Now, friends, as we come today to the book of Genesis, I want to spend some time in just giving us what might be called a bird's-eye view of Genesis, but a view that will cover the total spectrum of the book. And in order to do that, there are some very important things that we'd like to say about it. When you read the book of... Genesis, there are certain things that you should know, because the book of Genesis is actually germane to the entire scripture.
The fact of the matter is that Genesis is a book that states many things for the first time. You're going to have many things that are mentioned here for the first time. You're also... will find certain things that occur very frequently. For instance, these are the generations of, and that's an important expression because actually the book of Genesis gives the families, and that is all important because you and I are a member of the human family that begins here.
And then there are a number of very interesting characters that are portrayed. for us. Someone has called this a book of biographies.
There's Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Pharaoh and the twelve sons of old Jacob. Besides Joseph, of course, with him you have the twelve. Then you find that God continually is blessing Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
And you find that those that are associated with him are blessed. Lot was blessed, Abimelech, and Potiphar, and the butler, and Pharaoh, all blessed. And then you find the mention of the covenant in this book.
And you find the frequent appearances of the Lord here to the patriarchs, especially to Abraham. And then you find the altar becomes very prominent in this book. You see jealousy in the home, and also Egypt comes before us here in this book as it does nowhere else, actually. And you find that there is the judgments upon sin that are mentioned here, and then the leadings of providence.
And as we study the book here, we need to keep in mind something that Browning wrote years ago in a grammarian's. funeral. He said, image the whole, then execute the parts.
Fancy the fabric, quite, ere you build, ere steel strike, fire from quartz, ere mortar dab brick. In other words, get the total picture of this book. And I formally, as a teacher of Bible, would tell the students that there are two ways of studying the Bible.
One is with the telescope. and the others with a microscope. And first, you need to get the telescope and get off and see all of it. And if you do that, why, you'll find that this wonderful book is divided into two major divisions. And I'd call your particular attention to that.
These major divisions are very important. And before I develop that, I'd like... today to give you a quotation from a great man of the past, Robinson, the great preacher of England, in his book, The Personal Life of the Clergy. And the chapter I'm quoting from is Devotion to Our Lord.
And this is something I wish that I could write indelibly in the minds and hearts of God's people today. Will you listen to it very carefully? We live in the age of books. They pour out from us, from the press, in an ever-increasing multitude. And we're always reading manuals, textbooks, articles, books of devotion, books of criticism, books about the Bible, books about the Gospels, are devoured with avidity.
But what amount of time and labor Do we give to the consideration of the Gospels themselves? We are constantly tempted to imagine that we get good more quickly by reading some modern statement of truth which we find comparatively easy to appropriate because it's presented to us in a shape and from a standpoint with which our education, or it may be partly association, has made us familiar. But the good that we acquire Readily is not that which enters most deeply into our being and becomes an abiding possession.
It would be well if we could realize, quite simply, that nothing worth the having is to be gained without the winning. The great truths of nature are not offered to us in such a form as to make it easy to grasp them. The treasures of God are not the treasures of nature.
grace must be sought with all the skill and energy which are characteristic of the man who is searching for goodly pearl. Now, I love that statement because it reveals to us as we begin this study of the Word of God that this is not just entertainment and we're not promoting. We are actually, friends, trying to teach you the Word of God. We're not dealing with sensationalism.
Of course, the Bible to me is a sensational book, and we'll deal with many things that are sensational, but you are going to find that in the Word of God, that we are just dealing with it, and that's all. But we believe that it'll speak to our hearts in a way that no other book will speak to us. And as we suggested a moment ago, In the book of Genesis, you have the beginnings of many things. Creation, man, woman, sin, Sabbath, marriage, family, labor, civilization, culture, murder, sacrifice, races, languages, tongues, and redemption, and cities.
We're having a great urban problem today. Well, we could learn a great deal by going back here to Genesis and see the beginning of the city. Now, we have a major division in the book, and I've given you a little time to think about it.
Where would you divide the book of Genesis if you did divide it into two parts? Well, the very interesting thing is that the first 11 chapters constitute a whole, and beginning with chapter... 12 through 50, we have an altogether different section.
They're divided in several different ways. For instance, in the first section, you have the creation to Abraham. And in the last section, you have from Abraham to Joseph. The very interesting thing is that in the first section, we're dealing with great major subjects. Subjects that still engage the minds of thoughtful men today.
You have in the first 11 chapters, in the first two chapters, creation. Chapters 3 and 4, the fall. Genesis 5 through 9, the flood.
And Genesis 10 and 11, the Tower of Babel. Now, when you come to the last division, it has to do with personalities. And there are four outstanding personalities in this section.
Abraham, the man of faith, Genesis 12 through 23. Isaac, the beloved son, Genesis 24 to 26. Jacob, the chosen and chastened son, Genesis 27 through 36. And Joseph, suffering and glory, Genesis 37 through 50. But my friend, that's not really the major division, although that's major enough. But there is a division here that, to my judgment, is tremendous. And it has to do, actually, with time. The first 11 chapters cover approximately a minimum of 2,000 years.
And I would say 2,000 years plus. That means that the first 11 chapters could cover several chapters. Well, I'm prepared to say several hundred thousand. In fact, the matter is, I believe that this first section of Genesis can cover any time in the past that you need to fit into your theory. And the chances are you'd come short even then.
We'll see that when we get down to these first few chapters in Genesis. Now, here you have a book. that from Genesis 1 through Genesis 11, a minimum of 2,000 years. But from Genesis 12 through Genesis 50, only 350 years. Tell the truth from beginning with the 12th chapter of Genesis and going all the way through the Old Testament, in fact, covering the New Testament, you only cover 2,000 years.
So that as far as time, is concerned, you are halfway through the Bible when you cover the first 11 chapters. And from chapter 12 through the rest of the Bible, why you are covering 2,000 years. I actually believe that the first 11 chapters cover thousands of years, longer than the other does.
Now, that ought to suggest something to your mind and to your heart. And that is that. God has something very definite in mind when he gave this first section here. Moses is the writer.
Fact of the matter is, the first five books of the Bible have been called a pentitude. And they're called a pentitude because Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. And I think there's an abundant evidence to testify to that.
And the first five books of the Bible... Moses is the author. Now, these first 11 chapters cover more than the rest of it put together.
And where do you think, then, that Moses is putting the emphasis? On the first 11 chapters or on the rest of the Bible? Let me widen that out and say, where do you think God is putting the emphasis?
Is the Spirit of God putting the emphasis on the first 11 chapters of Genesis or the rest of the Bible? Well, he's putting more emphasis, if you want to know the truth, on the last part. And the subject of this first part has to do with the universe, with creation. And may I say that the last part deals with man, nation, and the person of Jesus Christ. May I say to you, God was more interested in Abraham than he was in the entire created universe.
And God, my friend, is more interested in you and he attaches more value to you than he does the entire universe, that is, the physical universe. Let me further illustrate that. You have in the four Gospels 89 chapters.
Only four chapters cover the first 30 years of the life of the Lord Jesus. 85 chapters cover the last three years of his life and 30 years of his life. Twenty-seven chapters cover the last eight days of his life. Where do you think the Spirit of God's putting the emphasis? Well, I'm sure you'll say, well, the big emphasis is upon the last part, the last eight days, because there's 27 chapters.
And what is that all about? It's all about the death, burial, resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that, my friend, is the important part of the gospel record. In other words, God has given the Gospels that you might believe that Christ died for a sin, that he was raised for our justification.
And that's essential. That's the thing that's important. It's the thing that's all important.
Now, may I say to you that the first 11 chapters are merely the introduction to the Bible, and we need to look at it in that fashion. I'm of the opinion that if Moses were present today and heard all of the present-day discussion about creation, for instance, and the record that he gave, and what both the theologians and the scientists are saying, he'd be rather amused. And he would, I'm sure, make the comment, all of you really missed the point.
I wasn't attempting to give you the account of creation. I was just attempting to give you a few facts that would be the beginning, but that was not my story. My story had to do with God dealing with man and sin. The story that I wanted to tell was the story of redemption.
And if you think that I was writing a scientific book on creation, you missed the entire point. I was writing a spiritual book on redemption. That's very, very important to see.
Now, that doesn't mean we're going to pass over these first 11 chapters. We're not. I intend to deal with them.
We've got more time this time, as we've indicated, and we'll spend more time there. Genesis, therefore, is the seed plot of the Bible, because you have here the beginning and the source and the birth of everything. In fact, the book of Genesis is just like the bud of a beautiful rose, and it opens out. in the rest of the Bible. But its truth is given here in germ form.
And actually, I think one of the best divisions that can be made of the book of Genesis, and I have it in my notes and outlines that many of you have received, and I hope you'll pay attention to it, is to divide the book of Genesis according to the genealogies, according to the families. It opens with the book of the generations of the heaven and the earth. And then you have the generations of Adam, and the generations of Noah, the sons of Noah, sons of Shem, and of Terah, and of Ishmael, and of Isaac, and of Esau, and Jacob.
All of these are given to us in the book of Genesis, and it's a book of family. It's an amazing book, you see, and we should look at it, I think, largely from that particular viewpoint. Now, all of this that we are giving is actually preliminary study.
As we come now to the first chapter of Genesis, and we can barely introduce you to this chapter. And in this chapter, we have the story of the creation of the universe. And believe me, this chapter is still causing more comment.
than you can possibly imagine. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That is one of the most profound statements that has ever been made.
And yet we find that that is a statement that is certainly challenged in this hour in which we're living. I will be giving you the statement of a profound statement. right here in California, because now they're going to permit this creation story to be taught in science textbooks. Now, frankly, I'm not so sure that I'm happy about that.
And somebody says, why, you ought to be. That's a wonderful step. No, my friend, I'll tell you why.
It'll be the character of the teachers who teach it. And I'm afraid that we do not have enough with a Christian background and with a Bible background to be able to teach it properly. That would be my criticism of the fact that today very few of our public school teachers are prepared really to teach the story of creation. And the reason is they have practically no Bible background. And they've been given a background that is contrary to it.
You see, already we've entered a controversial section. Creation has provoked more controversy than probably any other subject in Scripture. We read the first chapter of Genesis.
Will you get your Bible and read that first chapter? And don't read it once. Don't read it twice.
Read it a half a dozen times. Now, we have divided the book of Genesis into two major divisions, chapters 1 through 11, and several ways of labeling that. One is that could be called sin, and then from chapter 12 through 50, you could call that the Redeemer.
Now, in this first section, we have in the first two chapters here, the creation story. We have the creation story succinctly and accurately stated in just one verse. And that is, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Frankly, that's one of the most profound statements that has ever been made.
And I think that's all you have of actual creation, with the exception, as we shall see, of man and animals later on. That's recorded here in the book of Genesis. But this is the creation story. And I'll admit that it's rather a very brief story.
Indeed, it was the late Paul Bellamy. He was city editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and he was making the rounds one night of the reporter's desk, and he noticed that one of the men was grinding out what the newspaper men call a tapeworm, and Bellamy regarded it relatively unimportant. And he said to the fellow, he says, cut it down.
He says, after all, the story of creation was told in Genesis 1 in 282 words. And this reporter shot back to him. He says, yes, and I've always thought we could have been saved a lot of arguments later if someone had just written another couple of hundred. And it is interesting to note that God certainly gave us an abridged edition.
And the question arises, what did he have in mind when he gave us this particular section? What was it? What was the author's purpose here?
And we want to ask the question, was the author's purpose to teach geology? Well, may I say there's a great deal of argument and disagreement, as we're going to see today, at this particular juncture. Recently, here in...
California, the State Board of Education voted to include the biblical, as they call it, theory of creation in science books. And Dr. Ralph Girard, who's professor of biology and dean of the graduate division at the University of California at Davis, he's reported in the press to have made the comment that it makes just about as much sense. as teaching about the stork, and the exact quotes that the paper has is, should a scientific course go on reproduction, also mention the stork theory, he asked in a statement.
Well, a very interesting thing is that, for the benefit of this professor, the stork theory is not mentioned in the Bible at all, but the creation story is mentioned. And his comparison is not quite warranted because the Bible deals quite literally with this matter of procreation. And if you read your Bible carefully, you never would have had the viewpoint of the Stork theory at all.
So that this man is certainly beside the point. And it reveals a very antagonistic attitude toward the Bible. And I'm of the opinion that this man probably knows a great deal about his particular subject, which seems to be biology, but he knows very little about the Word of God. And I think that's quite obvious for anyone to make the type of statement that he has made.
Now, as we come here to this verse in Genesis and this first chapter, you must recognize that this problem of origins It provokes more violent controversy, wild theories, and wide disagreements than any other. And always you have the inclusion of man's hypotheses. And as a result, there's a babel of voices that have drowned out the clear voice of God. Now, there are actually two extreme groups who have blurred the issue, and they've muddied the waters of understanding by their own.
dogmatic assumptions and assertions. Now, one group are the arrogant scientists who assume that biological and philosophical evolution are gospel truth. Their assumed axiom is the assured findings of science, and we'll see that in a moment. Now, the other group are the young and proud theologians who arrogate to themselves the super knowledge. that they've discovered how God did it.
They write and speak learnedly about some clever theory that reconciles science and the Bible. They look with disdain upon the great giants of Bible expositors of the past as being Bible dwarfs as compared to them. Well, I would say that both of these groups would do well to consider a statement that Job had made to him. When the Lord finally appeared to him, he asked, Ask him the question, Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Declare, if thou hast understanding. That's Job 38, 4. And the fact of the matter is that God says to man, you talk about the origin of the universe, you don't even know where you were when I laid the foundations of the earth. And that's a very good question that I'm sure no man can answer. Now, there are these extreme theories, and I think that we should probably consider them. And by the way, may I say this, that you can make a division here, a twofold division, that if you're going to talk about origins today, you're reduced either to speculation or to creation.
Now, don't tell me science, because after all, evolution has many theories. today, and some of the most reputable scientists of the past and the present reject evolution. So you can't put it down as being a scientific statement like two plus two equal four. And then there is the creation account in Genesis 1. And that, by the way, you have to accept by faith. It's very interesting God made it that way.
The only way in the world that you can accept it. That is the thing the writer to the Hebrews says in the 11th chapter. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. So that today the great problems... still remains? How did it get from nothing to something?
And the only way that you'll ever know that is by faith or speculation, and speculation is very unscientific, by the way. Now, I want to look at some of these theories of creation, and it's quite interesting to note them. There are those that tell us today that, my, what we should do is to accept the... Scientific answer, and I'd like to ask you, what is the scientific answer?
What science are you talking about? Professor Lyell, in the year of 1806, that far back, he said that the French Institute enumerated not less than 80 geological theories which were hostile to the scriptures, but not one of these theories is held today. That's quite interesting, by the way. I know that many of us that were in school, why, we were taught theories that are not even taught today. For instance, there was a time when Ptolemaic science was held.
And may I say to you, it contradicted the book of Genesis, but I don't think any reputable science today goes back and holds to Ptolemaic science. And then there's the Newtonian science. And for years, the scientists of the world held on to it and said it contradicted the Bible, and it did. And did you know that the Newtonian is ruled out today? And then, I think I started off with the nebular hypothesis, and I was taught at one time that matter is indestructible.
That was before the atom bomb, of course. And now all of that is out the window. So when you say today... that you want to hold a scientific viewpoint over against the Genesis account, I'd like to ask you, what science are you holding to? And did you know that what is science today may not be science tomorrow?
I'm told these books change every ten years, and most of them every five years. The fact of the matter is that the purpose of Moses in writing, and I think you'd smile at all this. disturbance that's been made today about the creation story.
Because he didn't write it for that. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished, or throughly furnished unto all good works.
Now, the purpose of Scripture was for what purpose? An instruction in righteousness. This is not written to teach you geology or biology.
It's not written for that at all. It was written to show man's relationship to God and God's requirements that he puts down for man today and what man must do to be saved. You can write that over this first part of the book of Genesis.
What must I do to be saved? May I say to you, suppose God had given us scientific science. statement of creation. How many people of Moses'day would have understood it?
And how many people even in our day could grasp it? You must remember that the Bible was not written for learned professors, but for simple folk of every age and every land. But may I say that it's always appealed to intelligent men, and I mean intelligent men. And for that reason, it's not written.
couched in that kind of language at all. And if it had been written in the scientific language of Moses'day, it certainly would have been rejected. And there are several solutions, therefore, men have come up with relative to the origin of the universe.
One is that it's an illusion. And may I say to you, that is certainly contrary to the facts, is it not? And yet there are people that hold to that. And then there are those that say that it spontaneously arose out of nothing.
Well, that's what the Bible says in a way, but you must remember God spoke, God created it. And then the third is that it had no origin, but has existed eternally. And then fourth, that it was created. And then, of course, this breaks down into many different ways that they have today of trying to explain. the origin of the universe, that it came about in some very strange fashion.
And I have before me, and I'm going to share with you today, some of these theories that men have advanced down through the history of the world. Now, we have this statement made by Dr. Harlow Shapley, who was the director of Harvard Observatory. He says, we are still embedded. In abysmal ignorance of the world in which we live, we've advanced very little relative to the total surmiseable extent of knowledge beyond the level of wisdom acquired by animals of long racial experience. We are to be sure no longer afraid of strange squeaks in the dark, nor completely superstitious about the dead.
On many occasions, we are valiantly rational. Nevertheless, we know how much the unknown transcends what we know. Now, may I say to you, that is without doubt a tremendous statement that has been made. And then it was Dr. Lauren C. Isley, who was officer of the Provo at the University of Pennsylvania. He says, we do not know any more about matter and how it's produced than we know about spiritual things.
Therefore, I think it's unwise to say in our present state of knowledge that the one precludes the other. The universe seems to exist as a series of emergent levels, none of which is like the level before. That man and all the rest of life have evolved and changed is undeniable, but what lies beneath these exterior manifestations, we do not know.
And then he added this. I wish I could answer your question. But to clothe my ignorance in big words would benefit neither yourself nor me.
And it's too bad that some of these men today that speak so learnedly, and I have here statements that I've taken out of the popular press. One article says that man, the mystery of origin of the world, and that man is on the verge of discovering that. That happened to be written back in 1961. Haven't had anything new on that since then, by the way. And then it was biologist Edwin Conklin, speaking of evolution, that made this statement, the probability of life originating by accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary originating from an explosion in a print shop. And that is something that, by the way, sounds very unscientific coming from an outstanding scientist.
There are actually, I guess, three theories of the universe that even astronomy has suggested. And it's quite interesting to look at those different theories. One is known as the...
steady-state theory. One is the Big Bang theory, and one is the oscillating theory. Now, the Big Bang theory is the one that Dr. William A. Baum told the National Academy of Science meeting at UCLA about, by the way, that now scientists have come to the conclusion that it's the Big Bang theory.
And I have the statement of Dr. R. B. Partridge of Princeton also. And the big bang is that there was a great big explosion way back yonder, oh, billions of years. I think ten billions of years was the last one, and that we're in for another one, and probably another ten billion years.
So I don't think we need to worry about that a great deal, but it's interesting that that is the explanation that is offered today. And you will find that Great Britain is actually the one that... fathered this theory, and very frankly, we haven't heard very much about the rocks that were brought back from the moon. Have you noticed that many of the scientists, and certainly that's been true here in Southern California, they just don't get worked up over those rocks brought back from the moon, because they seem to disprove a theory that man had. Now, there was several years ago Dr. Leakey, He was the son of a missionary, by the way, and he came up with the theory, for he found out yonder in Africa a skull.
He calls it the Nutcracker Man. I guess that he had pretty good teeth and that he lived there 600,000 years ago. That's according to Dr. Leakey.
But we've had theories like that before, and there are a great many men today that are scientific men that don't. fall for that. Now, there are other ways of explaining the origin of man, and back in Indianapolis, Dr. Lawrence S. Dillon, he's associate professor of biology at Texas A&M College, and he says, man's not an animal but a plant which evolved from brown seaweed, this man declared.
He says, all animals are in reality a type of highly modified plant life, derived a billion years or so ago from a common ancestry with a brown seaweed. Now, maybe you and I have been looking in the wrong place for our grandpa and grandma. Some folk have been looking up a tree.
We should be out here pulling the seaweed out, because that's grandpa and grandma. May I say to you, some of this really becomes ridiculous when you begin to put it down. by the side of some other things.
May I say to you that after centuries of bitter argument over how life on earth began and awe-inspiring answers emerging out of the shrewd and patient detective work in laboratories all over the world, you know, that was in Reader's Digest a long time ago. And you would think by now we'd be getting some sort of an answer or a little encouragement, but none has been forth. coming.
It was the practice, according to Dr. Talmage, that the dogma which signs folly is that the archaeological finds of prehistoric cultural objects must be so arranged that the cruder industries must always be dated earlier than those of a more advanced time, regardless of where they're found. And may I say to you, today it's been a little disconcerting. disconcerting that sometimes they find the advanced civilization underneath that which seemed to be a prehistoric time.
Now, there are so many other theories that are offered today about how the earth began, and it was Dr. Claus Mampel from Germany. He says, I don't see any more reason for seeing us, the human race, connected with apes than with... Canary birds are kangaroos.
And may I say to you that maybe that's the direction we ought to go to look for our ancestors. Now, as you know that even the evolutionists do not agree, they today have come up with many theories. I would like to, and I think this probably might answer the statement of a great many.
You cannot put one little star in motion. You cannot shape one single forest leaf. nor fling a mountain up, nor sink an ocean, presumptuous, pygmy large with unbelief. You cannot bring one dawn of regal splendor, nor bid the day to shadow it twilight fall, nor send the pale moon forth with radiance tender, and dare you doubt the one who has done it all. It's unfortunate that when you get down to the level of the pseudo-scientists, and I'm thinking of the teachers today in our public school, schools that teach science, they actually are not in a position to give a fair view of it, as they were only given one viewpoint in college.
But actually, there are some outstanding men that very definitely feel that it is not demonstrated. For instance, Dr. G.A. Kirkut. He's of the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry at the University of Southampton in England. And Dr. Corkut wrote a book entitled The Implications of Evolution.
I'm quoting from him now. There is a theory which states that many living animals can be observed over the course of time to undergo changes so that new species are formed. This can be called a special theory of evolution and can be demonstrated in certain cases by experiments. On the other hand, there is the theory that all of the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source, which itself came from an inorganic form. The theory can be called the general theory of evolution, and the evidence that supports it is not sufficiently strong to allow us to consider it as anything more than a working hypothesis.
Now, will you listen to the statement of the Swedish botanist Herbert Nielsen? He has made this statement, and I'm quoting him now. He says, My attempts to demonstrate evolution by experiment carried on for more than 40 years have completely failed.
At least I should hardly be accused of having started. from a preconceived anti-evolutionary standing point. It may be firmly maintained that it is not even possible to make a caricature out of a paleobiological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that it has been possible to construct new classes and the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as due to the scarcity of the fossil material. of material.
Deficiences are real. They'll never be filled. The idea of an evolution rests on pure belief.
May I say to you, he's moving us in the realm of religion. And my friend, if you're an evolutionist, you have to take it by faith. And may I say, it's speculation, and it has always been that. But unfortunately, a great many have accepted it as fact. Now, there is today a group of these theologians, young theologians for the most part, and they do not want to be called intellectual obscurantists, and so they have adopted what is known as theistic evolution.
Curtly Mather, in Science Ponders Religion, he makes this statement. Dr. Mather writes, When I theologian accepts evolution as the process used by the creator, he must be willing to go all the way with it. Not only is it an orderly process, it's a continuing one. The golden age for man, if any, is in the future, not in the past.
Moreover, the creative process of evolution is not to be interrupted by any supernatural intervention. The evolution of the first living cells from previously existing non-living materials may represent a quantum jump rather than an infinitesimal step along the path of progress, but it is an entirely natural development. Now, may I say to you that it is impossible.
In fact, that's almost an unreasonable tenet. It's an illogical position today to say that you're a theistic evolutionist. There are those today that are trying to run with the hare and with the hounds.
They'd like to move up with the unbelievers, but they would also like to carry a Schofield Bible under their arm. And I'm afraid that it's difficult to do both. It's like that old Greek race where you put one foot on one horse and one on the other, and then you start out. And it's marvelous when the two horses keep on the same route.
But believe me, when one of them decides to go another direction, you're in for trouble. You've got to determine which one you're going with. And that's the condition of the theistic evolutionist. And he ordinarily ends up in the wrong field, by the way.
generally rides with the wrong horse. Now, today, there are so many that seem to be misinformed that are intelligent human beings. For instance, Liberty Magazine years ago, and I took this clipping out many years ago, and it says what according to biblical records is the date of the creation of the world.
And you know what they've given? Four thousand and. 4 BC.
How utterly ridiculous can you be? Who created this universe? May I say to you, God created it. Will you listen to this? This to me is very important to know.
Here is what Life magazine had as the origin, and I'm reading now, for perhaps one half of the long span of early history, the planet Earth lay barren. And lifeless under its canopy of air, the waters of its oceans rose and fell with the pulse of the sun and moon, and stirred with the respiration of the winds, but in them no living thing moved. Above them the great continental platforms loom rocky and bleak, devoid of green as the landscapes of the airless moon. Then at some indeterminate point, some say two billion years ago, some a billion, And a half, the entity called life miraculously appeared on the surface of the deep. What form it took, what concatenation of physical circumstances brought it into being, science cannot specify, nor indeed reply with assurance to the question, what is life?
All that can be said is that through some agency, certain giant molecules acquired the ability to duplicate themselves. Now, friends, are you willing to go along with that? And fact of the matter is, we have some almost ridiculous statements that have been made. I know that one of them takes the position the way man began was in some garbage can. It says, from some raw material, some prehistoric intelligent left his garbage here.
Now, that's a statement of a scientist, by the way. And that's the way that we got started. Now, some of them send us out to look at the seaweed.
Some of them send us to look up the tree, at the monkey in the tree. And my friend, may I say to you, now they send us to the garbage can. May I say to you that this is getting worse and worse, is it not?
I don't know about you, but I still feel that God's... statement still stands up in this modern age. Here is the definition that Herbert Spencer gave.
It's a very famous definition, and let me read it. He says, evolution is an integration of matter in a concomitant dissipation of motion during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity and the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation. You turn that one around for a little while and see what you come up with, friends. I do not know about you, but today it still makes sense to read, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Who created it?
God did. Created it out of nothing. When?
I don't know. I have news for you. Nobody else knows.
They have this record that I read just a moment ago. Some say two billion, some say one billion. And I notice now that some are moving it up maybe to five billion years. No one knows. I think they're all pikas.
I think it was created long before that. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. May I say to you very candidly, you see, God's had eternity back of him.
What do you think he's been doing in all the billions of the years of the past? Waiting for you to come on the scene and waiting for me to come on the scene? No, he's been busy.
He's had this creation a long time to work with. You see, he really hasn't told us very much, has he? And I think it's rather presumptuous on this little pygmy down here to presume he knows more than he really knows about it.
We just accept these majestic words of the word of God and can say with the psalmist, when I consider thy heavens the work of thy fingers, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament. showeth his handiwork. And Paul writing to the Romans in Romans 1.20, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
And then the writer to the Hebrews, through faith we understand that the worlds were... framed by the word of God. So the things which are seen are not made of things which do appear.
You have to accept that by faith, because even science can't tell you how you can take nothing and make something. God apparently did it that way. But man today cannot tell when this was created.
And when you put down the account, that's in Genesis, along with the other creation accounts. And most nations had it. I think most of them were perversions of the Genesis account. You take the Bible account and the Babylonian account, for instance. The tablets that give the Babylonian account, they begin with chaos.
The Bible begins with cosmos. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the heavenly bodies are gods, according to the Babylonian account.
And there's nothing in the world but matter, according to the Bible. And you have polytheistic theology in the Babylonian account, and you have monotheistic truth in the Bible account. And the Babylonian account is just the work of a craftsman.
And in the Bible, God spoke, and it came into existence. And the Babylonian account is puerile. It's grotesque. But in the Bible, you have here the grand and solemn.
realities. And the Babylonian account is definitely out of harmony with known science, but not the Bible. May I say that the fact that we reject evolution, it rejects God, it rejects revelation, it denies the fall of man and the fact of sin, and it opposes the virgin birth.
That's the reason that we reject it with all our being, friends. Because we do not believe that it is the answer to the origin of this universe. And there's so many other things that could be said. Now, there is a third question here. Not only who created and when did he create, but why did he create?
And believe me, this is getting right down now to the nitty gritty. This is important to see. Will you notice what the Word of God has to say? This universe that you and I live in today was created for his own pleasure. He saw fit to create it.
He delighted in it. And you read over in the fourth chapter of Revelation, verse 11, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Now, he created this universe because he wanted to create it. He did it for his pleasure.
You may not like the universe, but he does. He never asked me about where I wanted this little world on which I lived placed in his universe. He could have put it way out under somewhere. But he didn't ask me that. In fact, he didn't even ask me whether I wanted to be born in Texas or not.
Of course, if he'd have given me the opportunity, I would have chosen Texas. Well, he didn't. May I say to you that this universe you and I live in today was created for his pleasure. He saw fit to create.
He delighted in the act. And then the second reason that he created this universe, it was for his own glory. The original creation, you remember, sang that wonderful creator's praise when the sons of God, you remember, they sang together. That was a wonderful time.
And over in the 38th chapter of the book of Job, verse 7, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God... shouted for glory. May I say to you, it was created for his glory.
It's for him. And then you remember Isaiah. He says in Isaiah 43, 7, I have created him for my glory. I have formed him. Yea, I have made him.
God has created this universe for his glory. And then God created this universe and man in it for. fellowship. He wanted fellowship with man. And God placed that first man in the Garden of Eden.
And he wanted this man that he created. He wanted him to have fellowship with. And he had to make him a premoral agent. God could have made a bunch of robots.
God could have made a mechanical man and push a button and have him bow down. But God didn't want that kind of a man. God wanted a man to be free to choose him and to love him and serve him.
You remember, that was the awful slur and blasphemy that Satan hurled against God and against Job. He said, you remember, does Job serve you for naught? In other words, you're paying him to.
God says, I want creatures that will, by a free choice, choose me. My friend, the greatest thing you can do as a human being is to, in this world of sin, where everything is against God today, and he's permitted it that way, but he has put you and me in this world as it is today, that you and I can make a choice for him. And in the midst of all of this unbelief and the blasphemy around us, we can say today, I choose you.
Jesus, I accept and receive him. I believe in God the Father, almighty maker of heaven and earth. That's the most glorious privilege that you and I have. And you can talk about freedom of speech and freedom of everything else, but this poor crowd around us today that's talking about freedom really don't know about it.
If you have real freedom, when you'll choose Jesus Christ as your Savior. As we are suggesting that you are on the horns of a dilemma today relative to the creation of the world, actually you have to depend on speculation or revelation. There's not a third one at all.
Now, someone is going to say, but evolution explains the origin. of this universe. Well, listen to Dr. Howard Shapley, and we'll be quoting him later on. He is director of the Harvard Observatory, and he says, we are still embedded in abysmal ignorance of the world in which we live.
We're still absolutely in the dark relative to the creation of this earth on which you and I live. You see, you Today, it's either revelation or speculation. It would seem now that these rocks that have been brought back from the moon are not advancing the theory of the origin of the universe that they had before, that it was the result of a tremendous explosion. It would look so far as if the rocks on the moon do not correspond to rocks on the earth.
Well, that's quite upsetting, and as you have probably noted, that the scientists haven't been jumping up and kicking their heels together because of the rocks that have been found on the moon. In other words, there are three areas in which evolution cannot move, and we'll see that here in Genesis. And that is, it cannot bridge the gap from nothing to something. It cannot bridge the gap from something to life, and it cannot bridge the gap between life and humanity, that is, self-conscious human life with a free will. These are gaps that evolution so far has not been able to bridge at all.
And the press, of course, always looking for something sensational, comes up with something that's quite interesting. And one of the things that's been put in my hands in the past few days is a fellow Texan sent me... something that they're doing down in Texas.
As you probably know, that they found down near a place where I used to live on the Paluxy River in Glen Rose, Texas, they have found dinosaur tracks. Well, I've known about that for years. And of course, you might expect that in Texas, you'd have the biggest of everything.
So they apparently had the dinosaurs. Now, not only that, but They now have found something that's quite disturbing. They have found some giant human tracks there. And you know that's really upsetting because it's very difficult to start out with a little amoeba or a little scum on top of the water, and all of a sudden you find walking back there with the dinosaurs human beings that are much bigger than any that we've got today.
I want to say that... Evolution is going to have a lot of problems in the next few years. And may I predict right now that, and I'm merely quoting some scientists, that by the end of this century, evolution will be as dead as a dodo bird.
This brings us back to this wonderful story that we want to continue in. I'm of the opinion that first verse, it's a majestic verse. It's a tremendous verse. Verse... is the Doa into which you will have to walk into the Bible.
You have to believe that he is the creator. He that cometh to God must believe that he is. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
Now, let's look at the little verse for just a moment. In the beginning, and that's a beginning you cannot date. You can put it down as billions of years, and I think you'd probably be accurate, but who knows how many? Man certainly does not know. And God created, and the word create here is bara, that means out of nothing.
And actually in the first chapter of Genesis, it's only used three times. There are really only three acts of creation that we have here. You have, first of all, the creation of something from nothing. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
Then you have the creation of life. God created great whales and every living creature that moved it. That's down in verse 21, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every wing fell after his kind, and God saw that it was good.
That's animal life of all kinds. And then the third act of creation you find in verse... 27, so God created man in his own image.
In the image of God created him, male and female created him. You have the creation of something from nothing. You have the creation of life, and then the creation of human life, of human beings.
And believe me, theistic evolution is not the answer at all. Theistic evolution, of course, is rather untenable. But it attempts to follow creation until you come up to man, and then Adam and Eve were the products of some evolutionary process.
The theistic evolutionist makes the days in Genesis a period of time, a long period of time. And we do not believe, of course, that that is true. And I think that it's very clear that that is not true.
God called the evening and the morning the first day. Today, and I'm of the opinion that it's quite clear in this chapter, as we shall see in another place. But now coming back to verse 1 again, he created the heaven and the earth. Now the earth is separated from the rest of creation here. Why?
Well, that's the hometown of man. That's where man is to be placed. We're very much interested in him because we belong to this creature. We need to realize that we're a creature.
creature and a creature of God. And as a creature of God, we owe him something. Now, we have in this Something that is very important.
It was years ago that Herbert Spencer said that the most general forms into which the manifestation of the unknowable are redivisible. And this is the way he divided it. Time, space, matter, force, motion. And many years ago, a very fine personal worker, it was George Dewey Blomgren. He was talking to a...
Army sergeant who was a law graduate, and he was attempting to witness to him, and this sergeant mentioned Herbert Spencer. And Blomgren said to the soldier, did you know that both the Bible and Spencer teach the great principles of creation? And the sergeant's eyes widened, and he said, why, how's that? Well, he says he talked about times. Space, matter, force, motion.
You have in the first verse of Genesis, time in the beginning. You have space, the heavens. You have matter, the earth.
You have force, the Spirit of God. And that's in verse 2, by the way. And you have motion, and that's moved upon the face of the water.
So in the first two verses of Genesis, why you have these great principles that have been put down. And how important it is for us to see that. I want us now to continue to move on down in this section.
And we come here to something that we believe should be considered. And the earth was without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved from the face of the water. Now we have here. Something that in recent years, there have been those that have attempted to discredit it.
They say that you do not have a catastrophe mentioned here. But I believe that a great catastrophe took place between verses 1 and 2. And I think there's an abundance of evidence for it. To begin with, to look out in this vast creation, something has happened to it. Man's trip.
to the moon reveals that that's nothing in the world but a wasteland up there. How did it get like that? May I say that there came a catastrophe in God's universe. Now, we have the earth mentioned because this is going to be the place where man lives, and it's the earth that became without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And that's the absence of God, of course. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. Now, you have a statement that is made in Isaiah 45, 18. Isaiah says that God did not create this earth. Tohu vabohu.
That's the Hebrew there. And that means that God did not create it. without form and void. That's not the way God created.
God created this universe, a cosmos, not a chaos. And that is the thing that Isaiah, of course, is attempting to make clear. Let me turn and read Isaiah 45, 18. For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth and made it, he hath established it.
He created it, not. in vain. He formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, there's none else.
Now, that is important to see. He created it, not tohu vabohu, but the earth became tohu vabohu. He formed it to be inhabited. And it is God that came into this wreck and attempted to, not only attempted, he did it. He made it a habitable place for man.
Now, all of this study of space reveals that you and I live in a universe that as far as human beings is concerned, this seems to be the only habitable place. And what we have here is the fact that the earth became without form and void, and darkness is upon the face of the deep. And I think this earth was just like the moon, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Now, the entire universe came in under. this great catastrophe.
Well, what was the catastrophe? We could only suggest, and I'm not going into detail here at all. We probably will when we come to other passages of Scripture.
But apparently there is some pre-Adamic creature that was on this earth. And apparently all of this is connected with the fall of Lucifer, son of the morning, who became Satan, the devil, as we know him today. I think all of that's involved here.
But God has not given us details. Fact of the matter is, he's given us very few details here. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved. And the word for moved is brooded, brooded, like a mother hen over the little chickens, brooded upon the face of the water.
And the Holy Spirit begins a ministry here that we see him doing again and again. recreation. He comes into this scene and he recreates.
And that's what he does for us. You remember the Lord Jesus said, ye must be born again. And not only that, you must be born of the Spirit.
And that which is born of the water and of the Spirit. Now, water is the Word of God. The Word of God. Now, if you want to make baptism the symbol, fine, that's all right. But the water means the Word of God.
And the Holy Spirit is the author of it. This is very, very important for us to see, friends. Now, something happened to the earth.
You have here the six days of renovation, or I've divided it like this. Verse 1, creation of the universe. Verse 2, convulsion of the earth. And then construction of the earth in six days, verses 3 through 31. And I believe that what you have here is that development.
Now, there's several things here we'd like to call attention to. It says in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and that is Exodus 20, 11. And there is nothing there. In that word about creating, it's really making. And God is taking that which is already formed here, and in these six days, he is not creating, but he's recreating, if you please. He's making out of that which already exists, the matter that he probably called into existence billions of years before.
Now he created life. and put it on the earth. And he also created for the earth man. And that's the creature that you and I happen to be one of them today.
And that makes this story intensely important for us today. Now you'll notice something else here. It says that God said, that's verse 3, and we come now to day one, and that's light.
God said, let there be light, and there was light. Just like that, my friend. God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day. My friend, that must be a 24-hour day. I don't see how you could get anything else out of that. But the important thing is, as we move down in here, God said, Let there be light. Ten times in this chapter.
It's let there be. If you go down to verse 6, let there be a firmament. Verse 9, let the waters. We'll call attention to the others. Ten times in this chapter we have let there be.
And if someone has called this the Ten Commandments of Creation. This is a divine decalogue that you have here. First, let there be light. There was light. And God called the light day, the darkness he called night.
And the evening and the morning were the first day. This is the first time, by the way, that God spoke. This is something to note.
God said, let there be light. Now, verse 6. And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the water. Now, this firmament is Ruach, it's these air spaces.
And God divided the waters from the waters. What does that mean? Well, he divided the waters first perpendicularly. There's water above us, water beneath us.
Out in the Hawaiian Islands, when we were out there last year, did you know that five inches of rain fell in Honolulu in just a very short time? I started to say a few minutes, and I think I'm accurate on that. But they told us that over 200 inches of rain falls in a place where we were.
My friend, there's a whole lot of water. If there's 200 inches of it that can get above you like that, well, that's what God did. God divided the waters above from the waters that are beneath.
And God called the firmament heaven. Now, this is not heaven as you and I think of it. There are three heavens that are mentioned in Scripture.
The Lord Jesus spoke of the birds of heaven. I think that's what you have here. The heaven is mentioned here. And then there's the stars of heaven.
And then there's the third heaven where he dwells. And so the first layer up there, the first deck, is the deck where there are clouds. And where the birds fly also.
And the evening and the morning were the second day. And then we come to day three. And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear. appearing it was so.
God called the dry land earth, gathering together the waters called his seas, and God saw that it was good. Now you have a horizontal division made of the waters. First, the waters above from the waters beneath.
Now the water is separated from the land, from the earth, and that division is made. And may I say to you, there's nothing unscientific about this. They tell us that every... spot on top side of this earth in which we live. Today was covered with water at one time.
That was evidently a judgment that had come upon the earth way back sometime in the dim and distant eternity of the past. And we know practically nothing about it. Anything we say is speculation. You see, God has really told us very little here, but he told us enough that we can believe him.
That's all. God called the dry land earth. Now, what's he getting ready to do? Well, it looks like he's getting ready to make a place that he can put man.
That'll be habitable. Man's not a water creature, although there's some of these evolutionists think we came out of it. The seaweed we mentioned, you remember. And others think we came out of a slop bucket. May I say to you, how absurd can you possibly be?
Now, will you notice? God said, let the waters under the heaven be divided. Now, that's day three.
Now, we come to day four. And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed in is itself upon the earth it was so. Now, God is putting plant life here because man, until the flood, was apparently a vegetarian.
He's going to eat nothing but fruits and nuts. And. We could make a comment about that, I guess, but we shouldn't.
So we should move on. And we read here, And the earth brought forth grass and herb, yielding seed after its kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after its kind. And God saw that it was good. Now, that was the evening and morning of the third day. Now, we have, And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night.
Now, God didn't cry. create the sun and the moon at this time. They were already up there.
God just brought them around in position, one of them to take charge of the day, and the sun does it pretty well, and the moon by night, and the moon does a good job by night. I do not know about you, but I proposed to my wife by moonlight, friends. That moon has a lot of influence over the night, I can assure you.
And then it just says here in a clause at the end, he made this stars also. That was a pretty big job, by the way, but not for God. It is John Wesley who said that God created the heavens and the earth and didn't even half try. He made the stars also.
And then it says God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And if you'll notice, it's God that does the dividing here. You know, he still does that. There are those that say today, what's the difference between right and wrong?
What God says, friends, God's drawn all the lines. Somebody says, how do you know what's right? What God says is right. God has put down certain principles.
God divides the light from the darkness. And it's just that much distinction between the two, by the way. He's the one that makes the difference, and he still does it.
Now, in verse 20, he says, And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life. fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. Now, you do have here a certain amount, and don't misunderstand me now, evolution.
Now, if you mean by evolution, not just everything came from one little cell, but that God made one of each creature. And you will notice it says he made each one after his kind. And that doesn't mean species, as even Darwin said. It means more than that. The word is philia.
I have been reading what one scientist has said, and he's been looking around for another word. Well, I had a professor in seminary, a very brilliant man, he gave the name philia. And if you look that up, that would include not just one horse, but it would include every animal, including the zebra.
Everything that belongs to the horse family. created one like that. Now there's been development from those, by the way, and I believe that that is true.
But to say that everything originated from one little amoeba and God is not the creator, that's the thing we object to. There's been tremendous development, I think, and also development. And that means it went downward. God created great whales, every living creature that moveth which the waters brought.
forth abundantly after their kind, and every wing fell after his kind. And God saw that it was good. You notice that? When God does it, it's good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the waters and the seas, let fowl multiply in the earth.
And by the way, this scientist said that if we're going to teach the creation story, ought to teach the stork story. Believe me, the Bible of... Certainly gets rid of the stork story if you read it very carefully. These animals had to bring forth.
And it will be true of man also. You don't find little Willie under a stump. And the stork didn't bring little Susie either. But God did create the heavens and the earth, by the way.
Now, will you notice? And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. Now we have the first five days. And God said, This is sixth day now.
Let the earth bring forth the living creatures after his kind. The cattle, the creeping thing, and beasts of the earth after his kind. It was so.
God made the beast of the earth after his kind. His filial and cattle after their kind. Everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind.
And God saw that it was good. Now, God separates animal life, plant life from man. Because we'll see that God says, let us make man in our image. We want to look at this creature God made because he happened to be your great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother here.
And he's mine also. And that means that you and I are cousins. Maybe not kissing cousins, but that means the whole human family is related. And since Adam fell, we are related.
We are brothers. Really insane. That's the picture of man we're going to see in Genesis. And now we come to the creation of man on the sixth day. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air.
and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Now we have this tremendous statement and something that we all ought to be interested in, and this is the creation of man. And the question arises, how is man created? Well, the next chapter will tell us that. We'll go into detail, as that chapter does, when we get there, and I trust we'll be there today.
Now, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, created he him. Male and female, created he them. Now, you have here just the simple fact of the creation of man. And this is the third time the word bara, which means to create out of nothing.
You see, man here is created. He's something new, if you please. It's the same word that occurred in the first verse of Genesis.
God created the physical universe. Then he created life. And that's in verse 21. God created great whales and every living creature and so on.
Now God has created man. Verse 27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God. created he him, male and female created he them.
Now, the detail of this will be given in the next chapter. And frankly, we can see from this that God has left out a great deal about the creation of the universe. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and that's all you have, friends.
And that's all that God has given to us about the creation. And that's about all we can know about it. Now, he could have filled in detail. But in the second chapter, he's going to fill in detail about just one act of his creation, and that's man.
And you know why? Because this is written to man. And God wants him to know about his origin.
And it's as it were, God is saying that I would like very much for you to pay attention to your own creation and not be... speculating about the creation of the universe. But we're going to see something that's quite, I think, tremendous when we come to the creation of man. And here we're told God gave him dominion over the earth. And I do not think, as we shall see, that that means God made him a sort of a glorified gardener for the garden of Eden.
This man had tremendous authority given to him. And we are going to find out a little later that God says to him that he's to do certain things relative to this creation that God has given to him. I want to submit to you that this is one of the great statements of the Word of God, and I can't conceive of anything quite as wonderful as this.
We have here now the creation of man. And man is created in the image of God. How does that mean?
Well, may I say to you that man is like God, I think, is a trinity. Now, I know immediately someone is going to say, oh, I know what you mean. You mean that man is physically and mentally and spiritually a being.
Well, that, I think, is true. Paul says in 1st John, Thessalonians, the fifth chapter, that very thing, that God preserve you wholly in your body, in your mind, and in your spirit. I think that's true, but we'll see when we get into the next section, that is the second chapter, that actually it means more than that.
I think that the fact that man is a personality. And as a personality, he is self-conscious. And then he is one who makes his own decisions.
He's a free moral agent. Now, that is the thing that is unique, apparently, about mankind. And I think that's what it means here when God created man in his own image. Now, let's move on down from that. because I'm very anxious to come to all of this when we get into the second chapter here.
Now, we're told that God created man in his own image, in the image of God, created him, male and female, created them. But you see, the first chapter doesn't give you the details of how man was created and how woman was created. We won't find that till we come now to the second chapter.
And that's the reason that I say that God didn't intend to give us the details concerning the creation of this great universe that we are in. Or we'd have had another chapter here relative to it. But he offers no explanation for that other than he is the creator.
And that again, friends, puts us right back upon this all-important truth that you have in the 11th chapter. of Hebrews. By faith we understand.
That the worlds were created by the word of God. So that things which are seen today, they were made out of things which did not even exist before. It's creation ex nihilo.
Creation out of nothing. And somebody says, explain that. My friend, I can explain.
And do you know the very interesting thing is? Evolution doesn't explain that. Evolution has never answered the question of how nothing becomes something. Now, they've always got to start with a little amoeba. And as we've seen, some of them even start with a garbage can.
Some start with a piece of seaweed. And some start with an animal up a tree. May I say to you, you've got to have something to start with.
But the Bible starts with nothing. God created. And that is the tremendous thing that is revealed in this statement here.
And we'll move into details in the next chapter. Now, we are told, and God blessed them. And God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Now, these are the things that God said.
to them to do, that they were to be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. I'd like to look at this for just a moment because I feel like that we've now come to something which is really paid dirt, if you please. We now see here that God has given to this creature some unusual things. He says to him, first, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. And we're going to have him repeat that when he creates woman.
And we find that God seems to be the one that introduced the subject of sex, by the way. Quite interesting that this generation thinks they've made a new discovery. You get the impression today from the way that this thing has become a hang-up for this generation, that sex is something that this generation is the Columbus, and it's discovered it.
May I say to you, God mentions it here at the very beginning. In fact, there are four ways that God has of getting creatures. into this universe.
One was by direct creation. That was Adam. The second one was by indirect creation.
And that happened to be Eve. And third is by natural generation. That which is pretty well known today, we're certainly dragging it down to a level that God never intended it should be drugged down to. May I say to you that God created man to reproduce, and it's a wonderful, glorious truth.
And it is not to be taken today and be made a dirty, filthy, slimy thing that man right now is making of it in the books that he's writing. And he's writing nothing in the world but dirty, filthy books, producing nothing in the world but dirty, filthy things. And the reason is not because of art. And right now, some of the critics are speaking out and thank the Lord for that, that they're not doing it because it's art, because it's not art.
It's obscene. It's revolting and repulsive. And I'm merely now quoting some of the critics. They're doing it for the almighty dollar.
And this is the thing that is back of it. But it's a lovely, wonderful thing as we're going to see here. Now, God...
created this man in his image. God is the essentially personal being, and in giving the man an immortal soul, he gave him also a true personality. And he has a self-consciousness, and he has a power of free choice, and he has a distinct moral responsibility. He's in the image of God. Now, will you notice something?
God told him to fill the earth. That's reproduction. And now he says to him, replenish.
And that's an interesting word. That would seem to indicate that this earth had been habited before by other creatures. And God says, replenish the earth.
Because whatever the other creatures were, they had been destroyed. They had disappeared. Now he says, subdue the earth.
And I think that that's the basis of learning and scientific exploration today. You remember, Proverbs says, In Proverbs 25, 2, it's the glory of God to conceal a matter, but it is also the glory of kings to search it out. God hides diamonds way down in the earth, and God also puts the treasures down where man has to dig for them. And I very frankly believe that today you find that same thing true about knowledge.
I think it's true about the study of the Word of God. Let me give you this verbatim. It's Proverbs 25, 2. It's the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.
God wants you to go into the laboratory and pour it into the test tube, look at it under the microscope, my beloved. But unfortunately, man comes out with an atom bomb, and he's trying to destroy it. Troy, the human family today, now he says that man's to have dominion over the earth. He's not just a gardener to cut the grass. Man was to rule this earth.
I think when Adam wanted rain, he just brought the cloud over and had a shower, just like you turn on the sprinkler in your yard. And I think that when he wanted the sun to shine during the day, that it would shine. If he didn't want it, it didn't. He ruled this earth.
I think that you see that in the Lord Jesus. He had control over nature when he was here on this earth. He could say to the storm, be still.
He could feed a multitude. I think Adam could have done all of that until he fell. He lost that dominion, you see.
Now, verse 29, and God said, behold, I've given you every herb. bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for me. Now, I assume from that statement that man was a vegetarian at first, and it's not till after the flood man became a meat-eater, by the way. And now I read verse 30, And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth. Wherein there is life, I have given thee every green herb for meat, and it was so.
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Now, this brings us to the end of chapter 1, and it might be well to just make a resume at this point. What are some of the things that you note here? Well...
There are several things that I think that we should note, and one is the fact that God is mentioned here 32 times, and the Bible makes no attempt to prove that there is a God. Why? Because he says, the fool hath said in his heart there is no God, and that the Bible is a book written to reveal the spiritual, the religious, the redemptive.
And that comes to us only by faith. And so we have here the fact that God is the one who creates. And there are three specific things that are mentioned in this chapter. Then you have here in this first chapter a unity and the power and the personality of God.
And that's exactly what Paul says in Romans. He says that the invisible things of God are seen. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen.
How are they clearly seen? Being understood by the things that are made. Even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse. And I say to you very candidly that God has shut you up to faith in himself.
Now we find out that Genesis 1 does something else. It denies polytheism, one God creates. It denies the eternity of matter.
It's in the beginning. It all had a beginning, my friend. And you must remember that there was a time.
that science taught, the eternity of matter. And Genesis 1 denies pantheism. God is before all things and he's apart from them. And it denies fatalism.
God acts in freedom of his will. Then there's some striking features in this chapter. Let me enumerate them.
There is, first of all, order. There is progress. There is promptness. There is perfection.
And then we are going to find now in chapter 2, Adam's placed in the garden under conditions, and then we'll have the Sabbath day call to our attention. Now we come to chapter 2, and in chapter 2, there is a great principle that is revealed here, a principle of revelation. And of course, this is the first time it occurs, but you will have it again and again.
It's part of inspiration. It's the first time. fingerprints of inspiration.
It's the law of recurrence or the law of recapitulation. In other words, the Spirit of God and giving the Word of God has a practice of stating, not a detailed or elaborate way, but a series of great facts and truths. We've had six days of creation.
Now to come back and take out of that, that which is all important, and elucidate and enlarge upon that particular thing. That's what we're going to have now in chapter 2. That's what Deuteronomy is. Deuteronomy is the interpretation of the law after the experience of 40 years with it in the wilderness. Deuteronomy is not just a repetition of the law, but rather an interpretation of it. You find four gospels.
You find again and again that this precedes the law. Procedure is followed, and we'll notice as we go through the Word of God. Now, that which is lifted out, that which pertains to man.