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You can turn with me once again
to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1. I know a moment
ago we read the entire chapter. And so I will just read for us
the text we're going to be considering in more detail today, which is
verses 14 through 19. The title of the sermon today
is The Creation of the Sun moon, and stars, and this happened
on the fourth day. Genesis chapter 1, we'll read
verses 14 through 19. Again, this is God's Word. Infallible,
inerrant, it's incapable of error. Hear it. Then God said, let there
be lights in the firmament of the heavens, to divide the day
from the night. And let them be for signs and
seasons and for days and years. And let them be for lights and
the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth. And
it was so. Then 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. God set
them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on 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.
So the evening and the morning were the fourth day. The grass withers and the flower
fades, but the word of our God abides forever. Well, this morning
we come to the fourth day of the creation week. which took
place on Wednesday, the first Wednesday ever. Remember that
up to this point, we have learned that on the first day of the
week, on the first Sunday, God created all things out of nothing. The heaven of heavens were created,
the third heavens, and the earth. But at first the earth was without
form, it was formless, it was empty, it was dark, a watery
mass. And from that mass of stuff,
the universe would be formed. And what happened throughout
the rest of the period of the six days of the creation week
were to answer that problem of the formlessness and the emptiness
and the darkness of that place where no human being could live. Remember that the Earth is the
only inhabitable place in the universe. Of the entire expanse
that makes up the universe, and all the planets, and all the
stars, everything that exists in the universe, only the Earth
was made for mankind to live on. Not the Moon, not Mars, Earth
is the only place that is capable of sustaining life. And we see
in Genesis 1 just how much the Earth is the focus of attention,
isn't it? In terms of all that God created,
the Earth stands at the center. The focal point is the Earth. The things that are far greater
and can seem more amazing to us, like the sun, moon, and stars,
just receive Passing notice in one day of creation, you see. On the first day, just as a brief
review, God created light to answer the problem of darkness.
On the second and third days, God created the expanse and the
sea and the land to answer the formlessness problem. You remember
that on the second day, God divided the waters above from the waters
below and created an expanse or a firmament of the space and
sky. On the third day, God created
the land and the seas. He separated the waters that
were below from the land. The land arose from the deep
and the waters dissipated and the vegetation sprouted. As we read in Psalm 24 or as
we sing, In Psalm 24, and up from the seas he established
the land. And as we mentioned last week,
it is quite likely that at first the land was just one continent
with possibly various seas surrounding it. It does say he created the
seas. And you can still have multiple
seas, though there's only one continent. Just as there are
multiple seas around the large island of Australia. On the east
side of Australia is the Pacific Ocean. On the west side is the
Indian Ocean. To the south is the Southern
Ocean. And so it's not an argument against the idea of multiple
oceans just because there was one continent. And so after the
earth had been formed on days two and three, then God said
that it was good. Because you remember at the end
of day two, it's the only day he doesn't say what he didn't
say, or he didn't see that it was good. But once the earth
was formed, it was good. And so now, in the remaining
three days of creation, God will answer the emptiness problem. He answered the darkness problem,
he answered the formlessness problem, now he will answer the
emptiness problem. He will begin to fill the expanse
and he will fill the seas and the land. And so on day four
we see God filling the upper expanse, the second heavens of
outer space. Remember, the three heavens that
the scriptures clearly teach us. The first heavens is the
sky, the second heavens is outer space, and the third heavens
is the place of God's glorious throne. So on day four, God created
the sun, moon, and stars. And children, there's a really
easy way to remember it, mostly with just one word, these days,
right? You've got the first day, light, the second day, firmament,
or expanse, the third day, land, and the fourth day, if you wanted
to say one word, you could say luminaries, or you could say
the sun, moon, and stars. Now, I want to point out just
briefly, before we get into more details of the fourth day, that
most have recognized a certain correspondence between the first
three days of creation and the last three days of creation.
And many have seen this and affirmed this, commentators, theologians,
Christian scientists. On day one, you have the creation
of light. So if you have like, maybe from this, like one, two,
three, four, five, six. On day one, you have the creation
of light. On day four, which corresponds to day one, you have
the various lights created in the firmament. On day two, you
have the separation of the waters, the sky and then the water below.
And on day five, you have the filling of the sky with birds
and the water with fish and sea creatures. On day three, you
have the creation of land, and on day six, you have the filling
of the land with land animals and mankind. So I think there's
something to that. I don't want to press that too
strongly because it doesn't always fit nice and tightly like you
would think. Like, for example, on day two, there's the creation
of the expanse, but, and that's when the sun, moon, and star,
you know, so the day and the sun, moon, and stars doesn't correspond
to that. So it's not an exact correspondence, but I think there
is something to that. Now, as we turn to day four,
I will admit that this has been the hardest day for me so far. Not today, but this day we're
looking at. Because in one sense, it is pretty
straightforward. God made the sun, moon, and stars.
We know about our solar system. We've learned about this in school.
And it has been hard for me not to turn this sermon into a science
lesson. In fact, that goes for a lot
of these sermons. Plus, there are not as many exegetical
insights into this passage that I can bring out for you as I
have in the other previous texts. But nonetheless, I trust that
God will bless our study of this subject this morning and we will
appreciate God and be able to worship Him better as a result.
And I will also have you know that I have tried to research
those authors or those institutions that are more respected in Christian
circles, because there can be quite a variety of opinion on
these things, that at least most of us would deem trustworthy
and reliable, or at least worth listening to, like Answers in
Genesis or the Institute for Creation Research and places
like that. I'm not a scientist or a physicist
or an astronomer. And so I hope that if I make
any kind of mistakes, that will not hinder you from still being
blessed by the attempt at the exegetical work of this text. And so, with all that in mind,
let's consider the creation of the sun, moon, and stars on day
four together. To begin with, We know that God
created light before he created the particular lights we see
in the firmament in outer space. Psalm 74, 16 reminds us, you
have prepared the light and the sun. The light first, the sun
came later. The light on the first day came
perhaps from the third heavens, we mentioned that before, perhaps
from the glory of God himself, perhaps from the second person
of the Trinity, the Son of God, who would later call himself
the light of the world. and who it says in Revelation
that when the sun will be no more, will be the new light of
the new heavens and the new earth. So we can see a similarity between
the very beginning and the very end of scripture with regard
to the light. But in any case, this light did
shine upon the earth for the first three days and served to
divide the light from the darkness on those days in place of the
sun. And many are agreed, and it seems
most likely, that that light, that power of light, that source
of energy was then transferred on the fourth day to the lights
that we now have in the firmament, and in particular, the sun. It
was dispersed and solidified in those light bearers. And we
don't want to forget the work of the Holy Spirit throughout
this whole thing. The Spirit of God's not just
hovering over the surface of the waters at the beginning.
The Spirit of God is adorning creation. He is the active agent. Job 26.13 says, by His Spirit,
He adorned the heavens. But the greatest concentration
of light or the focal point of that light was obviously the
sun itself for the purpose of Earth's benefit. It was also
obviously dispersed to the stars. And as we know, the moon would
only reflect that light from the sun. But we do need to realize
that Moses is writing and that God is revealing these truths
to us from the perspective of Earth for our benefit. It is written in a way that even
the most uneducated and unlearned can understand. It's not a science
textbook. And so when an atheistic evolutionist
comes to Genesis and says, look, it says it's a lesser light,
but Moses is so dumb, doesn't he know that the moon doesn't
even display light? But see, God is giving us the
revelation in a way that we can understand, in a way that people
back then could have understood. And I like what Kyle and Delitzsch
said in their commentary with regard to this. God himself made
no direct revelation to man on this subject and what he means
by that, what they mean by that is the specifics of scientific
details. Because astronomy and physical
science generally neither lead to godliness nor promise peace
and salvation to the soul. And God's purpose of Genesis
1 is for his people to bow down before him in worship and adoration. God's given us creation as another
book and he encourages us to study it. We're going to look
at some of that today. The purpose is the worship of
God, not to satisfy our curiosities. Now as we look at the creation
of these lights, we remember that they are not the ultimate
source of light. As I mentioned when we looked
at the creation of light on day one, the word for light in verse
three on day one, when God said, let there be light, is different
from the word translated lights in Genesis 1.14, when God said,
let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens. It's not just
that one is singular and the other is plural. They're different
words. The word for light itself is
or. And that word is not used in
reference to the sun, moon, or stars at all in Genesis chapter
1. The word for lights in our text
for today is mayor in verse 14, which means light bearer or light
giver. Mayor refers to something that
can give off light, but that is not the actual source of light. Maor, light-bearer, or even light-holder,
is the same word that is used in reference to the light given
off from the lampstand in the tabernacle and temple. Numbers
4, 16, for example, mentions the duty of Eleazar, the son
of Aaron, the priest, to obtain and provide oil for the light.
of the golden lampstand, the mayor. And so we realize that
the source of light doesn't come from that lampstand. We bring
light to it, and as long as we maintain it, it continues. And so just as a candle or a
lamp cannot create light in themselves, there needs to be a wick and
oil and so forth, so the sun cannot produce light by itself. It is only a lamp, a lamp that
God has given to us as a beautiful gift to light the earth. Matthew Henry said this, no man,
when he has lighted a candle, puts it under a bushel, but on
a candlestick. And what a stately golden candlestick
is the firmament of heaven from which these candles give light
to all that are in the house, right? The earth is man's home. This is a lamp that gives light
to our house. And so God gives us this light.
He gives us these lights that we might glorify him by them,
that we might work and serve and worship him by the light
that he has given to us. I normally don't quote Matthew
Henry at length, but I'm gonna quote him one more time here because
this is just a great quote. This is what he says about this.
They give light upon the earth that we may walk and work according
as the duty of every day requires. The lights of heaven do not shine
for themselves, nor for the world of spirits above, who need them
not. They shine for us, for our pleasure
and advantage. How ungrateful and inexcusable
then are we, if when God has set up these lights for us to
work by, we sleep or play or trifle away the time of business
and neglect the great work we were sent into the world about.
The lights of heaven were made to serve us, and they do it faithfully,
and shine in their season without fail. But we are set as lights
in this world to serve God. And do we in like manner answer
the end of our creation? No, we do not. Our light does
not shine before God as his lights shine before us." And then he
says this, we burn our master's candles. but do not mind our
master's work. We burn our master's candles,
but do not mind our master's work. So the sun and the moon and the
stars are temporary lamps, even as the golden lampstand and the
tabernacle and temple were only temporary. And so God made the
greater light, the sun, to rule the day, and the lesser light,
the moon, to rule the night, and to take the place of the
light from day one temporarily, until Christ returns again, and
he once again will be that true light. As it says in Revelation
21, 23, the city had no need of the sun or of the moon to
shine it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The lamb is its
light. Now it's worth pointing out here
that the Hebrew word for create, bara, which we see in Genesis
1, verse 1, is not used here. In fact, that word create, it's
only ever used of God in that particular Hebrew form when God
is doing something brand new. And so that word create is only
used at the very beginning of Genesis 1, when God creates the
heavens and the earth, right? And then when we get down to
the creation of animals, it's used again. And then when it
comes to the creation of mankind, it's used again. He's doing something
brand new. But all throughout the other
days, he's not using the word create, bara. He's using the
word made, asah. It can also be translated as
fashion or work on. So God made and fashioned and
worked on these two great lights. And thus many are agreed that
God was not creating anything entirely new on day four when
God said that let there be lights. It wasn't something brand new
when he created the luminaries. Rather, God was taking the pre-existing
material, the pre-existing elements from the watery mass And in particular,
hydrogen and helium predominantly, which make up almost 90% of the
sun, and using them as a wick, as it were, to set the sun on
fire with his glory. You can just think, too, about
how God did this at the tabernacle and the temple, when there was
the first giving of the fire on the altar, when the tabernacle
was first built, when the temple was first built, right? Then
God sent down fire and lit that altar on fire, and then the priests
were to use the coals from that fire to burn the incense. They
were to keep that fire going. And here we can think about the
sun. We see this combination of hydrogen and helium like a
wick, and the glory of God from the third heavens comes forth
like a great big fire, and it sets the sun on fire. It's dispersed
to all the stars in the universe. But what I want you to realize
is that The reasons given for the making of the sun, moon,
and stars are basically twofold, and they're obviously closely
connected to one another. They were appointed to give light,
obviously, but they were also appointed as time markers or
indicators. One of the main reasons for the
luminaries is in order to set in motion the ordering and identification
of days and months and seasons and years. In fact, if anything,
the luminaries were given to us first and foremost in order
to tell time. First and foremost in order to
tell time, and then secondarily to give light. We already have
light without the sun, or the moon, or the stars. But the ordering
of our solar system, with the sun and moon especially, enables
us to have more exact time markers. And God has set up the sun, moon,
and stars for that very reason. In fact, if you were to look
up something along the lines of time in the Encyclopedia Britannica,
the first words you'll read are, celestial bodies provide the
basic standards for determining the periods of the calendar. Without those, we would not be
able to tell time. We would not have a calendar.
There would be no order or structure to our lives. Can you imagine
if we had no calendar? If we had no days? That would
be chaotic. Notice from our text that this
whole idea of telling time is mentioned first. And the light
is actually mentioned second. Look at verse 14 again. Then
God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens
to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and
seasons and for days and years. And then also let them be for
lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the
earth. Now let's look at these four
terms a little more carefully. Signs, seasons, days, and years. The first word is sign. And this
is the typical word we find for sign throughout the Old Testament.
This is the same word translated as the mark that was put on Cain,
whereby everyone knew not to kill him because God had put
a mark on him. It's the same word that's used
with reference to the sign of the covenant of circumcision.
A sign is an identifier. It always points to something
greater than itself, and in the Bible, to the one who appointed
and gave that sign. And thus, the first thing that
the sun and moon and stars are to do is to point us to the Creator. They're a sign of His creation. And this is ironic, because of
all that God has created, it is the sun and moon and stars
that have been the most worshipped. especially in ancient history.
Many, many cultures worshipped the sun and moon. The Egyptians,
many cultures had names for them, but the Egyptians had a name
for the sun god Ra and the moon god Thoth. And of course, they
worshipped many other things in creation and other gods, and
each of the ten plagues was a judgment on each of the gods that they
worshipped. But before the death of the firstborn, before the
last plague, the next to greatest judgment was on the sun god,
Ra, when God created a great darkness, right, over that particular
part of the land of Egypt where Pharaoh and the Egyptians were,
so that they could not see a darkness so great that it could be felt.
And God was, in essence, saying, where is your god now, Pharaoh?
Where is Ra? Where is your worship of the
sun? I wiped it out. And here in our text, did you
notice that God doesn't even name the sun and moon. The cultures
had names for their sun god and their moon god. But God doesn't
even name the greater light and the lesser light. He named other
things. He called the land earth and
the water he called seas. And he does refer to the stars.
But when it comes to the sun and the moon, he just says, oh,
that's just the greater light and that's just the lesser light.
Just lights in the sky, just little lamps, you see. But the sun and the moon, were
meant to point us, of all things in the creation, to the great
and awesome God who made them. But man, in his rebellion against
God, chose to worship the creature, the creation, rather than the
creator. But the sun, moon, and stars
as signs were indicators of things. Just as we look at signs or read
signs in order to understand certain things, the stars, of
course, have been abused and misused by astrologers and diviners
and soothsayers who've tried to determine things, including
the future, by the stars. We can think of the 12 zodiac
signs that some people live by. This is obviously not what is
in view in Genesis 1. But it can be said that before
the compass, centuries before the compass, travelers and sailors
used the stars for navigation. And we know that the wise men
in the East followed the sign of that one particular star to
the place where Jesus was and worshiped him. Matthew 2.2, we
have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.
But as we will see, in some ways, the word sign here kind of encompasses
the whole idea behind the time markers of days and seasons and
years. That word just kind of sets us
up for the other words, okay? Because they help, they're signs
to us about time. How to live life. Seasons, we'll
talk about that. Seasons are mentioned next. This,
I believe, refers to the seasons of the year as well as to the
appointed times of the worship of God's people in Israel. And
these two, of course, are related to one another. The word translated
season can also be translated as appointed time or appointed
feast or can refer to an appointed meeting. The Jewish religious
calendar in the Old Testament that God commanded to be kept
and observed was largely determined by the time markers which the
sun and the moon gave on particular days of the year. God's people
were to worship the Lord and bring a sacrifice at the beginning
of months. Numbers 28, 11 says this, at
the beginnings of your months, you shall present a burnt offering
to the Lord. And how are the months determined?
But by the moon, by the moon's rotation around the earth. In
fact, the Hebrew word for month, kodesh, means new moon. Exodus 12.2 says this, this month,
kodesh, can be also referred as the new moon, shall be your
beginning of months. It shall be the first month of
the year to you. Psalm 104 verse 19 says, he appointed
the moon for seasons and the sun knows it's going down. The
Old Testament Jewish religious calendar is now done away with. But we still use the light of
the sun to determine the days of the week. And we have historically
used the sun to tell time. Have you children ever heard
of the sundial, right? By which we're able to tell time.
And we still worship the Lord at appointed times, at appointed
seasons, namely the first day of the week. The day that God
initially created the heavens and the earth. The day that God
said, let there be light. The day that Jesus rose from
the dead. This day. And so the luminaries were given
to us to help us set up times of worship and set times for
work. But then also the location of
the sun relative to the earth determines the seasons for us
as well. Fall and winter and spring and
summer. And the only reason we have seasons
or could have those seasons is because the earth is tilted on
its axis at 23.5 degrees. A little bit more, a little bit
less would throw that all off. If it was not tilted such it
is now, we wouldn't have the seasons that we have now. And
there would be far greater extremes of temperature that would be
unbearable for us. The regular recurrence of the
appointed seasons allows for us to determine the seed time
and harvest time on a consistent basis. Do you see how God is
ordering time and everything that happens within time according
to these luminaries, you see? Days are also mentioned in our
text. And they hardly need more elaboration
since I already spent a whole sermon on this subject. But suffice
it to say that the days here referred to could only be literal
24-hour days, since it mentions the lights in the firmament dividing
the daytime from the nighttime, thus making a 24-hour cycle of
light and darkness, morning and evening. And notice here that
it mentions the daytime first and the nighttime second over
and over again in this particular section, which is normally how
we think of a day. It says he divides the day from
the night. He made the greater light than
the lesser light. And so, as I've said to you before,
throughout each day, when it mentions evening first and then
morning, what that's referring to is God's done with His work.
Now it's evening time. When morning comes up again,
it's 24 hours. But here in this section of text,
it mentions the day first and then the night, how we normally
think of a day. And if the luminaries simply
replace the function of the original light created on day one, which
the context clearly teaches, then the days of creation could
only be literal 24-hour days. It doesn't make sense to view
them any other way. And the more I've studied this,
the more I've grown to be impatient, I hope it's not as sinful impatience,
with those who try to take a different theory by bringing in man's ideas
and mixing them with the text and creating an eisegetical interpretation
of the text rather than the text itself dictating to us what it
says. The gap theory, the framework
hypothesis, the day-age theory, I have no respect for it. None. It's a lie. It's deceitful. It's not the truth of the Word
of God. And then finally, verse 14 also
mentions years. And we know that the years are
calculated by the Earth's rotation around the Sun, it taking 365
days to do so. Or, as some Christians do, if
you happen to believe in geocentricity, then the Sun rotating around
the Earth. But either way, it is by this rotation that we determine
a year. And lo and behold, all the way
back in Genesis 5, we see people calculating their age such that
we can read that the first man, Adam, lived to be 930 years old
and he died. All the way back to the very
beginning, they're able to calculate the days and the months and the
years. And we know that Adam lived to
be 930 years old. It's not something that developed
later over time. It's something God revealed to Adam. You see, all of this shows God's
wonderful government and consistent rule over creation. It doesn't
detract from God's glory, it enhances it. The sun, moon, and
stars do not hinder a belief in God who created all things,
but rather it establishes it because you see the well-ordered
government that God has set up. Notice that it says in verse
16 that the sun and moon were set up to rule the day and the
night. God made two great lights, the
greater light to rule the day, the lesser light to rule the
night. This is a word that is applied to magistrates who rule. It can also be translated as
govern, or to have dominion. And what a powerful dominion
the sun and the moon have. Is there anybody out there who
is going to dare to do anything against what the sun desires
to do? Is there anybody out there who
is going to lasso the moon and change its course or its position? Is there anybody who would dare
defy the luminaries and stop time or turn back time? No, God
has established this order, this government, this dominion, and
it cannot stop and it cannot change. And you can't take one
minute back. As badly as you may want to,
you can't take one minute back. It's over and gone, and it keeps
on going. Can you imagine the sun saying,
I don't want to shine today? It obeys God perfectly. But what
does that teach about us and how sinful we are? God expects
us to be just like that sun. We don't shine for him like the
sun shines for us. But more than this, this well-ordered
government shows us the faithfulness and the consistency of our God
who does not change and who will never break his promises. The
luminaries in the sky are a testimony to us, a sign to his people that
he will be faithful to keep his promises and his covenant. Listen
to what it says in Jeremiah 31, verses 35 and 36. Thus says the
Lord who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the
moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea
and its waves roar, the Lord of hosts is his name. If those
ordinances depart from before me, says the Lord, then the seed
of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before me forever. Jeremiah 33 verses 19-22 says
this, And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, Thus
says the Lord, If you can break my covenant with the day and
my covenant with the night, so that there will not be a day
and night in their season, then my covenant may also be broken
with David my servant, so that he shall not have a son to reign
on this throne. and with the Levites, the priests,
my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot
be numbered, and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so
I will multiply the offspring of David, my servant, and the
Levitical priests who minister to me." You see how God is hearkening
back to the covenant relationship that He has established with
His people. And He's saying, the sun and
moon and stars, I've made a covenant with them. Have you ever seen
it broken? Have you ever seen it stop? then you can be assured
that my covenant promise to you will not fail. And therefore
God could say to Noah after the flood in Genesis 8, 22, while
the earth remains sea time and harvests cold and heat, winter
and summer, day and night shall not cease. And they never have. It's a testimony. It's a sign
of God. It teaches us about God. Now,
I want to take just a couple moments, and I want us to consider
a little bit more about the things we know about the luminaries,
or maybe that we don't know. But I want to talk about the
sun, moon, and stars just for a moment. As we all know, the sun is a
great big ball of fire in the sky. It's massive. You could
fit over a million Earths in the sun. Over a million Earths. The sun is so big that it has
99% of the mass of the solar system. Of all the things that
take up mass, the sun takes up over 99% of the mass in our solar
system. It is one among many stars, but
it is also unique. And it is the only star in our
solar system. Though there are other stars
in the universe that are bigger and brighter than the sun, our
sun is up there, and secular sources didn't say anything about
this, but the Christian sources did, that the sun is brighter
than 90% of the stars in the galaxy. 90% brighter. One of
the unique things about our sun is its amazing stability. Many
of the other stars in the universe are not nearly as stable as our
sun, and they emit what are called super flares quite often. Now,
our sun has emitted flares as well, but they established that
our sun is far more stable than many of the stars out there. So God has given us a very stable
and reliable sun. The temperature of the sun at
its core is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. I mean, is it any
wonder that God said to Moses, you can't see me, you can't see
my glory and live? God's glory, his power, his fire
is greater than the sun. It set it on fire, 27 million
degrees. The surface of the sun is about
10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The Earth is about 93 million
miles away from the sun, and thus only receives a small fraction
of the sun's energy. But without the sun's energy,
life as we know it could not exist on planet Earth. The sun
provides us with light, heat, energy, and it enables plants
to produce chemical energy through a photosynthesis, The gravity
of the sun holds everything together in our solar system. Isn't that such a wonderful picture
of Christ? Christ who holds all things together. It says we'll be like Christ
when we're resurrected. Jesus says this amazing thing
in Matthew 13, 43. The righteous shall shine like
the sun in the kingdom of their father. I won't say as much about the
moon, but it is also important. The moon is about one-fourth
the size of the earth in width. It's about a quarter of a million
miles away from the earth, 250,000. The moon is largely black in
reality because a lot of its surface is covered with basalt.
The moon appears white at night only because it is reflecting
the light of the sun, and the sun is essentially white, not
yellow. That is also why clouds are white,
because they are scattering the sun's white sunlight. But the
moon's gravity affects the entire Earth as well, pulling at the
entirety of the planet so that every bit of water in the ocean
is affected. The moon's gravity is vital for
life on Earth because it cleanses the oceans, keeping the ocean
circulated. And thus, it has a far-reaching
impact on the life on our planet. Isn't that incredible? God's
design? Do you know the ridiculousness
of unbelievers and what they say about the moon? They say
that a great big asteroid or something hits the earth and
then a chunk comes off of it and it becomes the moon. A perfect
sphere that rotates around the earth, that affects the waters
in our ocean. Can you give me a break? How
ridiculous man is when they reject the truth. I was looking at the
moon last night as I was thinking and studying about these things
on my way home and the moon was coming out and I looked over
and I was just like, how is that there? It's incredible. It's incredible, congregation,
to think about our universe. Now I'll tell you what's incredible
is the stars. The word for star in Hebrew in this text is kokab. It can refer to any small glowing
heavenly object. And so I think the word here
does include the other planets because they appear as small
glowing objects in outer space. But for the most part, the stars
mentioned refer to the stars as we think of them. And there's
a large variety of them with different colors and temperatures
and sizes. And they are all basically giant
hot balls of gas. And as I mentioned before, some
stars are bigger and brighter than our own sun, although it
doesn't seem that way because they are so far away. This is
what Jonathan Sarfati said in his excellent book called The
Genesis Account. This guy is very solid, very
conservative. It's a really good book. Jonathan Sarfati, The Genesis
Account. He says this, the most massive
and luminous star known has a surface nine times hotter than the sun. Nine times hotter. 265 times
more massive. 265 times more massive than our
sun. And 8.7 million times brighter. Now what's amazing and incredible
about the stars is the vast number of them. When Galileo developed his telescope,
and just to give you a reference point, he died in 1642, when
he developed his telescope, he could only see about 30,000 stars. That'd be a lot to count. With
the powerful telescopes we have today, we know it is utterly
impossible to count them all. It is estimated that there are
about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone, 100 billion. But in terms of the universe,
this is where the statistics are really mind-blowing. This
is Sarfati again, he says this. The observable universe is so
huge, 46 billion light years radius, as far as what we can
see so far or know of, The observable universe is so huge that it is
estimated to contain about 10 to the 22nd power of stars. Let me put this in perspective.
It's like several hundred billion trillion, whatever it is. So
this number, now listen to this, listen to this. This number is
so vast that even using a computer that could count a trillion stars
every second. If it could count a trillion
stars every second, it would take over 300 years to count
that high. And what is perhaps even more
incredible than that is this little phrase, and he made the
stars also. He just made those also. Psalm 147 verse 4 says, he determines
the number of the stars and he gives to all of them their names. Another person I read said that
to count the stars is exactly like trying to count the grains
of sand on the seashore. You know, I used to read Genesis
15 when God's speaking to Abraham and he says, if you can count
the stars and the sand on the seashore, I'm thinking, well,
there's way more sand in the seashore. No, there isn't. It's incredible. And God says
to Abraham, so shall your descendants be. That many? Congregation,
I think we have a lot of work to do. I don't think we're even
anywhere close to that. I think that Earth could extend
hundreds and thousands of years more before we'd have that many
believers. This is not professing Christians.
It's true believers who'll be resurrected. As many as the sand
in the seashore and the stars in the sky. Do you see how creation
sets forth the glory of God? Daniel 12 verse 3 says, those
who are wise, I think it's referring to believers, shall shine like
the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness
like the stars forever and ever. See, there's a lesson there.
As many as those stars are, we will be and we will shine like
them. Congregation, this is utterly
incredible. But you know what is also interesting about the
stars is they really don't have as vital a role as the sun and
the moon do. And the question is, do we really
need the stars? You know, as I thought about
this, I think that, and others have said this too, I think that
the main reason that God created the stars was to show us his
glory. To show us who he is. The glory,
the power of God. The infinitude of God, the immensity
of God. The universe, especially our
solar system, works like a well-ordered government. It is incredible. It is not chaotic. It is not
a competing and conflicted chaos, but a well-ordered cosmos. Do
you want to know how well-ordered our cosmos is? How much of an
exact science it is? You can go online, and you can
Google when the sunrise will be on any given day in the future,
and it will tell you exactly. You know when the sun rose this
morning? It was at 6.44 a.m. And you know if you Google when
the sunrise will be one year from now in 2026? It'll be at
6.44 a.m. And you know if you Google 100
years from now, in the year 2125, on August 31st, when will the
sun rise at 6.44? And you can pick any day of the
year and it will tell you. And you see, this is something
that the unbelieving atheist cannot account for. This is what
Christian apologists who are defending the faith call an argument
regarding the uniformity of nature, right? When you argue with those
who are unbelievers and you get into their worldview and you
get to see that they are depending upon the Christian view, they're
depending on the Bible for the basis of their arguments. You
see, the unbeliever will assume that the sun will rise tomorrow,
but they have no reason for that basis. And you say to them, you're
borrowing from my worldview. You're borrowing from the Bible.
I know the sun will rise. You don't, because you don't
believe in God, you see. And I would remind you that we
are in the only location of this vast universe that can sustain
life. Scientists call this the Goldilocks
zone, because everything is just right. You remember that, children?
The story of Goldilocks and the three bears, right? And the papa
bear's porridge is too hot, and the mama bear's porridge is too
cold. And then the little baby bear, or girl bear, whatever
bear, the little bear, porridge is just right. And then he goes
to the chairs and the beds. Well, they say, we're in the
Goldilocks zone because it's just right. The planets next
to us, they can't sustain life, and they never will. And people
want to find so badly life in other places of the universe,
life on other planets. But they never will. They never
will. But you don't need to look. You
don't need to look for that if you know God. If you will simply
believe in the God who created it all, if you will believe in
the God of the scriptures, acknowledge Him and bow down to Him and serve
Him and worship Him. From the created universe, it's
clear, crystal clear, that God created it all. The problem with
man is not ignorance, it's rebellion against God. As we read earlier
in Romans 1.20, we're almost done, we're getting close, pay
attention. Romans 1.20, think about this verse in light of
all that we just learned. For since the creation of the
world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen. Oh, they're
so clearly seen. being understood by the things
that are made, even as eternal power and deity, so that they
are without excuse. It's not that they can't see
the truth. It's that they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Isaac Newton said this, This
most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could
only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent
and powerful being. Johannes Kepler said this, the
undevout astronomer is mad. The undevout astronomer is mad. There's an article I read by
a guy named Jason Lyle from the Institute for Creation Research. He talks about the Voyager 1
spacecraft. This is what he says. When the
Voyager 1 spacecraft, this was something that didn't have people
on or anything like that. When the Voyager 1 spacecraft reached
the edge of our solar system in 1990, it turned its camera
around and photographed Earth. From such a tremendous distance,
the earth appears as a tiny bluish-white grain of sand lost in an ocean
of blackness. This famous image of earth is
named the Pale Blue Dot. The creation is meant to help
us to see how big God is and how small and insignificant we
are. You know, I've quoted from a
lot of Christians, but I'm going to quote from an atheist here who you guys probably
have all heard about, a physicist named Stephen Hawking. It's amazing
what he says in this statement that is so true and yet so false
at the same time. This is what he says. This is
a person who studied these things. This is what he says, Stephen
Hawking. He's dead now. We are such insignificant
creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in the outer
suburb of one of a hundred billion galaxies. So it is difficult
to believe in a God that would care about us or even notice
our existence. That's a man who knows what he's
talking about, but it's so sad because he doesn't know God.
Is this what the psalmist says in Psalm 8? When I consider your
heavens and the work of your fingers and the moon and the
stars, which you have ordained, what is man? What is man? That you are mindful of him or
the son of man that you visit him. And you know, congregation, the
only reason why you and I believe in this God, it's not because
of the sun or the moon or the stars. It's because God had mercy
on us to see what nobody can see unless God opens their eyes.
On us puny, insignificant creatures, and yet what is so incredible
is that God became one of those creatures. He became like us. He took upon him human flesh
so that he could be a speck of dust on a speck of a planet in
the entire universe. The infinite and eternal Son
of God took upon him flesh and became a man for our salvation. Congregation, We're nothing. We're nothing compared to God,
and we're nothing without God. But if anything, this whole passage,
what it teaches us is that God created time, and our time is
so short. There are some theologians that
say, like, you know, there's still time before creation and
time after. See, even good theologians, they're
dead wrong. There's no time before creation, and there's no time
after Christ returns. In James 4, 14, we're reminded
our life is but a vapor that continues a little while, and
then it vanishes away. In congregation, I don't know
that there is anything, any commodity that we can think of that's so
as valuable as time. Because once time happens, you
can't go back, and you can't change it. And you only have
a small window of time. Jonathan Edwards said this, time
is so short and the work is so great that we have to do in it
that we have none of it to spare. The work that we have to do to
prepare for eternity must be done in time or it can never
be done at all. Congregation, this is the time
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust in him and to
live for him because our time is like that. The sun, the moon,
the stars, they just keep going. And it will not change until
Christ returns again. And then there will be the end
of time. So congregation, let us live
in worship and adoration of this God who has created all these
things, who has ordered and structured time, and has given us time to
believe in him. and to live for Him. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank
You for the Word that You brought to us this morning. Oh, we just
stand in awe of who You are, of Your greatness and of Your
glory and of Your mercy upon us. Oh, thank You. Thank You
that not only have You shown to us the sun and the moon and
the stars, but You've shown us the Son of Righteousness who
has healing in His wings that we may come to Him and be forgiven
and saved and be with Him forever and shine like the stars forever
and ever. O Lord, if there are any in this
place who have not believed and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ,
we pray, Lord, that You would cause them to bend the knee to
Jesus this day, to submit themselves to the rule and government that
you have ordained, to submit themselves to Christ, to believe
in Him and to live for Him forevermore, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
The Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Stars
Series Genesis
| Sermon ID | 93252220365334 |
| Duration | 59:11 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Genesis 1:14-19 |
| Language | English |
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