The creation account in Genesis 1 demonstrates God's power and order, beginning with light and progressing through the separation of elements, the formation of land and plant life, the creation of celestial bodies, aquatic and aerial creatures, land animals, and finally humanity. This process is presented not only as a historical event but also as a type for spiritual conversion, where God's command brings light out of darkness in the human heart, mirroring the initial act of creation. The sermon emphasizes the significance of God's spoken word, the separation inherent in the firmament, and the resurrection symbolized by the third day, ultimately equating the power of salvation with the power of creation. It concludes by highlighting that salvation, like creation, is a work of God's power, instantaneously quickening, birthing, reconciling, and creating believers anew in Christ.
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Genesis chapter one and we'll continue our studies on this amazing chapter we want to speak on the first three chapters of Genesis and last week we spoke on the first five verses today we want to read more Genesis chapter one 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 water.
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. 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, and let it divide the waters from the waters. God made the firmament and divided the waters, 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 where the second day. If God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. If God called the dry land earth, and they gathered gathering together of the waters called He Seed, and God saw it was good. 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 its scent upon the earth, and it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass. an herb yielding 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. God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, Let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. Let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and it was so.
God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night he made, the stars also. And 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 divide the light from the darkness, and God saw that it was good. And evening and the morning were the fourth day. God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath light, and all that may fly about the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and every winged pow after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the seas, and let pow multiply in the earth. and the evening and the morning were the fifth day. God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creatures after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so.
God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 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. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he him. male and female created he then.
And God blessed them. And God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fall of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of the tree yielding seed, to you shall it be given me for me. And so every beast of the earth and every fall of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is light, I have given every green herb for me, and it was so.
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Now, in the other days, when he concluded his day's work, he said it's good. At the end of the chapter, he said it's very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. I'm taking out this book. I don't know whether we'll get into the creation of man or not. If not, we'll take it up next week. And then we'll say something about the lovely Garden of Eden. It must have been a beautiful estate. And then we'll go into the subject of Satan. But last Sunday we were speaking about creation and likening it unto the conversion of a soul, just as you have in verse two of chapter one, you have a scene of chaos and confusion and emptiness.
And I do not believe God created that way, otherwise he created a mess. And we showed how the Spirit of God brooded all the face of the deep. And then he ended up with saying, Let there be light and there was light. And that is the experience of a soul found in that sinful chaotic condition. But the Spirit of God brooding all that troubled heart, even brooding all the world, because the Spirit of God is in the world convicting men of sin, of righteousness, of judgment, and He's the one that brings about a knowledge of our lost condition.
When we admit it, He quickens us into life in Christ. Now to use the creation as a type of the New Testament conversion, you have a lovely verse, and the Apostle Paul uses it, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined into our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So here you find in the New Testament a reference is made to creation in Genesis And it is applied to us today. And how remarkable that is.
I hope you heard, or, as we read it, that statement, and God said. And God said. If you were to read chapter one all through, you'd find that ten times God said that. And God said. Here are God's first ten commandments. And God said, and every one of them was fulfilled. None of those commandments were broken. But God gave a second set of Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai when he gave the law, and they've all been broken.
None of them have been kept except the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ was the only one to keep that second set. of commandments. But the first set of ten here, and God said, and all that he said was accomplished, and so they were fulfilled. And that's remarkable. When you come now to the next set, or rather to the whole set of these days, Their first three days are by themselves, and the second three days are also by themselves.
There are two triads here, and it's nice to notice them. On the first day, you have light, and on the second day, you have air, you have water. On the third day, you have land and plant life. grass and trees. Now there you have the first three days' work. We may not get beyond that this morning. And you have the next three days, and you have the fourth day, lights appear. And also on the fifth day, cows and fish, and on the sixth day, animals and man. It's very interesting that these two triads begin with lights.
The first Let there be light, and the second triumphs of the last three days begins with the light in the heavens. That's very significant and very important. Now, last week, let me say, we spoke on the conversion of man in the light of the creation of the world. The second thing we come to hear is the firmament. Now, what follows conversion? Well, when a person says that's not the end of it, that's just the beginning. But the firmament has to do with separation.
God is separating the waters above from the waters beneath. Separation. That's the lesson here. And certainly God wants Christians, those who are born again, saved by the grace of God, after they have been saved, He wants them separated. Separated from what? Separated from the world. The Lord Jesus Christ in his prayer to the Father says, Even as I have separated them from the world, I sanctify them or set them apart. And Christians need to be set apart.
They are set apart as far as God's choice is concerned, and their position. They are in Christ. But are they separate as to their condition? Are we separate? Can a person tell by looking at us, there's a Christian? There's a child of God. But I was so calm and so worldly that hardly anyone knows. I'm a Christian. I remember reading about a man and he'd been saved quite a while.
But all of a sudden he got restored to the Lord. And he went to a man where he worked and he said, you know, I'm a Christian. He said, I'm glad you told me. I wouldn't have known it. I wonder if that's so in the office where you work, or even in the family, that you're a Christian. God wants us to be separate. Now that's what you have in connection with the firmament. One doesn't want to get too involved in through the scientific aspect of this. The firmament is essential for life upon this earth.
man nor animal could live without the firmament. That is, that belt of atmosphere that surrounds this globe. It is a shield against those deadly rays from the sun, the infrared and violet rays of the sun. It was out, we understand, about four hundred feet from the earth. The first seven miles is heavy with paper. But then it turns out something that there are five zones of the permanent. Those who fly our spacecraft know their re-entry, the most dangerous part of it is when they come back and have to go through that zone, the permanent.
And communication with the Earth is blocked out for quite a few seconds. And that's the most dangerous part because they come now through space traveling at terrific speed when they hit the firmament. That atmospheric depth around this world is very, very dangerous. And so the firmament is essential for man's life upon the Earth. If the sun poured down its deadly rays upon this planet without the firmament, the atmospheric belt he couldn't live. The firmament does absorb a certain amount of those deadly rays, but allowing just enough through to benefit man upon the Earth.
There you have the marvelous firmament. that God placed around this earth. When you stop to think of people talking about evolution, can't you see behind all this a mighty God? One of great intelligence. Whose father? When this way was created. He knew the power of that sun and the deadly rays. And yet he put a filament stretching from the earth out about four hundred miles, and it gets thinner as it goes out.
The real heavy paper is on the earth with a cloud saw near the earth. In order that man might live in an atmosphere compatible with his body, God thought of that. If God were to do away with the firmament, the atmosphere, we'd all be dead in the earth. This is the marvels of our wonderful creation, showing and proving the greatness of our God. And so you have this depth separating us, the separating from waters below the seas to the waters above.
That's the firmament in the heavens. And if you don't think there's a lot of water up there, and of course this past few weeks some people in the Midwest have found out how much water there is up there. I read something recently that's fantastic. It says here, he began by raising the clouds in terms of sheer mathematical engineering. The work of the second day of creation is astounding. The amount of vapor continually suspended in the air above us is estimated at fifty-four trillion, four hundred and sixty billion tons.
Water is seven hundred and seventy-three times the weight of air, so that gives some idea the power required to separate the waters from the water. the annual precipitation in the form of rain and snow that falls upon the earth, that is, every year, is equivalent to a hundred and eighty-six cubic miles, enough to cover the entire earth to a depth of three feet, if it all came in one day. The supply of water above the earth is maintained by evaporation, the constant lifting of water from the earth into the atmosphere by the power of the sun.
Now think how God put this, this firmament around our earth. And every time you see the clouds and the birds fly, and of course this is where the planes fly too. You can think of God's mercy and grace and wisdom and power in making it livable on this earth. How fantastic the Bible is. And what do you read in Psalm nineteen? The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Yes, God's marvelous handiwork.
And thus he separated from the heavens the waters above and the waters below. God wants to see a real gap between you as a Christian and the world. He says it should be a greatness. He ought to be able to see your discovery. I know many a person to get saved, not to a sermon, but because they saw a person living a Christ-like life, and say, you've got something I don't have. Christians should certainly be different.
Now we want to get to the next stage. We've spoken of the permanent lifting of, or rather you have the Furtherment of the heavens separating from waters below to the waters above. Then you come to the third day, and there here you have the dry land appearing. On the third day, the dry land appears. Isn't that amazing? The third day is the day of resurrection. Christ rose on the third day. And you'll notice it's dry land, he says in Arbor. The dry land, not mother marshes, but the dry land.
Yes, when Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he gave us dry land to stand upon. And you know what it said about Jonah? And he's a type of the resurrection of Christ that Jonah was three days and three nights on the heart of the earth. Even so must the Son of Man be three days and three nights. Well, Jonah was three days, three nights in the whale valley. Even so must the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And the fish bombin' it up, Jonah, on dry ground. And on the third day, dry land appeared.
Resurrection. What a wonderful truth. The first day conversion. The second day conversion. of a permanent separation. The third day resurrection. How wonderful it is to be in the enjoyment of a resurrected life. And as you read this, you marvel at this. You have, first of all, light. Then you have life in this portion. And then you have truth. Light, light, truth. And that's the order. You get life. You get saved.
You receive Christ. You've got life. Then there's proof that follows. And if there's no proof, you have a good reason to wonder if there's any root. There's always some proof from a true born-again Christian. He deals with the darkness of the earth. by saying, let there be light. Now he deals with the deadness of the earth by bringing in light. How wonderful light is. And the moment a person is saved, he has light.
The Apostle Paul says, God forbid that I should glory saved in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for which the world is crucified unto me, and I am crucified unto the world. Paul entered into the truth of resurrection. He mentioned that different times in the New Testament. And I may know him and the power of his resurrection. The fellowship of the suffering, Christians are there in the good of resurrection. Christ is risen. He is at God's right hand this very moment. Paul says, I am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Christians are living a resurrected life. They're in touch with the resurrected Savior at God's right hand. That's an amazing thing, isn't it? What do I mean? The third day, a resurrected life. Do you know there's only one person who ever lived a Christian life? Just one. That's the Lord Jesus Christ. And if there's any Christianity, genuine Christianity in you, it's because Christ is living in you to produce.
Up in my hometown, Stratford, Ontario, where the Shakespeare and festivals go on all summer, there's someone handed me some paper and said, now, you draw up a plan, say, of Hamlet or King Lear, and you draw up a plan on that play, and you act it. I can't do it. Shakespeare could. You ask me to live a life like Jesus Christ? I can't do it. If the genius of Shakespeare could enter into my heart, I could go off a play and act.
And only when the ungrieved Holy Spirit is glaring in your heart Can you live the life of a true Christian? Christ living in you, and as Christ is the only person who ever lived a true Christian life, it's in the measure that Jesus Christ dwells in your heart that you can manifest that life, a Christian life. And so you have life on the third day. how wonderful that was. You notice here, after its kind, ten times you read that, after its kind, this is the rock upon which evolution perishes, after its kind.
You know, it's fantastic. Lying awake one day this week, I almost became a charismatic. I began thinking of the third day. And when the Lord, on the third day, he says, let there be grass, herbs, trees, and the whole sea. And the earth is referring to all over there. They're spraying up beautiful flowers. I don't think. Though he didn't put a seed in the ground and a little sapling for the tree to grow, this was all done in one day, a solar day of twenty-four hours.
And when he said that, the countryside and the valleys everywhere burst into beautiful light, just flowered everywhere. Wasn't that wonderful? He just spoke the word, just like he says, let there be light. and the walk. Let there be grass, let there be earth, let there be trees, and full-grown trees. They just sprang into life and beauty and lovingness. You know, that's fantastic. It all happened that one dholiest day when light burst forth in all its beauty.
I did read this somewhere. One hundred thousand species of plant life on the globe. More than five thousand different forms of grass. If you ever stop to think of that. And you know some of the very flowers that you admire today, God created the first one. And that word after its kind is very significant. Yes, there are different kinds of roses. You can think of all the roses that are in bloom, but after all they may differ in color and odor, but they're still a rose.
You can't change a rose into a lily, nor a lily into a rose. Every path after its kind after its kind, and you can't change a monkey into a man. Nor can you change a lion into a giraffe. Everything after its kind, there may be some mutations in changes, but still whose seed is in itself. Ten times you read that after it's kind, after it's kind, after it's kind.
How wonderful is God's glorious creation? And he spake the word on the third day, beautiful green grass, lovely flowers grew up everywhere. I believe that a dandelion there he was. God is the one who called all his vegetation and flower, the botanic light, into existence by the word of Islam. Though so the earth went through the flood, it did not destroy the seeds of all those lovely flowers and trees.
For when the water subsided, the dove went and pounded on all of thee, so it hadn't been. brought it back to Noah. And so the flood did not destroy all those lovely plants and flowers and trees that God created on the third day. You know, it's remarkable when you think of these things. You have the seas brought out before you. Seas speak of control. Land and sea. And you know there's remarkable verses in your Bible.
The seas speak of boundary. When he gave to the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his commandment. Twice a day since that first creation day, or the third of, the tides twice a day give testimony to our living God. God says, they shall not pass my commandment. God has given you and me as Christians a commandment, and he doesn't want you to pass his word.
Don't go beyond the boundary, the limits of the Scripture. If you do, you're in trouble. But also there's another verse in Job thirty-eleven. Hitherto shalt thou go and no further. God is talking to the sea. God has set a boundary for the Christian. At the same time, the Christian can pass through some deep water and the waves beat upon your chastened spirit and sick body. God has the power to say, Thus far shall thou go and know, Father. And here shall thy proud waves be stated.
He knoweth our plain, he remembers we're but dust. And he will with that temptation make a way of escape that we may be able to bear. God calls a halt sometime to circumstances that are just about to overwhelm us. He commands the seeds. I wonder, when you think of these three days, the first day, light, and darkness. When the light and the darkness or that part of the day meet together, it's the gloom. It's more or less murky.
They define the mixed light and darkness. Come to the second day. And if you have the waters above coming down and meet the waters beneath, you've got a fog. The third day, if you mix water with earth, you've got mud. In other words, Christian, there's no fence walking with God. If you do walk the fence, you generally fall off on the wrong side. There are Christians that are neither one thing nor the other. They won't take their stand.
And God said that in Revelation chapter three to the Laodicean church. He said, I wish you were either hot or cold because you're lukewarm. I'll screw you out of my mouth. You know, you buy grape nuts. They're neither grape nor nuts. You think of a guinea pig. It's neither a guinea nor a pig. It's neither one thing or the other. And there are some Christians and they've hired it. play ball with both sides. They won't take their stand. They won't take their stand. Some of them are struck in the mud. It reminds me of a young father who just got saved.
And when he got saved, oh, he was so happy. Well, he told his father how happy he was. And guess it. Oh, father said, well, son, he said, I had an experience like that one day. I was just as happy as you. But as the older I got, he said, I became more established. I don't think that's that exciting too much. They had to go at the back of the farm to get some hay. They like to put on too much hay and on the way back, it had been rain. There was a mud hole. And they go wagging, sagging.
and the horses couldn't pull it out. And the farmer, he tried his best. He looked at those horses, but he couldn't budge. He said, Son, get down and look and see what's wrong. The boy climbed down off the wagon. He stood and looked at it. The minute the father said, Son, what's wrong down there? Dad, it's established. Some Christians are established. They're not making progress. They're stuck in the mud. They're not out and out for twice. They want to try and enjoy the world and enjoy some of the things of God one hour a week.
You can have your choice to be either a fanatic or a hypocrite. I'll soon be a fanatic. Don't be a hypocrite. There are four things in connection with God's wonderful creation. And when a person gets saved, there are four things that take place instantaneously. And I want you to get this. When you get saved, you are crickens by the Holy Spirit of God. The Spirit of God crickens. You have to be crickens. who were dead in trespasses and sins, Ephesians, two ones, you're quickened into a new life.
At the very same moment, you are born again. You've got a new relationship. You're born into the family of God. At the very same second, you were reconciled. You've got a new friendship. You're no longer an enemy. You who were enemies are now reconciled to God by the death of His Son. And at the very same moment, you were created in Christ Jesus. All four of these things, that being crippled by the Holy Spirit and being born again and being reconciled and being created, they took place at the very exact second.
They were all yours. Who did it? The same God who called this world into existence. He said, you have the faith. He did it. And he is the one who creates us into a new creature in Christ Jesus. We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works. You can engage in good works. the glory by God until you're first created a new creature. Some people try to put good works before their salvation and say, well, I work my way into salvation.
You haven't done one good work in the sight of God yet, unless you're saved. Your life for God begins at conversion when you're created. saved by the power of God. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. The same mighty power, neither more nor less, that created this universe is the same power that saved the lost soul. And that power is still operative today. And that power can be used this morning to do what you can't do.
save you. You cannot save your sin. You can muster up all your energy and show all your human muscles. You can't save your sin. Salvation is of the Lord just like this creation was of the Lord. And he and he alone can save you. Joining a church, you have your name on every church register in Albany. It won't take the one step, it won't help you. You've got to be saved by the grace of God, the power of the gospel, believing that you are a lost and guilty sinner, and that Christ died for you upon the cross and shed his blood to put all your sins away.
And the Holy Spirit of God is waiting right now, brooding over this meeting, as he brooded over the earth, waiting to descend into a heart that wants to be saved. and he'll change you. He'll create you into a new creature in Christ Jesus. Oh, that you had entered into the first day creation, the second day separation, the third day resurrection, living, a garden of Christ-like resurrected life. It is where you find the fruit.
I hope God sees some fruit in your life and not a barren desert. He wants to save you. He wants to save you now by his grace and he'll do it. He's anxious to do it. He wants to do it. He said, let there be light and there will. And he'll say to you, will you accept my son? Will you believe him that he tied on the cross for you? You say, yes. God says there's light. and light, and then we'll be saved. Shall we pray? Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we come into thy holy, divine presence.
We thank thee, Father, that the very breath we breathe, is given to us and available to us because of the marvelous permanent blood is put around this planet. within us from the deadly rays of the sun. O how we thank thee for thy salvation, thy wonderful, marvelous salvation available to whosoever pray. May someone this morning, who has never been saved but would like to be, except Christ the Savior, thou would at that very moment create that person into a new creature.
Thou would quicken him, that he would experience the new birth. And Father, if you know what it is, we reconcile unto God through the death of thy son. May this be the experience of someone this morning. We ask you to now save his name. Amen. Are we singing closing? number three hundred and seventy-six out of my bondage sort of a night Jesus I come Jesus I come into thy freedom gladness a night Jesus I come to thee if you have trusted Christ this morning and would like to you you come up and tell us I'm saved I got saved this morning I'd like to be if you would like to be you would take me in the room on the left They'd like to point you to Christ.
So we believe this reading this morning, knowing you are saved. Not only one of his creatures, you're one of his creatures now. He wants you to be one of his children. That's a blessed relationship and a wonderful change. Shall we sing? Pray each, let me sing. Thank you.