the reality that You are an orderly God, You have decreed order in Your creation, order in all of Your works and Your words, and You require us to be ordered in our own lives. Father, You are mindful of unbelief. those who do not trust Your Word because they don't know You. You're mindful of the doubts, the struggles that we ourselves may have in committing ourselves wholly to Your Word. We pray by Thy Spirit this day, As we look at Your Word, You would convict us of its truthfulness against the gainsayers so prominently around us. Secure Thy Word to us as that which gives to us reverence to Your holy name. In Jesus name and for his glory we pray. Amen. We have waited to get to this fourth day following the order that God himself uses in the days. And I've been particularly looking forward to getting to the fourth day because it answers so many of the lies of those who would disparage the Word of God. On this fourth day, God creates the astronomical clock and calendar. The sun and the moon define the nighttime and the daylight. Their complete cycle define an entire day. Further, with the background of the stars factored in, we have a calendar which marks the seasons and the years. I hope you all are interested, at least in part, in astronomy. That it's a wonder to you when you stand outside on a clear night, without lights, and you see the display in the heavens of the stars. Perhaps you know some of the figures from the ancient times, the constellations as it were. You all know the Big Dipper. You all can find Polaris so you can find which way is north if you're lost at night. And you have probably noticed that you can tell the time by the position of the Big Dipper. It rotates around Polaris every 24 hours because the Earth is spinning at that rate. And so you can imagine, figuratively, if you look up and get used to it, a clock with the hour hand. And you can look at the Big Dipper and say, it's 9 p.m. or it's 11 p.m. or it's 1. But not only can you use the stars, if you're familiar with their patterns, to tell the time in terms of hours, you can use the stars to tell you the calendar time, what season of the year it is, and more specifically, what month it is. Those are defined by the alignment of the stars. Their positions that you see at night. You like Orion? I hope you do. Orion is the constellation in which he's holding a sword and his foot is on the beast. In ancient view, that was a pictorial representation, artistically so, of Christ the conqueror against his enemy under his foot. And Orion's the one with the three, you know, the kneecaps, the shoulders, four stars, and then three in a diagonal line, that's his belt and his sword. And there's the great nebula of Orion in the sword. You all are familiar with that. You have to have seen that in some book somewhere. And it's a nebula that looks like the chess piece, the horseman. Very distinctive. In ancient times, those lines were drawn and that picture was made up in somebody's imagination to teach, by looking at the star patterns, the gospel. Now there's other origins of the constellation figures that are not centered on the gospel. And increasingly, they're showing up in the modern textbooks. because they don't want us to remember or have anything that points to the gospel. In fact, the Islamic views of astronomy are becoming more and more popular in the Western textbooks. But I love seeing Orion because it tells me winter is coming. During the summer, you go out on a warm night, you cannot see Orion. It's below the horizon. When you're able to start seeing at 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock, it's November. Winter's coming. And then the spring, Orion disappears again. Of course, that depends what time. We're talking about 9 or 10 p.m. If you want to stay up till 2 or 3, you might see it again. But God is the one who has created the grand celestial clock and calendar. God has, on the fourth day, established an order in which you are to live out your life. It prescribes to you what you need to be doing at a particular point in time. Don't plant if you see Orion. Winter's coming. Wrong time of the year to plant. There is by God an appointed ordering of life as there is a progression of life as the seasons come and go. And you track these by the stars and the star patterns. It is worth noting that here in Genesis 1 we are given by God this time piece. The day four answers the question, can we really understand these as 24-hour days? Day four settles it, clearly. You have to ignore day four to even ask the question. Genesis 1, you are given a rational foundation for mathematics. Now maybe we aren't all thrilled with mathematics. I'm weird, I like mathematics. Perhaps you're unaware of the struggle of mathematicians and logicians. They're really the same peas in the pod. in considering, is math real? Does it work? Where do we get it from? A great mathematician, an unbeliever, Bertrand Russell, dedicated a number of years of his life. I think it was 20, but you put that in pencil, not pen. to trying to formulate a rational basis for mathematics. Why is 1 plus 1 equal to 2? Is it or did we just make that up? Is that just a figment of our imagination? He wrote a book. What is 1? It's that thick. He went insane because after all of his logical work, he could not prove that mathematics was real. It was just a made-up fable, and that bothered him. It is not a made-up fable, but there are other logicians that have had the same problem, trying to figure out if math is really a substantial thing. There are great names to be related to the foundation of mathematics. Bertrand Russell is perhaps the best known. Alfred North Whitehead wrote the Principia Mathematics. He wrote it, took him three years, 1910 to 1913. He didn't come up with a rational basis for mathematics. And the third famous logician mathematician, my favorite of these three, Kurt Gergel. G-O and that umlaut thing, German. So there's no real R in the name if you try to look it up on the internet, G-O-D-E-L. And Kurt Gödel is famous for his incompleteness theorems. Basically, and this is a simplification, what he proves as a logician is that you cannot prove logic. Why? because you have to assume logic to work a proof for logic. And what's so fascinating about him is his incompleteness theorems, both the first and his second one, prove that reason is founded upon faith. I have to make a faith assumption in the laws of logic to use the laws of logic to formulate an argument. to prove logic. He did that work in 1931. All three of these men failed. Russell failed, Whitehead failed, and Gerdl failed. Though Gerdl proved, you can't prove it without a faith assumption. So his work is very important. Gerdl's incompleteness theorems proved the necessity of revelation. I have to have someone outside, well let me give you, I've used this illustration so much I cannot remember anymore if I've already said this to you at some point in the last years. But if there's no revelation, you can't know truth. So if we don't have a word from God who knows all things and can communicate them to you perfectly, because if he communicates inaccurately, then that's useless. It's no foundation for thought. You have to have a revelation from God to know truth. I can come in this door and I can see Gideon. I know Gideon has ears and he can hear. I know that Gideon's eyes work. He's not blind. I know certain aspects of Gideon's character. He's a gentleman. He has helped make sure I know how to get somewhere in the dark once we visit some of your houses. And if I come up into the doors and I walk through and say, good morning, Gideon, and he just stares at me and I walk on past him and that's it. That's all I get is a stare. I can draw a conclusion. I have five facts. He's got ears, he's got eyes, he's a gentleman, he can think, he's a rational person. He did hear and see me, but he ignored me, apparently. And with those five facts, I draw a conclusion. Gideon is a conceited young man who only cares about himself, not those around him. Now you all know, and he hasn't thrown anything at me yet, so thank you. He's getting ready. You all know the conclusion is incorrect. but it's based on the five facts I know. And for me to know the truth, he or somebody with whom he's talked has to tell me he's kind of spacey today because his dog got run over by a pickup truck last night. The dog he has trained, that he's had for 10 years, was always with him, worked with him. And now with that extra fact, the fact number six, I realized the conclusion I drew from five facts is false. Because I didn't know what just happened to him and the trauma that he's undergoing now with the loss of his dog. So I was wrong to think, oh, he's a conceited, stuck-up, doesn't care about anybody else person. Simple illustration, but it's it makes I hope the point to you that unless you know everything You don't know anything for sure Because there's always the possibility that there's some fact out here that if I get a hold on that fact I will realize my conclusion is wrong and So the only way you can have and know that you have truth is for somebody who knows all the truth communicates it to you. Necessity of the Bible. And the only way you can have a basis for mathematics is Genesis 1. God counts. God proves there's sequence. Day one, day two, day three. Framework hypothesis is a lie. It presumes it's a literary device. Genesis one is six days, seven days. And really the order is day one, day four, day two, day five, day three, day six. You try to count that way, one, four, two, five, three, six, I don't want you doing my ledger books. This is all rooted in Genesis 1. God, who knows everything, communicates accurately to us the truth. And because He knows everything, His truth is, I'll borrow from Francis Schaeffer here, true truth. It's real truth. It's not, I hope so, but there might be some other fact out there that when it comes to me, I'll realize my whole system of thought is wrong. Bertrand Russell, trying to establish the truth of mathematics, went insane. He could not handle the fact that on his basis of presuppositions, you can't prove math. That was too much for him to handle intellectually. But here in Genesis 1, the days are numbered, counters are placed in the heavens, the stars and their patterns, whereby you can measure succession, the movement of the weeks, of the hours, of the days, of the seasons. Day four, God sets up the clear time keepers of succession of time. God is spoken, spoken accurately in clear language. And so we have the proof of mathematics and proof or practicality of the necessity of revelation. You don't know somebody who knows everything. The best you can do is skepticism. And that's where we are as a culture. Skeptics. There is no truth. You have to decide for yourself what is true for you and live by that. Well, you know what? That means there's no such thing as neighborhoods, no such thing as families, No such thing as civilization. We are descending into barbarity because we reject the law, the word of God. Reason is founded upon faith. Day four. We have clear, factual, historical language. Particular language that requires for us that a day is 24 hours. That the days of Genesis 1 are normal days. We have the clock defined. Morning and evening. Daylight, darkness. We have the consecutive numbering of the days, one, two, three, et cetera. And this fourth day now establishes the calendar. The stars tell us the seasons, the moon tells us the months, and the sun tells us the days. Perhaps you have noted I like to use weather underground. for my weather reports, and I always read the paragraph on astronomical information. And if you notice the shape of the moon, and on that little paragraph, you'll get waxed, no, right now, what are we now? We're in waxing? Yeah, no, we're waning. Waning gibbous. Gibbous is not quite circular. It's kind of missing a little bit. It's been squashed as a sphere. 98% visible. The next day, waning gibbous. It's getting smaller. 96%. I had this written down, but I don't have it with me. I hope I'm remembering it pretty closely. And then the next day, waning gibbous, 95%. So on a regular scale, less and less moon surface is reflecting the Earth's light. And we're heading, as it's waning, we're heading to a new moon in which none of it is lit. by the reflected light off the earth. And that's what God has established here in the fourth day. What you have is God telling you how to measure the length of a day, how to measure the length of a season. And so, He defines the length of a day here on the fourth day, and it is 24 hours. The entirety of Scripture testifies to the conclusion of Genesis 1, 14 to 19, forces us with a fair reading of it, if you read day four, to understand the rest of the testimony of scripture. If you step ahead a page or two to chapter two, verse four, These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created. This is used 11 times. I mean, this phrase in the Hebrew is used 11 times in the book of Genesis. Let's turn over a few pages to Genesis 5 and verse 1. This is the book of the generations of Adam in the day that God created man. In the likeness of God made he him. Again, it's in 6-9. These are the generations of Noah. 10-1. These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. In other words, this phrase, these are the generations of, is a phrase that's used in Genesis 1. And that is determined or defined with Genesis 14 through 19, day 4. And it's consistent throughout. You cannot make a day mean 10 million years. You cannot violate the consequential or sequential numbering, day one, day two, by adding 10 million years between day one and day two to allow for the warfare of mankind with Satan, and that's why now it's without form and void. I mean, the Bible I'm using here has that in the subdivision of the chapter. Nonsense. Generations of Adam. The clause has the same meaning when it's the generations of Shem. Generations of David. And it's a definite meaning. In Genesis 5.1, look at that if you would please. And we need more verses than just that, so I'll read partly through Genesis 5. This is the book of the generation of Adam. In the day that God created man in the likeness of God made he him. Male and female created he them and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created. And Adam lived 130 years, begat a son in his own likeness after his image, called his name Seth. The days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were 800 years. and he begat sons and daughters. So we've got the age, how many years, how many years did he live after he had his firstborn child, and that language goes through this whole chapter. Verse 6, Seth lived 105 years and begat Enos. and Seth lived after he begat Enos 807 years and begat sons and daughters. All the days of Seth were 912 years and he died. Now when you read this chapter 5 you have to assume properly that whatever a year is for Seth or Enos That's the same as what a year is for Adam, because this is a set of genealogy through the children. You don't suddenly use a different definition for the number of years in a genealogy. You don't have a footnote down here that says, oh by the way, when I talk about years of Adam, Don't think that has any relation to the years of Seth, because a year for Adam is a thousand years, a year for Seth is two years. By the way, when we get later to Noah, a year there is now only .9 years. We don't need a key to tell us that the definition of year is changing as we read through these genealogies in chapter five. So whatever a day was in Genesis 1, that's what a day is in Genesis 5 and on through the rest of the Bible. Turn if you would to Exodus chapter 20 and verse 8. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. How long is the Sabbath day? Well, you all know this in terms of the Old Testament law, it's 24 hours. Depending what time in the history of the nation, it was sundown to sundown. 6 to 6, 6 p.m. 6 a.m., or if you go to the Roman calendar and John uses the Roman counting, the day starts with the daylight, not the nighttime in how you count it. I remember having to work through that because for my family, We viewed the Sabbath sundown to sundown for 24 hours. And then after studying John, I changed the view to midnight to midnight, the Roman view. And that's what you have to decide for your own conscience. But the Sabbath day is a day. It's not a Sabbath hour. It's a Sabbath 24 hours. Jesus you remember we looked at his view of Genesis 1 of creation and he viewed it as normal 24-hour days You see that in his language in Matthew Mark and Luke in the beginning speaking of marriage and divorce Not 20 million years after the beginning But in the beginning Paul does the same in Romans chapter 1. He gives a temporal reference to creation as he's writing Romans there. And it's clear that he understands it as the normal 24-hour days. The history of what God's people have understood is 24-hour days until A pseudoscientist named Darwin wrote a book in 1860. And after that, you know the title of the book, right? You're not told the full title in modern history books. The Origin of the Species and the Superiority of the White Man. That's his title. Of course, can't say the truth because it has connotations in this culture. But after he published that book, then people began to try to read that book into the Genesis and became confused, sought to be self-confused, as to what a day is. The Credo Covenant of our church, the Westminster Standards, asserts 24-hour days. You're familiar with the little phrase, in the space of six days. Now, I had the sad task of dealing with the Standing Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church in America some 20 years ago, and the issue was on the six days. And they asserted that Calvin did not teach six days, 24-hour days. Now that's a lie. He did. If you read his commentary on Genesis, as he's going through there, he quotes that. In fact, that's where they get this from. He says, in the space of six days, and then a little later, he'll speak about, in this world, not yet 6,000 years old. So the commission lied about what Calvin meant, ignored what he wrote, And I was taught by the Standing Judicial Commission of the PCA that the Bible is an evolutionary document and the Westminster Standards are an evolutionary document. And if you're wondering how you could stay in the PCA, I didn't. I came home and resigned. But our creeds are 24-hour days. And R.L. Dabney speaks about the end, the goal for which God created the heavens and the earth imply literal days. I think his argument's accurate. I like what he says. But if you plant a garden, you are probably expecting some gardeners to arrive within 10 million years, right? West Abney's argument, obviously. The Garden of Eden presupposes population with mankind. Exodus 31, 17. God ceased from His work, His creative work, and was refreshed. That demands no long period between the days, right? I mean, if you work an hour and then have a week off, and work an hour and have a week off, I mean 10 million years off, and work an hour and have another 10 million years off, do you need a rest? Do you need refreshment? So the scriptures throughout presuppose the 24-hour days that Genesis 1 is exactly what it seems to be as you read it. As long as you don't ask some pseudoscientist, how should I read Genesis 1? The biblical doctrine of creation makes knowledge attainable. Deny creation. Deny Genesis 1's reality. And it leads you to an epistemological crisis. I can't know anything for sure. This seems real plain to me. But these eggheads are telling me it doesn't mean what it seems to mean. So how can I know anything for sure? It produces skepticism. It leads to irrationalism. Deny creation and you cannot know yourself. Who am I? Who knows who you are? But God. And He tells you who you are. You cannot know yourself. You cannot know your relation to the objective world. Since God is the Creator and the creation is His, He is the one that gives meaning to all of it and who must tell you its meaning. Without the acknowledgement of the triune God and His understanding, His meaning giving to you the fact or that means that you cannot understand any fact apart from God's revelation to you. Romans 121, Because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. Deny God's existence. Deny God's truth in his revelation. Deny Genesis 1. And you can't know anything for sure. The best you can do is say, I hope so. That's the 21st century. Deny the historical character of creation, evil becomes coordinate with, co-ultimate with good. You have the yin and the yang. The reason Eastern mysticism is so popular today is because we have denied Genesis 1. Life is just a meaningless cycle. You like Chinese food? I love it. Next time you go to a Chinese restaurant, listen. If they're playing Chinese music, it will demonstrate to you their philosophy. It goes nowhere. It just repeats and repeats like the yin and the yang. It just goes round and round in a circle. And after about 15 minutes, it's not, well, to me it's nauseating music. Because it just repeats, doesn't get anywhere. It's not like Beethoven, it moves through the four movements in a symphony or anybody else in classical western music. There's no rhyme or reason to it. There's no motion, there's no beginning and no end. It's, in that sense, utterly anti-Christian. There's a beginning, Genesis. There's an end, Revelation. And what God intended in the beginning, His kingdom on this earth, He brings to conclusion in Revelation. History is going somewhere. It's not merely an endless regurgitation of events without meaning. It's not a mere cycle. Not a straight line, but it is moving. There is progression. And you can become very sensitive to it in just the kind of music that there is. Without Genesis 1, redemption itself becomes meaningless. Redeemed from what? If there's no fall, you don't need redemption. If there's not a fall, a real fall with the consequences, of what that was, you certainly don't need a savior as powerful as Jesus. Providence has to be denied. Romans 8.28 merely becomes a make-believe for weak and fragile Christians. You know, everything that happens, happens to the good, those who love God are called according to His purpose. Oh, that's just make-believe. That's wishful thinking. It's not reality. Genesis 1 says, oh, that is reality. It is God who's in control of history. He created it. He made it. He determines the progression of it. Things are going in a particular direction according to the wisdom and power of God. No creation, no teleology. No end point. No goal to go for. We become Eastern reincarnation. Things just go round and round. You die, you come back as a dog. You die, you come back as a frog. You die, you come back as a politician. That's the end point. And you have not a culture that's based upon God's law, not a kingdom of Christ and a kingdom of God. God's will being done on earth, but you have multicultural diversity. Every culture is the same. So pick the one you like. And don't tell your neighbor he's got to pick the same one you like. So you're always at war because you're never in agreement. There's no commonality, no objectivity. The historicity of Genesis 1 through 11, all those genealogies, is an all or nothing proposition. The proposition to you is, has God said? If He has said, then you can know truth. You don't have to be afraid. Well, there's some fact out there that's going to overthrow everything I thought I knew. No, if your knowledge is based upon God's revelation. I'm not going to face that issue. If He's not spoken, you and I are lost in skepticism. Truth doesn't exist in any objective sense. Ethics has no transcendent power and hence might will determine what ought to be. It is Christian theistic ethics or it is the jungle in which might makes right. Which world do you want? Which world are you laboring? to gift to your neighbors the Kingdom of God or the jungle of man. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word, Your objective truth. We thank You that You know all things. No man can teach You. There's nothing for You to learn. We thank you that you speak truthfully and that hence we can know foundational truths which allow us to build our thoughts, deed of civilization honoring to you based upon your word. Father, forgive us for any skepticism we fall into. Strengthen us to stand against the gainsayers of our world, even the gainsayers that come from theological institutions, who along with the devil ask, as God said, Give us firm conviction, O Holy Spirit, of the truth which You have written. We pray, O Lord our God, that believing Your Word, we might speak. Holy Spirit, that You would work in the ears and hearts of our neighbors, making them willing to listen to your truth. Forgive us when we as messengers have made it hard for them to listen. Holy Spirit, make us increasingly like Jesus, who though people were offended at Him, It was not because of his manner, but their wicked heart. Increase our love for our neighbor. Increase our love for you, O God. And our commitment to think your truth after you. We pray for the salvation of multitudes who are lost, so lost they have given up the hope that there is such a thing as truth. Father, equip us as your ambassadors To Your glory and that of Your Son's name we pray, Amen.