creation day 3 - genesis 1.9-13 - john macarthur
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"Creation Day 3"
Genesis 1:9-13
by
John MacArthur
All Rights Reserved
A co!y o" this #essage on cassette ta!e
#ay be obtained by calling 1-$00-%%-
GRA&'(
Let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 1. We
are continuing in a study of creation, theaccount of creation, the only authoritative
account of creation given in the first chapter of
the first book of the Bible, the book ofbeginnings, Genesis.
Let me read down through verse 1. !"n thebeginning God created the heavens and the
earth. #nd the earth was formless and void
and darkness was over the surface of the deepand the $pirit of God was moving over the
surface of the waters. %hen God said, 'Let
there be light,' and there was light. #nd Godsaw that the light was good and God separated
the light from the darkness. #nd God called
the light day and the darkness &e called night.
#nd there was evening and there wasmorning, one day. %hen God said, 'Let there
be an epanse in the midst of the waters and
let it separate the waters from the waters.' #ndGod made the epanse and separated the
waters which were below the epanse from the
waters which were above the epanse and it
was so. #nd God called the epanse heaven.#nd there was evening and there was
morning, a second day. %hen God said, 'Let
the waters below the heavens be gathered intoone place and let the dry land appear.' #nd it
was so and God called the dry land earth and
the gathering of the waters &e called seas andGod saw that it was good. %hen God said, 'Let
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the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding
seed and fruit trees bearing fruit after theirkind with seed in them on the earth,' and it was
so. #nd the earth brought forth vegetation,
plants yielding seed after their kind and the
trees bearing fruit with seed in them after theirkind and God saw that it was good. #nd there
was evening and there was morning, a third
day.!
(ow let me sum up what the Word of God in
this much of Genesis has taught us aboutorigins. With plain, understanding of the tet,
the inescapable account says that the eternal
God created out of nothing without preeisting
material the heavens and the earth, whichsimply means the universe. &e created the
universe as it is now in a se)uence of si solardays, the first three of which we *ust read. &ecapped &is creation, as we will find out, on
the sith day by creating man in &is own
image, an intelligent being with personality,with self+consciousness and cognition. %his
creation occurred in a period of one week of
normal days, about --- or so years ago. #ndthe entire creation was mature and aged at the
instant of its creation. eath did not eist, nor
any corrupting influence and the creation was
good. eath and corruption entered thecreation for the first time at the /all of #dam
and 0ve which is recorded in the third chapter
of Genesis. When they sinned in disobedienceto God death entered the scene, prior to that
there was no death. %hat means there could be
no evolutionary processes because nothingdied.
Later the surface of the earth was reshaped
drastically and dramatically by the great
universal /lood described later in the book ofGenesis. # flood which rearranged the earth
cataclysmicly as water rose literally above themountains coming down from above and
surging up from the bowels of the earth. #s a
result of that flood only eight people survived,(oah, his wife, his three sons and their wives
and the animals survived which were in the
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ark and from that the replenishing of the earth
occurred. %hat is the Genesis record.
#nd as " told you last week, science is not a
hermeneutic. $cience is not a principle for
interpreting Genesis or for that matter any
other passage of $cripture. #nd the accuracyof the Genesis account is no different than any
other biblical tet. #ll $cripture is given byinspiration of God. #ll $cripture is moved in
the hearts of men, produced in the hearts of
men by the working of the &oly $pirit so thatthey wrote down precisely what the $pirit
wanted them to say. #nd esus summed it up
when &e said in ohn 12312, !%hy Word is
truth.!
(ow from that foundation we must concludethat any form of evolution is a contradictionand a denial of the clear revelation of
$cripture, and " mean any form...whether it
comes from an atheistic evolutionist likeulian &uley, or whether it comes from a
theistic evolutionist like &ugh 4oss, any form
of evolution is a contradiction and denial ofthe clear revelation of $cripture which
indicates that somewhere around --- years
ago God created the entire universe as we
know it in si 56+hour days.
%here's only one source of the account of
origins and that is the Bible, the Word of God.#nd in particular and in specific, Genesis
chapter 1. #s " have been saying, there are no
scientific facts that necessarily contradict theGenesis creation account, rather all true
science supports the biblical creation teaching.
"t has to be that way because Genesis is true.
%herefore all true science is in support of the
Genesis account."t's a hard thing for people to admit thisbecause science for so long has reigned
supreme on the throne of contemporary
thinking. 0volution has been a given...in factit's become an absolute in our society. But it is
systematically coming apart at the seams. %he
more we know about the nature of the
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universe, the more we reali7e the utter
impossibility of any form of evolution...evento the degree, and this is an interesting source
to )uote, that 4obert 0. $mith, a member of
the western 8issouri affiliate of the #merican
9ivil Liberties :nion whom you would knowto be no friend of $cripture, says this, and "
)uote, !/or the past five years " have closely
followed creationist literature and haveattended lectures and debates on related issues.
Based solely on the scientific arguments pro
and con, " have been forced to conclude thatscientific creationism is not only a viable
theory but that it has achieved parody, if not
superiority over the normative theory of
biological evolution. %hat this should now bethe case is somewhat surprising, particularly in
view of what most of us were taught in
primary ad secondary school.! &e goes on, !"npractical terms, the past decade of intense
activity by scientific creationists has left most
evolutionist professors unwilling to debate thecreationist professors. %oo many of the
evolutionists have been publicly humiliated in
such debates by their own lack of eruditionand by the weakness of their theory,! end
)uote.
;aul #ckerman has written a book calledIt's aYoung World After All. #nd in it he says this,
some of you have been to isneyland, " can
tell. "n the book he says this, !Let me be blunton this matter. 0volutionists around the world
have had to learn the hard way that evolution
cannot stand up against creationism in any fairand impartial debate situation where the stakes
are the hearts and minds of intelligent,
undecided but nevertheless ob*ective and
open+minded audiences. 0perience will prove
that the same is true for the age issue as well.0volutionist's beliefs regarding the origin and
development of life cannot withstand thescrutiny of an informed opposition and neither
can evolutionists claim to the effect that the
universe has eisted for ten to twenty billionyears and the earth for 6.< billion years. %o
delay the collapse of widespread public
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acceptance of such claims, it will be necessary
for evolutionist scientists to carefully avoiddebate,! end )uote. %hey cannot survive a
debate and so they won't debate.
(ow there's an illustration after an illustration
about science, some facet of science thatsupports a young earth and a biblical account
of creation. "'ve tried to give you a few as wego along. &ere's one that " find somewhat
fascinating. 0very once in a while you see on
the weather report that there's some indicationof how many raindrops fell and it added up to
a tenth of an inch or an half an inch or three
inches or whatever. "t's not a very
sophisticated test that they do to determinethat. %hey *ust have a container with an open
top and when it rains they measure how muchwater is in the container. =ou can do thatscience yourself. "t rains a certain number of
raindrops and it fills up the can to a certain
level. %hey can then go out after it stoppedraining and tell how much it rained by
measuring the amount of water in the
container.
(ow it is possible by that simple method with
a slight modification in your procedure to turn
the rain gauge into a kind of clock. Let'sassume that we live in a location where it rains
continuously and rains at a known rate. When
we set the container outside under thoseconditions of continuous rain in a known rate,
we can therefore by measuring how much
water is in the can determine how much timehas gone by. ;retty obvious. $o that the can
with the water in it becomes a measure of
time. "t becomes a kind of clock. %he longer
the container has been eposed, the more
water is in it. %he more water is in it, thelonger it's been eposed. $o we can measure a
certain amount of time having gone by by theamount of water that's in the can. (ow " know
"'m not taing your intelligence with that, "
don't want to, " *ust want to give you a simpleillustration.
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#nd when you see the people in southern
9alifornia make a road through a mountainand they cut a wedge out of that mountain to
make a road and you look at the side of that
cut mountain you see various lines of
stratification, or when you go to the Grand9anyon and you see the ama7ing geological
stratification that has occurred there, you're
seeing what evolutionists assume has been thiscontinual building up of sediment for billions
and billions and billions of years.
(ow evolutionists believe this. they believe
that for billions of years this sediment has
been building up. But there are a number of
ways to pose problems to them, here's one that" find very interesting. $cientists can tell you
*ust about how regularly meteors shower theearth. %hey've measured that for a long, longtime. %hey can tell you how many meteors
burn up in space before they hit the earth, and
how many meteors generally, some verysmall, hit the earth each year. With the passage
of billions and billions of years and the
building up of sediment, it should be true thatthat sediment has within it meteors at every
interval. "f the continuity and the perpetuity
and the uniformity of meteor life is e)ual to
the continuity, perpetuity and uniformity ofeverything else in this theory of uniformity,
then this earth has been being showered with
meteors for 6.< billion, or however old it is.#nd so you should be able to go down the
strata, you should be able to go down the
geologic column and find meteors all throughthat column, like the rain shower, therefore
you could measure the age of the earth.
"nterestingly enough this is what the data
shows. # survey of all literature on theoccurrence of meteors in sedimentary rock
failed to turn up one single case of a meteoritebeing found anywhere in any geologic
column. %he meteorite clock indicates we
have a very young earth...all the meteors areon the top.
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;hilip ohnson has written a fascinating book
calledDarwin on Trial. "f you're interested inmore scientific information, read that book, he
marshals abundant scientific evidence against
evolution, as do many, many other writers.
(ow that's *ust sort of a little bit of anintroductory tidbit about the science side of
things. " want to mention one other thing that's
a biblical issue before we look at day three.
%he )uestion always comes up..at what point
were angels created> %hey're not mentioned inGenesis 1, so how do we know when angels
are created>
Well neither Genesis nor for that matter anyother tet of $cripture states specifically when
angelic beings were created. What is definiteis that they are creatures and they were createdand they did have a beginning. %hey are
immortal. ?nce created they live forever. But
only the triune God is eternal, withoutbeginning and without ending. #ngels are
created beings.
(ow some have suggested that they had to be
created on the sith day because it was on the
sith day that God created man and angels,
according to &ebrews 1316 were created to beministering spirits sent forth to minister for
them who will be the heirs of salvation, and
since they were created to serve those whowere human and who receive salvation
therefore they would have been created along
with them on the sith day. " find that a prettyweak argument frankly, because that's not all
angels do. %hey don't *ust minister to the
saints. "n fact, if you go into heaven in
4evelation 6 and < you find them
doing...what>...worshiping God.;rimarily and throughout all eternity they willbe worshipers of God. $o it would be fair to
the purpose of angels which is primarily to
worship God to associate them in the createdorder with some point at which they would
begin to praise and worship God.
%hey...they're definitely seen in the book of
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4evelation worshiping God at the
consummation of history. #nd it seems to melikely that they could well have started
worshiping God at the beginning of history.
"n fact, there is one passage of $cripture to
which we can turn. "'ll *ust refer to it, you canlook at it another time. ob @ verses 6 to
2...ob @ verses 6 to 2. #nd it tells us that theangels were present when the foundations of
the earth were laid and were re*oicing over it.
$o it could well have been that that was dayone if the foundations of the earth means that
original formless void earth that had not yet
been shaped and refined into its final form, if
it means the foundations in the sense ofelements and the components that were there,
but as of yet not shaped into their final form,then the angels would have been created atthat time. ;salm 1-6, write that down, ;salm
1-6 verses 5 through < speaks of the shining
of God's light during the original creativeprocess and mentions the angels *ust before
referring to laying the foundations of the earth.
(ow if the shining of God's light refers to
verse , !Let there be light,! which occurred
on day one and it was followed by the
foundations of the earth and it means thereforethe shaping of the earth that occurs actually on
day three, it could well be that the angels were
created after that shining light and before thefoundations of the earth, meaning the shaping
of the earth rather than its unformed character,
the shaping which took place, as we will see,on day three.
$o you can take your choice. But " believe that
the angels would have been created by God
either prior to the full creation of the earth thatis described on the first day of creation so that
they could worship God for doing that, or theywere certainly created before the shaping of
that earth on day three when the land was
separated from the waters as we read.
(ow the )uestion of when they were created
obviously isn't important enough for God to
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include it. What is important is to know that
they are created by God. %hey, as it says, inthe (icene 9reed are the product of the creator
of all things, visible...that would be the
material world...and invisible...that would be
the spirit world of angels.(ow let's return to the tet of Genesis chapter
1. " think it's fair to assume at this point theangels have been created and they are there
praising God and worshiping God for the
wonder of what they are beholding as &e isbringing &is creation into magnificent and
beautiful shape. Aerse 1 gives the overview,
!"n the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth,! that's simply an overview ofeverything. Aerse 5 then goes back to describe
how &e did that. ?bviously it includes all ofthe elements and all of the components, enihilo out of nothing &e made all the
necessary materials from which to shape &is
universe. #nd then there came the earth inits...its preliminary condition, formless and
void, that is it was chaotic, it was not yet
pulled into the order which would sustain lifeand it was not yet inhabited. #nd God then
creating that earth surrounded by darkness
adds light to it in verse . #nd so you have
this unformed, uninhabitable earth, a kind of acomposite of elements not yet put together in
their final form, and you have that surrounded
by darkness until the light is created thatsurrounds it.
#nd then on day two starting in verse , Godcreates the heavens. %he earth is engulfed in
water, as we remember, clearly indicated to us
in verse 5. %he earth is engulfed in water, God
slices into that and sends some of that water
upwards and it seems to me best to understandthat that water goes all the way up beyond the
stellar heavens because the space between theupper water and the lower water is called the
epanse or space. "t's called heaven, and it's
where the light is and it's where later on thestellar bodies, the celestial bodies, the sun, the
moon, the stars, are all placed. $o part of that
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water goes to the infinite ends of the universe
in some fashion, we don't know eactly how toeplain all of that. (othing more than what's
in Genesis is a *ustification for being
dogmatic. But God then leaves the earth still
engulfed in water but &e has created a heaven,that heaven then is filled with light when you
come to the end of day two.
%he earth is still uninhabited, uninhabitable
and not in its final form until day three. Before
we go to day three " *ust want to sticksomething in here for your thinking. ?n the
day that God created the epanse there was
this tremendous cataclysmic movement of
water coming off the earth and *ust literallymoving to the etremities of the infinity of
heaven. %his great epanse that we know asspace, the great epanse that we know asheaven takes its shape. #nd it came into being,
*ust imagine the speed with which the whole
of the infinite heavens were created. # littlelater when we talk about stars, we're going to
talk about how vast outer space is, it *ust
staggers your mind. #nd all of that came intobeing instantaneously, the full vast universe.
$cience has come to the place where they have
to recogni7e this. %here are scientific clues,they call it the !Big Bang! theory. We like to
call it the !Big God! theory. We know it was a
big God. %hey think it was a big bang. World8aga7ine records this...this was the 8ay 1
issue this years, " *ust read it. $cientific
evidence for the Big Bang becomes more andmore theological according to 9osmic
"nflation 9osmology. %he idea is that
somehow the whole universe *ust went like
that....
# 8r. Greg 0asterbrook>C eplains, )uote,
!%he entire universe popped out of a pointwith no content and no dimensions, essentially
epanding instantaneously to cosmological
si7e. %his is now being taught at $tanford, at8assachusetts "nstitute of %echnology, and
other top science schools. %his eplanation of
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the beginning of the universe bears haunting
similarity to the traditional theological idea ofcreation e nihilo, out of nothing.! 8r.
0asterbrook )uotes one of the world's top
astronomers, #llen>C $andage>C of the
?bservatories of the 9arnegie "nstitution assaying, )uote, !%he Big Bang can only be
understood as a miracle,! end )uote.
ay two was a big bang by a big God who
instantaneously created the universe. (ow we
have an unformed earth. We have light. #ndwe have a vast universe. #nd we come to day
three in verse D. !%hen God said, 'Let the
waters below the heavens,! now that would be
the waters that are on the earth still, the otherwaters have gone above the heavens by
contrast. #nd clearly that language indicatesthat. !Let the waters below the heavens begathered into one place and let the dry land
appear. #nd it was so.! (ow God on day three
is going to shape the earth.
"t begins, verse D does, as always in the
Genesis account, !%hen God said...! =ou see itagain in verse 11, !%hen God said...! #nd
verse 16, !%hen God said...! #nd verse 5-,
!%hen God said...! #nd so it has been in the
past, verse 5, !%hen God said,! verse , !%henGod said.! 0verything comes into being from
nothing by God simply speaking it into
eistence.
?n the first day God divides light from
darkness. ?n the second day God divides thewater below from the water above. ?n the
third day God divides land from sea. !Let the
waters below the heavens...! %hat clearly is
the water that still remains on the earth. %he
water above has gone into the epanse ofheavens. %he waters now still remain on the
earth. Back in verse 5 the earth is covered withthe water...the surface of the deep, it's called,
and the surface of the waters. $till the earth is
engulfed in this water. Beneath the water is thesolid matter hidden beneath the waters
covering the earth.
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God then commands these waters that cover
the earth to be collected or gathered into oneplace. %he $eptuagint uses the word
!synagogue,! a gathering place. #ll of the
water surrounding the earth is now gathered
into one place and at the same time verse Dsays, !God said, '#nd let the dry land appear,'
and it was so.! $o God separates the water
from the dry land. %his is *ust a simplestatement, a simple sentence, but can you even
begin to fathom the cataclysm that occurred
when that was spoken by God> #ll of asudden the material that is in its unformed
condition, buried under the depths of the
surface sea starts to move. #nd all of those
necessary elements start to work to produceland, to push up to create the surface of land.
%he water moves, gathering itself into one
place. %remendous chemical reactions getunder way as the elements combine with each
other to form the comple of minerals, the
comple of rock and soil, making up the solidearth as to its crust and its mantle and its core.
ust a staggering act of creation.
&enry 8orris writes, !Great earth movements
got under way. $urfaces of solid earth
appeared above the waters and an intricate
network of channels and reservoirs opened upin the crust to receive the waters retreating off
the rising continent.! 9ontinent rises...it may
well have been only one great continent, laterdivided into multiple continents by the
cataclysm of the breaking up of the tectonic
plates during the /lood when the fountains ofthe deep broke open the continent and pushed
it into its current form. But at this time the
continent, perhaps only one continent, rises
and all the water is gathered into one place.
%his is an incredible thing. %he water isassembled not only in one great sea, but
assembled certainly into numerous distinctbasins. %he gathering of the waters is a plural
term. %here were multiple waters. %hey were
all gathered so that they touched each other inthe sense that they were all connected. %here
would have been underground reservoirs,
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there would have been underground tubes,
streams and rivers and springs and fountainsbut all connected together. #ll the water
flowing everywhere in the earth
interconnected.
#nd the condition would not be, as " said, thesame as our post+flood seas. 0verything
changed at the time of the /lood. But Godcreated the seas and &e created the dry land.
(ow " want to show you that this is the cleartestimony of $cripture that God created all of
this instantaneously. Look at ob @. %his is
worth a look because "'m going to take you in
to something that is fascinating to me. ob @verse @, now the Lord is talking to ob here
and, believe me, the Lord is not anevolutionist. ob @3@, the Lord asks ob, *ustreminding ob that he ought to keep his mouth
shut. =ou know, in verse 6 before we get to
verse @, &e says, !Where were you when " laidthe foundation of the earth>! %hat's not
evolution, folks, that's creation. Where were
you> !Where were you when the morningstars, the angels, sang together an all the sons
of God shouted for *oy in creation>! %hat's
that tet that indicates that they were there at
creation. "n verse @, !/or who enclosed the seawith doors, when bursting forth it went out
from the womb, when " made a cloud its
garment and thick darkness and swaddlingbandE and " placed boundaries on it and " set
up bolt and doors and " said, '%hus far you
shall come but no farther and here shall yourproud waves stop.'! Where were you, ob,
when " created the sea and " bounded it with
shore lines and " told the sea...=ou can't go
beyond that, that's your limit. "t's a reference
to God's creative work as described on daythree in Genesis.
%urn to ;salm 26. ;salm 26, first of all, and
verse 1, here the psalmist is etolling God
and in verse 15 he talks about God being hisFing from of old, his ancient Fing whose
works, deeds of deliverance in the midst of the
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earth...who works deeds of deliverance in the
midst of the earth. %hen in verse 1, !%houdidst divide the sea by %hy strength...%hou
didst divide the sea by %hy strength.! "n other
words, it was =ou that created the sea. #nd he
adds in verse 1 this most interestingstatement, !%hou didst break the heads of the
sea monsters in the waters.!
Go to ;salm 1-6, "'ll come back to that in a
minute, but ;salm 1-6 verse 2. &e says in
verse < &e established the earth on itsfoundations so that it would totter forever and
ever. 9an you imagine a lopsided world going
around like this...> #nd we'd all be going
around the same way, *umping off a few feetevery rotation. %hat's called the science of
isostasy, that the earth is in perfect balance.%he heavier materials of the earth sunk to thecenter, the lighter ones to the outer part and it
is perfectly balanced.
Aerse , !%hou didst cover it with the deep as
with a garment,! that's eactly what Genesis 1
says, !%he whole of the earth was coveredwith water, the waters were even above the
mountains. But at %hy rebuke...verse 2...they
fled. #t the sound of %hy thunder they hurried
away, the mountains rose, the valleys sank tothe place which %hou didst establish for them.
%hou did set a boundary that they may not
pass over, that they may not return to coverthe earth.! 9ertainly that could refer to the
creation work of God, it could also refer to
what God did after the /lood had engulfed theearth. " think " lean toward the fact that it
refers to creation because of the description of
&im establishing the earth in verse < and
covering the earth with water in verse as
with a garment. " think this is creative contetand the language of the psalmist is describing
what happened when God drew the landtogether and separated the sea.
Aerse 1- continues the same creative contet.!&e sent forth springs in the valleys, they flow
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between the mountains,! and so that again is a
creative statement.
"n ;roverbs chapter @ and notice this is all in
the wisdom literature, in ob and ;salms and
;roverbs, it has a certain poetic design. But in
;roverbs chapter @ verse 52, it's talking aboutwisdom, wisdom personified here. #nd verse
52, actually you can go back to &is everlastingnature, God at the beginning possessed
wisdom, verse 55, from everlasting &e
possessed wisdom. Before the mountains weresettled, before the hills were brought forth,
verse 5
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monster that rebelled against God. %here were
apparently some ancient myths among thepagans that when the gods were designing the
world and wanting to provide land and the sea,
there was some great rebellious sea monster
they called 4ahab who was trying to preventGod from separating the land from the sea,
who wanted the sea to overrun the land. #nd
God had to confine the sea and confine thissea monster that was wanting to rebel. #nd so
God in defining the borders of the sea and the
shore line in legend had to defeat this greatmonster known as 4ahab who wanted to fight
against God. %hat was the legend. %hat is not
in the Genesis account but that was the legend
that there was some monster trying to preventGod from separating land and sea.
"saiah ! #nd again, here is this same mention
of 4ahab again, this...this sort of paganmythical sea monster.
=ou see it also in ;salm...one more and "'ll
leave you alone on this point, but " think it's aninteresting point, ;salm @D verse 1-, !%hou
%hyself didst crush 4ahab like the one who
was slain.!
(ow here's the way it goes. %he Gentiles or
the people around...wouldn't be Gentiles atthat point since "srael wasn't necessarily
defined that early, although it would have
been by ;roverbs times, but the pagan people
around had invented these creation myths in
which the gods were attempting to separateland from sea and there was resistance by this
great sea monster who was fighting topreserve his sovereignty and to be able to
overrun the land and drown whoever he
wanted to when he wanted to. %he great godswere able to defeat the sea monster.
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sea, but this was not done by suppressing the
will of the sea which sought to rebel againstGod, the God of heaven. God simply said,
!Let the waters be gathered together, and it
was so.!
" said all that *ust to take a shot at those criticsof Genesis who want to turn this tet into
legend, or myth, or give it some unfoundedpoetic license. %he writer of Genesis
meticulously avoided making any use
whatsoever of a well+known legend that evenappears in other wisdom literature, and is even
referred to by the prophet "saiah. &e using it
metaphorically to speak of anything that reeks
rebellion and havoc. %here was no such battle.God said it and it was so.
Back to Genesis 1. $o verse D, !Let the watersbelow the heavens be gathered into one place,!
that would include subterranean lakes,
subterranean rivers and streams and springsand wells all interconnected. #nd the land
probably in one great massive continent. #nd
by the way, *ust as a footnote, if you take thecontinents of the earth and push them all
together, it's almost a perfect fit, almost as if
they cracked and split apart.
Aerse 1- then tells us that God named what
&e had made. !&e called the dry land erets,
earth, and &e called the gatherings of thewatersyamim>C, seas. #nd God saw that it
was good.! "t was good.
"t had been so, &e said back in the very
beginning that &e created light and there was
light. &e said &e created heaven and it was so.
#nd &e created in verse D dry land and seasand it was so. But now &e says it was good...it
was good. Why> Because it was nowhabitable...it was now habitable. ?h the lightwas good in and of itself, according to verse 6.
But the earth now came good. #nd then the
plants, verse 15, were good. #nd verse 1@, thebodies in heaven were good. #nd verse 51,
everything &e made in the sea and in the air
was good. #nd verse 5
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good. #nd verse 1, &e made man and &e
looked at all of it and it was very good. %here'sno sin there, folks. %here's no death. "t's *ust
good.
$o by the time you get to where we are in
verse 1- you have the tripartite universe.%ripartite meaning three partsE earth, sea,
heaven...that's the created universe. #nd it wasgood and God could say it was good because it
had reached the point where it could contain
and sustain life. #nd so God moved into thesecond phase of creation on day two, verse 11,
!%hen God said, 'Let the earth sprout
vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees
bearing fruit after their kind with seed in themon the earth,' and it was so.! #gain " remind
you it came because God said it, &e spoke itinto eistence, verse 11, always andunmistakably God speaks it into eistence.
#nd this is vegetation. Aerse 11, !Let the earthsprout vegetation.! (ow " think that's a
general category and there are two parts to that
category. %here are plants, verse 11, and trees.Aegetation is divided into two parts...plants
and trees.
own to verse 5D, God said, !Behold, " havegiven you...speaking to man...every plant
yielding seed that is on the surface of all the
earth, and every tree which has fruit yieldingseed it shall be food for you and for every
beast.! $o God divides the vegetation into two
parts...plants and trees.
#nd what is the difference> %he difference is
the plant has the seed in it, and the tree has the
seed in its fruit. %hat is clearly indicated inverse 11. ;lants yielding seed and fruit trees
bearing fruit with seed in them. %hat's thedistinction. #ll the vegetation which itselfcontains the seed would come under the
plants, all the vegetation which in its fruit
contains the seed would come under the trees.#s soon as the inanimate material was ready
to sustain life, without delay life in its simplest
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form was created and intended to be the food
for all of the higher life yet to be made.
(ow " want you to notice that first of all in
describing the plants &e says of them in verse
11, !;lants yielding seed.! &e says it again in
verse 15, !;lants yielding seed.! #nd again inverse 5D, !;lants yielding seed.! &e continues
to repeat that feature to let us know, and this isso important, that the vegetation was capable
of...what>...what>...reproduction. %hat's the
whole point. &e made full+grown, fully+mature vegetation with seed in it that could be
dispersed. ?ne of the great, great wonders of
the world is the science of seed dispersal. "
watched an entire video on that *ust absolutelyastonishing to see how God designed seed
dispersal, not the least of which isaccomplished by birds in your own yard,sometimes even attempted on your car and on
your head. ;re+fertili7ed seed dispersal is very
efficient.."'ll leave it at that.
%here are a number of other ways. ?ne of the
wonderful works of the wind is seed dispersal.%he whole science of seed dispersal is *ust
absolutely phenomenal. ;lants were made then
by God not as seeds, but as full+grown plants
containing seeds that could then multiply.%hat's the way the whole of creation was
made, and " remind you of that again. "t was
made mature. When man was created hewasn't created as an infant, had to grow. &e
was created as a full+grown man. 0verything
was created full+grown.
(ow this brings up an interesting point, and "
think you'll find this also fascinating. %here
was then plants made by God which had seed
in them. Go over to chapter 5 verse < for aminute, cause if " don't eplain this somebody
will ask me. Aerse 6 talks about the account ofthe creation of the earth. %he account of the
creation of the heavens and the earth, when
they were created in the day of the Lord, Godmade earth and heaven. (ow verse
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plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the
Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth andthere was no man to cultivate the ground.!
%hat's an interesting verse.
&ow can you say...how does this fit> (o shrub
of the field was yet in the earth...well, therewas a time when there weren't any
shrubs...that was a brief time when the earthwas shaped and it was..." don't know how
much time. "n a 56+hour day God waited after
shaping the earth, separating land from the seabefore &e put the plants on it. But there was
no shrub of the field. %here was a time when
there was no shrub of the field in the earth and
no plant of the earth had yet sprouted.
=ou could say, !Well sure, that was prior tothe second creative act on day three.! But theproblem with that is the reason is eplained in
verse Well,
as " said, if you're talking about day one andtwo, there were no plants on the earth. %here
were no plants in the field, no shrub of the
field. But how does that connect with the factthat the Lord hadn't sent rain and &e was
watering the earth with a mist> #nd how does
it connect with the fact there was no man tocultivate the ground> %hat's pretty specific
language.
Let me tell you the right answer. %he firstword in &ebrew in verse "ncluding man who was
created on the sith day. Aerse 5 of chapter 5says God rested on the seventh day. $o we're
already past the seventh day. But there's no
siahof the field. #nd there's no asab>C yet
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because there's no rain and there's no
cultivation.
When did rain come> When did rain come>
When did it rain the first time> %he /lood.
#nd when was the first time anybody
cultivated anything> #fter...what>...after#dam's sin. $o what you have here is not a
description of something during creation, but adescription of something after creation but
before the /all and before the rain. #nd you
look a little more closely, the wordsiahandwe need to find a usage for this that makes
sense. Go over to verse 1@ of chapter . "n
chapter verse 1@ you have, of course in
chapter sin and the /all, and the curse, nowwhat God did when &e cursed #dam, verse 12
toward the end of the verse, !9ursed is theground because of you in toil you shall eat ofit all the days of your life.! (ow look at verses
1@ and 1D. !Both thorns and thistles it shall
grow for you.! Aerse 1@, !#nd you shall eatthe plants of the field. By the sweat of your
face you shall eat bread till you return to the
ground because from it you were taken for youare dust and to dust you shall return.! own in
verse 5, the Lord sent them out of 0den to till
the ground, to cultivate the ground. %horns
and thistles are synonymous withsiah. #ndplants with asab. %he asabof the field would
be the wheat and barley and other cultivated
when man began to till the ground. #nd thesiahof the field would be the thorns and
thistles that grow themselves and they
grow...they grow, " guess you could say, aspunishment wherever the soil isn't properly
tilled. #nd they grow particularly well when it
rains. &e's describing this wonderful world
that was watered by a mist over the surface of
the ground. "t was that world to which Godbrought man.
Well let's go back to chapter 1. %here were
plants, edible ones, of course, that yielded
seed, verse 11, and fruit trees whose seed wasin their fruit, bearing fruit after their kind with
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seed in them on the earth, and it was so. $o
you had those two categories of vegetation.
ust one very important note, catch this little
phrase, it's repeated over and over, verse 11,
!#fter their kind.! Aerse 15, !#fter their
kind.! ?nce in the middle of the verse, towardthe end of the verse, !#fter their kind.! 8ay "
encourage you a little bit> %hat phrase isrepeated ten times in the first chapter of
Genesis...ten times. %he &ebrew word for
!kind! is min, m+i+n. What it does is indicatethe limitations of variation. # plant can only
bring forth something of its own kind. # tree
can only bring forth something of its own
kind. "t only has the capacity to function onthe basis of the genetic code that is in it. (ow
whether in the &ebrew !kind! corresponds toour word !genus! or our word !species! or ourword !family! or our word !phyla,! or
whatever you want to use. #nd "'m
remembering words from my college class andhave no idea what they mean. But whatever
the &ebrew word minmeans, whatever it
corresponds to in 0nglish, the one thing it doesdo is eliminate any possibility of an
evolutionary process because whatever the
plant is and whatever the tree is, it can only
reproduce after its own kind. %o say that allliving things come from a common ancestry is
refuted by the ten+times repeated phrase !after
its kind...after its kind.!
" used to illustrate this with college students
by talking about amino acids. " mean, it getsso individual that you're made up of amino
acids and your body, no matter what you put
in it will only reproduce more of you. "n fact,
if you put too much in it, it will reproduce
more of you than you care to see. But aminoacids are called the building blocks of life.
(ow you could decide that you were going toeat fried chicken the rest of your life. %wenty
years from now you would not cluck. (o
combination of chicken amino acids andhuman amino acids will produce Big Bird. #ll
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you will ever produce is more of you no
matter what goes in. %hat's after their kind.
"n the wonderful resurrection chapter of 1
9orinthians 1< verse @, God gives it a
body...well, go back a little bit, !%hat which
you sow doesn't come to life unless it dies,! inverse , verse 2, !%hat which you sow, you
do not sow the body which is to be but a baregrain or a seed, perhaps of wheat or something
else.! !God gives it a body *ust as &e wished
and to each of the seeds a body of its own. #llflesh isn't the same. %here's one flesh of men,
another flesh of beast, another flesh of birds,
another of fish.! #nd God is saying there are
distinctions. %here are designs beyond whichany living organism cannot pass.
%he meaning of seed can be easily grasped.$eed is clearly the ability to reproduce a form
of life in its own likeness. !"mplanted,! says
&enry 8orris, !in each created organism wasa seed programmed to enable the continuing
replication of that same organism. %he modern
understanding of the etreme compleities ofthe so+called (# molecule and the genetic
code contained in it has reinforced the biblical
teaching of the stability of kinds. 0ach type of
organism has its own uni)ue structure of the(# and can only specify the reproduction of
that same kind. %here is a tremendous amount
of variational potential within each kind,facilitating the generation of distinct
individuals and even of many varieties within
the kind, but nevertheless precluding theevolution of new kinds. # great deal of
hori7onal variation is easily possible but no
vertical changes.!
" mean, look around, look at all the differentlooking people here. # lot of different looking
people, all people. %he eact limits of kindmay be a little more challenging. We don't
eactly what Genesis meant but we do know
limits were set. #nd we understand that.?rganisms were to stay within their own kind.
%he biggest thing we could say is birds remain
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birds, and animals remain animals, and fish
remain fish, and reptiles remain reptiles, andinsects remain insects. #nd that itself halts the
entire evolutionary process. %hat's how God
created.
$o we have already talked about genetics andhow genetics guarantees that no evolution can
occur. "t is absolutely impossible. 8ichaelBehe, whom " mentioned, who wrote
Darwin's Black Box, not a 9hristian but
literally )uestioning everything aboutevolution, devotes two chapters in his book to
showing that as more is learned about the
ama7ing compleity of cellular structure, the
theory of chemical evolution is becomingmore and more impossible. &e says, !%his
stuff is the pre+biotic chemist's nightmare.!
$o what do you have> Go back to the tet. "n
Genesis 1311 and 15 you have the origin all
vegetable life and you have not only its origin,but you have its orderly continuity fied by
means of certain seeds and kinds that
perpetuate that life. (ever has a plant evolvedinto something higher, only on the $ci+/i
channel...not in reality. "n fact, if you study
mutations and change in genetics, it's always
negative...it is always negative. "t is alwaysdownward. %he study of fruit flies has been
something evolutionists have given their life
to because it...fruit flies have such a short lifespan they can observe it over many
generations. #nd the theory is you can see
enough generations to see change, to see theevolutionary process taking place. %he only
problem is they take these fruit flies and in
order to make them mutate rapidly, they
bombard them with radiation, they radiate
them. #nd radiation, eposure to heat,chemicals and radiation can create mutations,
we know that. %hat is true, we understand thateven in the chemistry of radiation that's used
with regard to cancer. "t has the ability to
cause cells to be killed and to change. Butmutations do not create new structures. =ou
may have in the study of fruit flies crumpled
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wings, oversi7ed wings, and undersi7ed wings,
you may have double sets of wings, but youdon't have a new kind of wing. (or does the
fruit fly become a honey bee. 8utations, by
the way, are very rare. #nd this is fortunate
because they are virtually all harmful. %hey alldecline. #nd in most cases mutations never
even survive. %hat's why evolution has been
called !fact+free science.! %hought you wouldlike that one.
$o, what are we learning then> Genesis 131 to15 shows us that the intelligent agent is the
living God who on the third day of creation
separated the land from the sea, caused plant
life to sprout from the land. %wo categories,plants which have their seed in them, trees
which have their seeds in the fruit that comesfrom them...they therefore are able to replicatethemselves throughout the end of time as long
as a given species eists. God looked at it all
in verse 15 and saw that it was good. #nd thenGod signs off again in verse 1, !#nd there
was evening and there was morning, a third
day.!
%here was ereband there was boer. %here
was a 56+hour day, that is so clear. %hose
terms, evening and morning, are used morethan a hundred times in the ?ld %estament and
they always refer to a 56+hour day. God did it
on the third day.
Let me close. ob 5 verse 2, God's the ob*ect
of this, the sub*ect of it, !&e stretches out thenorth over the empty space,! what a statement
&e stretches out the north over the empty
space. !&e hangs the earth on nothing. &e
wraps up the waters in &is clouds and the
cloud does not burst under them. &e obscuresthe face of the full moon and spreads &is
cloud over it. &e has inscribed a circle on thesurface of the waters,! that's the hori7on of the
earth, !and the boundary of light and darkness.
%he pillars of heaven tremble and are ama7edat &is rebuke. &e )uieted the sea with &is
power and by &is understanding &e shattered
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4ahab, by &is breath the heavens are cleared
and &is hand has pierced the fleeing serpent.Behold, these..." love this...are the fringes of
&is ways and how faint a word we hear of
&im, but &is mighty thunder, who can
understand>!When God..he's talking about rain...and when
God breaks into the darkness with light andrain and storms and lightning and fury and all
of this, we're *ust hearing a faint sound, a faint
indication of &is immense incomprehensiblethunder. We're only looking at the fringes of
&is ways. What a God we have
/ather, we thank =ou again for the Wordwhich gives light in this most important and
urgent area of creation. %hank =ou for thistremendous portion of $cripture and may weworship =ou all the more for the greatness of
=our power, who call these things into
eistence which were not. =ou are the creator,=ou are our Lord and $avior and our great
4edeemer and our friend, a friend to sinners.
What a glorious truth that is. %hank=ou...thank =ou. #men.
H 1DD2 Grace to =ou