Tonight we're turning to the book of Genesis, the chapter number one, and so that'll not take you too long to find. You may find this to be a very strange place to turn to when we preach in the gospel. I trust that as we go through the message, that God will encourage and speak to our hearts even in the message this evening. Genesis chapter 1, and we'll begin our reading at the verse number 1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. God said, let there be light, and there was light. 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. God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. Let it divide the waters from the waters. God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so. God called the firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and he gathered together of the waters he called the seas, and God saw that it was good. And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and that was so. The earth brought forth grass, and Herb yielded in seed after his kind. and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. We'll end there at the third day's account at the end of the verse 13. And with the word open before us, let's seek the Lord in a word of prayer. Our loving Father, our gracious God, again we approach thee, and through Jesus' precious name, giving all the merit of Christ on our behalf, Come, dear God, pray. Thou wilt send thy blessed spirit into this house tonight. Pray, O God, that what we see here done in the physical creation might be experienced in the new creation. Grant help, dear Father, help from another country. Send thy spirit among us. Help me to preach the word with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Answer prayer, glorify thy son, for I pray these are prayers in and through Jesus' precious name. Amen. As one enters the 66 book library of the Holy Scripture, the first book that a person meets is the book of Genesis. As the name suggests, it is the book of beginnings. And as one reads through the 50 chapters, many great theological truths find their first expression within this opening book of the canon of Holy Scripture, truths that will then find themselves to be unfolded to the reader as they journey their way through the other 65 books of the Bible. For example, the doctrine of God, and what an important doctrine that is, is presented to us and revealed to us in the very book of Genesis. God's eternal existence is revealed and referred to within the opening statement of the Word of God. In the beginning, God created. God preexisted before ever creation was brought forth. Further on in the chapter, chapter 1, we find the great doctrine of the Trinity hinted at in the words in verse 26. Let us make man in our image. There is a plurality of people being spoken of in those words. Let us. There is communion within the Godhead. Let us between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let us make man in our image, the doctrine of the devil is presented to us in this book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 3, we see the serpent beguiling Eve there in the garden of Eden. Man's fall, that seismic event within human history, his fall from a state of innocence into a state of sin is presented to us again in Genesis chapter 3 when Adam transgresses God's law by partaking of the forbidden fruit. Dr. Knopf's salvation is typically displayed within that chapter again, chapter 3. When God clothes Adam and Eve with skins to cover their nakedness and their shame. To procure those very skins, death had to come in. Blood had to be shed. The innocent slain in the stead of the guilty. Salvation typified in Genesis chapter 3. In Genesis 3. The divine incarnation is first declared. The coming one was to be supernaturally begotten. He who would enter into this world would enter it as none had ever done so before, and none has ever done since. He was to be the son of man, and yet he would have no human father. The one who would bruise the serpent's head was to be the seed of the woman. Sovereign election, that wonderful doctrine, is first exhibited in the Book of Beginnings as God chooses Abraham out from among the idolatrous people of the land of the Ur of the Chaldees. He makes him the father of the faithful. Justification by faith is made known to us in the words of Genesis 15 in the verse 6. And he believes, speaking of Abraham, he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness. The great doctrine of substitution is there pictured for us prophetically. pictured for us vividly on Mount Moriah, when Abraham takes his son Isaac from off the altar and instead offers the God-provided ram as a sacrifice to God. It is then appropriate that this book The book of beginnings has been termed the seed plot of the Bible. We have within its contents in germ form almost all of the great doctrines of the Christian faith that find in their full development within the other 65 books of the scriptures. It is to this book And it's basically the opening words of Genesis chapter 1 that I want us to consider this evening, because I see in these words, Genesis chapter 1, I see the unfolding in pictorial form, one of the Bible's greatest doctrines, the doctrine of regeneration. What happens here in the physical creation pictures for us vividly what happens within the new creation. What God does here at the beginning of time in the first creation of the physical world, He does in the new creation when a sinner is regenerated by the Spirit of God. So I want us to consider this portion of God's Word I want to preach a message I've simply entitled, The New Creation Pictured in the First Creation. The New Creation Pictured in the First Creation. I have only two points that will encourage you tonight. There's plenty of sub-points, so don't be getting too excited, but two million points in this message tonight. In the details of this opening chapter of the book of the Bible, I see pictured, first of all, the state of man. The state of man. Now, mankind has only ever found itself in one of two states. Either in an unfallen state, The state that mankind enjoyed prior to sin's entrance, or a fallen state, a state that mankind was placed into after sin's entrance into the world. Now it is an amazing thing to think that only two human beings ever enjoyed living in the first estate. in that unfallen state. The individuals that enjoyed living in such a state were Adam and Eve, coming forth from God in their pristine innocence from the very hand of God, earth's first inhabitants lived for God and with God in unbroken fellowship and blissful communion in the paradise of God. Behind them, no sinful hereditary. Within them, no deceitful or wicked heart, upon them no marks of sin's corruption, around them no signs of death. What a picture, what a state Adam and Eve enjoyed in the Eden of God. However all that changed, never sin entered into the world. It had put an end to that very state for mankind, resulting in an insurmountable chasm, at least from the viewpoint of man, opening up between holy God and now sinful man. The state that sin left the human race in is aptly pictured for us in the words of Genesis chapter 1 and the verse number 2. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. As I considered those words, I thought, are they not an apt description of the human heart that has been contaminated and corrupted by sin. The state of the primeval world, without form and void, and darkness being upon the face of the deep, is surely the state of every human heart until the Spirit of God comes and visits it and regenerates it. and causes that heart to be changed radically in the gospel and by the gospel of our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to notice in the first place that the human heart is without form, without form. The words without form, they translate to mean a place of chaos, a place of confusion, a place of desolation. And is that not the case of the human heart, a human heart that is without form in its sinful state? Are the hearts of men and women not in a place of confusion, a place of chaos, a place of desolation because of sin? The human heart is depicted within the Word of God as being a place of restlessness and a place of chaos. Isaiah the prophet uses the imagery of the restless sea to portray the heart of the sinner in Isaiah chapter 57 and the verse 20. But the wicked, the sinner, the sinners are like the troubled sea. When it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, there is no peace, saith my God to the wicked. Whenever Jude speaks of the sinner, That individual goes the way of Cain. They speaks of him as a restless being. And as Jude writes concerning such people, he uses particular pictures, particular imagery to depict the very restlessness of the human soul. He describes them as clouds without water, carried about off winds. Trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame. Wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of the darkness forever. Every word, picture that Brother Jude uses points to the chaotic and restlessness of the person who possesses an unregenerate heart. So far as spiritual things are concerned, the human heart is in a state of confusion, a state of disorder. You speak to any sinner about spiritual things, and you'll find that they speak and they bring to your attention all kinds of strange theories, having been concocted by them by a mind that is wholly depraved and a mind that is tainted and contaminated by sin. They've concocted ideas as to why the human race has reached such a sad state of affairs. They would say society is the way it is because of the lack of social cohesion. They would say that society is the way it is tonight. because of the failure of the educational system. They would say the society is the way it is tonight because of social deprivation and so on and so forth. And as to how the human race is to be delivered from such a state, well, equally strange remedies have been invented by the sinner. My good works, my church attendance, doing my best, it'll get me into God's heaven. It'll bring me into a right standing, a right state before God. What confusion there is that exists within the human heart when it comes to spiritual matters. It is a place where confusion reigns, a place where chaos reigns. It is a place where desolation reigns, where once innocence, purity, Holiness rules supreme. Sin has overrun the human heart, causing it to become desolate of any spiritual goodness. Such is your state tonight, if you know not Jesus Christ as your Savior. You are without form. The chaotic nature of your living, the restlessness of your life, simply an outward reflection of the inward turmoil that exists within your heart this evening. As soon as one adventure is over, another is embarked upon. As soon as one relationship has ended, another is commenced. As soon as one earthly possession is purchased, another is targeted on your list of priorities. There's a restlessness within the soul. Peace of conscience is an absent commodity from your life. There's confusion, confusion in your mind with respect to the matters of God and your soul. Your life is desolate. desolate of any spiritual goodness whatsoever. There is none righteous, no, not one. Such is your pitiful and such is your terrible state of heart tonight. If you're an unconverted individual, the human heart is without form. The human heart is also void. Word void here in the verse number two translates simply to mean to be empty, to be empty, an indistinguishable ruin, waste, a vast expanse of nothingness existed before God, spoke all things into existence within the physical creation. This term void is a suitable term, I believe, that aptly describes the heart, the life of the unregenerate man, the unregenerate woman. Because within the sinner's heart there is a void, there is an emptiness, there is a vast expanse of nothingness when it comes to that which will bring the sinner into that right and acceptable standing before God. As the human heart is openly dissected there upon the operating table of Holy Scripture, we find that within the human heart there is no life of God within it. There is no faith in Christ. There's no hope for the future. There's no goodness. There is no righteousness of itself. Nothing but emptiness when it comes to the things. that are required to bring the sinner into a right standing before God's sinner. Is this not your state tonight? The Bible declares that you are void of the essentials when it comes to the matter of salvation from sin. Within your heart there is no faith. Within your heart, there is no repentance, there is no righteousness, there is no goodness, there is no life, there is no hope that is naturally found within the human heart. Instead, that heart of yours tonight is found to be the place of unbelief, that place of unrighteousness, a place of death, a place of hopelessness. The heart is void, absolutely empty. Mr. Spurgeon put it like this, there is no thought of faith, of love, of hope, of obedience. It is a spiritually confused mass of dead sinfulness in which everything is misplaced. It is void and utterly empty. And sin has brought about such an indistinguishable ruin to your life. So that tonight the heart lies as a barren land waste, void of anything that would bring you into favor with God. All the emptiness of the unconverted individual. All the deep longing for something to satisfy. Solomon, look to all the things in this world. He set his mind and his heart to seek after pleasure. Whatever his heart lent towards, that he gave it to. And he comes to write in the book of Ecclesiastes, having given himself to mirth, having given himself to woman, having given himself to wine, having given himself to music, to building projects, and all kinds of things that money could buy, Solomon comes and makes this free and honest confession. vanity of vanity all is vanity emptiness of emptiness everything is empty he said that everything under the sun was vanity and he's true he was right problem was that he looks in the wrong place he looked under the sun he should have looked to the glory he should have looked to heaven and there he would have seen the christ of god And he would have found the pearl of great price. He would have found the treasure hidden within the field. He would have found the one in whom all the treasures of the wisdom of God are found, and all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus, if he had of looked just that little bit higher. He hath seen the blessed Son of God, in whom all satisfaction is found in. But he looked just under the sun. And maybe that's you tonight. You've looked in the things of the world. You've given yourself to all that the world has to offer, the pleasures, the possessions, the plaudits, the positions of this world. And here you are tonight, just like the primeval earth, void, empty, a place of undistinguishable ruin. Not only is the human heart without form, not only is it void, but we notice that the human heart is also marked by darkness. And darkness, verse 2 tells us, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Now, the sinner is said to walk in darkness in 1 John 1, verse 6. Darkness has blinded the sinner's eyes according to 1 John 2 and the verse 11. The sinner's understanding is said to have been darkened in Ephesians 4 verse 8. The sinner's foolish heart is darkened according to Romans 1 verse 21. The sinner is said to love darkness rather than light in John 3 in the verse 19. In Psalm 82 verse 5, the wicked is referred to as one who knows not nor understands but walks on in the darkness. Why? At the end of the sinner, the end of the sinner, the sinner does not repent of sin and exercise faith alone in Christ alone, for then they will be cast out into Outer darkness, according to Matthew 25 and the verse 30. Darkness, the human heart, just as the old world was covered in a thick darkness before God said, let there be light. So the human heart is blanketed with a darkness that is comparable to the darkness that reigned in Egypt during the plagues, a very darkness that could be felt. Among the entire human race there is not a person who has a spark of spiritual light within them. Darkness holds the entire sway over the whole of the human race, dwelling in the darkness of sin. The Bible speaks about the power of darkness, and that power needs to be broken. That power of darkness needs to be dispelled if the sinner is ever to be delivered from and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Why do sinners leave gospel preaching houses unconverted week after week? Why is it that you, the sinner, sits under gospel preaching? undisturbed and untroubled about your soul's salvation. I'll tell you the reason why. It's because you sit in the darkness of your sin, and tonight you need gospel light. to shine in. Tonight you need the glorious light of the gospel to shine into that darkened heart of yours. You need light to show you what you are, a hell-deserving, ill-deserving, and well-deserving sinner, and guilty before God, an individual that has committed high treason against the very crown of heaven. That's what Thomas Watson said, sin was. High treason against the crown of heaven. That's what you're guilty of, sinner. God will bring you into judgment. Oh, that you would see your sin and that you would see Christ for the first time. What a pathetic and what a pitiful state the sinner is to be found in. But let me come closer to home. What a pathetic, what a pitiful situation you're found into as a non-converted person. A heart full of confusion, a life full of chaos, an existence full of emptiness, a mind full of darkness, and all because you remain in your sin. Sinner, if your state is ever to be changed, then something dramatic, something dramatic needs to happen to you in the gospel. Thank God that's what happened, when God regenerates the sinner by the Spirit of God. I believe that we see this change pictured for us in God's intervention on creation's first morning. So note secondly with me, not only the state of man, but I want you to note the sovereign work of God, the sovereign work of God. On creation's first morning, Out of nothing, God is going to create everything. In a world that is without form, God is going to fashion something beautiful. In a world of emptiness, God is going to bring forth a fullness. In a world that is marked by darkness, God is going to bring light. And the dramatic change comes about when, as verse 2 puts it, the Spirit of God moved. The Spirit of God moved. It changes the whole chapter. That very statement of five words, the Spirit of God moved. These words mark the drawing sorry, the dawning of hope for the chaotic cosmos, as God comes in the person of the Holy Spirit and brings order out of chaos. Note with me that it was God that brings the order, left to itself the formless dark void that was earth, would never have brought itself into the state of order that we presently know on planet Earth, know it's going to take divine activity. Brethren and sisters, it's going to take divine intervention, something supernatural from outside of itself to bring about the arrangement and the order that we see today in the created universe. In this very detail, I say, the utter helplessness of the sinner, apart from the sovereign working of God, the Holy Spirit, the heart and within the soul. Fallen man is helpless as fallen earth was before God stepped in. The sinner can no more do and can no more save himself or herself. And the earth could lift itself out of the dark and form the state it found itself in, in Genesis chapter 1. The new creation, like the first creation, must be accomplished by God and by God alone. Sinner, are you aware of that? Are you aware of all your hoping and your wishing? Are you aware of all your resolve that you possess to try and lift yourself out of your sinful state that you're finding that that's not going to work? It's going to take divine intervention. That's what salvation is. God stepping in. God intervening. God moving by the Spirit upon the soul, giving life to where there's death, giving light where there's darkness, bringing hope where there's hopelessness, God stepping in. It's going to take divine intervention to rectify all that sin has done in your life. How necessary then, child of God, you're on the verge of a gospel mission. I tell you, a dynamic evangelist will not lift a sinner out of the deadness of their sin. A dynamic evangelist will not lift a sinner out of their sin. It is God and God alone. We're Calvinists. We believe that salvation is off the Lord. We believe that from beginning to end, God is the author and the finisher of our faith. How necessary it is then for the workings of the Holy Spirit, oh, that God by His Spirit will come. As I read Genesis chapter 1, I find that the chaos that existed over the face of the earth, the formlessness that was present, the darkness that was prevalent, did not impede did not inhibit, did not hinder the Spirit to do His work on creation's first morning. But instead I find that the Spirit of God went about His work unimpeded. with all of the energy and power of the triune Godhead, to accomplish the task assigned for Him. Just because it was dark, just because it was without form, just because the world existed there on that first morning, darkness upon the face of the deep, that did not hinder the Spirit of God moving. I tell you, there's encouragement. There's encouragement in this very detail that nothing and no one can impede the movings and the working of God the Holy Ghost. Child of God, you're going into Rathcule in the will of God in a few days' time. Do you think the paramilitaries of Rathcule can inhibit the workings of the Spirit of God? Do you think the UVF, the UDA, the UFF, whoever holds sway in that housing development of over 7,000 houses, do you think that any of those paramilitaries can inhibit the working of the Holy Spirit? Whenever the Holy Ghost starts to move, whenever the Spirit of God begins to move upon the community, thank God nothing and no one can move and stop or hinder or inhibit the workings of the Spirit of God. Oh, for a day of God's power. Oh, for a visitation from God. Oh, for something that will show the ungodly that our God is in the heavens. Child of God, believe it. Go forth in the nation, cry to God for the workings of the Spirit of God, and thank God nothing can hinder that. Take heart, Christian parents, in this truth. As you look upon your offspring and see them sitting in the gross darkness of their sin, showing no signs of spiritual life with chaos and confusion marking their home life, God the Spirit can move upon them and bring them to faith in Jesus Christ in a moment of time. Their sin and their unbelief will not inhibit God the Holy Spirit moving in upon their heart. Christian worker, Take courage as you go forward with the Word of God. The Spirit of God can take that which is presented to the ungodly and bring them to faith in Jesus Christ. I, sinner, take courage, for though you've sat here for many a week, listened to the gospel for many a year, maybe you feel that you've missed your opportunity to be saved, God, the Holy Spirit, can so move upon that deadened soul of yours. He can bring you to new life in Christ, to saving faith in Jesus Christ in an instant of time. Seek then the workings of the spirit. Pray that he'll quicken you from your dead state and dispel the darkness that's upon the very soul tonight. Oh, that he would. He would move in the spirit. He would convey you to the hill called Calvary. and open your eyes and see the bleeding. Stand there, view the cross, view the Redeemer as he dies for sinners. Oh, that tonight you have come to the blood-filled fountain. May all your sins be washed in his crimson tide. With God, all things are possible. We have the work of the Spirit, the sovereign work. We have the word of the Son as well. Involved in the creation of the physical world, the narrative in verse three says, and God said, let there be light, and there was light. We know that these words are the words of the Son of God, because in John 1, verse three, we're told all things were made by him, Christ, and without him was not anything made that was made. The word of God, the spirit of God, they are inseparable. They're brought together in the wisdom of God, in the salvation of the soul, Spirit of God applying the word of God to the soul. I tell you, Rathcull does not mean some kind of evangelistic endeavor that cleans up people's backyards and paints their fences and does some kind of charitable good deed. That is not what's going to change places like Rathcull and places like Portland Owen. Plenty of churches doing such things. Social gospel. The only thing that will change this nation is the preaching of the everlasting gospel under the anointing of the Spirit of God. That's it. That'll do the job. And if it doesn't do the job, we'll keep at it. We'll be faithful to the Lord. Whatever else other churches are doing down the road, let's stick to our marching orders. Preach the word. Be instant, in season, out of season. We're well aware that we're out of season, brethren and sisters. The empty pews tell us. But let's keep faithful to God. Let's keep on going. "'cause higher men when woman born again." 1 Peter 1, 23, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, let there be light. That's what the world that lay in darkness needed. That's what you, the sinner, needs in the gospel. You need light, gospel light. Christ, the light of the world. When he and his gospel shines into the darkened soul, the sinner sees instantaneously a beauty in him and in his cross that they have never seen before. Oh, that such light would shine into your life tonight. He who went through the darkness of Calvary and there endured the wrath of God for sin in that darkness, is able to deliver you out of and bring you into heaven itself, where there is no darkness, for the light is the light thereof. God, God made, and you think of when he did. You think of all that then follows on from these opening words. You think of the beauty. God brought out of nothing. And you think of this, you think of that individual whenever they're sick, you think of the God, a life that is given over. I wonder, are you a Christian? You know there is coming a day when the physical creation we see around us will be destroyed by fire, chaos, desolation. will once again be inflicted upon this world. My closing question is this. Will you be swept away in that day into the everlasting miseries, where chaos and desolation are the everlasting portion of the day? Or will you escape hell because you've been made a new creature in Christ Jesus? I pray that it will be the latter for you, that you'll be made a new creature as you turn from sin and as you die. Will you do that tonight? Will you be saved? When you come to Christ, may God be pleased through the entrance of his word into your soul to give light into that darkened heart of yours, making manifest to you the true state of your soul, and that such a revelation will propel you. and compelled to seek refuge in the wounds of Calvary. Oh, may you come to him who alone can make you a new creature in Christ. May God be pleased to bless his precious word. Let's bow our heads in prayer together. And as we do so, maybe you're not a Christian. Maybe what we've said about the earth being without form and void and mist darkness, You've understood this is me tonight. This is my life, and I need God to work. I need God to move upon my life. Oh, may he already be doing that, bringing you to a saving faith in Christ. If I can help you, I'll be at the door, and to take the word of God and show you how to be a Christian, how to be saved. Oh, may God, by his Spirit, move in these days, and may out of the chaos that exists in individuals' lives and even in the life of this nation, May out of chaos God bring order and beauty that never exists naturally within the human soul. Our God and our Father, we bow again before Thee. We thank Thee for the encouragement of Thy word that nothing and no one can hinder. the movings and the workings of thy spirit. And God so, in his sovereign plan, orders that he will come and move upon a heart, upon a life, upon a community. And blessed be that nothing of this world can hinder God moving. Oh, for such a day. a day of power, a day of visitation. We pray for those unconverted in this house who knew not Christ as Savior. Oh, may there be a turning on to the Savior tonight. May by thy Spirit they be brought to become a new creation in Christ Jesus, where old things pass away and behold, all things become new. Take of our thanks for the good things provided for us, the eatables that we will partake of, May we eat and drink to the glory of our God and King, and then take us safely to our home abodes, for we offer these, our petitions, in and through our Savior's precious and wondrous name. Amen.