God's eternal plan and His dealings with mankind throughout history, emphasizing that God's purposes are known to Him and are unfolding according to His divine timetable. It highlights the distinction between God's works and man's responsibility, illustrating that while God's plans are sovereign, individuals have a role in responding to His offerings. The message draws parallels between the Old Testament figures of Abraham and Moses, who were privy to God's ways, and believers who can become friends of God through obedience, thereby understanding His purposes. The sermon uses the Genesis creation account as a framework to illustrate God's orderly progression in bringing cosmos from chaos, applying this principle to individual lives transformed by Christ.
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It'll just be a question of first come, first sir. And the publisher charts a dollar and a half for the chart and the key that goes along with it. That'll be tomorrow night. We don't give out green stamps on Monday night, but we also have a few little extras. So those who don't come on Monday night don't get green stamps, but they get something else a little extra. A couple of years ago, I wrote a course for the Emmaus Bible School on dispensationalism. They did not have one, and I was asked to write it, and feeling the importance of the subject, I took a year of my life, I'm very conscious of the fact that I've spent a lot more years than I have to spend, and so I'm getting a little bit grudging about my time.
I like to use it in the most profitable way. But I took a year of my time, that is every spare moment I could get, to write this course on dispensationalism. The Ames Bible School has published it. The director of their correspondence school. added some very very helpful questions to it that has increased the value of it and but what I did I there were 12 lessons in this course and for that year for one month I tried to saturate my mind with a subject of that study I read everything I could for and against it.
I went over the Word of God as I knew it, as I'd studied these over 40 years. And at the end of about the last week of each month, then I wrote the study and tried to compress into one short lesson, that which I'd been studying for a month. Now, tomorrow night, I will have a few of these courses with me. me if you'd like to secure one the Emmaus Bible School is publishing that at four dollars and that includes your sending in the lessons you'll be graded on them and given a certificate at the conclusion of the studies just one other matter I know that the chart and what is said about will provoke many questions in your minds.
Now, we have a tremendous task trying to go through this chart in these seven studies. The last time I preached on, I preached twice a day for two weeks. And I've been listening to the tapes of those studies and have been appalled really at how much I didn't say. Although we spoke for those two weeks, twice a day, I am amazed at how much should I fail to say. And yet, just to warn you, I think I kept them over time almost every time. But I'm reforming.
At least I'm telling myself I am. But we will try and be considered. If you can come out each night, we'll certainly try and be considered. I'm close on time. We won't be through because, as you can see, in seven studies to do anything more than skim over this chart and the tremendous number of subjects it mentions. As you see, it's from eternity to eternity. So it just takes in the divine plan of the ages, God's dealings with mankind from a past eternity to a future. So you can realize from that what we'll be doing is just suggesting some of the more important aspects of these truths we'll try and select the most important but you'll have questions in your mind now if you'd like to write those questions out there'll be a box back there each night and if you will write out your question the question will be answered At the next session, we'll
not begin tonight, we'll begin tomorrow night. That's one of the little added features of the Monday night service. We'll begin tomorrow night in answering the question. So if you'd like to write out your question, maybe something we say this morning, something we don't say, something you notice on the chart. Now, it may be that I will keep back some of your questions until what seems to be an appropriate time. I found that the best way. Instead of interjecting some thought that has nothing to do with the study that night, I have found it more profitable to keep a question until the time when we're studying that subject.
But we will take a little while, each night before the message, we'll take a little while to answer these questions, and I can answer every question that is handed in. It may be, I don't know, but I'll at least give you that answer to every question that is handed in. But we will try and give you as much as possible a scriptural answer. Now this morning I'd just like to give you a little overall view. of the chart. My departed brother, Ape Gives, with whom I preach quite frequently, he used to claim that preachers were like Columbus.
And many a time I've heard him describe Columbus as the man who didn't know where he was going when he started, didn't know where he was when he got there, and didn't know where he'd been when he came back. Now that worked out fairly good for Columbus, not a good pattern for preachers. But Brother Gibbs used to claim that many of us were like that. At least I'm going to tell you where I think we're going. Now, when we get there, you'll have to decide whether that's where we are. And at the end of the week, you'll have to decide whether we did get there or not. But I'll leave that with you. I'll be able to study by that time. But we will try and give you a little idea of where we're going in these studies.
And to begin with, I want you to turn to two scriptures, Acts chapter 15 and just one verse in this passage, Acts chapter 15 and verse 18. Now here is the key to what we're going to be studying. Known unto God are all his works. from the beginning of the world. God knows what he's going to do. And God is doing what he has known from all eternity is going to do.
He's doing that. The plans, the eternal purposes of God are marching on. They are independent of either man's health or man's failure. They are marching on. And I believe that the Almighty is moving ahead according to his divine timetable. I do not believe he is ahead of time. I do not believe he is behind time. But he is moving on according to his divine timetable. Now that does not eliminate man's responsibility.
I do not for one moment believe that man is simply a sort of an automatic something. That God presses a button and you do what God wants. I don't believe that. 47 years of studying my Bible has never given me that false notion. But I believe that if I fail, in what God offers to me, then another will have that which God has offered to me. It's the same with salvation. Don't you leave the meeting this morning, imagining that if you don't get saved, there'll be an empty seat in heaven.
There won't. Don't think for one minute that if you're not there, there'll be a missing note in the heavenly choir there won't it'll simply mean somebody else will be filling the seat you could have filled and somebody else will be singing the song that you could have sung that's where human responsibility comes in but known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world now there's so very much in all of this that I'm going to have to resist the temptation of going into details but now when you turn, you might say, well, I'll agree with you. I'll agree God knows.
If God is omniscient, if he knows everything, he certainly knows all his purposes from the beginning. But what about us? Can we know them? We're not God. We're not omniscient. Our knowledge is very limited. What can we know about God's plans and purposes, do we just have to wait until something happens, and then say, well, apparently that's what God wanted, or God planned, or God arranged? Turn to John chapter 15, please, and we'll read verse 14.
Here's where we come in, and again, this is a key to our studies. John chapter 15 verse 14. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. But I have called you friends. For all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you. To me that's a lovely verse. wonderful to be saved. It's wonderful to be a child of God.
By the grace of God I've been saved now for 47 years. I'm sorry it wasn't the entire 66 years of my life, but I'm glad it was the last 47. It's wonderful to be a child in the family of God, but you know it's even more wonderful to be a friend of God. When I first went preaching 45 years ago, I went away up into northern Canada, and I had some very interesting experiences. I mustn't get sidetracked on that because that's one sign of old age creeping on. You begin to reminisce, you know, the good old age.
But I can't help but think of the dear lady who entertained me when I was there, just a young preacher, 21 years of age. She was the wife of a preacher in that area. She's a big woman in every way. A large heart and a large body to carry that heart around in. Lovely Christian, just a mother to me. I was away from home there. I hadn't yet married. and just starting out in my life of service for the Lord. But I can think of that dear woman going around her home singing and she carried her organs with her and they provide plenty of volume so that house was just full of music when she was singing.
And her favorite hymn was, at least the one that impressed me as a young preacher, she'd sing on the coming of the Lord The line that always impressed me was, and when he comes in bright array to lead the conquering line, it will be glory then to say that he's a friend of mine. Isn't a wonderful thing? I don't have any friends amongst the great of earth. I have a few friends who are somewhat well to do, but I don't have any friends amongst the great of earth but I have a friend in glory but I'm looking forward to seeing but it's a wonderful thing to be a friend of Christ down here on earth now he laid down a condition the condition was obedience and if we walk a path of obedience we can know friendship with the Lord that brings with it wonderful blessings there are two men in the Old Testament that are spoken of as friends of God.
One is Abraham, and the other is Moses. Now the reason I'm referring to them is because of what our Lord said here. He said to his disciples that he called them friends, and because they were friends, he was making known to them all that the Father, he had heard of the Father. And to Abraham, our Lord said on one occasion, Shall I hide from Abram the thing that I will do? Of Moses, it is said in Psalm 107, it is said he made no, pardon, it's not 107, it's verse 7, 130, and verse 7, he said he made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel.
You see the difference? As God was leading the children of Israel through the wilderness from Egypt to the promised land of Canaan, he acted on behalf of Israel. He gave them manna. He gave them water from the rock he gave them filler clouds to guide them when they had come to their to the dead dead sea the red sea it opened up and he led them through the red sea when they came to Jordan it was a repetition of that they saw his acts but he made known his ways unto Moses Moses was his his ways.
Now that is the opportunity, the wonderful opportunity that we have with our Bible before us. If we're willing to walk in a path of obedience, I'm speaking to those who are saved, those who have accepted Christ as their Savior, we can become friends of Christ. And it's to us that he will open up these wonderful things. Now you have on the a past eternity and a future eternity in between we have what of course we call time and the purpose of this whole chart and the purpose of these studies is that we might see what God's plan is during this period of time between past and future eternity God as I said has a plan.
He is carrying out that plan. He is moving ahead steadily in an orderly way to that ultimate goal that he designed in a past eternity. Now in the chart here we use the six days of creation plus the Sabbath day that you read of in Genesis chapter 1 Right on to the third verse of Genesis chapter 2. We use those days as a background, an illustration of these various periods of time in which God is carrying out his eternal purpose as he moves forward.
Let me illustrate it a little. I have three boys. My wife and I have three sons. Now, from the time God gave them to us, while we certainly couldn't see the end from the beginning, nevertheless we had certain purposes and plans for them. We could only pray that God would enable us to carry out those purposes for them. To change them, it was not his will, but we had a general purpose in mind. mind regarding our three sons. Now, we didn't send them to college, believe it or not, when they were a year old.
They might have been turned down. We treated them as babies. We sent them a grade school when they grew up to be small boys. The time came when they went to college. The time came when they came and said, Dad, I think I'm going to get married. Well, that's up to you, son. You see what it did to your father. And that's up to you now. But you see, when there were babies, what I'm saying is, when there were babies, we dealt with them as babies.
When there were children, we dealt them as children. When they were young men, we dealt with them as young men. Now that they're all in business life, we deal with them accordingly as mature adults. Now that's the way God has dealt with the human race. That's what I pointed out in this course, on dispensationalism. God didn't deal with man back in the Garden of Eden the way he's going to deal with them in the millennium. Now he dealt with them in love, in kindness, in absolute truthfulness, in justice and all that.
But nevertheless, he dealt with them according to their circumstances. And so these six days that we have in Genesis chapter 1, we have six wonderful pictures of the stages through which God's dealings with mankind have moved. Now you'll see more of that as we go on in these studies. But time is going to fly. And I'm just going, as I said to begin, I trust you'll be able to carry out in your own individual study of the Word of God.
But now in the few remaining moments will you turn to that portion of the Word of God? Genesis chapter 1. I'm just going to read the first three verses. First two verses will suffice. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. I never read those words, but what they thrill me. I've been reading them, as I've said, for almost a half a century. There's something majestic about them.
In the Hebrew, there are just seven words in that first verse, but there's something majestic about them. If we had time, which we do not, I think we could show you that verse 1 of Genesis chapter 1 demolishes at least 10 different erroneous theories. Agnosticism, atheism, polytheism. Oh, you could go on. At least 10 are demolished by... the seven Hebrew words of Genesis 1 and 1.
Well, we can't go into that. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Right over that creation. You'll notice that you'll have here, right at the beginning of our chart, these three partial spheres. They represent what I'd like briefly to bring before you now in the first verse, we have the original creation. Now, if we had two or three weeks, we would go into the subject of whether verse one refers to the original creation or not.
But verse two says, 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. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. My how much, in just those three verses, creation, write that over the first verse, the original creation, and how much could be said about that. The first part of verse 2, write chaos. the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
But there's a movement. There's a movement. The spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. That's the spirit of God. And God said, that's the word of God, and these two agents bring out of this chaotic scene they bring order let's call them cosmos so you have creation you'll chaos you'll have cosmos order now that I call the inspired index to the whole Bible what's the story of our Bible the story of our Bible is simply this God created all things someone says so you're a creationist I am I am I don't have too much sense nobody ever will accuse me of being brilliant but I have enough sense not to believe evolution God gave me enough sense not to believe that and I've read scores of books on it, simply that
I might be able to help younger ones who might be carried away a little by them. But we're not going to spend time on that. God created all things. There was disaster for sin came in. Now again, if we had ample time at our disposal, it would be interesting to go to Isaiah chapter 14, 28, and read there about the fall of one who was called Lucifer and who became Satan. And to suggest that at that time, maybe the time when the condition that we read of in verse 2 of Genesis 1 came about.
For I'm fully convinced, and had we a night that we could spend on it, I think I could give you ample evidence that the original creation was not, as you have it in the beginning of verse 2, without form and void, and in darkness. That was not the original creation. Creation, as it came to the hands of God, was perfect. Sin entered, and sin did what it always does, what it it's in creation, whether it's in a home, whether it's in a church, whether it's in a individual life, sin brings chaos, confusion, darkness, disaster, spiritual death.
Then God moves in. And to me it's a thrilling thing. I feel almost irreverence rushing through these tremendous truths, as I'm having to do. But God moves him. Have you got the picture? A perfect heaven and earth. Let's go back a minute. Suppose we had sitting here on the platform a Hebrew scholar, and I would turn to him and I would say, Professor, would you tell me? us, please, just a little about this word God here.
Well, just what do you want me to tell you, Mr. McTaylor, there's an awful lot could be said about it. Well, tell me a little bit about it, simply about it. Well, I think the professor in Hebrew would tell us, well, one of the outstanding things about this word God is that it's a... Plural words. Oh, Professor, I know what you mean. That means two. Now that isn't what I mean. Because he would tell us that as in English, we only had learned two numbers, singular and plural.
And everything from two on up was plural, of course. But now, Now, a little boy over in Israel learning Hebrew, he has to learn three numbers because Hebrew has three. Singular, one. Dual, two. Plural, three or more. And anything that is plural in Hebrew is three or more. So, professor, this is a plural word. Yes. Then we have here right on the opening sentence of our Bible, the truth of the Trinity.
It's just a little dot, but it's expanded and enlarged and explained all through the 66 books of the Bible. Professor, tell me something a little about that next word created. Well, Mr. McCann, I'd like to say two things about them. The first is that's a singular word. Now, wait a minute, Professor. Uh, I was exposed to grammar at school. It never took. But I did learn one or two very simple things. I learned that you never used a singular verb with a plural noun.
that actually stuck with me I think all the rest of grammar I ever learned slid off but I did learn that now professor you're telling me that in the Bible it's the word of God you've got a grammatical error right to begin with oh no I didn't say that he said he said you have a triune God working together as one you see God the created. That's what the Bible says. God the Son created. God the Spirit created. They all created as one. You see?
If man had written this, he'd have gone according to grammar and he'd have made a colossal mistake. He'd have had Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working in opposition, or at least individually, and they don't. They work together. But what else was it you were going to tell me about this word created. Well, I'll have to be very brief, says the professor. In your study of these verses here, you're going to find an English word created. And you're going to find an English word mazed. Now, those are very, very important words.
Because to be very simple, our Hebrew professor tells us, this word created means to create out of nothing the word made means to create or to make out of existing material this pulpit here was not created it was made it was made out of existing material but created the Hebrew word carries the thought of being brought into existence out of nothing, not from existing material at all.
Well, we'll just ask our professor one other question before we let him go because we have to go too. Tell us something about that next word, Professor. Heaven. Oh, he says, that's the word that I was telling you about Jewel, two of them. How I caught you professor you may know Hebrew but you don't know the Bible my Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 3 that there are three heavens and he was caught up into the third heaven so you see professor you're wrong you said it was Jewel just too and my Bible says there are three and professor said now Mr.
McKay I don't want to embarrass you publicly but I'm going to have to ask you a question what is the third heaven oh that's very simple that's a dwelling place of God well let me ask you another question Mr. McKay if God made his dwelling place where was he when he made it and so you see if it had been plural, and had included the third heaven that would have been an error. Now I'm just pointing out a few of these things that lie on the very surface. I have listened to all kinds of arguments against this book.
I've read scores of books against this book. I'm more convinced than ever before in my life. This is the infallible word of God. Friends, you can base your eternity on this book. You can rest on this. God created sin brought chaos. The spirit of God began to move. God spoke. And we shall see in the studies that lie ahead of us the wonderful order that God brought out of this chaos in creation.
Nara at once, he could have done that. I believe the God of heaven could have spoken, and on the first day, everything would have been just the way it was on the seventh day. But he didn't. He moved in an orderly way through these six days of recreation, reconstruction, bringing order, And you know that word cosmos is a lovely word. It means order, everything in its place. And because of that, it means beauty. You know, beauty is when things are in their place.
And because of that, it means harmony. Both in the English and in the Greek, cosmos, carries those three thoughts, That's what I want to leave with you. God created man, sin came in, bringing disorder, spiritual death, separation from God. by his spirit and by his word can move into a life. Oh, how disordered! My life was at the early age of nineteen. going to tell you about it at all.
I try to forget that. I know what the seemy side of life is. There's very little that those who feel they're so sophisticated today in sin, there's very little they could tell me about it. But I like to forget that. Everything was in disorder. Then that wonderful night, I opened my heart to Christ. I believed he died on the cross from my sins. And I said, come in, Lord Jesus. And there was order. God began to put things in the right place.
There was beauty. Not physical beauty. But the most beautiful thing in the eyes of God, the beauty of holiness. Not a human holiness. divine holds. There was harmony. And all that discord that was ruining my life was God. It was harmony. Harmony between me and myself. That's a wonderful thing. Harmony between myself and my parents. But best of all, harmony between my soul and God.
And a song, a new song, began to go up to God because a song had come down from God into my heart. As I talk to you about these things this week, the will of the Lord, I'm going to be praying that this cosmos, this order, this beauty, this harmony will come life there's nothing like it and it can come and it will come when you let the Lord Jesus Christ come in I've already kept you eight minutes over time if you'll forgive me I'll make your promise I'll promise to do it again Pardon me, let us just have a word of prayer.
But friends, there's so much in the book. When I begin to talk about this Bible, somebody has to pull my coat tail to get me stopped. Shall we pray? Father, we thank thee for the God thou art, a God great enough to create the universe, yet a God loving enough to give thy son to die for us, The God that comes down to the level of each one of us in calling us individually. Thou hast said, I have called thee by thy name. Thou art mine. Father, we have been skirting the fringes of some tremendous truths this morning.
We're just dependent on the Holy Spirit to take it and apply it to the heart of each one, both young and old here. Use us to thy glory, we pray. separate us with my blessing in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Services over.