The Creation
Bible Study Time 9-17-06
Church links:
Bible Study Time 9-17-06
In the first verse of the Bible, God declares Himself to be the creator of all things. It says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Adam, of coarse, was created on the sixth day, and he personally passed down to his descendants the facts of the creation as long as he was alive, and he lived until Noah’s father was 56 years old.
Three generations after Noah, Nimrod built the Tower of Babel and introduced his clan to the worship of the sun, the moon and the stars, as well as the forces of nature. They saw the forces of nature as the mysterious force behind the evolution of the universe. As a result, they increasingly saw the story of creation, which had been handed down to them since the time of Adam, as just a myth.
When God called Abraham out from among the moon worshipers in Ur of the Chaldeans, He revealed Himself to Abraham as the God the creation. Abraham knew that God was the creator of the universe and that He was sovereign over all of its events.
From Abraham to Moses the faith of Abraham and the story of the creation were maintained and taught by men such as Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, but finally Moses was instructed to write it all down and preserve it for all mankind.
In recent years, man has taken a giant step backwards to the time of the Tower of Babel, preferring to believe that the forces of nature have acted independently from any personal God to orchestrate the evolution of the universe through the course of millions of years.
However, the creation itself bears witness to the Genesis account of creation. The Psalmist said:
Psalms 19:1-4 (NLT)
1 The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship.
2 Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.
3 They speak without a sound or a word; their voice is silent in the skies;
4 yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world . . .
God assembled the molecules of creation so that they join together in a chorus that declares the glory of God. It could be that this molecular refrain rang out with greater clarity in ages past before the Bible was written.
It was probably through the message of the stars that the wise men heard about the birth of the King of the Jews. Since the Chaldeans are thought to have developed the science of astronomy, it may be that God first revealed Himself to Abraham through the stars of heaven.
We have no way of knowing the full effect of heaven’s voice in ages past, but we do know that even today, with the full revelation of God’s word at hand, the heavens still bear a powerful testimony to the glory of God. Paul warned the Roman believers that even today:
Romans 1:18-20 (NKJ)
18 . . . the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
All created beings are left without excuse before God because His eternal power and Godhead have been seen in the creation from the beginning. Today, however, the greatest testimony concerning the credibility of the word of God is the vibrate testimony of the millions of people through the years who have come to the living waters of Jesus Christ.
Those who have tasted the living water have found the peace that passes understanding and the joy that defies description. Those who drink from those waters know from experience that the Bible is the word of God and that when the Bible says, “God created the heavens and the earth,” that’s exactly what happened. Paul told Timothy to watch out for those who try to twist the facts of science to deny the word of God. In I Timothy 6, Paul said:
1 Timothy 6:20 (NKJ)
20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge – (then Paul goes on to say that)
21 by professing (this false knowledge) some have strayed concerning the faith . . .
There are those who think that the creation is a peripheral issue for Christians and that it really makes no difference whether we believe in creation or evolution. But make no mistake about it, false doctrine always has serious consequences. Paul said that he even knew of some who were being led astray in matters of the faith by pseudoscience.
The devil works very hard and very effectively to disguise the truth so as to make it look unintelligent or unsophisticated, but the word of God breaks through Satanic deception and gives us strength to stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. The Lord Jesus said:
John 8:31-32 (NKJ)
31 . . . “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
32 “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
When the first verse of Genesis 1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” we not only learn that God created all things, but we learn that God is eternal. God existed before the heavens and the earth existed, before the beginning. To create means to make something out of nothing. Therefore, God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. There were no raw materials for Him to work with, and there was no one else there to supervise or lend a helping hand. In Job, Chapter 38, God asked Job:
Job 38:4-7 (NKJ)
4 "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone,
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
No, Job wasn’t there in the beginning with God, but Paul tells us that the God who did create all things is someone that mankind has gotten to know a lot better through the ages. Paul said that the One who created all things is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. In Colossians 1:15, Paul said:
Colossians 1:15-17 (NKJ)
15 (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For by Him 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.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
Jesus Christ was there as part of the Godhead before anything was created. He is eternal. He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. The Apostle John confirmed the fact that Jesus Christ was there in the beginning and that He is the creator. John 1 speaks of the Lord Jesus and says:
John 1:1-3 (NKJ)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
We know that the Word is Jesus Christ because verse 14 of John, Chapter 1, says:
John 1:14 (NKJ)
14 . . . the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus Christ was and is a member of the Godhead, and as such, He is eternal. Therefore, Paul could say in Romans 1 that all created beings have witnessed since the time of the creation the invisible attributes of God, such as His eternal power and Godhead.
If we go back to Job, Chapter 38, we see that God said something very interesting to Job. He said that when the cornerstone of the foundation of the world was laid, “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”
First, what was the song that the morning stars were singing? Was it the song of praise that is spoken of in Psalms 19 where we read that the heavens declare the glory of God? Was it the song that spoke to Abraham and the wise men? It very well could have been.
Second, who were the sons of God that shouted for joy? Most agree that these sons of God were the angels, but when were they created? There is no mention of the creation of the angels in Genesis, Chapter 1, when everything else was created. Were they created before God created the heavens and the earth? That’s unlikely because after the creation Moses referred to the angels as the host of the heavens and the earth. Genesis 2:1 says:
Genesis 2:1 (NKJ)
1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.
The host of the heavens and the earth must have been created at some point after God created the heavens and the earth. They were created to serve and worship the Lord. When the Prophet Micaiah was brought before King Ahab and King Jehoshaphat, he said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left.”
We know that some of the host of heaven followed Lucifer in his prideful rebellion against the Lord. These demonic forces have through the ages conspired to rob God of His glory as the creator of the universe. They were no doubt the spiritual force behind the Tower of Babel and the system of idol worship which developed there in the plain of Shinar. They were the spiritual force behind the idols of the nation of Israel. II Kings, Chapter 17, speaks of the ten northern tribes of Israel and says:
II Kings 17:16 (NKJ)
16 . . . they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, made for themselves a molded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshiped all the host of heaven . . .
Paul said that we today still:
Ephesians 6:12 (NKJ)
12 . . . wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
The angels must have been created at the time that God created the heavens and the earth. Then as a result of Lucifer’s rebellion:
Genesis 1:2 (NKJ)
2 The earth (became) without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep . . .
Lucifer and his rogue angels were cast out from the presence of the Lord, and Lucifer became known as Satan or the devil, who is the archenemy of God and the chief architect of all unrighteousness.
The devil and his legions must have watched with morbid curiosity when one day God exclaimed, “Let there be light.” Their hearts and minds must have burned with envy as God created man and gave man dominion over all of the beautiful things of the restored earth.
The Bible says that the devil, even then, was “more cunning than any beast of the field,” and with his subtle powers of deception, he tricked Eve into eating the fruit of the one tree which was forbidden, knowing that God had promised death in the day that they ate its fruit. True to His word, God pronounced the curse of death upon Adam and all of his descendants.
However, at the time that God pronounced the curse, He gave the prophecy that someday Satan would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, but that the seed of the woman would ultimately bruise the head of Satan.
Jesus Christ, the One who created all things, was willing to leave the glory of heaven to become the seed of the woman. Satan bruised the Lord’s heel at the time of the crucifixion, but the Lord Jesus bruised the head of Satan when He was raised from the dead.
Jesus Christ conquered death, hell and the grave so that all who believe in Christ and the power of His death, burial and resurrection could have eternal life. Paul said that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The heavens and the earth that we see today are still suffering from the terrible curse of sin, but the Bible tells us that someday this curse will be lifted by the same power that raised Christ from the death. We can not even imagine how beautiful that New Heaven and New Earth will be.
Today, we who believe in Jesus hold the down payment for that beautiful New Heaven and New Earth, and that down payment is a new heart. We are born with hearts that are desperately wicked, but through faith in Christ, we are born again with a new heart, so that old things are passed away, and behold, all things are become new. If you don’t know Christ as your personal Savior this morning, won’t you put your faith in Him right now and discover for yourself the spiritual glory of the new creation.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Three generations after Noah, Nimrod built the Tower of Babel and introduced his clan to the worship of the sun, the moon and the stars, as well as the forces of nature. They saw the forces of nature as the mysterious force behind the evolution of the universe. As a result, they increasingly saw the story of creation, which had been handed down to them since the time of Adam, as just a myth.
When God called Abraham out from among the moon worshipers in Ur of the Chaldeans, He revealed Himself to Abraham as the God the creation. Abraham knew that God was the creator of the universe and that He was sovereign over all of its events.
From Abraham to Moses the faith of Abraham and the story of the creation were maintained and taught by men such as Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, but finally Moses was instructed to write it all down and preserve it for all mankind.
In recent years, man has taken a giant step backwards to the time of the Tower of Babel, preferring to believe that the forces of nature have acted independently from any personal God to orchestrate the evolution of the universe through the course of millions of years.
However, the creation itself bears witness to the Genesis account of creation. The Psalmist said:
Psalms 19:1-4 (NLT)
1 The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship.
2 Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.
3 They speak without a sound or a word; their voice is silent in the skies;
4 yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world . . .
God assembled the molecules of creation so that they join together in a chorus that declares the glory of God. It could be that this molecular refrain rang out with greater clarity in ages past before the Bible was written.
It was probably through the message of the stars that the wise men heard about the birth of the King of the Jews. Since the Chaldeans are thought to have developed the science of astronomy, it may be that God first revealed Himself to Abraham through the stars of heaven.
We have no way of knowing the full effect of heaven’s voice in ages past, but we do know that even today, with the full revelation of God’s word at hand, the heavens still bear a powerful testimony to the glory of God. Paul warned the Roman believers that even today:
Romans 1:18-20 (NKJ)
18 . . . the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
All created beings are left without excuse before God because His eternal power and Godhead have been seen in the creation from the beginning. Today, however, the greatest testimony concerning the credibility of the word of God is the vibrate testimony of the millions of people through the years who have come to the living waters of Jesus Christ.
Those who have tasted the living water have found the peace that passes understanding and the joy that defies description. Those who drink from those waters know from experience that the Bible is the word of God and that when the Bible says, “God created the heavens and the earth,” that’s exactly what happened. Paul told Timothy to watch out for those who try to twist the facts of science to deny the word of God. In I Timothy 6, Paul said:
1 Timothy 6:20 (NKJ)
20 O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge – (then Paul goes on to say that)
21 by professing (this false knowledge) some have strayed concerning the faith . . .
There are those who think that the creation is a peripheral issue for Christians and that it really makes no difference whether we believe in creation or evolution. But make no mistake about it, false doctrine always has serious consequences. Paul said that he even knew of some who were being led astray in matters of the faith by pseudoscience.
The devil works very hard and very effectively to disguise the truth so as to make it look unintelligent or unsophisticated, but the word of God breaks through Satanic deception and gives us strength to stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free. The Lord Jesus said:
John 8:31-32 (NKJ)
31 . . . “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
32 “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
When the first verse of Genesis 1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” we not only learn that God created all things, but we learn that God is eternal. God existed before the heavens and the earth existed, before the beginning. To create means to make something out of nothing. Therefore, God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. There were no raw materials for Him to work with, and there was no one else there to supervise or lend a helping hand. In Job, Chapter 38, God asked Job:
Job 38:4-7 (NKJ)
4 "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding.
5 Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
6 To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone,
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
No, Job wasn’t there in the beginning with God, but Paul tells us that the God who did create all things is someone that mankind has gotten to know a lot better through the ages. Paul said that the One who created all things is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. In Colossians 1:15, Paul said:
Colossians 1:15-17 (NKJ)
15 (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For by Him 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.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
Jesus Christ was there as part of the Godhead before anything was created. He is eternal. He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. The Apostle John confirmed the fact that Jesus Christ was there in the beginning and that He is the creator. John 1 speaks of the Lord Jesus and says:
John 1:1-3 (NKJ)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
We know that the Word is Jesus Christ because verse 14 of John, Chapter 1, says:
John 1:14 (NKJ)
14 . . . the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Jesus Christ was and is a member of the Godhead, and as such, He is eternal. Therefore, Paul could say in Romans 1 that all created beings have witnessed since the time of the creation the invisible attributes of God, such as His eternal power and Godhead.
If we go back to Job, Chapter 38, we see that God said something very interesting to Job. He said that when the cornerstone of the foundation of the world was laid, “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”
First, what was the song that the morning stars were singing? Was it the song of praise that is spoken of in Psalms 19 where we read that the heavens declare the glory of God? Was it the song that spoke to Abraham and the wise men? It very well could have been.
Second, who were the sons of God that shouted for joy? Most agree that these sons of God were the angels, but when were they created? There is no mention of the creation of the angels in Genesis, Chapter 1, when everything else was created. Were they created before God created the heavens and the earth? That’s unlikely because after the creation Moses referred to the angels as the host of the heavens and the earth. Genesis 2:1 says:
Genesis 2:1 (NKJ)
1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.
The host of the heavens and the earth must have been created at some point after God created the heavens and the earth. They were created to serve and worship the Lord. When the Prophet Micaiah was brought before King Ahab and King Jehoshaphat, he said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left.”
We know that some of the host of heaven followed Lucifer in his prideful rebellion against the Lord. These demonic forces have through the ages conspired to rob God of His glory as the creator of the universe. They were no doubt the spiritual force behind the Tower of Babel and the system of idol worship which developed there in the plain of Shinar. They were the spiritual force behind the idols of the nation of Israel. II Kings, Chapter 17, speaks of the ten northern tribes of Israel and says:
II Kings 17:16 (NKJ)
16 . . . they left all the commandments of the LORD their God, made for themselves a molded image and two calves, made a wooden image and worshiped all the host of heaven . . .
Paul said that we today still:
Ephesians 6:12 (NKJ)
12 . . . wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
The angels must have been created at the time that God created the heavens and the earth. Then as a result of Lucifer’s rebellion:
Genesis 1:2 (NKJ)
2 The earth (became) without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep . . .
Lucifer and his rogue angels were cast out from the presence of the Lord, and Lucifer became known as Satan or the devil, who is the archenemy of God and the chief architect of all unrighteousness.
The devil and his legions must have watched with morbid curiosity when one day God exclaimed, “Let there be light.” Their hearts and minds must have burned with envy as God created man and gave man dominion over all of the beautiful things of the restored earth.
The Bible says that the devil, even then, was “more cunning than any beast of the field,” and with his subtle powers of deception, he tricked Eve into eating the fruit of the one tree which was forbidden, knowing that God had promised death in the day that they ate its fruit. True to His word, God pronounced the curse of death upon Adam and all of his descendants.
However, at the time that God pronounced the curse, He gave the prophecy that someday Satan would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, but that the seed of the woman would ultimately bruise the head of Satan.
Jesus Christ, the One who created all things, was willing to leave the glory of heaven to become the seed of the woman. Satan bruised the Lord’s heel at the time of the crucifixion, but the Lord Jesus bruised the head of Satan when He was raised from the dead.
Jesus Christ conquered death, hell and the grave so that all who believe in Christ and the power of His death, burial and resurrection could have eternal life. Paul said that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The heavens and the earth that we see today are still suffering from the terrible curse of sin, but the Bible tells us that someday this curse will be lifted by the same power that raised Christ from the death. We can not even imagine how beautiful that New Heaven and New Earth will be.
Today, we who believe in Jesus hold the down payment for that beautiful New Heaven and New Earth, and that down payment is a new heart. We are born with hearts that are desperately wicked, but through faith in Christ, we are born again with a new heart, so that old things are passed away, and behold, all things are become new. If you don’t know Christ as your personal Savior this morning, won’t you put your faith in Him right now and discover for yourself the spiritual glory of the new creation.
Thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
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