We are going to begin our look at the six days of creation in the book of Genesis.
You know, throughout the centuries, there have been just so many believers that hold,
which we should, hold that the Word of God is inerrant, that it is true, that it is perfect
and inaccurate in all ways without error, yet have differed over the interpretation
of the six days of creation.
But what believers in God's Word don't differ on is that the six days
of creation is a factual, historical account.
Now, knowing that there's some disagreement on exactly what happened,
we should always be gracious and humble and kind before we draw battle lines, all right?
Before we ever get into arguments and disagreements claiming that,
that one's own interpretive view of the six days of creation is the test
of sound theology and doctrine, okay?
I do want to touch on a little bit as we're opening today and as we're getting into this,
that there are, you know, quite a few major views of how to interpret the six days
of creation in Genesis.
There's at least six major ones.
Some say there's as many as nine and ten different interpretations.
But those major six ones are simply this.
Some people read the six days of creation as what's called punctuated activity, right?
They look at it and they go, each of the six days of creation or seven days of creation,
they're a 24-hour period as we understand 24 hours,
but then there was an indefinite amount of time between each day.
That's one view people have.
Another view of creation is the gap theory, which we touched on last week a little bit,
you know, simply put that verse one, God created the heavens and the earth perfect.
Then between verse one and verse two, there was some type of event commonly understood
to be the fall of Satan and then the earth became without form and void.
And what we have then in the six days of creation is a reforming of the earth.
Some people look at the six days of creation with what's called the day-age view,
where they look at the word day to mean what one of the meanings of the word is,
what it means an age or an epoch or a span of time.
Like we would say in the day of King Arthur, right?
We mean in the time of King Arthur or in scripture, we read this phrase, the day of the Lord.
And it's not referring to a 24-hour period there, it's referring to an age.
And so some people say that the six days of creation are ages and they do that to say,
hey, when we look at the geological ages, assuming they're accurate, they line that up.
Other people look at the six days of creation, they go, they're not actually six days at all
and it's not even referring to that, it's just a literary device to tell the story.
So it's like God did this, then, God did this, then, God did this, right?
That's how they view it.
Some people look at it as the analogical day view, which is simply this.
They go, the days are actual days, but they're not our 24-hour days.
They're God's work days.
And we'll talk a little bit more of that later, but they say, so it's similar.
There's an analogical similarity between our days and God's days,
but God's days are different than ours.
And then there's the 24-hour solar view, that the days of creation were literally 24 hours,
that creation took place over a span of what we would know as 144 hours from beginning to end.
Now, for sure, there is only one true real way that it happened, right?
But the problem when we're reading this and interpreting this is
we learn the same lesson that Job learned from God.
You see, Job once questioned God's wisdom and then God was like,
where were you when I created the earth?
Guess what the answer to that is?
Not there.
And none of us were there.
Nobody was there when God created it, and so we're left to deduce the possibilities
of what these six days mean by reading God's word.
We're left to deduce it by what God has revealed in His word.
And then when we come to interpretive times where there's,
there's probably more than one likely possibility due to God not specifying in exact detail,
we discuss, we study, we debate with kindness and graciousness and goodwill.
Okay?
So just like many believers differ over the timing of the rapture, right?
We dealt with that when we went through Revelation,
that there's these different views of the timing of when the rapture is going to take place.
We can still have our differences in our creation interpretation
and still get along without accusing one another of falsehood or heresy.
So that's the big setup as we go through the days of creation.
And so with that being said, today what we're going to look at in Chapter 1 of Genesis
is Moses' intent in writing and documenting the creation story.
What his intent was, how the Israelites who originally got this letter would have read it,
would have interpreted it based upon their time and culture.
And then we're going to begin looking at the actual days of creation themselves,
discussing some possible interpretations of those days.
But most important, we're going to focus in on and learn through application
what this teaches for our lives today.
How we live for God better today based upon what we learn in the story of creation.
Amen?
All right, let's pray.
Father, we love you so much, God, and we're so grateful and we're so thankful to who you are, Lord.
God, as we study your Word and we've been studying the beginning, Lord,
we have learned so much about who you are, God, that you are outside of your creation,
Lord, that you are timeless and eternal.
And God, we trust in that as believers, Lord.
We're able to just put our faith in that because, God, if we can believe what your Word says about you,
that you existed before everything and you will always exist,
then, Lord, when we put our faith in you and trust in the promises of your Word,
that should bring us great comfort.
Because if God be for us, who can be against us?
God, if you're with us and you love us and you call us your children and you do,
God, in the power and just the resources you have created the entire universe from nothing,
then, Lord, we have no place to freak out when we're going through stuff.
Because we are your kids, you hear our prayers.
So, God, we're so grateful.
And, Lord, encourage us today as we start to study these six days, God,
that we would see, Lord, in this abridged account, God,
what you want to tell us about yourself.
Lord, your Word reveals to us exactly what you wanted to reveal to us.
And so, Lord, let us learn, let us be encouraged, God,
at the great power you have to form order out of chaos,
to form restored relationships out of broken ones,
to form saved sinners out of lost sinners.
God, we love you and we thank you.
We worship you now as a creator, the Almighty God,
the one who came to this earth, born, lived, and died on the cross for our sins.
God, we worship you, Elohim, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, we are looking at the six days of creation today,
and I felt like the Lord just wanted me to read the entire account.
And then we will go through it piece by piece.
But if you'll join me in Genesis chapter 1, starting in verse 2.
It says, Now the earth was formless and empty.
Darkness covered the surface of the watery depths,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
Then God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light day, and the darkness He called night.
There was an evening, and there was a morning, one day.
Then God said, Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.
So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse,
from the water above the expanse, and it was so.
God called the expanse sky.
Evening came, and then morning, the second day.
Then God said, Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place,
and let the dry land appear, and it was so.
God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the water He called seas.
And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, Let the earth produce vegetation,
seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth,
bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.
And it was so.
The earth produced vegetation, seed-bearing plants according to their kinds,
and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.
And God saw that it was good.
Evening came, and then morning, the third day.
Then God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night.
They will serve as signs for seasons, and for days, and for years.
They will be lights in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth.
And it was so.
God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule over the day,
and the lesser light to rule over the night, as well as the stars.
God placed them in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth,
to rule the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.
And God saw that it was good.
Evening came, and then morning, the fourth day.
Then God said, Let the water swarm with living creatures,
and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.
So God created the large sea creatures,
and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water according to their kinds.
He also created every winged creature according to its kind,
and God saw that it was good.
God blessed them.
Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas,
and let the birds multiply on the earth.
Evening came, and then morning, the fifth day.
Then God said, Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds,
livestock, creatures that crawl in the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds.
And it was so.
So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds,
the livestock according to their kinds,
and all the creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds.
And God saw that it was good.
God saw that it was good.
Then God said, let us make man in our image,
according to our likeness.
They will rule the fish of the sea,
and the birds of the sky, the livestock,
the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.
So God created man in his own image.
He created him in the image of God.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them, and God said to them,
be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky,
and every creature that crawls on the earth.
God also said, look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant
on the surface of the entire earth,
and every tree whose fruit contains seed.
This will be food for you.
For all the wildlife on the earth,
for every bird in the sky, and for every creature
that crawls on the earth, everything having
the breath of life in it, I have given
every green plant for food, and it was so.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed.
Evening came, and then morning, the sixth day.
So the heavens and the earth, and everything in them,
were completed.
Now when you're studying through this account of creation,
you might notice a few things, and one of them is that
these six days of creation are arranged
in a very intentional way.
From the details of each day, what you'll see
is that the first three days of creation
are the forming of the earth, and the second three days
of creation are the filling of the earth,
and that's a direct response to the condition
that the earth was in that we read about in verse two,
where it tells us that the earth was formless and empty.
And so God's creative narrative is shown as how he made
the formless earth with form,
and he made the empty earth filled.
Now there's also a beautiful order in symmetry
between the first days and the last three days as well.
Day one corresponds to day four.
You see on day one, God formed day and night
by creating light and separating it from darkness
and called it day and night.
And then God created the sun and moon and stars on day four
to mark the days and the years, so he formed light,
if you will, and then he filled the sky
with light-producing objects.
Day two corresponds to day five.
You see on day two, he created the sky,
he formed it by separating the waters above
from the waters below, and then in day five,
he fills the sky with birds and fills the sea with fish.
Day three corresponds to day six.
On day three, God forms the dry land,
and then he forms plant life to serve as food
for all the creatures that he then, on day six,
fills the dry land with.
He fills the dry land with animal life,
and he created man to rule over all of it.
And so there's symmetry and beauty
in the story of God's creation.
One of the attributes of God that we know
that the Bible teaches is that God is perfect.
Everything God does, everything God says
is exactly according to how it should be.
And in the very story of creation,
what we see is the perfection of God,
the perfect order of God.
There's even a numerical harmony in this,
and this is just kind of fun little details,
but in the Bible, there's different numbers
that refer to different things.
We kind of see numbers referring to this or that
in the Bible, and in scripture,
the number seven often refers to the idea
of perfection or completion, right?
You'll see things that are in multiples of seven,
and it's often connected to a story
of perfection or completion.
And so what's interesting is if you go back to verse one,
in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,
there's three main nouns in that opening verse.
It's God, the heaven, and the earth.
Now through the entirety of chapter one
in the original Hebrew language,
those nouns are used in multiples of seven.
God, Elohim, is referenced 35 times,
that's a multiple of seven.
Heaven and earth are both mentioned exactly 21 times,
that's a multiple of seven.
In verse one, in the Hebrew language,
it's exactly seven words long.
Verse two in the Hebrew language is exactly 14 words long,
a multiple of seven.
And then in chapter two, verses two and three,
which is the seventh paragraph of the creation narrative,
the seventh paragraph details the seventh day,
the day that God rested.
Now that reference of the seventh day there,
the story of that, it's only three sentences long.
Each one of those sentences has exactly seven words
in the original Hebrew language.
And in those three sentences,
right in the middle of those seven words in Hebrew
is the phrase the seventh day.
Now that's called Bible nerd stuff, okay?
But it's really fun to see that type of thing
because it shows us that the story of creation
is marked by absolute perfection,
absolute flawless symmetry, order, and balance.
And it's telling us that that's who God is.
That's who our God is, the God that we submit our lives to,
the God that we trust, the God that we yield to,
the God that created everything.
And he goes, yeah, I am the God of perfection,
balance, order,
creative perfection in every way.
And so although the story here in the original Hebrew,
it's very poetic, it's not just symbolic.
In the original Hebrew, the whole story is written
in what's called the narrative tense, right?
The Hebrew language has different tenses,
verb tenses that things are written.
And the narrative tense simply means
that it's an account of factual events.
It's not written to be just an allegorical poem
or a metaphorical story.
It's written as actual history.
And if you're a Bible student,
you might see that in Exodus and Isaiah and Jonah
and Hebrews and Revelation, those books in the Bible,
they all refer to the creation story as factual history.
And so as I've stated, this account, however,
that we have in chapter one,
it's not an exhaustive account, right?
It doesn't describe every single tiny detail
of what God did in creating everything
from the smallest atom up to the largest galaxy
that exists out in the universe.
It's an abridged account of what actually happened, however,
when God created the heavens and the earth.
Hebrew writing in the narrative tense also means
that this narrative is intended to be read
as a chronological reality.
So when it says day two follows day one,
it's chronological reality, right?
There was a day one, then a day two,
then a day three, and so on.
But really, one of the keys to understanding anything
in the Bible is the context.
You have to study context,
you have to study historical context,
you sometimes have to go, who was this written to?
What were those people like?
How would they have read this?
And so we understand that Genesis was written
most likely when Israel was wandering in the wilderness,
and so it was the Israeli people,
the Jewish people that got this letter.
And so to understand how they would have read this,
we kind of have to get into the Jewish mindset,
if you will, and understand where they were at.
And we've talked about this
in a couple previous Bible studies
that they had just got out of Egypt, right?
They had been in Egypt for 400 years,
they had been inundated with Egyptian, what's the word?
Wow, I just blanked out, many gods, pantheism, there you go.
They had been inundated with that for four years, right,
about this God, there's a God of the sun, Ra,
and there's Ra's enemy, this God,
and there's a God of the moon, and God of the sand,
and God of vegetation, and God of the Nile River, right?
There's just a God of everything.
And then they escaped this by being led by a guy who goes,
hey, God, singular, told me to come get you guys out of here.
And so they went through and were chased by the Egyptian
pharaoh, and then they crossed the Red Sea,
and God just, you know, one, did this miracle
of splitting the sea and then dropped it
right on the Egyptians, and now they're in the wilderness,
and you know, God's splitting the rock to give them water,
and God's creating manna from heaven to show up all over,
and they're naturally likely, this is speculation,
but asking, you know, so who is this God?
Who is this God of our forefathers, right?
What's he all about?
We've heard of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
and you know, and our forefathers, and who are they?
And so Moses is writing this account
to tell them who God is, who their God is,
and he's going all the way back to the beginning
of the story, and he's going to refute
all the pagan ideology that they had had.
And so as you read through this,
we can pretty surely surmise that they would not
have read this story as a myth,
as some mythological account simply due to its theme
and its purpose.
This is introducing the children of Israel
to their real God and how their real God operates.
And so each day of creation, incidentally,
we hear more and more of the pagan gods of the day.
So it's like Moses is saying, look,
this is what the Egyptians said about creation,
this is what really happened.
That's how this is being written, and so in day one,
all the pagan gods of light and darkness are dismissed.
Instead, he goes, no, God created light and darkness.
Day two, the gods of the sky and the sea are dismissed,
because why?
God created the sky and the sea.
Day three, earth gods and gods of vegetation
and harvest, all dismissed.
Why?
Because God created the land and the plant life.
Day four, the sun and moon and star gods are dismissed,
because God created those as well.
Day five, gods of the birds and fish and ocean creatures,
all dismissed.
Why?
Because God made them.
And then day six, all the animal and land creature
and bug gods that existed in all these cultures,
all dismissed.
Why?
Because God created all the creatures.
And then finally, very clearly, unequivocally,
he states that humans and humanity are not divine,
because God made them as well.
However, he does point out that man was made special.
That man is special over everything else,
because mankind, both male and female,
and we're gonna get to that when we get there.
Notice it's only two genders, okay?
We'll deal with that later.
But he made them male and female in the image of God.
And that's the very special part of how mankind was made.
They were made in the image of God.
Now, when you read through this, you go,
okay, how would the Israelites have read this?
More specifically, when we get into the interpretations
of the days, how would the Israelites have read this?
Would they have read it with the understanding
that we have only understood in the last 100 years
about geological ages and strata,
and went, well, day must mean epochs and ages,
because that's what the geological strata shows us?
Is that how the Israelites would have read it?
I don't think so.
But we're gonna look at this right now.
So, out of all the interpretations of what these days are,
there are two that I personally believe are most likely.
The 24-hour solar day interpretation,
which is the traditional interpretation,
and then the analogous day one.
There's possibility that that is true.
But the understanding and the debates and all of this
wrap around what the word day means.
There was one day, and then day two, and day three.
And the debates come up because the word day
in the Hebrew is this word yom, right?
Not yum, yom, right?
Y-O-M, okay?
And this word can mean three different things
in the Hebrew language.
It can refer to the part of a 24-hour day
where there's light.
We would call that daytime, right?
As opposed to nighttime.
And that's what we see in verse one,
where he goes, he called the light of the day day,
and then he called the darkness night, right?
We see that separation there.
This word yom can also mean an age,
an epoch, as we were talking about.
Like I said, the day of the Lord,
in King Arthur's day kind of idea.
And then the word can also refer to
one full rotation of the earth.
We call that a 24-hour solar day.
And so people go, well, if day means epoch,
then this is how the story reads.
If day means 24-hour day,
then this is how the story reads, right?
And again, I will point out none of us were there.
All right, so let's pull some clues from scripture
and see what it teaches us.
Now, the analogous day view, there are those that go,
well, when it says day, it's referring to a day
that has a beginning and the end,
because scripture very clearly lists that here, right?
Every single day, God felt it important to tell us
that there was an evening and then a morning, a day.
But they go, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean
a 24-hour day, it just means a day to God.
They'll use scriptures like 2 Peter 3, 8
that says with the Lord, a day is like 1,000 years,
and 1,000 years is like a day.
And they'll go, so these days of creation,
they're analogous, they're similar to our 24-hour day
in the idea that there was a beginning
and there was an end to each day,
but it's not necessarily 24 hours as we understand 24 hours.
And the reason people that hold this view get there,
and it's that way in the scripture,
is they'll say the six days all have a beginning and the end.
But when you get to the seventh day,
the scripture doesn't record that the seventh day
has an end.
So what they'll say is that means God,
as he rested on the seventh day, is still resting
as human history passes, and then in the end,
he's gonna kinda get back to work
with the end of all things.
And so they'll use Hebrews chapter four,
if you read verses three through 11,
it basically has this entire teaching
that God's people enter into his rest
by faith in him, and it says,
so what day is at rest?
Paul says, or I believe it's Paul, today.
He says the day of rest is today.
So the idea is that God started resting
at the end of his creation, and he's still chilling.
Right?
And he's working in our lives and everything,
but as far as his creative work, he's like, I'm done.
And so when we pass from this life today,
we're instantly in his rest and so on and so forth.
Plus, people go, you know, on days one, two, and three,
or one and two, there was no,
one, two, and three, there was no sun and moon.
So there was no solar day, right?
We track a solar day because there's a solar entity
out there called the sun, and if you read through
the creation, there was no sun and no moon,
therefore, Genesis 1 cannot be referring
to 24-hour solar days, all right?
Then you got the 24-hour view.
Each day was a literal 24-hour day.
Creation took place over the span of 144 hours.
Those that hold this view go, yeah, there was no sun
and moon in the first three days, but so what?
God is light.
So the light that existed, the light created,
God doesn't need the sun and moon to produce light.
He was the light that existed for those first three days.
God created a separation.
It says there in the first day of light and dark,
and he says he called the light in the day day,
and he called the darkness night.
That's an indication that the earth
was rotating at that point, right?
But just because the seventh day doesn't expressly say
there was an evening and there was a morning
doesn't automatically mean there wasn't, right?
And then the biggest evidence for 24-hour solar days
in almost every case throughout the entirety of scripture
when this Hebrew word yom is preceded by a number, right?
One day, second day.
Almost every single case in scripture
it's referring to a 24-hour solar day, right?
And then the other thing is any time in scripture
you see the phrase evening and morning together,
which it happens multiple places in scripture.
In almost every single case it is referencing
an ordinary 24-hour solar day.
So that's kind of the support for that.
And then in Exodus chapter 20 verses nine through 11,
this is what God said to the children of Israel.
You were to labor six days and do all your work,
but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.
You must not do any work, you, your son or daughter,
your male or female servants, your livestock,
or the resident alien who is within your city gates.
Why?
For the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea
and everything in them in six days.
Then he rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day
and declared it holy.
Well, God's not telling Israel,
so I want you to work for seven epochs
because that's what I did.
And then rest for the seventh
indeterminate epoch of time, right?
But he's telling them work six solar days,
rest on the seventh solar days after the example of God
creating the heavens and the earth for six days.
Now again, this one could be six God's work days, whatever.
There's some support for that.
But all that to say that me, your pastor here,
I hold to the 24-hour solar day view, right?
I just think God did it in 24 hours or 24-hour days
because he's God.
You know, a lot of the other interpretations,
well, it has to be ages and stuff.
It's because they start with what mankind
has discovered in science.
And they go, well, this is how we understand science,
so therefore we have to make the Bible
fit our understanding of science.
And the problem with that is science keeps changing.
They keep going, this is how it is,
and then they describe something new,
and they go, well, this is how it is.
And well, whereas the 24-hour solar day,
I start with in the beginning, God.
All of science has to make sense
under the umbrella of in the beginning, God.
And when science and God don't seem to make sense,
God is right, our understanding of science isn't full yet.
That's how I approach it, okay?
Some people are like, well, that's just ignorant.
Well, God hasn't let me down yet,
but science has over and over, so.
Anyways, okay, let's start with the first day.
Verse three, then God said, let there be light.
And there was light.
God saw that the light was good,
and God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.
There was an evening, and there was a morning, one day.
So as I said in the opening here,
the first three days of creation here
are God addressing the formless, empty,
covered by darkness earth, right?
It's this picture, if you will,
of what was floating in space
was this lump of clay that was ready
on the potter's wheel to be formed.
That's kind of the picture, right?
It was formless, all right?
That could mean a whole bunch of things,
but it just means it was desolate, all right?
It was unready for habitation.
And so we read that the Spirit of God
was fluttering over that formless and empty earth there
like a mama bird fluttering over her nest,
getting ready to do the work of creation.
Now what I want you to notice too is the tool
that God used in his work of creation.
What tool did God use to create everything?
His word, His word.
God spoke everything.
It says over and over, God said, and it was so.
That is your God.
God said, and it was so.
But God, I don't like what your Bible is telling me to do.
God said, and it was so.
When our life, our decisions, our behavior
disagree with God's word, who's wrong?
We are.
God's never wrong, He's perfect.
So it says, God said, it's God's word.
When God speaks, it's the revelation of His will, right?
So many people go, I don't know what God wants me to do,
and they don't read the Bible.
Like, well, how are you gonna know what God wants you to do
if you're not reading His love letter to you, right?
He doesn't just give you the warm and fuzzy stuff,
He kinda, you know, deals with us and disciplines, right?
Everything is there in His word.
Well, what does God want me to do?
Get in the Bible, get in the Bible regularly,
study it, memorize it.
You're gonna then discern what God wants you.
Now, it says, by His will alone, light was.
That's pretty powerful, right?
When it says, God said, let there be light
and there was light, in the original Hebrew,
it literally reads this way.
God said, light exists and light was.
God just willed it.
Let there be light, and it happened.
It's just by His mere thought and will,
by the expression of His breath, everything shaped itself,
exactly and perfectly, down to the smallest subatomic
particle, all the way up to, like I said,
the largest galaxy in the universe,
every cell, every black hole, all of it.
God formed it.
Now, people will argue, well, was the Earth formed
in one second?
Well, no, it's formless and empty,
and we see a process of Him putting everything together
here, and we see a process of Him putting it together here.
But the point is, is everything that happened
happened by His will and His word.
Now, this first day presents a challenge for some.
We touched on this a little bit, because they go,
well, how was there day and night and evening and morning
if there was no sun and no moon?
So, I wanna fill that idea in a little bit.
One, God is not limited by naturalistic limitations.
If your God is limited by naturalistic limitations,
you have a real puny God.
God is not limited by our understanding of physics.
He's not limited by how our universe works
with the laws of this and the laws of that,
because God's outside of it.
He created it.
So, He's not limited.
God doesn't need the sun or the moon to provide light.
In fact, in 1 John 1, 5, it says this.
This is the message we have heard from Him
and declare to you.
God is light, and in Him is absolutely no darkness.
So, for the first three days of creation,
there was light with no sun and no moon.
Now, for those of you that paid attention in Revelation,
you might have went, wait a second.
Are you telling me that the beginning of the universe
started the same exact way everything ends?
Because in Revelation chapter 22, 5, this is what it says.
Night will be no more.
People will not need the light of the lamp
nor the light of the sun,
because the Lord God will give them light
and no more darkness.
God will give them light and they will reign forever and ever.
Beautiful.
God is light.
Now, He separates the day from the night.
As I said, that seems to indicate a rotation of the earth
where and then God said, hey, the illuminated part of it,
we're gonna call it day,
and the not illuminated part, we're gonna call night.
And then He says this phrase,
evening followed by morning, right?
And people go, well, that doesn't make sense.
Our days start at midnight and then go around to midnight.
But we have to understand that the beginning of creation
was marked by darkness, right?
It was darkness, then light, right?
God spoke light into existence in the darkness.
And so what we see there is it's dark, then light,
given the marker of a full day.
Now, this is actually followed in Jewish tradition, right?
Even today, devout Jews,
they'll start their day at sunset
and then a whole day,
beginning when the sun goes down,
then there's morning, then there's the whole day,
and then when sunset hits again,
that's the marker of the next day, right?
We understand that, that was how they observed the Sabbath,
right?
Sabbath starts Friday night at sunset
because that's Saturday for them.
That's the new day.
Now, you know, at some point in time,
the general practice of the calendar
and keeping time switched to starting a day at midnight,
there's some reasons for all of that.
But in the beginning and through Jewish tradition,
a day started at sunset, from dark to light.
Now, you might be going,
well, gosh, do we have to go back to that?
No, no, that's not the point.
But that explains why it's evening followed by morning.
And then verse four, it says,
God saw that the light was good.
This is the first of seven pronouncements
where God looks at what he created and says it was good,
right?
A master artist stepping back and admiring his work, right?
It is good.
And this is what that word good means.
This is interesting.
When he says it is good,
he's saying it exists exactly as it should,
able to perform its function exactly as it should.
That's what he means by good.
He doesn't mean necessarily like,
oh, pleasing, it makes me happy.
He means it exists exactly as it should,
performing exactly as it should.
And so as Genesis is the beginning of everything,
we have day one serving as the beginning
of this reoccurring theme of darkness and light
that carries through the entire Bible,
mainly the theme that darkness and light
are mutually exclusive realms, right?
We see that throughout scripture.
And then this whole theme ultimately wraps up
where Jesus will bring eternal light to his people
at the end of creation.
But at the time, as Moses is writing this,
I think it was a direct attack on, like I said,
the gods of light and dark of the time.
So day two.
Then God said, let there be an expanse between the waters,
separating water from water.
So God made the expanse and separated the water
under the expanse from the water above the expanse.
And it was so.
God called the expanse sky and evening came,
and then morning, the second day.
So with light glistening on the deep
of this unworked, unordered earth,
light now exists and God spoke again.
And it says he created this expanse, all right?
In other translations, you might have the word firmament.
He created the firmament.
He calls it sky.
And there's a little bit of a difficulty here,
because when you see that he creates the sun and moon,
it says he creates the sun and moon in the expanse, right?
And you're like, obviously the sun
isn't in our atmosphere, right?
So we have to understand what they meant by that.
We understand sky as empty space, right?
Birds fly in the empty space of the sky.
We understand there's air currents and stuff.
But in ancient times, the ancient mind perceived the sky
as a solid thing.
So there's like water below,
and then there's this solid thing
that's holding up everything above it.
And you got water above it.
And then the expanse would even include
what you could see through the sky.
So that's the sun and the moon and the stars.
Now here, when he says it separates water from water,
it's creating two layers of water.
Underneath it is what you have as the seas,
and then the water above is the clouds.
And we know that water resides in clouds in a certain form,
and then it falls, and it created this cycle, right?
That also lends credence to what's called the canopy theory.
And we'll get to that when we talk about the flood,
that there was this canopy,
this thick canopy of clouds and water
that surrounded the earth from creation.
And that's where a lot of the water came from
that fell to the earth during the flood,
and flooded the entire planet.
So, but we'll deal with that later.
But what we see here again is that God is naming
elements of his creation.
He's calling the light day, he's calling the dark night,
and now he's calling the expanse sky.
What that is teaching us about God,
what that was teaching Israel about God,
is that he has sovereign dominion over everything.
He made it, he gets to call it what he wants to, right?
He gets to tell it what to do.
He gets to tell the birds where to fly.
He gets to tell the atoms how to form.
He's God, he has sovereign dominion over it.
Now this rulership, it also means like authority.
Later we're gonna see that God entrusts mankind
with an element of dominion when he says,
hey, you name the animals.
And that was a part of the picture of mankind
having rulership over the animals.
This flies in the face of modern things
where it's like, oh, we're just one of the animals.
We're just a part of the animal kingdom.
No, we're not.
We're created in the image of God.
We have dominion over the animal kingdom.
And then again, at the time of God naming these things,
he's teaching the Jewish people,
there are no gods of the sky and sea,
there is only God who created the sky and the sea.
So verse nine, then God said,
let the water under the sky be gathered into one place
and let the dry land appear, and it was so.
God called the dry land earth and the gathering of water
he called seas, and God saw that it was good.
Then God said, let the earth produce vegetation,
seed-bearing plants and fruit on the earth bearing,
fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit
with seed in it according to their kinds, and it was so.
The earth produced vegetation,
seed-bearing plants according to their kinds,
and trees bearing fruit with seed in it
according to their kinds.
God saw that it was good, evening came,
and then morning the third day.
So over the course of the first two days of creation,
we see God bringing increasing form to the earth, right?
He's bringing form and order to creation,
he's bringing light, he's creating oceans,
he's creating an atmosphere,
he's creating the sky and the clouds and all of that.
And so now, you have this picture of earth,
warmed by the light,
having this beautiful robe of blue sky around it now,
dappled with clouds floating over sparkling oceans, right?
It's creating this beautiful picture
of an increasingly inviting, pleasant place.
One might call it a paradise because it's so perfect.
And then here in day three,
we see God speaks two more times.
Now the first time he speaks
is the forming of the dry land, right?
He's completing the forming of the earth.
Everything is being finalized here,
and again, it's just him exercising sovereign dominion
by naming the land earth and naming the waters seas.
And so it's interesting in the language here,
there's no new creation.
There's just a picture of him ordering
what he'd already created, right?
So he's bringing shape and order
to what he had already created.
Now, some people think,
since it says the water was all gathered into one place,
that that would then mean that the dry land
was all in one place, right?
Because if the water was separated by lands,
he wouldn't have said one place.
And so some people look at that and they go, aha!
That's where we get the concept of one large continent
that originally existed,
the ideas of Pangea and all that stuff, right?
That's where these ideas come from,
that there was once one big land mass
because what it says here is God gathered the waters
into one place and the dry land was in also one place,
or at least that's the inference.
Some people also look at Genesis 10.25
when it's talking some genealogies and it says,
Eber had two sons, one was named Peleg,
for during his days the earth was divided.
So some people look at that verse there
and they said the word earth there
is literally referring to the globe, right?
It's not a word referring to the peoples per se
and so they go, at some point the earth was divided.
And so they go, that's when the land mass is separated
and all that kind of stuff.
But that could also be referring to what happens
in the Tower of Babel, right, in the very next chapter
where it's like, hey, in his days the earth was divided
and in the very next chapter he tells us a story
about how God divided the peoples of the earth.
And so we'll deal with that in more detail when we get there
but I just wanted to address it.
But back to Genesis, we now have the world given shape.
The chaos that existed is gone.
The darkness is limited, if you will, right?
As the earth is rotating and there's night and day
and so on and so forth.
And so next God begins to shift into the idea of fullness.
He goes from forming to fullness,
to the filling of the earth as he wills,
as he causes the earth to produce vegetation.
That word vegetation means any living organism
which does not have mobility, right?
This isn't Lord of the Rings.
There's no tree ants and ants and trees walking around,
right, plants don't do that.
These are the immobile things that he created
and he says very specifically later
that the plants were created to be food
for the animals and for mankind.
And so he repeats something here
over and over and over again.
And I've mentioned this before
but a good biblical habit to have in biblical study
is when things are repeated over and over and over,
that's like God saying pay attention.
This is gonna matter.
And what he says over and over and over
is that this was created according to its kind.
And it has seeds so that it would bear
according to its kind and according to its kind
and according to its kind.
And it says that over and over and over, why?
Well that word kind means species.
So what he's telling us is that the seed
from these plants and fruit trees
resulted in the same or very similar organism
as what the seed came from.
The idea is that the seed from an apple
won't grow a cucumber tree
according to its kind.
It's very important because what evolution
tries to teach us is that unrelated species
became one another through a period
of billions and billions of years.
That yeah, an apple seed did one day
start producing cucumber trees.
Doesn't that sound silly?
But that's the prevalent theory of the secular world.
That a cat became a dog, a fish became a bird.
And God knew we were gonna come up
with this silly thing at some point.
And so right here in the beginning,
he says according to its kind,
don't get this confused, dogs beget dogs.
Now there's variations within them and hallelujah, right?
I like that there's different types of dogs.
You got some with floppy ears,
some with ears that stick up, big dogs, little dogs,
colorful dogs, right?
I like dogs.
Cats, not so much.
If you're a cat lover, we're still friends.
But there's variation within the species,
but one species doesn't become another.
That's what God's telling us starting here
with the plant life and the vegetation.
The seed from plants and fruit trees,
it just results in the similar thing,
in the natural process.
So Moses, he's documenting here very powerfully
just an ongoing refutation of all the false gods
of their time, the gods of the earth
and the gods of vegetation and the gods of the harvest,
right, because in Egypt, they would go pray to their gods
and make sacrifices, do all the stuff
that the crop would grow.
And Moses is like, that's silly.
There's only God, not a thousand different ones.
There's only one God, Elohim.
And we talked about that word a couple studies ago.
It is a word, a plural word that refers to a singular entity.
And we see that at the end of the creation narrative
where then God says, let us make man in our image, one God.
But as we learn to the rest of scripture,
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, separate persons
with their own personalities and their own will,
yet they are one God.
And again, when people go, I don't understand that,
therefore it must not be true.
I'm like, how little is your God?
You think you're gonna understand the mind of God?
Job tried and what did God say?
Sit down, Job.
Still loved him, but you know, we've all been slapped around
a little bit sometimes when we're being dumb.
Okay, so we made it through three.
So we're gonna end it there.
And we'll pick up the next three next week.
But because the Bible begins and ends
with this beautiful description of light, right?
It begins with an untainted world filled with light,
but no sun.
Why?
Because God was the source of light.
That's how the world began.
That's how it's gonna end when we're in heaven with him
in a new heavens and a new earth for eternity.
Because that's what we get at the book ends of the Bible.
It makes sense that Jesus would say in John chapter eight,
verse 12, I am the light of the world.
Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness,
but will have the light of life.
Jesus made that declaration in the gospels
while he was standing in the temple treasury.
He was standing in the temple treasury
after they had done a ceremony there
called the illumination of the temple.
This ceremony that they would do in the temple
was they would put these really massive torches
and they would light them on fire
and it would illuminate the temple.
And they did this ceremony in Jesus's day
because they were celebrating the Shekinah glory of God
that led them through the wilderness, right?
But the ceremony was over at this point,
the torches were extinguished and now Jesus stands there
and he says, I am the light of the world.
What was he saying there?
He was declaring that he is the Shekinah glory of God.
Now the Shekinah glory of God,
you get into the Old Testament, you understand it was God.
It was God leading them in the wilderness, right?
You had the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud
and God was there leading them, his presence,
which of course then was existing also
in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle.
But Jesus here, centuries later, I'm that light.
I'm that light.
Yeah, the God who led you in the wilderness, I'm God.
The God that spoke light into existence
in Genesis chapter one, Jesus is saying, that's me.
Again, in Revelation 21, 23,
speaking of the New Jerusalem at the end of time,
it says the city, New Jerusalem,
does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it
because the glory of God illuminates it
and its lamp is the lamb.
Jesus, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity.
John one tells us that Jesus Christ,
the light was present when creation
was spoken into existence.
In John one, it tells us that nothing was made without him
and so the point, the application I wanna bring
back to us today is that Christ the light,
Christ the creator is the same one who brings order
out of the dark chaos of our lives.
When our lives are falling apart
and things aren't going right and everything is troubled,
Jesus Christ is the one who brings form
and order to our lives.
And as we put John one together with Genesis
and all these other things, what we're meant to see here
is that the God who revealed himself to you
in the bodily form of Jesus Christ,
who lived and died on the cross
to pay the price for your sin and my sin,
who rose from the dead on the third day,
that God who spoke creation into existence out of nothing
and then formed it perfectly
wants to do that work in your life.
And if he could do it with creation,
if he could do it with the earth and the universe,
you think he could do it with you?
Absolutely, absolutely.
You know, if your life is dark as the earth was,
desolate, formless and empty, you feel,
it's just out of control.
If you feel like there's no hope in your life
but only darkness, I've been there.
I have been there and please hear me, there is hope.
The lie is that there's no hope.
There is always hope.
Hope exists for you.
The very same power that flung the stars out
into the expanse of an expanding universe
while creating life with the irreducible complexity
of a trillion cells in your body,
that God, he will act and work on your behalf
if you come to him.
If you come to that place of saying,
I believe you are a God.
I believe in your word.
I believe you came to this earth.
I believe you died on the cross.
I believe you rose from the dead
and I believe you can fix my broken heart.
I believe you can fix my broken life.
I believe you can bring order to the chaos
of the sin that I live in.
And when you do that, when you say, come into my life,
he says, okay.
He says, okay.
It tells us that when we accept Christ,
we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
the same spirit that was fluttering over a formless earth.
And when we, in the darkness of our sin
and just the horrible existence of our brokenness,
when we accept God into our life,
the first thing he says is, let there be light.
He brings the light of the gospel, the light of truth,
the light of salvation to our hearts.
You see, he turned the night into day with a word.
He turned chaos into order with a word.
He turned just everything that was nothing
into something with a word.
And because he isn't just the light,
he's not just the creator, he's just not just the son of God.
It says he is the savior of the world, he can save you.
He can bring a genesis to your life,
a new beginning to your life.
And if you've never understood that before,
please understand there is hope for you.
If you're here and you don't know Jesus,
he's speaking to you right now.
The sense that there is a God Almighty who,
although he's invisible in this room,
although he's invisible in this room, is looking at you
right now where you're seated,
is telling you that there's a God out there.
He sees you.
He knows what your life is, he loves you.
And he says, let me fix it.
Let me save you from the penalty of your sin.
Let me come and live inside your heart
and I'll start the process of reordering everything.
Just trust me, yield to me, let me, and he will do it.
This is our God.
This is the God who gives form and order
and he could do it in your life.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much, God,
that you sent your Son to die for our sins.
Jesus, we're so thankful that you came
and although you faced something horrific and terrible,
you still went to the cross for us.
Jesus, we thank you that when you left,
you sent the Holy Spirit to dwell within us,
to be our counselor and to guide us and to teach us, Lord.
And God, you, singular, one God,
existing in three persons simultaneously,
you spoke creation into existence.
You said light exists and light existed.
You said sky exists and sky existed.
You said water exists and water existed.
Lord, it's by your mere will that creation came to be.
And Lord, what we learn from this,
as you're a God who brings order out of chaos,
that God, there is creation power in you
that can recreate our life.
And that God, you wanna bring light into our life.
You wanna create an expanse,
so instead of the pressure of life, we can breathe.
Instead of floating in an ocean
thinking we're gonna drown, Lord,
you wanna create dry land that we could stand on,
you, the rock.
You wanna create dry land that we can stand on,
you, the rock.
And so Lord, we pray, God, that those of us that know you
would appropriate these truths, Lord,
live these truths, trust in these truths.
God, that since you did what you did in creation
and are revealing it to us,
there is nothing you can't do in our lives.
There's no problem you can't solve.
There's no peace you can't give.
There's no joy you can't give.
Lord, we're just called to trust you in all things
and help us, Lord, to do that.
Increase our faith, Lord, as Peter prayed.
But Lord, God, I know that you're always speaking
to those that don't know you, Lord.
Those that haven't really trusted in you, Lord.
Even maybe they've gone forward at an altar call before,
but they know in their heart, God,
that they've never really fully yielded to you.
Or maybe, Lord, there's someone here today
or listening that just simply has never come
to put their trust in you.
Lord, I pray for them right now, God,
that as your Spirit speaks to their heart,
God, your Spirit doing the work of conviction,
of their sin, conviction of the reality
that you lived a perfect righteous life
that you want to attribute to them
in faith and repentance.
And Lord, conviction of righteousness,
that they haven't been living a good life,
that they haven't been the good person
that they think they are.
Sure, compared to another person,
they might feel pretty good,
but compared to the holiness of God,
they just recognize that they have sinned.
And I pray, Lord, as a Spirit is speaking to them right now
that they would realize that you, God,
want to do a work of forgiving them, saving them,
imparting righteousness into their life.
And so while we're praying,
just with heads bowed and eyes closed,
if you wanna give your life to Jesus Christ this morning,
if he has spoken to you about your need for salvation,
if your mind has begun to entertain the reality
that God Almighty spoke creation into existence,
and that same God is watching you right now,
looking at you right now, saying, please come to me.
I wanna save you, I wanna forgive you
for everything you've ever done
and everything you ever will do.
And if you wanna receive that this morning,
I just want you where you're seated.
You don't have to get up or down.
You don't have to get up or do anything,
but I just want you to raise your hand
and say, pastor, please pray for me.
I need to receive Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
I see you in the back.
God bless you.
Anybody else?
God is speaking to you this morning,
and you know you need salvation.
Just raise your hand where I could see it
and let me pray with you today.
I see you in the back as well.
Anybody else?
God is knocking on your heart.
I see you on the side.
God bless you as well.
Anybody else?
If you're watching us online, obviously I can't see you,
but if God has knocked on your heart
and you realize you need to repent of your sin
and receive him, just in the chat there,
whether you're on YouTube or other platforms,
just in the chat, say I wanna receive Jesus this morning.
And for those of you that know you need him
and are receiving him today,
I want you to pray this prayer with me.
Say, Lord God, I believe in you.
I believe in who you are.
I believe you created the universe.
I believe you created this earth.
I believe you created me.
And God, I have sinned.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
Please come into my life.
Please come into my life, bring order
to the chaos of my life.
Bring light to the darkness of my life.
Bring clear skies to the pressure of my life.
Bring stability to the rocky ocean of my life.
I receive that Lord.
Save my soul.
Be my God, be my savior.
And thank you for loving me so much
that you would do this for me.
Teach me how to live for you.
Show me how to be the person you've created me to be.
Help me, Lord, to be a person with form
filled with the Holy Spirit.
I trust you, God.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
All right, for those of you that raised your hand today,
congratulations.
If you're online and you gave your life to the Lord today,
you know, for all of you, the Bible says
that when one person gives their life to the Lord,
the entire host of heaven celebrates.
Pretty huge party going on in heaven right now.
And so we just wanna encourage you guys, you know,
if you've just begun your walk with the Lord,
you may have questions, right?
And that's totally valid.
What do I do now?
You know, what do I do next?
And so before you leave today, if you're here in the room,
either come forward after we're done
or go out into the foyer as you leave today
and ask for a new believer's packet, okay?
That just has some information to help you
begin this journey with God.
It's gonna tell you things like,
hey, read your Bible every day.
It's God's word.
He wants to talk to you.
It's gonna encourage you to pray every day
and you might be like, what's that?
Just talk to God.
You don't have to kumbaya and all that.
Just talk to God, all right?
There's information in there to help you worship God.
One of the beautiful things we get to do is in songs,
hey God, we love you so much.
Thank you for what you've done.
And then plug into a body of believers,
whether it's here at Hosanna or another church,
a church that is teaching the word of God,
plug in to other believers.
You're a part of a family now, the family of God.
And we're here to pray for you and to encourage you
and to help you.
That's what the family of God does.
And for the rest of us, yeah, let's go out.
We're called to take the light
that God is shining through us out into a dark world.
And the world is dark.
It's getting darker spiritually.
And the time is limited for us
to share the gospel with people.
And so share the gospel.
We provide gospel tracts for you.
We encourage you to grab as many as you want, right?
Don't be like, oh no, I can only take two or three.
No, if we run out, we'll get more.
If gospel tracts aren't your thing,
figure out what your thing is, right?
Figure out how God is having you share the hope
that is within you with people that need it.
And do that.
Because I guarantee every single one of us in this room
knows somebody who isn't saved yet.
And God has built a relationship between you and them
that you would be a light into their darkness.
Pray for opportunity to share the hope
that is within you with them, amen?
I just pray God blesses you.
Pray that God blesses his church here in the world today.
That the light that God is, that God created,
that God's spoken to existence would shine so brightly
that the darkness would flee.
And regardless of the end times,
and we know that things are gonna get worse,
God is never defeated.
Revelation taught us that in the end, God wins.
In the beginning, God wins.
God wins, and everywhere in between, God wins, amen?
God bless you guys.