The book of beginnings so we're gonna get into that in just a moment in the beginning God now what we're going to hear tonight Excuse me Some of the things are going to be I'm good some of the things are going to be a Little bit of repetition from last week because I wanted to squeeze in material I didn't get to last week this stuff is foundational If we don't get the first 11 chapters of Genesis, the rest of the Bible is going to fall apart. Young people, as I said, are leaving their churches. As soon as they get old enough, as soon as mom and dad are, they're out from underneath their authority, mom and dads that encouraged, in other words, forced their kids to come to church. If you're not grounded, if you don't have a personal relationship with the Lord, and if you don't believe this book, and you don't know how to defend this book, you're going to leave. It's just like, why should I waste my time going to church? And folks, that is happening all over the country. We are losing children, we are losing, not the children, but we're losing young adults because they don't know how to defend this book. So, and defend, if you will, their Christian faith. So what we're going through, and it's a little more heavy duty than on Sunday mornings, we're getting a little bit deeper, but these are the things that if we don't get, we don't understand, and we don't allow it to permeate us, we're gonna be weak in our faith. So again, the title of this series, and I'm specifically working on Genesis 1 to 11, The first 11 chapters of your Bible are the first 2,000 years of human history. And we'll be proving that as we go through this. And those of you that have been with me for a while, Genesis 5 and 11, the genealogies make it very clear that Adam and Eve were created in 4,000 BC, right in that range. And we're gonna go through that. So for now, until we get to the heavy duty proof of that, You'll just have to deal with what we call a presupposition based on scripture that this earth and everything in it, which is what we're really hammering home here as a young earth, happened in 4,000 BC or thereabouts, very close to that. So our earth is 6,000 years old. Now folks, you go to any public school and they're gonna tell you you're crazy. You go to any government institution and they'll tell us we're crazy. And the creationism in the Bible, it absolutely could not have happened the way we state it does. But when you understand the fundamentals and you go through the scientific as well as the biblical explanation, it's very easy to be able to prove that this earth is literally, as God said, 6,000 years old. What is, and this is a quiz, it's a one answer question, One answer quiz. What is the main biblical event that basically smacks at evolution and enforces the young earth? What's the one event? Say it again. The flood, the Noahic flood. When we get to Genesis chapter six through Genesis five, six, and seven, we'll be talking about the Noahic flood. And we're really gonna get heavy duty on, if you will, the geology and so forth. And we'll get to that, but it's gonna be a while before we get there. But if you can't defend a young earth and everything's about evolution, folks, if it's evolution, is it God? No, I mean, if you believe in evolution, you don't need God, there is no God. Well, folks, why does evolution take so much time? Well, we're gonna look at that again this evening. So again, why is biblical creationism so important? Every single thing we do, the foundation of our faith rests on, are the first two chapters of Genesis real. If you cannot defend the first two chapters of Genesis, throw it out. And that's what many of our young people, that's what many young people that end up going to college and they hear all these theories, theories, not truth, not scientific fact. They buy it hook, line and sinker. And it's like mom and daddy were crazy. The church is crazy. We're not buying it, and they walk away. Now, folks, that's not a rare thing. That's happening over and over and over again in our society. All right, one more repeat here. So here's the basic, the first 11 chapters, first 2,000 years of history. Now, I just said the Earth is how old? How old is it? 6,000 years, if you buy a biblical creationism. That means first 2,000 years in just the first 11 chapters of this big old book. Chapters 12 through the end of Malachi, that means about all of this. Let's see, where am I at? Oh, even gotta go further than that. That's still not far enough. This doesn't have any notes in it. This is 100% text. That means from here, to here is the next 2,000 years. The first couple pages are the first 2,000 years. So when you get to Genesis chapter 12, we have the start of what ethnic group? The Jewish people. Are there any Jewish people in chapters one through 11? No, there's no Jewish people whatsoever for those first 2,000 years. So in Genesis chapter 12, we have Abram or Abraham come on the scene, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob, whose name is changed to Israel, and the rest all the way up until we get to Matthew is all about the Jewish people. All right. The next 2,000 years of history, so we've got first 2,000 years deal with Gentiles only. Second 2,000 years, what two people groups does God deal with in Genesis chapter 12 all the way through the end of Malachi? The who and the who, Jews and the Gentiles. Now we get to Matthew. And all of a sudden, things begin to change. There's 400 silent years between Malachi and Matthew, and then we have an individual that comes on the scene in the Gospels, and I think you all know who his name is, because that's why we're here today, and his name is? It's Jesus, Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah comes on the scene. And for the next 2,000 years, we have what's known as the Church Age, or the Age of Grace. Why? Because the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ takes place, And now we have the beginning of the third people group. And what's the name of that third people group? It's called Christians. which basically I would assume the majority, if not all in the room today, have put their faith in Christ, and you're a Christian. And these things are important when we're deciphering the Bible, so I spend a few minutes on it just to beat it into our heads so we remember. First 2,000 years of history, Gentiles only. Second period of 2,000 years, Gentiles and Jews. And just as a matter of fact, we happen to be living, if you will, in that next 2,000 year period, at least as it exists today, made up of unsaved Gentiles, unsaved Jews, and Christians made up of saved Jews and saved Gentiles. Now if you're not familiar with those terms, what does that mean? It means if you place your faith and trust in Christ, and you literally know that heaven will be your home, Bible would define that as a saved person or a Christian. So there are Jews and Gentiles that don't believe in Christ, haven't placed their faith in him, unsaved Jews and Gentiles. In this room today are definitely saved Jewish folks, or I'm sorry, Gentile folks, And like my wife has a little bit of Jewish blunder, some other folks that are here, I don't think anybody here is 100% ethnically Jewish, but we have Christians that are made up of Jews and Gentiles. All right, so we're dealing with the creation issue. and we're going to be spending some time on that over the weeks. So creation chapters 1 & 2. In Genesis 3 we have the fall of mankind and we'll be looking at that. Then we go through the flood, the Genesis flood, the universal catastrophic flood, which is one of the main issues when it comes to trying to deny creationism. And then we'll look at national dispersion. I had somebody on the radio the other day say, well, where did the Palestinians come from? Where did the Arabs come from? Well, folks, you've got to understand Genesis chapter 10 to get a good part of that equation. We look at Jacob and Esau, we look at Isaac and Ishmael, in other words, Esau and Ishmael, that's part of it. Genesis 10 is where you actually get the main part of those people that live in the Middle East today. So we'll be getting into that in the future. All right, here's some of these things now. These are new things that I've inserted in here for tonight. Again, we'll get into the text in just a minute, but the basic outline for the book of Genesis contains two specific things, two different parts, when we're looking at the total 50 chapters. So Genesis 1 to 11, we're dealing with the beginning of the human race, that's me and you. So there's four specific parts to it, which we basically just went through. So we have two major issues, Genesis 1 to 11, the beginning of the human race. We have creation, we have the fall, the flood, and national dispersion, which we just went through. The next part of Genesis, which we may or may not get to in my lifetime, Genesis 12 to 50, is the beginning of, as we stated, the Hebrew race, or the children of Israel, or the Jewish people. Who are the four main people involved with the start of the Jewish race? Well, as we stated already, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who was named Israel. And how does Joseph play into this? Well, Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob, of Israel, And Jacob, or Joseph, ends up down in Egypt. All his family, basically they sold Joseph off. His brothers, the 11 other brothers sold off Joseph and told their daddy, Jacob, that he was killed in the wilderness or something happened to him and they bring his coat of many colors back and Jacob's heart is torn and he's depressed that Joseph, his son, was killed. Well, he wasn't killed. His brother sold him off to the Egyptians and he ends up walking with God and God gives him some special insight and Joseph ends up being number two underneath Pharaoh. His brothers show up and eventually all that will lead to when Moses comes into Egypt and delivers the Jewish people. But that's way, way, way down and that'll be a long time before we would ever think of getting there. All right, here's another thing that is new. I didn't bring this out last time. When we're looking at the creation days, the six days of creation, six literal days, six 24-hour days of creation, The first three days, God is setting up, if you will, the world, the Earth, with basic things that are then going to be modified and strengthened for different things in days four, five, and six. So as we'll see tonight, we'll get into this just briefly, God starts light on the Earth. But it's not with the sun, it's not with the moon, and it's not with the stars. Now, by the way, who is light? I mean, God is light. In the future millennial kingdom, the sun, the moon, and the stars don't need them because the light of Christ will be there. So we'll see a little bit of that tonight. So on day one, we're going to see tonight that the light is going to be formed. And then not until day four does the sun, the moon, and the stars start. So it's like right there. It's saying, Sun, moon, stars, that's not where the true light is, if you will, the light's in Christ. Number two, day two, it's kind of a slow day. God just separates the water from the sea, that's it. If you will, the firmament, the heavens from the earth. And then on day three, kind of another slow day, God just creates, makes a differentiation between the land and the sea. Day four, he puts the, if you will, astronomy into play, and the sun, the moon, and the stars, and the massiveness of the universe is formed. Day five, going back to day two, when the firmament was set up, God creates what? The fish, the birds, and the sea creatures. And then corresponding with day three, last I checked, I can't breathe underwater. In fact, I hate going in the water that's over my head because I'm always afraid. I just haven't figured out how to breathe underwater yet. So God said, because I don't have gills and can't breathe underwater, what did he create for us? The land. So we'll be seeing how all these things correspond. So just a little bit of a hint on what God does things. He does everything in a very orderly fashion in six literal days, which we'll get into. All right, last week we showed you this. Basically, when we're looking at the Hebrew in Genesis, it does help us understand what God is stating. If we go strictly to the English, the depth of some of these words doesn't come out. Now I know, and I don't know anybody in here that can read Hebrew fluently, I can't read it fluently, I can play with it, but when you go in and you do the word studies, which we started to do last week, it does bring out some very, very important aspects and helps us to understand about the creation time. So first two verses, and we'll go a little bit beyond this tonight, but the Bible says, in the beginning, God. Again, for those that were here last week, God is what's known as a presupposition in scripture. In other words, and I shared this, I've written a couple of doctoral dissertations, when you write a dissertation, when you bring it before an academic committee, At the beginning of the paper, you always state your presuppositions. In other words, whether you like it or not, this is something that we're putting down that is believed in. You may or may not choose to believe it. Well, one of the things the scriptures do, one of the presuppositions of the Bible is they're not trying to prove God's existence. The Bible assumes that God exists. And the reason why God assumes that he exists is because who wrote the book? God did. So that's a major presupposition. God is saying, yeah, in the beginning, me, me. In other words, speaking of God. So God has the presupposition that in the beginning, and what did he do? What happened? And these are the verses we're starting with. He creates the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, which we'll get into tonight, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. All right again now some of this is review and on purpose and I knew we'd have some new folks here tonight so it's like these are the basic foundational things and some of these are repetitious but if we don't get these parts none of the rest is going to make sense. So when we're talking about in the be What is first? The beginning, the initiation of an action, the process to get it going. So God is saying, in the beginning, what did God do? Well, in the beginning, the first thing he does is he creates the heavens and the earth. Nothing was before that. God makes it very clear there's no presupposition about things that existed before creation began. Our big problem, our big challenge is to prove when did that beginning start, which is what we've been starting to work on since last week. The other thing we brought out here in the beginning, God. Now who's God? You'll see as we go through these 11 chapters, there'll be about three main different terms, if you will, that are used for God. And I'm not gonna get into all of them. I'm gonna touch on two tonight. The first one is Elohim. In the beginning, Elohim. Now, it's interesting because the word Elohim is, and I wrote it up here so you could see it, because it's weird. It's a plural word with a singular meaning. You say, what does that mean? The simplistic thing that I can bring out is how many persons are there in the Trinity? Three. How many gods are there? There's one. So it is this singular concept that includes a plurality. Well, as we'll see, and we'll look at the Spirit of God in verse two, is mentioned. Elohim, which includes God the Father, is mentioned. Now the name Jesus Christ is not going to come out here, but it will eventually. but not in this particular book. He will by inference. Now the other word, and I know many folks here like this particular name of God, but it doesn't show up until Genesis chapter two verse four. I mentioned this last week. Yahweh, okay? Yahweh basically in most of our English Bibles is translated as Lord. And we're going to see in Genesis 2.4, we'll see Yahweh Elohim, or basically Yahweh Elohim, or the Lord God, or some will translate it, and I'll get into why it's not the best translation, Jehovah God, and a few other, if you will, idioms that go along with that. But is it right or wrong to say, instead of using the name God, to use the name Yahweh? Is it right or wrong? All right, we added a fighting crowd. It's a good thing. Yahweh, which again, I'm getting a little too technical. It's four consonants. In Hebrew, in the original language, when it was written in biblical time, they didn't put the vowels in. Hebrew, you have what are called vowel points. So instead of like A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y and W or whatever the rules are, they don't have that. They have little points that are added into the letters and those points basically become the vowels and that's where you get instead of YHWH it goes YHWEH when you add the vowel pointings. Now that was more than you came, more than you bargained for. We'll show it to you in black and white when we get to Genesis 2. But most Jewish people will not say the name God. Won't do it. It's too disrespectful, and they're taught you do not say the name of God. So they say these kind of two words, HaShem, capital H, small a, capital S-H-E-M, HaShem. So if I'm with my Jewish Orthodox friends, they would be upset if I said, well, what's your relationship with God? They'd be like, whoa, excuse me? How disrespectful. So when I'm with Jewish people, I use the word Hashem. I also can talk about Yeshua or Jesus, the Messiah. That's acceptable because they don't believe Jesus is the Messiah, so it's not offensive to them. But anyway, names are important. Names have meaning. In this particular part, first chapter, Elohim, the triune God, plural yet, Singular, pretty cool, I think. All right, a couple more things repetitious wise. In the beginning God, remember Isaiah chapter 46, the prophet about 800 BC, God is saying through Isaiah, I am God and there is no other. Folks, there is no other God, we understand that. When people say I worship Muhammad or I worship Allah or I worship Buddha, folks, they don't exist. You say, well yes, they do exist because they worship these gods. No, the gods do not exist. They're immaterial. There's no substance, there's no reality. God made it clear, I am God, there isn't any other. Folks, can you tell me one other quote unquote religion that has a risen savior? Can you tell me one other religion that has a literal God that you can go to. Well, of course, others will say they do, but it doesn't exist. And God said, listen, here's another presupposition for you. I'm it. You wanna go and worship Buddha? You might as well worship a tree, doesn't exist. You wanna go and worship Allah with all due respect to my Muslim friends, which I have many? It doesn't exist. from a Christian viewpoint. God said, I am God and there is no other. You say, well, that's pretty myopic, it's pretty exclusive. You're right, it is. Jesus said, John 14, six, and you know the verse. Jesus said, I am the way, the, not a, not an, not a pluralistic, syncretistic religion where you add other things in. God is very myopic. There is no other. So it's very important. These are things, listen, when you're trying to defend your faith and you're coming against folks that are, well, what about, what about, what about, what about? Well, the answer to them is, what about? Prove it. I've got a book, I've got a God who put down things that are provable, and we're gonna get into things that are provable. Folks, the other religions, it's all make-believe, it's all hope, it's all maybe, and there's nothing like our 1,000 Bible prophecies of which 500 have come true exactly as stated. No other religion can do that. So again, my point is not to be disrespectful to those that believe in other quote-unquote gods or religions. But good night, what are you basing your eternal life on? A hope? An unproved plan? And it really gets down to that. You know, the most important thing when you're dealing with Muslim individuals about their faith, they have no hope. And when missionaries or folks like you, you come to a Muslim and say, listen, Do you know for sure if you died you'd go to heaven? They're like, well, nobody knows that. The Muslims will tell you the only sure way that they can get to heaven is to martyr, get martyred and die for the cause. In other words, get killed while they're killing somebody else. That's the only assurance they believe that they'll go to heaven for. Muslim mothers, I've talked about this before. A Muslim mother wants her children to be martyred. You say, that's crazy. Why would they do that? Because to a Muslim mother, the only way that she knows, according to their religion, that she can go to heaven is if her child is martyred. Why do you think they raise their children to kill? Why do you think in nursery schools, and I just saw it on the internet the other day, several different things. these little Muslim kids and they've got a picture of Jews inside this little shadow box and they've got them hanging and they've got them being stoned. These were kindergarten age kids that are being taught this. Why? Because mama says if my boy or my child doesn't give his life, I don't know that I'm ever gonna get to see Allah. I'm in eternity in a place called hell. Now folks, is that a lot of assurance? It's horrible and a terrible way to live. So again You say are you and I'm gonna move on here, but I just I want to drive this home. Listen folks. I Love the Muslim people as individuals. I Hate their doctrine. I hate what they get pulled into But there's not a Muslim person on earth that I don't want to come to Jesus Christ. Every single one needs Jesus. Folks, and it's the only hope they've got. They just don't know it unless somebody tells them. All right, let's move on. All right, next, the particular objects of creation. We talked about this last week. Created, we've got to get these words down. The Hebrew word create here is the Hebrew word bara. What does that word mean? It means to create out of nothing. Now, what I added at the bottom for tonight, because of the scriptures which were translated into Latin many, many years ago, and most scholars use the Latin language, they moved from Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek, and Latin became dominant. In the Latin, it's known as ex nihilo, something out of nothing. In other words, last week I made a I tried to make just a little airplane, so I said, well, here's a piece of paper, and I'm gonna make me an airplane. So you start folding it, and you put it in different things, and you fold it around, and you make an airplane. That's not how God made the world. He did not take substance and say, well, I'm gonna turn this into the land, I'm gonna turn this into water, I'm gonna turn this into animals, and I'm gonna turn this into people. God said, Here's nothing, and now here it is. That's ex nihilo, out of nothing. That's a barah out of nothing that's being talked about here. Now folks, if you don't believe in God, if you don't believe that presupposition, you're never gonna buy what God's saying and how this world came into being. And then you got to figure out another way. But God said, listen, if you believe me, I created this world out of nothing. And we'll get into that in a few moments. Psalm 33 verse 8, let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him, for he spoke and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. What's it saying? When God said, let there be light, there was light. When God said, let there be a hippopotamus, and a giraffe, and a kangaroo, and the fish of the sea, they came into being. When God said, let there be man, created in his image, man showed up, created in his image. God said, and it happened. Now folks, if you can't believe that, then you gotta come up with another method, and that's what the unsaved have been doing for 6,000 years, coming up with different methods, trying to prove what God allegedly didn't do. Colossians 1.15, is the image of the invisible God, speaking of Christ, the firstborn over all creation. For by him, Jesus Christ, all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for him. Now hang on. Who denies the creation? Who denies the creator? says that they are an atheist. The Bible says, the fool has said in his heart, Psalm 14.1, there is no God, the fool. Now folks, Romans chapter one makes it very clear. There's no such thing, and we've talked about this before, there's no such thing as a real atheist. It just doesn't exist. You say, well, I know people, they're atheists, they don't believe there's a God. No, they've talked themselves into believing there's no God. Romans chapter one says, every single person, when they're born, the innate in their head is there is a God. You have to learn and be trained to be a God. to buy into that anti-God, anti-God philosophy because it's not true. God innately puts in every single one of us He says, doesn't even nature itself teach you that there's a God? How can you look outside and not understand that there's a God? How can you see the sun, the moon, and the stars? How can you watch the planets? How can you watch the grass grow? How can you watch a mom and a dad when a baby's born? How in the world did that baby come together? Are you telling me that the millions and millions of cells and the intricacies of these body, all of a sudden there is a mass of something and it exploded and the earth formed out of it, animals and fish and people formed out of it? I mean this sincerely. Good night, you gotta have more faith to believe that nonsense to believe what God said. I mean, it's just incredible what people buy into today. The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there are any who understand and seek God. What does God say? They've all turned aside. They have together become corrupt. There is none who does good, no not one. Now if you know Romans chapter three, verses 10 to 23, which we use very often here, Romans 3.23 says, all have what? All have sin to come short of the glory of God. Part of this is quoting from Psalm 14. Listen, the Bible makes it clear, if you don't buy into the fact that there is a God, and you don't buy into that presupposition, what does he call him? He's foolish, it's absolute foolishness. So again, we were trying not to be unkind, and again, we can't prove the existence of creation in God by being mean to folks. But what God is doing here, it's like, listen, we just gotta be straightforward. Now I'm not gonna come up to somebody and say, listen, you're a fool because you don't believe what I believe. That's not a good thing to do. But God is saying, listen, Christian, there are people that are gonna reject Christ. So what do we do? Well, that's why the Holy Spirit's around to start working on their hearts and we lovingly and tenderly tell folks the gospel and look for that to change their hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the beginning, God created the heavens, the sham yen, plurality, multiple heavens, we talked about that last week, for in six days, now here we go, two key verses that go along with Genesis chapter one. For in six days, six days, the Lord God made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested the seventh day. Now I gave you a very strong argument, and I'll give it again tonight, as to why it has to be six literal days. Stay tuned. Genesis 1, in the beginning, what did God do according to Genesis 1? He created the heavens and the earth. Exodus chapter 20, not Genesis, next book of the Bible backs it up. Six days, same thing, what did God do? He made the heavens and the earth. It doesn't say in six days in Genesis 1, but God makes it very clear in Exodus chapter 20. Six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that in them, and he did what on the seventh day? Why? Because he's tired? Can't wear out God. He never sleeps, he never slumbers. He's always alive, he's always good to go. But he's like, why do you think he took a rest on the seventh day? Why did he say that? Folks, do any of you ever get sick? Any of you ever get tired? How many of you like to work seven days a week? Anybody? I do. Most folks. especially the younger generation. And when I was in the sheriff's office, and what is the one thing that the younger generation wants more than anything else when they're employed? What's the one thing they want? Say what? Yeah, time off. I mean, when I and I'm a wee bit older than the younger generation. What we wanted in my day was money, money, work, work, work, give me as much work as I can have, overtime, overtime, seven days a week, let's do it. This generation, the newest one, 40 hours a week. I want to be home with my wife. I want to be home with my kids. And that's good, by the way. Yeah, you say, pastor, would you work like you used to? And I'm dead serious. I would work sometimes 120 hours a week between church and and my son's sitting here and he'll testify to that. It's not a good thing to do unless you're nuts like me. But you need to be home, you need to spend time with the family, you need to be time with your wife and children and so forth. But the bottom line is, God said, listen, six days you work, seventh day, go sit down, spend time. Now it doesn't mean 24 hours a day, it means you still get to go home and spend some time with the family and so forth and friends, But that was God's design. Six days of work, and what do you do on the seventh? You just settle down. Now folks, that is a model. That's not meant to, this simply isn't being said here as, in six days, God created that. So maybe it's six ages, or maybe it's 6,000 years, or maybe it's, no. God put this in here on purpose because he's talking to human beings. Who did he write the book to? People or something else? I think it's people. There's no other people that, no other species that can do what you and I do. God made the earth. And I often think about that. Why in the world did you wait? How come it took you so long? I mean, God said, let there be the earth. Boom, there's the earth. Why in the world didn't he do it all in one day? Why did he take so, and it's like, What are you talking about? That's a lot of things that God hit. Folks, all he has to do is say, here's man, and there's man. Why in the world did it take God, and I mean this sincerely, why did God take so long? Why did he take six whole 24-hour days to do what he could have spoken to existent like that? Because it was to show you what he did, and it's to show me what he did. In six literal days, you get to work. On the seventh 24-hour days, no work. Spend time at home. Spend time with God. Of course, back when we look at what took place under Jewish law. Exodus chapter 31 now. Therefore, the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel forever. For in six literal days, six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day, he rested and was refreshed. How does that line up right with Genesis 1? What did he do? It says right here, he made, or use the same word in English, created the heavens and the earth. in how long? In seven days. This is the punchline. God intentionally made the earth in six literal days as a pattern for the work week. Now we don't need to put Israeli in there because this was Gentiles existed for only for the first 2,000 years, but it was the pattern. Six days you work. In other words, God's saying in six 24-hour days, I did what needed to get done. That is the pattern for humanity. Now, of course, in our culture, we work five days, most folks, and most people get two days off if you're working a 40-hour work week. Well, that is true, but God's pattern was six days of work, one day off. When we experience, what we experience in our normal work week is exactly how God did it in the six days of creation, with the seventh day being a day of rest. God uses things human beings can relate to, so it's exactly why he took the full six days to do what he could have done in one breath. So in other words, when we look at our calendar, And of course, looking back at Jewish times, Saturday would have been the Sabbath. You stay home, you honor God, you spend time with the family. Of course now, since the resurrection of Christ, we no longer follow what was known as the Sabbath, and we meet on the first day of the week, which of course in our calendar is Sunday, the first day of the week. So we don't follow the Sabbath, the Old Testament law, but we certainly, most of us at least, most of the time, are in church on Sunday. All right, let's move on. The peculiar condition of creation, here's where we left off. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. All right, so God says in the beginning, on the first day, he forms the heavens and the earth, but it was void, it was darkness, basically, kind of like a big black hole, if you will. Well, how do we explain that? When we talk about without form or formlessness, again, the word helps us out, tohu, emptiness, a state of empty space, not having a shape, implied to be a state prior to order and form. So basically you say God took that which was formless, the heavens and the earth, if you will, and God who also, by the way, uses the illustration in other places of being the potter. God basically, if you will, he takes that which is out for him and he's going to give it for him. And he's going to put some substance to it as we'll see throughout the six days of creation. So he takes that which literally is formless, it's empty, it's nonproductive, and he's going to do what only God can do and shape it into something that's marvelous. I heard this illustration years ago. How many ladies know what that is up there? What's it called? Nobody does it anymore? Embroidery or what's another word starts with an N? Needlepoint. All right, so a little child comes up. And mama or whoever is working on her needlepoint or embroidery, and they look at the bottom and they look at that and it's like, what's that mess? In other words, it's without form. It looks void. It looks like there's nothing there. And mama says, well, you can only see the bottom. Here's what it looks like on top. And you turn it over and all of a sudden this beautiful, if you will, masterpiece is on the top. Underneath, not so pretty. But when you turn it over, all of a sudden this beautiful formation comes. Well, God takes that which is formless and void and all of a sudden, if you will, he masterfully takes that which is ugly or that which is unpleasing, that which is unproductive, and all of a sudden turns it into a masterpiece known as the heavens and the earth and the creation of everything that's in them in those six literal days. Well, it was void. It was empty. Nothing was there. There was a lack of order. And then he said darkness, the darkness of night was there. It was just dark. There's nothing there on the face of the deep. Well, then we get into what? What's going to happen? And last time, and we're going to go through, and again, I'm sorry for those that were here last week, a little bit of review on this, but there's four key non-biblical ways that people try to explain how this earth is here. Number one is the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory is the main piece of alleged evidence the evolutionists used to attempt to prove that there was some type of mass somewhere in the vastness of wherever, which of course they can't explain, and all of a sudden what you have, if you look down at the bottom, you've got this tiny mass and pressure and pressure and energy is building up inside of this mass, however big it was, and all of a sudden, boom! It explodes and all of a sudden the universe begins to form. Now folks, this is dead serious in colleges. It's dead serious in your children's public school room. This is what they're being taught. I mean, without exception. The Big Bang Theory, how these things happen, you have something small, and now why do the evolutionists take billions and millions of years? Because now you've got to figure out how long did it take to take this, which is nothing, and all of a sudden here we are. How long did it take? Now folks, you cannot do what the evolutionist says without a massive amount of time. And it's just amazing. And people buy into it again. And it's not a small group. It's massive, and the majority of people do not buy creationism, they buy exactly what we're looking at here. I showed you last week, this is one of their main objects, if you will. Again, you start out with that energy, whatever that energy box is, boom, and it blows up, and all of a sudden you have the massive universe, the massive solar system, you have the massive amount of species, and so forth. and people buy it hook, line, and sinker. Second theory which we hit on last week was called the gap theory. This is in many Christian churches. And they say, well, between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1.2, there's a massive amount of time. In other words, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and then they have this, whatever, billions of years in order to get to the old earth. Nowhere in scripture is that documented. That's a theory, and it's a theory only. So the gap theory, and many Christians use that to try and explain what God did during the geological flood. Then we talked about the day-age theory. What does that mean? It means people are buying into the concept that every single day could be 1,000 years, could be a million years. It's called the day-age theory. But we love, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord is 1,000 years. Well, obviously, he was talking about creation, right? No, absolutely. There's no, absolutely no substantiation here. And again, it smacks in the face of if every single day of creation is a thousand years, you got a real problem. It just doesn't work. A thousand year gap, a thousand year gap, a thousand year gap. It's just not going to work. So, and again, why did God do these things in a systematic way? So we can understand the simplicity of a seven-day week. How many days are there in our week? Well, I think there's seven. How many days in a week were there 6,000 years ago? Oh yeah, seven. How come? Because the solar system demands a seven-day week. That's why God put the order up there. A couple of weeks ago, we talked about uniformitarianism. This is the fourth issue that the evolutionists try and use. I'm not gonna go through all this, but uniformitarianism basically, and I'm just gonna go to the pictures because of time, uniformitarianism says, listen, how long did it take for the stalactites, which hang from the ceiling, and stalagmites on the floor How long did it take that cave to form? Now, you go to the evolutionists, it took millions of years for that to form. And all these beautiful things, it takes a long, long time. Well, what's the presupposition the evolutionists have? Well, if you look in that little circle, that's a blown up picture, you see the little white spot there, that's a drop of water. Now, those of you that have seen this know exactly where we're going. The evolutionist looks at the cave and says, I see that drop of water up there. And it's just hanging. And they put on their time-lapse photography, and it takes over a day for that drop of water to finally get big enough to where it drops down to the next level. And their presupposition is, wow, if it takes one 24-hour day for that one drop of water to fall, let's calculate and see how long it took to get this massive amount of mineral buildup. And that's what they do. And that's what's called uniformitarianism. In other words, what's happening today is exactly how those caves had to form. So it had to take millions of years in order to come about. Well, for those that were here when I went through this, if you come into a kitchen and you have a dripping faucet, You want to do the, you know, silly illustration, it's like you want to do the dishes. Yeah, I want to do the dishes. And you walk in and you've never seen a sink before, you've never seen a faucet before, and it's like, okay, we put the dishes in this sink, and now how do we get enough water to wash the dishes? Well, drip. Maybe once every minute or two, a little drop comes down. It's like, man, it's going to take a long time before we get enough water. to wash those dishes. That's exactly what the evolutionists say. It's uniform. Everything you see today had to be exactly the way everything formed. In other words, man had to come out of this Big Bang thing in order to get to where we are today. It had to go through all these progressions, all these different things, and you need millions of years to get where we are today. That's their theory. Now, if you walked into the kitchen and you've never seen a faucet before, and I mean, somebody left the thing on full blast. And it's like, well, you throw the dishes in the sink, and all this water comes in, and in about a minute or two, we're ready to go. So the uniformitarianists would say, yeah, I mean, things happen. Oh, they can't happen fast, because that blows our theory. Does that make sense? So uniformitarianism is everything that we see today has to be very, very, very slow, or else it doesn't work. So when you look at the Grand Canyon, the massive amount of geological upsets that are in it, well this had to have taken millions and millions of years to get these different geological levels. Well again we're going to get into this in depth in future messages and we'll go through the geology of this but bottom line is if you have a massive flood that took place over a one-year period and you have all the sediment that begins to form you can do this in a one-year period, which is exactly how long the flood took. So we'll get into that in the future. All right, so six literal days, God created the heavens and the earth, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Now, we did this last week, so I'm gonna skip through it. And let's get to day one, and then we'll quit. So what happens on day one? Well, first of all, God said, what? Let there be light. Then he separated the day from the night. Did he use the sun, the moon, and the stars? He did not. Somehow, God said, let there be light. Now, I don't know if he just let his glory shine. It does not tell us, but there was light on that first day. And God wanted there to be light because he was now going to prove that it's a 24-hour day, because he's going to make a statement about it being evening and morning the first day, Genesis 1.3, then God said, let there be light. And there was light. Wait a minute, how long did that take to happen? God spoke and it happened. And God saw the light that it was good. By the way, did God ever create anything bad? Absolutely not. And God divided the light from the darkness. How did he do it? I wasn't there. I don't know. But he did it. God called the light what? day, and the darkness he called night. So the evening and the morning were the first what? Decade, the first age, The first millennia, the first century? No, God was setting the seven-day week right here in the beginning of time. Evening and morning were the first day, period. Nothing more, nothing less, one 24-hour day, and God used whatever light form it was to mark the day and the night. Two things were done. 1 Timothy 6, I urge you, in the sight of God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless, until our Lord Jesus Christ appearing. And let's go on to one more here, which he will manifest in his own time. He who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in what? Unapproachable light. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was out for him. It was void. Nothing was there. And God spoke into existing light. And Paul tells us in Timothy, who alone, Jesus Christ, the potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, he dwells in what? Unapproachable light. Folks, if you want to know where the light is, just looked at Jesus, there's where the light is. He didn't need the sun, the moon, and the stars, because he himself is indeed the light of this world, dwelling in inapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power, amen. I've had people ask, someone asked me last week, I forget who it was, doesn't matter. It's like, well, we see God. Because the Bible says no man can see God and live. Well, can we see God in this old human body? Bible says no. We'd die instantly if we saw the totality of God more than we can handle in our physical body. How about after you get shed off this old physical body and get your glorified body? You think we can be in the presence of God at that time? Kind of think so. So something to look forward to. Final verse. Therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man Jesus is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. And by him, Jesus, everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. All right, why did I bring this up? Because folks, every single thing we do here at church, yes, we're gonna be looking at Genesis, we're gonna get much, much more in depth as we get into day two and onward and see the different things that God created, how he did it and why he did it and why he did it in the order that he did it. but it all boils down to one thing. It all boils down to do you believe in God? Do you believe the presupposition that in the beginning, God, Elohim, and three persons, but all the same, beyond our comprehension? Listen, if you died right now, where would you go? That's the crux of the matter. You say, well, I don't know if the Bible's true. Well, unfortunately, we can't get through the whole Bible in one night. The one thing I can testify is why did Jesus Christ come into this world? He came into this world to save sinners. The Bible says, just as we looked at in Romans chapter 3, verses 10 to 23, there's none righteous, no, not one. We've all sinned to come short of the glory of God. Because we've sinned, God said, listen, you don't deserve to go to heaven. I don't deserve to go to heaven. You say, you're a pastor. Shouldn't you just go to heaven because you're a pastor? Nope. Nope. You see, no pastor should be a pastor unless he first knows Jesus as his savior. So when I was a teenager, just like some of you right now, I'd gone to church all my life, didn't know if I'd die to go to heaven. I went to a church that never told you what I'm gonna tell you right now. I went to a church that said, listen, if you do your best and try your hardest, maybe God will just look down on you and take you to heaven when you die. And I'm like, wow. No assurance. And I try to be a good boy and boy, it was hard because I was a stinker, but I tried to do good. And I tried to be good to my mom and my dad. I tried to be good to my sisters. That definitely didn't work. I tried to be good at school, but that didn't work. And all of a sudden in high school, my older sister came up to me and said, rich. I want you to come someplace with me across the street from the high school. I saw something change in my sister, didn't know what in the world it was. She was a senior in high school, I was a sophomore. And she come home, and most of you know the story, but I know we got some new folks, so I'm going to tell it again. My sister came home and she was acting nice. And I didn't like that because we were born to fight. And she's acting nice and just different. Something totally changed about her. I mean, she just wanted my sister. And finally, I got mad at her. I mean, I got mad at her. I got in her face. And I said, what in the world do you want? Why are you being so nice to me? Knock it off. Tell me what's your goal here. What's your motive? Here's the three words she said to me. Come and see. She didn't know how to tell me what had happened. So she just said, listen, would you come and see? And I'm like, well, where am I supposed to come and see? She's like, after you get done with class on whatever day it was, we're going to go across the street and just come and see. Didn't tell me a thing about it. I'm like, well, what do I got to lose? It changed her. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe it's a bad thing. So I showed up. I went into this lady's home. About 25 other high school kids sitting there around the floor, guys and gals seemingly having a good time, happy. Then they started to sing Christian songs. Then this dear lady shared the gospel like we're doing right now. For the first time, as far as I know in my life, I heard that I was a sinner. I knew I was a sinner, but I didn't know how much it mattered. This dear lady said, because you sinned, if you got what you deserved, you'd spend eternity in an awful place called the lake of fire or hell. And I said, boy, in my heart, I knew that was true, and I sure didn't wanna go there. And then she said, listen, you know what Jesus did for you? I'd gone to church all my life, I've heard the stories, but I didn't know how important it was to understand it much more than head knowledge. She said, Jesus, God's son, comes down from heaven, dies on a cross for your sins, was buried, three days later rose from the dead because he paid 100% for your sins. I'm like, okay, I guess I kinda understood that, because I've been in church all my life. All of a sudden she hit me with something that I never heard before. You've got to put your faith in what Jesus did for you to go to heaven. For God so loved the world, that's each one of you, that he gave his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, that whosoever, anybody, who will put their faith and trust in Jesus will not go to hell but have everlasting life. I went home after that Bible study and it just plagued me and plagued me and plagued me. And finally I went down, as many of you know, into the basement of my mom and dad's home. I knelt down beside a little studio couch. I didn't know what a sinner's prayer was. I didn't know what the gospel was at that time, but I knew what I had heard and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit began to work in my life like he's working on some of yours right now in this room and some of you watching on the internet tonight. All of a sudden I realized, and I put my head down, I don't think I'd ever prayed a solid prayer in my life before. And I put my head down and I said, God, I know I'm a sinner and I'm sorry for it. And I believe that Jesus is God's son and I'm, I'm receiving him as my personal savior today. And I'm putting my faith in him and him alone. And I got saved right there at that little couch. Never, never looked back, never changed. I knew I was saved at that point. Not because it happened in a church, not because it happened in a Bible study. I was right there in my home when all of a sudden the Holy Spirit hit me upside the head and said, Rich, you need Jesus. And I got saved that night. Just as a testimony, dangerous question, but I think it's a good one. How many of you, when you put your faith and trust in Jesus, did not do it in a church but did it somewhere else? How many others? Look around, look around, look around, look around. Almost everybody. I was talking to John the other day and he said, you know, we give the gospel every single time we come into this building. The majority of folks, they don't get saved in this building. They may hear the gospel here and it may prick their hearts, but the majority of folks don't get saved in church. Do you know that? They get saved when all of a sudden the Holy Spirit begins to work on them and maybe you're in your home or maybe somewhere else and all of a sudden, just like me, all by myself, and all of a sudden I realized I need Jesus. But by the way, it's okay to get saved in church, too. If you've never placed your faith in Jesus, how about doing it tonight? You say, can I wait till I get home? You can, but I'm not sure you're gonna make it home, so why don't you do it now? If you've never put your faith in Jesus, let's do it tonight. Father, thank you for your love for us. Thank you for these folks that came out on a Sunday night to study your word. Father, I pray now that as we begin our trek through the book of Genesis, as we will pick up in two weeks and move forward, I pray that you'd help us, Lord, to be solid in our faith that we truly understand the word of God and how powerful it is. Lord, just help us to walk with you and to study this book until we can come as close to mastering it as possible. And finally, Lord, I pray for any person that might be in this room tonight, anyone watching on the internet. And just as we do every single service, we want to offer that wonderful gift that you hold out in front of every single person, just like you did to me back when I was a teenager. Do you know if you died right now, you go to heaven? You say, Pastor, I gotta be honest. When I walked in here, when I turned on this program, I really didn't know. based on what you said, based on what the scriptures say, I do understand I'm a sinner. I do understand I don't deserve to go to heaven. And I do believe that Jesus Christ indeed is God's son, that he did come down from heaven, die on the cross for my sins, was buried, and three days later rose again, proving he was God. And I, just like John 3.16 said, I do believe in Jesus and I'm putting my faith in Him tonight in His death, His burial, His resurrection, understanding that Jesus paid the entire price for my sin. Is that you tonight? Did you put your faith in Jesus? Are you trusting Him tonight, Him alone, nothing else, just Jesus? If you put your faith in Jesus tonight, how about thanking Him for what He just did in your heart? If you trusted Jesus tonight, how about thanking him for it? Maybe you'd like to thank him in a little prayer like this. You can pray silently with me. The prayer doesn't take you to heaven, but it's thanking him for what he did. Dear Jesus, dear God, I knew that I've sinned. I know I don't deserve to go to heaven, but tonight I finally get it, that Jesus paid the entire price for my sin, that he was buried after his crucifixion, that he rose again the third day from the dead to prove he was God, and proving that he indeed paid my entire sin load through his death, burial, and resurrection, and I'm placing my faith in him and him alone tonight. Thank you for saving me. Well, Father, I pray now that you take any decisions that were made, that you'd seal them, and help us walk out of here rejoicing. Help us to stand firm as we go back into the battle of the field this week. Help us to tell others the greatest news ever given