Genesis: The Big Picture "2x4"

of Genesis it's sort of coincidentally is going along parallel for a few weeks with our house fellowships are beginning the study of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, those first 11 chapters of the foundation, foundational chapters of the whole Bible, so many important things happen there. But of course as you are aware, if you've been reading the Bible for long and if you are aware what's going on in the world and especially in our culture in the United States in regards to the Bible and its place in the public square, you know that this book is always a source of great controversy to many. Derek Kiddner in his book on Genesis says this, there can scarcely be another part of Scripture over which so many battles, theological, scientific, historical and literary have been fought or so many strong opinions cherished.

It's amazing how you can fight over the book of Genesis just like you can with a book of Revelation. There's so many things in it that have caused people to disagree, those especially outside the church. One of the major reasons is today what is predominant in most of our schools is not empirical science but naturalistic science, what sometimes referred to as a naturalism or a physicalism, materialism and basically the reason there is a clash is not because it's empirical science but simply because there is a philosophy that people come to the study of science who have this philosophy is you have to eliminate completely the possibility of intelligent design and that's really the issue, is there intelligent design and of course what's happening in many circles today in scientific circles and the highest echelon is many are coming to say you just can't deny it.

It's there. The closer you look, the more it becomes obvious there is intelligent design behind this creation that we are studying and looking at. Genesis, the title itself is simply a transliteration of the Greek word that begins this Bible in the Septuaget, the Greek translation, the Old Testament, Hebrew word is Bari Sheeth which means in the beginning and so this book speaks about beginnings and our attitude and presuppositions that we bring to this book are going to affect the way and determine largely what we are going to get from it so we want to spend a little bit of time this morning simply looking at some introductory matters and kind of an overview of the book. The book of Genesis is very important, it is crucial, it's not something we can leave out of our study of scriptures because the book of Genesis is like a marker, a surveyor always has to begin from a point of reference.

We had our property surveyed not too long ago, one of the problems the surveyor had was he couldn't find a marker for the, what do you call it, the, what is that called, elevation, the elevation. And so we don't really know whether we are 10 feet under sea level or 10 feet over technically but they are going to find out. But they need a point of reference and history has to start somewhere, it has to have a definite place of beginnings and the Bible is through and through a historical revelation, it's an account of God's activity and history and so we need a point of beginning and so that's what the book of Genesis gives us, it gives us our historical point of reference from which all subsequent revelation that we have in the Word of God flows from that.

And so in this book we find the roots of the inhabited world and the universe and of man and of nations and of sin and redemption. We also find here the foundation of our theology. In fact, in one little commentary on the book of Genesis, that's why I said Fritz, this commentator Fritz who wrote a little commentary in the Lehman Bible commentary series says that Genesis is the starting point of all theology and that is not an exaggeration. The book of Genesis is the start of all theology. Genesis contains very broad outlines of virtually every major area of theology that we find opened up to us in the Word of God. Now if we were to put Genesis along with the other four books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, we literally do have the foundation of all systematic theology.

And what I mean by that is simply all the doctrines of the Bible. Now there's a common problem that we all have. We all face this. Our series we get about the Scripture, that problem doesn't go away and people who are not serious about the study of Scripture but have a passing knowledge of it have the same problem. And that problem is this, that we lose our sense of perspective between fundamental and incidental truths. Some people are all tied up in knots about areas of teaching and doctrine that have no significance whatsoever. And they can fight over it. They can form societies around it and even denominations. I remember a few years ago reading an account of a church. I won't tell you the denomination.

It's a very small one in the world, but they're very opinionated about what they believe and they had a church in Australia, one church, two families. They wrote back to England and said we're having a dispute in the church. And one of them had gotten up and taught that when Jesus died on the cross, he redeemed not only mankind, but every part of nature. And so we can say that the flowers are redeemed and the animals are redeemed and so forth. And the other family took up a fight against that. And they wrote back and they split. They actually, the church split. One family started their own church, the other family started another church. So now they've, this is how they multiply. They wrote back to the home church in England and the church in England split over the issue.

And that's an amazing thing. See, but that can happen. And what the book of Genesis does for us, it's like a cure to that disease. The study of Genesis impresses us with those areas of theology that are fundamental and foundational. Is marriage important? You better believe it. It's in the creation account. God establishes marriage in a very particular way. And everything else that's taught about marriage flows out of that initial revelation of God's institution of this covenant, this blessed covenant. There are many things in the, in the book of Genesis that we find fulfilled out in the word of God. And it gets us back to what is really fundamental and what is really the important teachings of the word of God.

It even reveals to us in the third chapter that there is going to be a seed that's going to crush the head of the serpent. And that seed, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ. And Genesis also shed light on many of the things that are going on in the world today. The conflict in the Middle East, its roots are found in the book of Genesis. We can understand the dynamic of it and what's going on and why it is the way that it is. But how do we interpret this book? How do we approach this book? Is this book filled with myths? Is it filled with, is it poetry? Is the account of creation simply a poem and we're not to take it too seriously? Is it definitive? What's going on here? How do we approach this account and how do we interpret it?

Francis Schaeffer in his writings on the book of Genesis mentions four different wrong ways to interpret the book of Genesis, the very common ways that it is interpreted. Let me just read you this short paragraph. He wrote for some this material, that is this creation account, especially. It's simply a Jewish myth. Having no more historical validity for modern man than the epic of Gilgamesh or the stories of Zeus. In other words, it's just a cosmogony that's like any of the others of ancient times. And as some of you know, I'm sure if you've done any reading that the cosmogony's of Babylon and Egypt are prior to the writing of the book of Genesis. And there are actually some similarities and there's a reason for that.

Moses wrote this account that God gave him, it was also a polemic against all the other views of how this creation came into existence. And so there's a reason for that. But that all that this is, is it just some ancient cosmogony, some ancient account, a myth of how things came to be? He goes on. For others, it forms a pre-scientific vision that no one who respects the results of scholarship can accept. This is why there's so much struggle over whether or not these six days of creation and the seventh day of rest are literal 24-hour days. Because when scientists look at the universe, they look at the speed of light and the expansion of the universe, they say it has to be 14 billion years old.

And so is there a conflict here? How do we approach this? Still others find the story symbolic but no more. Some accept the early chapters of Genesis as revelation in regards to an upper story. Genesis, as you know, this is a Shefferian language, this upper story idea, is that in regard to an upper story, religious truth that is separate from the truth that we live here on this earth, but they allow any sense of trust in regard to history and the cosmos to be lost. In other words, he says there are several ways to approach it, but these that he mentions are all wrong. Well, what we're going to do is something quite novel and that is we're simply going to approach the book of Genesis as it presents itself to us.

We have this simple little formula, we take the Bible to be innocent until it's proven guilty. It's amazing how quickly what people will say it's guilty until you can prove it innocent. Until you can prove to me that every statement in the Bible is true, I will not believe this is actually a word from God. And somebody was telling me this morning about a class that's going to teach on a hundred, is that what it was? A hundred? A thousand? What was it? 101 discrepancies in the Bible. It's amazing when people tell you there are discrepancies in the Bible and you simply say, well, would you show me one? I've never in those conversations had anybody show me one. Now there are some that look like discrepancies, but most people who say that to you have no clue what a discrepancy in the Bible would look like.

In fact, I think if you get somebody to study to find the discrepancies, they would be convinced of this book, as God speaks through it. So we're going to approach it just as it presents itself. If you notice the opening words of the book of Genesis read this way, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. If you will notice it does not say once upon a time, and it does not say at the end of the book of Genesis, and they lived happily ever after. When you open a book, and it begins, once upon a time, and it ends with something like and they lived happily ever after, you know immediately you understand this is a fairy tale. The book of Genesis does not present itself that way at all.

It is totally different. The mood is authoritative and it is declarative, the claim that's implied here in Genesis 1-1 is much like that of our Lord when He presented Himself to men as Son of God Messiah. And it produces the same effect. You can't simply tip your hat to Jesus and say He was a good teacher. He was a good man. He was a very excellent leader. The fact is, Jesus presents Himself in such a way that He is either, He was either, who He claimed to be, the Messiah, the Son of God, or He was a fake and a fraud. That's the only option. There's no middle ground, no writing the fence about who Jesus is. Once you listen to His, the testimony of who He is, He either deserves to be worshiped or He deserves to be ignored.

He demands a cross or a crown by what He said. Why did they crucify Him? They crucified Him because He claimed to be the Son of God. Does He deserve? Does He bore for us in the plan and purpose of God, or does He deserve a crown, which He now wears at the right hand of the Father? It's the same way with this verse in Genesis. This verse in Genesis, we cannot call Genesis great literature if it's a fairy tale, because if it isn't true, if it doesn't have authority and veracity, then it is not meeting its claims. It claims authority. It claims to be truth claims. And from this one verse, when we read it, then we read the book of Genesis, either expecting a revelation from God in this book, or we should just fed it aside, it's just a bunch of religious rhetoric.

That's the challenge of the book. This is an magic book. The Bible is not a book that if you read it for an hour every day, it'll change your life without it ever passing through your brain and heart. It doesn't work like that. You can sleep on the Bible. You can put a Bible under your mattress, and you can put a Bible in your car. You can put a Bible all around your house. They're just, they won't do a thing. The only way the Bible has power is when you read it and believe it and respond in faith through it. It will change your life. The truth is filled with people whose lives have been changed through the Word of God. And the book of Genesis is a book that claims to be the very Word of God.

Now, think about this. No one witnessed the creation except God and some spirit beings that he had created before he created the physical universe. Listen to Job, chapter 38. If you remember in the book of Job, Job is complaining about God and what God is doing in his life. And about the way things are. In essence, even though Job's the most righteous man on the earth, after in the midst of his suffering and trouble, he begins basically to say to God, I don't like the way you're running your universe. And God shows up. And it's amazing how God is not like what we think. We think God would show up and just calm his heart and say, come on now, son, and you know, just pat him on the back and hold him in his lap and comfort him.

Instead, God says, put up your dukes. Listen to what he says. Job, chapter 38, verses 4 through 7. Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding who sets its measurements, since you know, or who stretched the line on it, who measured its length and width and depth, or who, or where is its basis sunk, where is the foundation for this universe, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. As the angels watched, God bring this universe into creation. All they could do was sing. All they could do was praise him. It's so magnificent. And that's what happens to scientists when they study this universe.

It's overwhelming in its greatness. And we have to be absolutely spiritual blind to miss the fingerprints of God in his creation. There's only two viable options as to where the Genesis 1, 1, or rather where it comes from, as to where it comes from. It either is a product of the human author's imagination, or it is divinely revealed truth. So when we read, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It comes from the imagination of the author, which we believe to be Moses, and the reason we believe that is the testimony of the entire scriptures. It's the testimony of Jesus. It's the testimony of the apostles. It's the testimony of all the scriptures that this came from the hand of Moses.

Now, where do you get it? You either got it from his imagination, or God gave it to him as a revelation. And if it is the former, for simply a product of human imagination, we should value it only as a work of antiquity. It's like the Babylonian enuma elish, their cosmogy, their explanation, their wild story. You know, it's an incredible story about the God's fighting and the earth coming out of that battle. So if it's simply a result of his imagination, we could say, well, he tells a better story than the Babylonians. And if it is the second, if it is a revelation of God, we must come to this book on bended knee. We have to be willing to hear and obey it as an authoritative word from God. You see, that's the rub.

That's the rub to submit yourself to a revelation from God that has things to say, that have implications for your life and your attitude, the way you order your living. Are you willing to submit to the authority of the Word of God? If you do and you come to this book, it will be opened up to you. If you're coming to see whether or not you like what it says before you commit yourself, you're going to remain in your blindness, 2 Corinthians 4 says. No of Scripture used Genesis as divine revelation. I could quote you 20 passages of Scripture later on in the Bible throughout the old and New Testament that point back to the book of Genesis in the creation account as being the revelation of God concerning this creation.

Listen to these words. This is from Psalm 136. These are the words of the psalmist as he writes a song of praise to God and listen to the allusions to the first chapter of Genesis. He writes to him who made the heavens with skill for his loving kindness is everlasting. And God's loving kindness is his covenant love, his stubborn love, and he is saying to his people, God created the heavens with skill for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who spread out the earth before the above the waters for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who made the great lights for his loving kindness is everlasting. The sun to rule by day for his kindness is everlasting. The moon and the stars to rule by night for his loving kindness is everlasting.

You see the psalmist believe the account of Genesis. Jesus believed the account of Genesis. When Jesus, for example, begins to speak about marriage, what does he do? He quotes Genesis 3. And everything he taught about marriage was based upon that revelation of God's instituting marriage. So our approach to the book of Genesis is that we're going to come to this book as a divine revelation. If you want to talk about that, I'd be glad to talk to you about it. I don't think that we should be obscurantists. I don't think we should stick our head in the sand and say, we're not open to listening to the problems that are in the Bible. Oh, yes, we are. Yes, we are. I took an entire course on higher criticism, the J.E.P.D. theory and all those things.

And I want to tell you that those, nobody's running and hiding from criticism of the Bible. All that, those who know the scriptures want is for somebody to actually read the Bible before they begin to criticize it, to understand its message, to see what it actually says. And the reason I say that is so many, so much stuff on TV. When Christmas season comes around, we'll get another dose of it. And then we'll get another dose when Easter comes. We get these scholars who sound so scholarly. The Jesus Seminar, for example, in Santa Rosa, world known. They have been refuted on the scholarly level in many places, many times. And yet they get all the air time. Get a skeptic and put a microphone in front of his face.

And he will de-mythologize the Bible for you. The Jesus Seminar have basically removed everything the New Testament says about Jesus as being authentic, except maybe one simple statement. What is the motivation behind it? I don't think there's any doubt at all what the motivation behind it is. If Jesus is who he says he is, I am in big trouble if I don't bow the knee to this one who is the ruler of the universe. Now I want to, first of all, look at a simple outline of the book. If this thing works, I put two by four there and you give you a mnemonic device. This is how the book of Genesis is divided up, very simple. It splits at the very center of the book from everything that comes to the end of the first part is before the arrival of Abraham.

The second part is after the arrival of Abraham, the end of chapter 11, the beginning of chapter 12. And so it's two major sections, two major divisions. There are four outstanding events in the first 11 chapters and then there are four outstanding persons in the last part of the book from chapter 12 through chapter 50. It is the theme of the book. I would describe this way. God's sovereignty in creation, history and redemption. God is presented as creator and king, ruler, sovereign over everything. That is the message of the book of Genesis. And it is played out. It is filled out in many different ways. First of all, these four outstanding events that are given to us in Genesis chapter 11 11, which you already know what they are.

They are creation, the fall, the flood, and the tower babble, the confusion of language. Those four major things. Let's look at them real quickly. Creation. We see in creation sovereignty and the physical creation. The Bible claims that God has created the heavens and the earth. That means He created everything. Remember when you stood at the altar, you men and women, husbands and wives, and you said, for better or worse, what did that mean? Did it mean it would always be better or worse? No. They could have added for better, for mediocrity or for worse. Because most of your marriage has been either great or totally bad. Most of the time it is just that normal mediocrity that we live. I'm being a bit of a pessimist here, but the fact is we use these kinds of terms.

Heavens and earth means everything that exists in the universe. This is the claim of Genesis 1, that God created everything. He created everything, heaven and earth. We see God's eternal priority, that He is the creator, ruler, sovereign over all. And He created it for His glory. It reflects His glory. If we approach the universe, if we want to study the universe, any part of it, whether it's microbiology or macro science of some kind, whether we look at it in its finest details or its largest perspective, if we say we must eliminate the creator from the study of this creation, we must in fact eliminate the possibility that there is a creator. You have immediately limited yourself in a massive way from understanding the creation.

The creation, the heavens and the earth were created for the glory of God. Do you have any problems seeing the glory of God when you sit in your hot tub and you lay back and you look at the stars at night? Do you see any problem seeing the glory of God? Do you? You better not. If your eyes are open, you don't do. Secondly the fall. And here we see sovereignty in human probation. God creates man, He gives him one law in the garden, He puts him in a perfect environment, gives him one restriction, you cannot eat of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil. He sovereignly puts him in that position and God's moral authority is established and manifested there over man. He creates man to rule over the entire universe, but in order to rule over the universe, man must submit to the authority of God.

That's a big fly that's coming after me. The third event is the flood. Sovereignty and historical retribution. The flood is God's judgment on the earth. The book of second Peter says those who say everything's always been as it is. Why are these people saying that Christ is coming back and there's a day of judgment coming? What about absurdity? He's coming back. There's a day of judgment coming. What are these Christians talking about? Everything's always been the same. Peter says it escapes their notice that the earth was judged by the flood. God judged this earth. He establishes authority in all those who will listen, all those who will look, all those who will understand the basis of His judgment will be made the wiser.

It points to an ultimate judgment in the future. God's judicial severity is displayed. What is it going to be like on the last judgment? Is God really going to judge people the way He says He is in the Word of God? Or is that simply some kind of exaggeration? You know, we used to have this expression when I was growing up, we called it, he's speaking evangelistically. The reason we said that is we used to get these evangelists who would come into our church and it was amazing how they would exaggerate. I grew up in a hole in this context and man we had these evangelists come through and revival. This is what they were. They would preach and they would tell you about the 150 people that God saved last week at their last revival.

You go and find out that church only held 125 people and nobody came but the members of the church. You got them all lost and got them all saved again. Or I remember one guy he said, he talked, he preached on fasting and we were having dinner together. I was about 23 or 24 years old and he was eating pretty good and he talked about how he fasted during these revivals and I thought you were fasting, he said, no, I simply don't eat as much as I want, that is a fast. So we called that evangelistically speaking, exaggeration, is that all this talk of judgment is? Just exaggeration or is God going to hold each man accountable? Is every person going to stand before the risen Christ at the great white throne and their life is going to be judged by this righteous judge?

And he's going to pass judgment and are they going to experience the effects of that judgment for all eternity? That's what the Bible says and the flood is an evidence of God's judgment. I remember in my teenage years sitting on the back row and in a church and listening to this talk about judgment and wanting so badly to figure out a way not to hear this stuff. I didn't want it penetrating my ears on my mind or my heart. The flood and then babble, sovereignty and racial distribution, what I mean by this? This was God's act, we are told in the book of Genesis of separating the peoples by language all over the face of the globe. And here we see God's governmental supremacy, God rules overall. We are told in the book of Genesis and throughout the prophets that God is the one who orders the events of this world and that he establishes the basis of men.

That is the lolliest of men to rule over nations. He sets them up, he takes them down, God is sovereign, and he's sovereign over the nations. Then the second half of Genesis, and it's really the major part of it, chapter 12 through 50, we have four outstanding people, four outstanding persons. The first of course is Abraham, and we see the sovereignty of God displayed in the calling of Abraham and the covenant, God makes with him, sovereignty in election, God chooses Abraham. Everybody has to admit, whether you're a quote, Arminian or a Calvinist, you have to embrace the fact that God has elected. We have specific people that it is impossible to deny the fact that God sovereignly, by his own choice, selected them, chose them, and brought them to himself.

Abraham was chosen, and we see a supernatural call, God calls this man that he chose. He calls him out of ear the Caldees. I believe he was a son worshipper, and that he was a pagan, but God called him, and God changed his heart, and God made a covenant with him. All that we experience today flows out of this great covenant, that through Abraham and his seed, all the nations would be blessed. Secondly, Isaac, the life of Isaac, and here we have sovereignty again in election, but this time, supernatural birth. You remember this was a supernatural birth, that Abraham and Sarah were beyond their childbearing years. Abraham was a hundred years old. Sarah was a few years younger, and finally God in his sovereignty, his supernatural power gives them a son, Isaac, whose name means laughter, because Sarah laughed when she heard the angel of the Lord saying, when I come back this time next year, you will have a son.

And here's this 97-year-old lady who's saying, right. And then we have Jacob, sovereignty and election again, but this time, supernatural care. Here is a man who is a heel-grabber, that's what his name means, a supplanter. The guy who's always taken advantage of you. If you ever deal with him, you always get to the upper hand. That's how he was. And yet God, in his elective, sovereign, elective graces, kept him and used him in this chain. And then, of course, Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob, whose name later was changed to Israel, in the 12 sons, Joseph was the chosen one, in a very particular way, as we are part of the major part of the story, and the book of Genesis, we see sovereignty in direction, supernatural control.

This is the story of a man who's sold into slavery, taken down into Egyptian bondage, and yet God gets in there for a specific purpose. And when God wants to get you somewhere, sometimes he might take you there in a way that you don't want to go. Paul, God wanted to bring Paul to Rome, Paul wanted to go to Rome, but the way he got there was under arrest. He went there as a prisoner. So God wants to get you somewhere, he has ways of getting you there. He's sovereign in his control. Now, I want you to notice something, Genesis chapter 1, and the following verses, I'm not going to read all of them, but notice this, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and then the layers, as God said, as we begin to have this account of creation, being arranged and so forth, and God said, let there be light, and there was light.

And notice what happens in the New Testament. John writes in the beginning of John, and he does this for a very specific purpose, to tie together this gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of John, with the first chapter of Genesis. Genesis 1, we have the account of the creation of the entire universe, by Almighty God. In John chapter 1, we have tied to him, identified with this creator, this one who was called the word, who he identifies a little later in this chapter, as Jesus Christ. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. That is a great advancement here. There is a great advancement on this glorious truth, that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and now we discover that there is with God the word, and the word is God, and the word is the one.

Notice he was in the beginning with God, all things came into being through him. Now what's the point? Well, one of the things we want to look at, as we go through this book, that's important, is what we could call the redemptive historical flow of this book. In other words, what is the significance of this revelation when it was given? What was the situation into which God spoke? When was the book of Genesis written? When was it given to the people of God? Have you ever thought about that? When was the book of Genesis given to the people of God? Well, it was given to the people of God after they had been brought out of Egyptian captivity, brought to Mount Sinai, established as a nation, given a law, and as they were wandering in the wilderness, because the entrance into the Promised Land had been delayed from the human perspective because they failed to exercise faith.

Now they are wandering for 40 years and probably wondering whether they would ever enter into the Promised Land. In fact, an entire generation was wiped out because of their unbelief. While they are wandering in the wilderness, God gives this revelation, the book of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. This revelation was given at a particular point in the history of the people of God. Why was it given? What was their need? That's what we want to know. In fact, these are the questions we should ask in these kinds of things. We need to ask, what occasioned this revelation? And you should ask this about every part of Scripture. When you seriously study any part of the Word of God, you should ask this question, what occasioned this part of God's revelation?

Why was this written? Secondly, what was the need of the people of God that this particular revelation meant? And how does it point to Christ? That third question, I believe, is a primary basic question we should ask of all of Scripture. And the reason I say that is because of Luke 24. Because Jesus said that all of the Scriptures from Genesis through Malachi, and he was talking about the Old Testament Scriptures, all of the Scriptures, the writings, the prophets, the law, all point to Jesus Christ. And so we want to ask these questions, what occasioned this revelation? Well, look with me at Exodus chapter 32, for a second. In Exodus 32, I think we have, here's a dividend demonstration of why they needed this word so desperately.

They needed to find out who this God was, that was the God of Israel. Who is this Jehovah, Elohim? Who is this one, who has called us out of Egyptian bondage and has formed us into a nation and has promised us a country of our own? Who is it? And that's what the book of Genesis answers. You see, when they were brought out of Egyptian captivity, it was a common view of all of people on the earth that there were many gods, every nation, every people had their own, and the question was, whose God has the most power in any conflict? And you went up against another country, the issue was, is your God more powerful than their God? Now, they knew that the God of Israel was more powerful than the gods of Egypt.

That was the purpose of the plagues, that God defeated all the gods of Egypt, every God that they had created in their mind and they worshiped, he had defeated them. But what Israel needed to know was more than that. They needed to know who is this God, for example, in Exodus 32, as you remember the account that Moses is up on the Mount Sinai with God, and it's an extended stay. God has this extended seminar that he's teaching Moses, and guess what? Moses isn't even getting bored. Moses is taking notes. Moses is listening as God teaches him and tells him and reveals to him all that he's to know and to communicate to the people. And while he's gone, the people, because they had a deficient understanding of who this God is, they begin to turn, their hearts begin to turn, and they begin to ask Aaron, because Moses wasn't coming back, and we don't even know if he's coming back.

And so they say to Aaron, come, make us a God who will go before us, ask for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt. We do not know what has become of him. To see how deficient their view of God is, Aaron said to them, tear off the gold rings, which are in the years of your wives, your sons, your daughters, bring them to me, then all the people tore off the gold rings, which were in their ears. Now the reason that Aaron knows how to do this is he's doing what the world does. This is what he had seen people do, create gods to control people, to keep people in order. So he's going to do the same thing. Every time we try to order the church, the people of God, according to the principles of this world, that work in this world, we need to be careful that we are not repeating the error of Aaron.

Now all the people, verse three, tore off the gold rings, which were in their ears, brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, fashioned it with a graving tool, made it into a molten calf, and they said, this is your God, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Do you think they have a deficient view of God? Absolutely. This is why the book of Genesis was given, is because they needed to understand who this delivering God is. They've been brought out of Egyptian captivity. They had seen his miraculous power, but they were not convinced. They did not understand who this God truly was. The book of Genesis reveals who he is in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth.

There are no gods before this God. We come to the book of John. We need to ask the same questions, because John is connecting this revelation of Jesus Christ back to Genesis chapter 1. Who is this Jesus who died on the cross for you? A lot of people talk about Jesus. There's all kinds of Jesus bumper stickers and Jesus talk and Jesus movements and Jesus this and Jesus that. I heard of a woman who went into a Bible book store and wanted to get a cross for round her neck. And which kind would you like? You want to go one silver one, you want to ornate one, what do you want? I want one with that little man hanging on it. No clue who this Jesus is. Who is this Jesus that died on the cross? And you see the parallels between the deliverance of the people of Israel out of Egyptian captivity and your deliverance through Jesus Christ.

Has he taken you out through the shedding of blood like they were taken out through the shedding of the blood of the Passover land? And he brought you out. Now John says, I want to tell you who he is. I want you to know who Jesus really is. This Jesus that you have believed on is not a tribal God. He's not a great religious teacher. He is the creator and sustainer of all things. See they needed to know during 40 years of wilderness wandering when they came to the place where they didn't know what they were going to do for food and God supplies their food through the manna. He wanted them to know you can trust me and you have to trust me. God brings you to the end of yourself, like Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, so that you would no longer trust in yourselves, but you would trust in the God who raises the dead.

John writes the Gospel of John in the shadow or maybe Genesis is in the shadow of John 1. But here we have this revelation that this God who created the heavens and the earth is none other than Jesus Christ. He is the person of the Godhead who actually said, let there be light. And there was light. 2 Corinthians he said that he came to your life one day and he said let there be light. And you saw Jesus Christ for the first time. I don't mean physically. I mean your eyes were open to this testimony of who Christ really is and you believed. You stopped debating, you threw down your weapons, you surrendered and you trusted him. And John says, I don't want you to forget who this is. Whatever you're facing today.

I know some of you are going through really difficult deep waters. Carol Fleckinger, I don't think it's here, it's gone through some incredible pain these last two weeks. And at first they didn't seem even interested in finding out what it was. It was so excruciating. She's in an out of the hospital several days, they put her a morphine, they tried everything they could just to stop the pain. They couldn't find out what the pain was. And you know how that is, don't you? Most of you know what it's like to go through those times right during it. And God wants you to know that you're a Savior. They want to die for you who purchased you, who brought you, formed you into a people. A nation, he says in 1 Peter chapter 2, that God, that Lord Jesus Christ is the creator and sustainer of all things.

He is able and sovereign and worthy of worship. And just as God invales to them that they are to worship one and one only, only one God, we are to worship only God as He has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. We believe in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Turn to Him, that's what He keeps telling us. Turn to Him, the one who spoke everything into existence. Knows your problems, knows what you're facing, knows the challenges of your life, knows what's breaking your heart today, knows what's filling you with anxiety about tomorrow. This Jesus is the creator and sustainer of all things and the ruler of all things. You know all you have to do? You have to do one thing. You have to bend the knee and confess the name.

You have to trust Him. You have to rank yourself under Him. You have to believe the truth about Him and follow Him and like a shepherd who leads the sheep. As the authority says, the way He leads is this. He leads the sheep and if you're weak and you can't move very fast, like nursing use, He leads you slowly. And if you're like little bitty lambs who can't move at all, He carries you in His arms. But what you must do is be committed to following, following. We stand together and give Him praise and worship and then afterwards do what Malachi says we ought to do when we meet like this. We ought to talk to each other, but we ought to talk to each other about Him and He listens into those conversations.

I know what you need this morning is you need the Holy Spirit to apply His Word in your life to your particular situation. You need to trust Him because He is the deliverer. He created it and He sustains it and He can deliver. Let's pray. Our kind and grace is heavenly Father. How we thank you for your revelation. We thank you for the Word of God first of all. We thank you, O God, that in your grace, that even when we were fallen, you came in this revelation and unveiled yourself as you really are. Some people are so tempted to modify this revelation so that it's more acceptable to some people. But God, we give you thanks that you revealed yourself just as you really are. You have told the truth about yourself and about your creation and about us.

We thank you most of all for your revelation in Jesus Christ. O God, that Jesus Christ has come and He has shown us what you were really like. He has poured Himself out for us. He has shown us that the God who created the heavens and the earth is a God who has a tender heart towards His people, a God of compassion, a God like the psalmist says who is filled with loving kindness. We pray today, as we begin this study, the book of Genesis, that you would just rip the blinders from our eyes. We would come to you without our presuppositions, without our grids, and let you speak to us that we would hear and know the truth, and that the truth would set us free, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.