1 again tonight we just started this study last Wednesday evening and just really getting into this first book of the Bible that's just so full of important firsts First mentions are a very important part of Bible interpretation and Bible study. I'm going to bring those out to you as we go through this beautiful book of Scripture. And I want to read to you tonight the first 19 verses from Genesis chapter 1, reminding you that we talked about verse number 1 and 2 last. last time we were together, last Wednesday night, and it says, In the beginning, God. And when you have that opening bold statement, we know automatically or we know intuitively that this is going to be a book not about us. It's about God and as you read the first chapter of Genesis you will see God mentioned 32 times into one chapter just to let you know that this book is not about us It's about him and it's a book that's designed to to help us and understand more about him and how we can come to him and then once we come to him how we can know him, I think, more completely and more fully as we journey this Christian existence here on the planet. And we know that it's about God, it's about his character, it's about his work, his power, his rule, all of those different things. And so Genesis chapter 1 is not the only chapter about God. All 1189 chapters are about God, aren't they, saints? And so we've got to keep those things in mind. But in the beginning, God, the Bible says, created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day. And the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so and God called the firmament heaven And the evening and the morning were the second day And God said let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place And let the dry land appear and it was so And God called the dry land earth And the gathering together of the waters he called seas And God saw that it was good And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good. and the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. And he 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." And everybody said, Thank you, Father, again for the opportunity to look at your work tonight. I pray that you'll just speak to us from it. And Lord, as we consider this text, you'll just give us some more reminders of how powerful and how good you are. And Father, also how we can apply these truths to our own individual walk with you. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. We already know this, maybe not everybody does, but most of you who are here already know that these few verses are the descripting verses, the deciding verses that tell us that God is the one who created the universe. Everything that we see, everything that we enjoy, that we take a part of, not just on planet Earth, but the entire universe was created by the great God of heaven, amen? And this is a truth that we accept by faith because there was no human there when God created the heaven and the earth. There were no humans there. It was just God. God was there, and God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Spirit was there in that entity, or that Godhead, and He created the heaven and the earth, but no one was there to see it. And so we accept the fact that God created the universe by faith. And we talked about this a little bit last Wednesday night. The verse that we look to in the New Testament is in Hebrews chapter 11, verse number three. The Bible says, through faith, Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of who by the word of God So that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear and we talked about how God was able to create the universe out of nothing he was the one that that the raw materials that created the earth. And so, again, there's a lot there for our minds to try to consume. It's kind of a mind-blowing thought. But again, by faith, we believe that God is the one who created the universe. At least, I think a good number of us in the room tonight believe that anyway. And so, we should believe that because the Bible says that God did that. In the account that we're reading tonight, and we're going to talk about next Wednesday night also, Lord willing, the account is much more about the who than the how. It's much more about the who. Who created the universe, not how He created the universe. It says very plainly how it was done. It says, and God said. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And then later on, and God said, let there be a firmament. And God said, let there be water under heaven. And God said, let the earth bring forth grass. And God said, let there be lights. And God said, and God said, and God said. And so God spoke the universe into existence. And that's a power that you and I don't have. We would like to have that. We would like to be able to speak things and have these things be made so. I was thinking today, I wouldn't mind going out in the backyard and saying, weeds be gone. Right. Or look in the mirror and say, weight be gone. Or look down the street and say, weirdos be gone. We don't have that kind of power, do we? But God does. I was thinking if I said weirdos be gone, there'd be very few of us left here. Somebody say amen. And so he's spoken into existence. He said, let there be light. And there was light. It was just a powerful statement. And we see the powerful word of God, the powerful voice of God, bringing the universe into existence. I want to just take you to a couple of places just to, or actually just Psalm chapter 33, then I've got a couple of things I want to talk about, about the New Testament real quick, about how powerful God's word is, God's voice is. But in Psalm 33, the Bible says this, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as in heap. He layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. And again, we have all these reminders and thoughts throughout the scripture of just how powerful. We know God's powerful, but even the speaking voice of God can bring power to such an effect that could put the whole universe into existence and get the whole thing spinning in the right direction and keep it in order for as long as He decides to keep it in order. Absolutely amazing. And we see a little bit of that power of God's voice even in the person of Jesus when he was here on the earth. We know that he was here in human flesh, but he was always God, wasn't he? 100% God and 100% man at the same time. And it was said of Jesus, I didn't put the verse on the background here behind me, but it said, never man spake like this man spake. There was never anybody else on the earth that spoke the way that Jesus spoke and had his eloquence and his ability to astonish those who thought they were well-versed and learned all the things of God. And never a man spake like this man spake. And they remember when he was being arrested there in the Garden of Eden, I mean the Garden of Gethsemane, I meant Eden obviously, but yeah, in the Garden of Gethsemane and he spoke and the soldiers fell back just from the words of Jesus. They were reminded about how powerful just the voice of God is. And as you go through and you begin to read this creation account, and you begin in verse number 3, and God said, let there be light, and there was light. Again, and God said, let there be a firmament, and God said, let the waters... God was the one who named all the things that He created. It is just a sign of his ownership. I think a sign of his affection for the things that he had created, that he had designed, the things that he keeps consisting together, again, until he decides that day is done. All these things are working in harmony and perfect order. It's a beautiful earth to look upon. The people don't make it beautiful. But God made it beautiful and He said, I'm going to name this thing light. I'm going to call this thing day. I'm going to call that night. I'm going to call this the firmament. I'm going to call this the season. God was the one who named all these different pieces, parts of our creation because He owns these things. He doesn't want us to forget that He's the one who owns these things. We're simply stewards of the things that He owns. And he declared the things that he created as good. He called the light good, and he called the waters, the firmament good, and he called the dry land good, and the different things that he created, whether it was grass, or trees, or animals, or fish, or birds that flew, he called all those things good. And when God can have the ability to in and of himself declares something good, it also reminds us that he is the true righteous judge of all. He's the true righteous judge of all. He's the one who decides when life is over how things are going to fall out. We don't decide those things. God is our judge. He's a saint. We come to Him for salvation, yes, and we know the saved go into heaven, but He's the righteous judge who determines all these things. Also in the creation, He determined the divisions. He called the light day, and He called the darkness night. He was the one who did that. He was the one who named these things. He made the divisions. It's a sign of His control over things. You know, we can get kind of caught up by looking at current events and looking at how perilous times may have been thrust upon us or maybe we're going through our own individual crisis or trials and tribulation and we can think things that are completely out of control. I want to remind you tonight and I want to encourage you tonight that God never has lost control. And he's in control of all these things all the way until the day he takes us home and then he has us for all eternity. We're in pretty safe hands. He's, I wrote down in my notes, he's ultra-organized. I'm drawn to organized people. Kathy's very organized, and Tom's daughter, Anna, she seems to be very organized. She's been already a big help in the office this week, and I love ultra-organized people, or people who have that skill of administration and organization, but God is ultra-organized. He knows where everything is. He knows everything that happens. He knows everything that's going to happen before it happens. Because He's omniscient and He's omnipotent and He's omnipresent. All those different things. He is what I would call the supreme example of order. He's never out of order. He's never out of sorts. He's never exhausted. You know, you think about the power it took to bring this universe into existence. I'm not trying to be irreverent or flippant, but I'm going to tell you this. It didn't even make God break a sweat. He's a supreme example of order. And again, tonight, I touched on this last Wednesday night as I was closing, but it's so important that you have a proper view from the very beginning. That in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. It's important to have a proper view of that, the right perspective. That God is, number one, creator. Number two, that He is owner. Number three, that He is judge. Number four, that He is controller or ruler. And number five, that all things are subject to His order. That is the revelation of God. It's not just here in James chapter 1. You'll find out the Bible is harmonious about all five of those truths. The Creator, the Owner, the Judge, the Ruler, and the One who keeps things in order. It goes all the way to the book of Revelation. It never stops. You know, and the fact that those things are true about God, and the fact that the Bible opens with these blessed truths, it really defines, doesn't it saints, it defines our accountability to Him. He's not accountable to us. He has an answer to mankind, but we answer to Him. And we are not allowed, we're not permitted, biblically, to form a God of our own defining. That would be idolatry. That would be having other gods before him. Somebody help me tonight. So we're not permitted to do that. So we've got to remember as we're looking at the creation account, it's more than a child's Sunday school lesson. On the first day there was light. On the second day there was a firmament. On the sixth day there was man. It's much more than that. It's defining the true character and nature of God that by faith we accept and then by faith's journey we begin to understand more and more as we walk with him and learn more from this blessed book called the Bible. Amen, saints. The first thing that God spoke into existence was light. He said, let there be light. And there was light. Light is a lot more than just the ability to see through the darkness. Light means this, it's the entire electromagnetic spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet. It's the electromagnetic forces that, sorry, that's not what I want to say. The nuclear forces that hold atoms and molecules together came into play when God said, let there be light. When God said, let there be light, what he was doing was he was ultimately energizing the entire universe, the nuclear forces of the atom, the gravitational forces of the planet that keep us grounded, no pun intended, amen. You know, and so when he said, let there be light, a lot of things were happening that you and I just kind of glossed over and said, yeah, God said, let there be light. But I'm just telling you this, God said, let there be light, and he was putting a whole existence into motion with just those few words. Everything started to be energized, everything had the ability to come to life. And you and I, we don't have the ability to produce light. Any light we produce comes from within us now that we know Jesus. It's a spiritual light. It's not the ability to give light in the way of energizing. We can't hold molecules and atoms together. We can't determine buzzing electrons and neutrons and protons and all those other trons that are out there in the world around us. We can turn a light switch off and on. That's about our limitations, though, when it comes to light, or to place a burnt-out light bulb. Amen. But God said, I'm going to say there's going to be this light, and this light's going to energize the entire universe. And then he divided the light from the darkness. And the question would come up in verse 4. And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. Where did then the light come from? Where did the light come from? Personal opinion, but I've got biblical backing. I believe it came from Himself. This then is the message which we have heard of Him. And declaring to you that God is what? God is light. And in Him is no darkness at all. That's how it started. And I read the back of the book, and that's how it's going to usher in the glory of eternity too, with God being light. Revelation 21, verse 23, And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it. For the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. Last chapter verse 20 or chapter 22 verse 5 and there shall be no night there And they need no candle neither light of the sun for the Lord God giveth them light and they shall reign forever and ever amen And so he did this he he's the one who said let there be light. He's the one who called it light He's the one who divided the light from the day or the darkness excuse me And he saw these things and he said it was good And then it says this in verse number five, and God called the light day, and the darkness he called night, and the evening and the morning were the first what? The first day. The word day, here's a real quick Hebrew lesson, is yom. You've heard the word yom before. Yom Kippur, the day of what? Atonement. How long is the day of atonement? One what day? One 24-hour day, thank you. They think I'm done with one 24-hour day. Here's a... Put down in your fun fact folder, okay? Anytime the word yom is in the Old Testament, the word day, English word day, anytime that word is connected to a number, it's always a 24-hour period. So first day, second day, on the 15th day of Nissan, whatever the case may be, anytime the word Yom is connected to a number, it's always a 24-hour period. You say, well, what's the sample size? 410 times. 410 times, every time that word Yom is used with a number attached to it, it's a 24 hour period of time. I know that does not fit our modern day narrative. But the Bible was not written to fit the narrative, the Bible was written to be the narrative. Amen. And I mentioned to you last Wednesday night, and I know not everybody here fully believes this, but I do, I believe that the earth was created in six literal days. Yeah, I do. Took me a long time to get that point. I was educated in the public school system. I learned billions and trillions and zillions. I learned all those things. Epochs and eons. I learned all those things and so did you. And anybody in school today is learning those things. Somebody say amen. Right. And so it took some time for God to work on me and to convince me that it was not just possible, but it was a reality that He has the power to create something in under six days if He wants to. He could have just blinked His eye and said, let there be an entire universe, and it could have been in .6 milliseconds. Somebody say amen. I've already lost you. I said, okay. I believe that God's powerful. Amen. Verses six through eight. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. So we got something going on here. There's a division of waters and waters. Okay? Keep that in mind. And god made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were Above the firmament and it was so And god called the firmament heaven And the evening and the morning were the second what? day second day so In order for the planet that God had created, when he's going to allow this earth to come into existence on the next day, in order for that planet to be able to sustain life, human life especially, there had to be an atmosphere established. You know, there's eight or... I learned nine planets in the solar system growing up. My very educated mother just served us pine pickles. Pluto was the pickles, okay? But I guess that's not a planet any longer, but that's how I learned it. Anybody else learned that way? But anyway, there's the planet Earth and there's other planets. But only the planet Earth has an atmosphere to sustain life. Only Earth had the atmosphere to sustain life. Other planets don't have the right conditions. You know, when it started back there in verse number 2, the Earth was without form and void, you know, and the Spirit moved upon the face of the waters. We can kind of get this picture in our mind of this watery mass that has no real form, it has no real structure yet. But then God's going to take that watery mass and out of that He's going to make something new called a firmament. And He's going to divide the waters. There's going to be waters below the firmament. There's going to be the firmament. And then waters above the firmament. Make sense? So he's going to divide the waters. He's the one doing that. Affirmament, the easy definition or understanding of that, is it's just simply an expanse. It's an expanse of space, a thinly stretched out expanse of space. Now, this is what I believe. Talk about creation again, because there's no doubt it's a creation chapter. I believe that the pre-flood world was very different than the post-flood world. I believe the world before the flood was different in atmosphere, in character, in climate, than it was after the flood. We'll explain that more when we get to the flood chapter, but I want to give you this little taste tonight so you understand where we're going with this. Prior to the flood, This has been the theory that creationists have been using now for many, many years. And this is not new for you tonight. It's not new for me tonight. Maybe it's new for some of you. But they believe that this firmament idea was a water vapor canopy that completely enveloped the earth all the way around. And it was a transparent enough canopy for the sunlight to penetrate. It was a canopy of water vapor. Light could shine through it. There was a uniform climate from pole to pole. It blocked out UV radiation. It blocked out other harmful, destructive energies that cause aging, that cause many of the diseases of our day, that hasten the human death rate, all the different things. You know, and it really, when you start to look at, the world was a different atmosphere, a different climate back then, it helps us to begin to understand this unreal, these unreal numbers of longevity in Genesis. Because you look at a guy like Methuselah, who the Bible says lived for 969 years, You know, and we're fortunate to make 70, right, or 80, or some get to 100 and a few, but that's the upper limit of things. But if you take away the UV radiation and the other destructive energies that come into us, the cosmic rays and all those different things, you can begin to see, well, if they never got exposed to things that we get exposed to, Then they did live for 969 years. I my mind can't consume that But again by faith I'm believing this and I believe that the the water vapor Enveloped the earth until the flood came and when that when the when the water broke through and all the different things Then then everything changed from that day forward and so again We'll get to that a little bit a little bit later in our study, but I want you to understand that This idea of a water canopy or vapor canopy is not a new thing. And there are a few Bible verses that help us to understand that or at least back up that precept. Here's Isaiah 40 and verse 22 talk about God. It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants are as grasshoppers. I mean, compared to God, we're very small. that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. And so that tent is the idea of this canopy enveloping the earth, again, that pre-flood condition of the earth. And so, again, you can take that or leave it, but there's a lot of things that you have to be able to explain and understand and this is a very viable understanding of how the earth was before the flood came and why there was so much difference in the world than there is today and why there's so much early or early demise or premature death in the world that we live in today not even beginning to account for the fact that we're under a curse. Verse 9 And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together under one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. And God called the dry land earth. And the gathering together of the waters called he seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind. And God saw that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the third day. So we see the landmass begin to take shape, and God brings the landmasses out of the waters, and He begins again to divide and to organize. And we've got continents, and we've got islands, we've got oceans, we've got rivers, we've got seas, we've got all these things coming into existence. And then as this land is coming out of the water mass, then He's going to populate it with different kinds of green things like trees and grasses. herb-yielding seed, and all these different things. And I want you to think about this with your very vivid Liberty Baptist Church imagination tonight, that when God put an apple tree on the earth, He put it on there fully grown, apples on it ready to eat. Yeah. Okay? Are you following me or not? All right. We're almost done. Stick with me here. Verses 14 through 19. And God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. I love this. He made the stars also. I guess no big deal, but he made the stars also. All right. I look up at the stars in the night Prescott sky. I'm amazed. You know, you get into even darker areas, you can just see forever as you look into those stars and it's just mind-blowing. 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. The first time the word The word give, excuse me, is mentioned. I've got it here. Here it is, verse 15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light. The first time the word give is mentioned in the Bible is here in verse number 15. In the giving, it is the giving of light. The giver of light is giving us light. And light, you know, you think of light in the physical form, you know, and all the things that light does. I just wrote down just a handful of things, Give you a little bit of application here tonight. Light gives energy and warmth. Agreed? Light allows the production of food and fruit. Vegetation, fruit trees. Light also gives direction, doesn't it? A light for our path helps us so we're not stumbling along in the dark. It gives energy and warmth. It provides for food and fruit. It gives direction. You know, and God gave us light and our salvation. Jesus declared Christians to be the light of the world. And through that, we give energy and warmth through the idea of fellowship and edification. Wherefore, comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as also ye do. It's kind of a sad testimony of modern-day Christianity where there's a lot of breaking down, a lot of beating up, and not much of the fellowship and the restoration and the different things that are mentioned throughout the Bible, and edifying each other, building each other up, encouraging each other, exhorting one another, so much the more as you see the day approaching. Saints, amen. We're the light of the world. We can give a little bit of energy, a little bit of warmth, a little bit we have in us of that divine light. God says I want you to use that for my glory and for the betterment of my people. He also wants us to take that light and produce fruit. Here is my father glorified that ye bear much fruit So shall ye be my disciples. We know that he's the vine all we are is the branches, right? Without him we can't do anything without him if I can paraphrase verse 5 But you know, we also are we have this light in us to produce fruit You know that look that that fruit is souls or what that fruit is just the fruit of the Spirit continuing to be manifested in our Uh in our own individual walk with the lord we should be Thinking about the fact that we're supposed to be producing fruit with the light that god gave us He didn't give us the light to keep it to ourselves Amen It also gives direction it gives direction to a lost and dying world they need the light that jesus has They need the light that jesus can give And the way that's given us through our witnessing and through our sharing of our faith, but ye are a chosen generation Royal priesthood and holy nation a peculiar people That ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness Into his marvelous light. Have you forgotten that you're a one-time darkness? Who showed you the light Who came to your door who came to your bedside who who was your surgical future that showed you the fact that you need to come to Jesus somebody say amen to that Amen All of any light we produce is made possible by the by the fact that God through his power Caused us to be born again We are new creatures You know in the new creature was blind, but now here she sees They were dead in trespasses and sin and now they live in Forevermore and they will be with him forever in God's beautiful heaven Somebody say amen and at one time before you were saved you were at enmity with God And now God says you are in my family. I call you sons and daughters. Somebody say amen he named Everything that he has created he calls us now sons and daughters and It's just, again, some modern day or current time application. Number one, we do not answer to the universe. The universe has not spoken. But the creator of the universe has spoken. And his name is God. 32 times in the book of Genesis chapter one alone, somebody say amen. We don't answer to planet Earth. We don't answer to planet Earth. And we don't answer to Mother Nature. That's no such person. Somebody help me tonight. We answer to Creator God, Savior God, Redeemer God, Coming God. Everybody said. Thank you, Father, for this time tonight. Thank you for the Word of God. And Lord, this passage that just reinforces our faith in you and knowing your power, your creative instinct, the things that you have done and put into place and that are still working in perfect order, according to your plan, we see things from our human standpoint and we're sometimes very unhappy or very concerned about the way things are going but father we have to be reminded on a regular basis that you are in control and you know exactly what you're doing and there's a plan in all of this and we have to understand that we are part of your forever plan thank you father for this time together tonight father do praise you spoke to hearts tonight help us understand some more things about you Something about us and help us Lord to draw closer to you in our individual walks. We ask these things in Jesus name Amen, we're gonna sing the first verse of how great thou art the first verse in the chorus. They will be a spiritual prayer I I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, my power throughout the universe displayed. Sing my soul, my Savior God to Thee, how great Thou art. Father, just to say how great thou art. the Bible and about nature, if you want to do this.