Wed Night Bible Study - Creation
Lesson/Sermon 1 - Intro and Day 1
Genesis 1:1-5 (ESV) Read v1-5 now
v1 - This verse is a statement of what happened during the ENTIRE creation process. Moses begins by letting his readers know that the earth was not an accident or something that has been here all the time... BUT that there was a distinct point in time when God -- the God of the Universe -- made a decision to create the universe and the earth. It is OUR beginning but not THE beginning, as God is eternal...
Another aspect that comes to mind here is the question many ask... and that is if we are alone in the universe... after all it is such a vast expanse... surely we cannot be the only form of life in the universe.
Well I am NOT advocating that there are little 'green' or 'grey' men flying around in UFOs ... but the fact of the matter is that we do NOT know what God created in total.
We know that He is creator and we believe He is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent... If we believe this, why is it difficult to think that God created other worlds as well...
His grace and mercy are unbounding and His love knows NO end, so it is NOT a limitation for God... but it is a limitation and stumbling block for many believers to think that God would have other worlds to care for or other people to save...
Personally, I don't give this any serious thought. God is creator of OUR world, and God is limitless in what He can and chooses to do... why would I put any limitations on Him?
However, with that being said, I am not going around propagating that there are "other" worlds out there... I just don't believe this is something we need to worry about or concern ourselves with...
The main point we MUST understand from this text is that OUR world was Created and God was its Creator!
v2 - So how was the world created? Well there is a Latin term that is used when speaking of 'how' God created our world and this universe... "Ex Nihilo" and it means from nothing! Meaning that our world and our universe were created by God from nothing... out of thin air (so to speak)
Before God spoke there was nothing and after God spoke there was something... God did NOT use spare cosmic building blocks that were laying around not being used. God simply spoke our universe and our world into existence...
In Hebrews 11:3 we read, "...by faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was NOT made out of things that are visible..."
This verse coupled with Moses' writings here in v2 give us the picture that God had nothing before Him and He spoke and the world and universe were created by God simply by his voice!
v2 says the earth was without form and void... what a picture! Do you know of anything that is without shape and is void of mass... void of space... that is simply void? No all things we see are of some shape and they have mass and are not 'void'... YOU may think something is worthless but they are NOT void and shapeless... they exist!
Moses is telling us here that the world as we know it did NOT exist and these are the only words he knew to use to express this sense of emptiness...
Many of us think of empty space and God filled that space with our universe... but if we take what Moses says here and what the writer of Hebrews says... then there was literally NOTHING outside of God before God's creative activity... this can boggle our minds b/c we are finite and we cannot comprehend infinite nothingness
v3 God's activity begins and God says let there be light...up to this point we must understand that there was NOTHING but void, shapeless darkness and here God brings light to Creation... but I want us to understand the enormity of what God has done here... God did not say let there be A light... God spoke light itself into existence! This is NOT our sun God is creating... it is light itself! Before God spoke these words there was nothingness... a void that was empty of light... But here God speaks into creation light itself!
v4 tells us that God saw the light and said it was GOOD! and that he separated the light from the darkness... Today we cannot imagine light and darkness dwelling in the same space... it does not 'compute' in our minds, but here Scripture is clear in letting us know that God separated these two things... and they remain separate to this very day... where there is light darkness cannot abide! God grants light the power over darkness in that darkness can only prevail where there is NO light... even the smallest light will be victorious over ANY darkness.
v5 tells us that God called the light day and the darkness night... this tells us one very important thing... what we know in the scientific community is that we call 'day' when the Sun shines on our side of earth and we call 'night' when the Sun is on the other side of the planet
BUT here the Sun had NOT been created yet... God was distinguishing a difference between the two things He had just separated... Day and Night come before the Sun and Moon are created!
To today's scientific community this is a tremendous flaw... they do NOT see how light can exist without a source of light, but what they misunderstand is that the source of light here was NOT anything created but God himself!
IN the book of Revelation (Rev 21:23) "...the city [heaven] does not need the sun or moon to shine on it, because God's glory illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb..."
People what that means is that in heaven there will be NO need for the sun OR the moon... it will NEVER be dark b/c the light of God will fill all of heaven... this also tells us that here in this world, we have our sun to warm our planet, but our sun NOT the source of light for our soul... Jesus IS!
So what have we learned about the 1st day of Creation?
1st we learned that our world is a created world and God is that creator
2nd we learned that before God created our world there was absolutely NOTHING
3rd we learned that even though there was NOTHING God spoke and thru the power of His word Creation happened
4th we learned that the after creating the universe and this earth that God created light... NOT that God made A light, but that God created light itself
5th we learned that After God had spoke the universe into existence and after He had created light and filled the world with that light...that God separated light from the darkness and had gave them names [day/night]...
Finally we learned that God stood back to look at what He had done and he deemed it to be a good thing!
Day one was a HUGE creative day... the vast universe and our entire earth was created by God speaking it into existence...
