Trust and Obey over our Own Understanding

  Read Genesis 3

The other day someone asked me what I was doing for the fall.  I thought they meant the fall of civilization, so I started telling them how much ammunition and toilet paper I had stored. They meant fall as a season.  Oh, well, to me the season doesn’t change much as far as what I do, other than when we get to winter, I don’t get to walk into the office much.

To me, I don’t care who breaks out the pumpkin spice or when they do it. It’s not going in my coffee.

Today we will look at what has been labeled the fall of humankind—subtitled Sin Entered the Word, but there was no fall or sin without God already having a plan of redemption for our shortcomings.

We know the story.  Here is the truncated version.

God asked Adam if he ate from the tree that was off-limits.  Adam said the woman that you put here gave me the fruit.  The woman said that the serpent tricked me, and the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on.

And the story of the fall begins with enter the snake. We don’t know if it enters stage left or stage right, but the serpent is surely center stage at the beginning of this chapter.

And it was not just a serpent.  It was crafty, skilled in argument and deception, and it talked.

We don’t get any chit-chat to begin this conversation.  The serpent gets down to business.

He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Perhaps the serpent knew what God had said to Adam.  Maybe it heard a conversation between Adam and Eve as they were discussing what they would have for dinner. In any case, the serpent knew of the one thing that God had told Adam not to do. The serpent apparently also knew that God had told Adam that he could eat from any tree in the garden.  He just skipped over the single exception as he posed his question.

The snake didn’t say, go ahead.  It’s ok. The serpent let Eve do the deceiving herself.  “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The thought, the idea, and the doubt were not placed in Eve’s mind.  It was enticed out of her mind.

Look at the question.  Did God say this?

The answer should have been yes we could eat from any tree except that one right there and that should have ended the conversation. God said it.  I believe it.  Hit the road, Jack.  Adam and I are having avocados for dinner.

But, the woman chose to converse with the serpent.  There was something to this line of conversation that interested her.

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

We should remember that God gave instructions about this tree to Adam while Eve was still a rib. Adam obviously felt inclined to share this divine prohibition with Eve.

That was surely a good idea. We are talking about 50% of the people in this story who didn’t know of the prohibition; but where did the part about not even touching the tree come from?  Did Adam add that part?  Did Eve convince Adam that they needed extra safeguards? Were Adam and Eve the authors of the first OSHA manual?

Were the first two people that God created the very first Pharisees?  Did they add their own rules to God’s one and only prohibition?

The serpent’s question asked, “Did God really say that?”  The direct answer would have been, “God said we can’t eat from that tree or we will die.”

The conversation continued, “But surely you won’t die.”  It’s a statement in the form of a question.  Remember that the sender of a message can imply but only the receiver can infer.

An aside would have been appropriate at this point in the story so Eve could share her thoughts with posterity.

Would I die?  What is death? Why am I even standing near this tree that God put off limits and we added the prohibition about touching it? Should I not trust in the Lord more than my own understanding?

The serpent continued. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

As much as we don’t like the serpent in this story, what he said was accurate.

And so, we come to the intersection of trust and obedience to God and Eve’s own understanding.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

The PowerPoint slide looked like this:

·       It’s good for food

·       It’s pleasing to the eye

·       It has the added benefit of gaining wisdom

Those first two were characteristics of every tree that God gave them for food—pleasing to the eye and good for food. So far, so good, right?

In 2022, you would also have to listen to 2 minutes of possible side effects after the 15-second commercial.  What am I talking about? Possible side effects include:

·       You and the serpent will be eternal enemies

·       Women will have real pain in childbirth

·       Your husband will rule over you

·       The man must work to produce food now

·       There will be thorns and thistles among your crops

·       You will work your whole life just to decompose and make more dirt when you are done

·       OBTW—you will be evicted from paradise

There was no commercial at that time, just the prohibitive command from God. Eve ate the fruit from the tree and then gave some to Adam and he ate it. Their eyes were opened and they noticed that they were naked.

Consider the thought process of the woman and the man.  The woman goes through her analysis and eats the fruit.  She then offers some to the man and he is like, “Yeah, ok,” and eats it.

Enter the Lord God walking in the cool of the day.  These two naked people in their makeshift clothing hid among the trees.  Their first response to having disobeyed God was to hide from him

God played along.  “Where are you?”

Imagine God walking along and he says, “Marco.”

Adam replied, “Polo.  Oh, I can’t believe I fell for that.” Adam and Eve were not experienced in hiding from God.  They had never done it before.

In their own understanding, Adam and Eve thought they could hide from God. OK, let’s read the actual account.

But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

I love Adam’s reply.

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

The woman that you put here gave me the fruit.  The woman that you gave me. She gave it to me. That woman—yeah the one you put here.

God turned his attention to the woman. Adam is probably thinking that he is off the hook.

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Remember, the analysis that Eve went through before she ate.

·       It’s good for food

·       It’s pleasing to the eye

·       It has the added benefit of gaining wisdom

But she rationalized what she did when she answered to God.  There really should be an aside here for God to tell eternity:  That dog don’t hunt.

Here’s the executive summary with which I began.

God asked Adam if he ate from the tree that was off-limits.  Adam said the woman that you put here gave me the fruit.  The woman said that the serpent tricked me, and the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on, or at least he wouldn’t by the end of the chapter.

This chapter is sometimes titled the fall of man or mankind or humankind.  Some subtitles say, sin entered the world, but we should consider that our earthly nature was already present.

Tom would title this sin manifests itself or mankind chose its own understanding over trusting God.

We are of the earth and of God and our earthly nature understands us so well.  Our nature which comes from being made of the earth knows exactly how to appeal to us.  It doesn’t trick us.  It allows us to trick ourselves.

The words free will are never used here or elsewhere in the Bible, but we see man’s will surfacing in this chapter.  Both Adam and Eve chose of their own free will to disobey God.

They could not invoke the Flip Wilson defense.  What? The Devil made me do it.

The serpent asked the questions. Yes, he was crafty in composing his interrogatives.  The serpent challenged the understanding of these first humans, but both Adam and Eve went through their own thought processes and made their choices.

Don’t beat up these two people too much.  I doubt that any of us could have resisted the temptation to know something that only God knew. At some point—some may have held out longer than others—our own desire for understanding would have led us to take a bite of the forbidden fruit—to disobey God.

The chapter ends with an eviction notice for Adam and Eve and an angelic sentry posted so no one can approach the Tree of Life. It was likely a whole detachment of angels assigned to guard the tree.  They would be there for a good while. While God sent these two packing, he clothed them first.  He did not disown them. They still had their orders to multiply and subdue the earth.

Do not become discouraged or disheartened for we have the full biblical witness and we see the tree of life available to all who follow Jesus.  You just have to go from the alpha to the omega to get that part of the story.

For now, let’s not choose our own understanding when it conflicts with God’s instructions.  God has good plans for us.

For now, understand that if the premise is false, then everything thereafter can be proven to be true—at least it will appear so.  What’s that got to do with a snake in the garden?

If our premise is contrary to God’s instructions—I’m talking the full biblical witness again—then we can convince ourselves of anything, even the worst things.

For now, and forever, let’s try this.

Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.

Next week it’s sex, children, murder, and more children.  It sounds like a Netflix series but it’s chapter 4.

Amen. 

Because you listened to your wife...

 Read Genesis 3

God told Adam that the ground was cursed, that work would be hard now—you will sweat, and there will be weeds.  There will be thistles and thorns where you had known only a lush garden before.

OBTW—you will die and go back to the earth from which you came.

There was also a tree of life in the garden, but in this original game of Deal or No Deal, you chose the tree that also comes with death

Why did God do this? Why?  Don’t you wish we knew why?

Maybe we do.  What did God tell Adam?

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife…”

I think there is a 6–8-month Bible study in that statement alone. Here’s the whole statement before God listed the consequences.

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

Remember that Eve did some analysis upon prompting by the serpent. I will go so far as to say that the serpent while deceptive did not trick Eve.  Eve did her own analysis.

The fruit of this tree that God had put off limits and somehow, Eve noted that they couldn’t even touch it, was pleasing to the eye.  It looked pretty.

It was good for food.  If you recall in chapter 2, all the trees in the garden were pleasing to the eye and good for food. Why was this one off-limits?  What made it different?

Consider the name of the tree?  It was the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Knowledge sounds like something good.  It was a cousin of wisdom. Indeed that made this tree more desirable that the others that were just good-looking and tasty.

If she ate of the tree, she would be like God.  That would be a good thing, right? We are challenged to be imitators of God. Paul wrote that he was trying to be like Christ and his readers should follow his example.

Eve had a solid case for eating the fruit of the tree.

·       It was like the other trees—pleasing to the eye

·       It was like the other trees—good for food

·       It was more than the other trees—it offered knowledge or wisdom—something beyond what she had known so far

·       It was more than the other trees—she would be more like God

This was a reasonable thing that Eve did.  There was only one problem.  God had said “No!”  From the beginning, God’s ways and thoughts were higher than those of humankind.

And from the beginning, our own understanding—our finite understanding—would be among, if not the biggest temptation to do something that God said not to do. Our own understanding makes its debut in the fall of humankind.

God punished Adam because he listened to his wife—not about what to wear to dinner—but about something for which God had already given instructions.  The root of the sin took place in Adam’s mind.  He listened to something contrary to what God had said.

Had the counsel come from Uncle Bob instead of his wife, the fault would have been the same.  Adam—who had no uncles—chose to listen to and embrace some thought that was contrary to God’s instruction.

The sin manifested itself when Adam acted—when he ate the fruit.  Eve’s analysis seemed more extensive than Adam’s but we don’t know.  What we do know is that both chose their own understanding over obedience to God.

Did they trust God?  God gave them the ability to choose his ways or their own understanding.  God—being God—surely knew what they would choose.  As the chapter closes, the tree of life—which we will see again in Revelation—was guarded because Adam and Eve—humankind—had become like God in one way.  They knew good and evil.

 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

We see in this passage the presence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the words one of us. In one way, humankind had become like God.  We knew good and evil and could choose between them.

Father, Son, and Spirit also knew good and evil but their own understanding was higher than ours and they never ventured down the path of evil.

I think we have mislabeled this chapter the Fall of Man or the Fall of Humanity.  God didn’t kick us to the curb.  Humankind was not forever doomed. He gave us a route to being made right with him.  He provided Adam and Eve some more suitable clothing.  His command to multiply and subdue the earth was not revoked.

The first humans would just live day-by-day knowing good and knowing evil and having to choose moment-to-moment.   They—we—humankind would not know what it was to live in right standing with God until we received the free gift of salvation that came by grace.

Yes, there would be some temporary measures of atonement in the law that came through Moses, but we know that salvation—our redemption from sin—is by grace alone

For us, the knowledge of good and evil comes with struggle.  Remember that we are of the earth and we are of God.  God chose us to be with him forever.  We must choose to receive the gift of salvation.  Then we must choose to live a life worthy of the calling—the yoke of our Master—that we have received.

Our lives—because we have knowledge of good and evil—are struggles to trust in the Lord over our own understanding.  When our reasoning conflicts with God’s instructions, we must know that God has good plans for us.

Do we stop thinking for ourselves?  By no means!  God gave us a sound mind and expects us to use it. We should find a cure for cancer.  We should invent the most fuel-efficient vehicle ever.  We should be able to make change. We should put the sound mind that God gave us to work as we subdue—bring order to the world.

But…

And this is a big one. When what we understand is contrary to what God has commanded, then we must defer to God for he is the One who has good plans for us.

No matter how attractive the course of action that we understand is, if it is contrary to God’s directions, it is not the best choice. That’s where we come again to the full biblical witness.  Cherry picking leads us to our own understanding.  We must show ourselves approved in seeking God’s will by studying all of his word.

We can blame everything on the serpent, but if we do, we refuse to address the problem of desiring our own understanding more than what God has told us to do. 

We can do the Flip Wilson thing—the Devil made me do it—but we fail to address the root cause of the problem.  We must address our propensity to seek our own understanding over God’s ways. We have to deal with that to live fully.

Salvation is a free gift.  Desiring what God has in store for us is our work.  Leaning into God’s ways is our challenge.  Seeking God and his kingdom and his righteousness first—before all things—and that includes our own understanding—is our charge.

When it’s just the guys sitting around drinking coffee, then the lesson for this chapter is the world is a mess because Adam listened to his wife.  But when we decide to get serious about living this life to the full, we know our daily challenge is to choose God and his ways over our own understanding.

It’s pretty, good for food, good for knowledge, and makes us more like God, but God said no.  Four strong points against one little no. 

That’s our challenge.  Choose wisely.  Trust God.

Amen.

Can we obey God when we don't understand

 Read Genesis 2

 Let’s look at the trees in the garden.

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.  The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The trees were pleasing to the eye and good for food.  Remember those words for next week.  Think about it.  Adam could have been the first tree hugger.  Oh, beautiful tree, I love you.  You are pleasing to the eye and good for food. Let me give you a big hug.

Let’s get on with the tree story in Genesis.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Adam didn’t have much life experience.  He didn’t even know about clothes.  Of course, he didn’t have a wife yet to tell him what to wear. He was walking around naked in the garden and God told him if he did this one thing that he will die.

Does Adam understand death?  Does Adam have a concept of what it is to die?  He hasn’t been to a single funeral.  How does he understand death?

All life struggles to live—it’s hard-wired inside us, but do we really understand death.  Even today, we struggle with death.  We live by faith that there is more life to come, but we struggle with death.

So, God told Adam not to do one thing or he will die.  Can Adam really weigh the consequences of this action?

So really, all that Adam had was a command to not eat from this single tree.  Adam has a Thou shalt not and that’s about it. I doubt that he really understands the consequences of disobedience.

Adam only has obedience to wrestle with. He probably can’t comprehend the consequences of disobedience.

If you don’t do your homework, you are grounded for three days—without your phone.  We can understand those consequences.

If you don’t make your car payment, your car gets repossessed.  We understand that.

If you don’t read, study, and work hard while you are in school, you don’t get an education.  I didn’t say that you don’t get a diploma. You don’t get an education. 

For some people, that education is almost as beyond comprehension as death was to Adam.  They can’t do simple math and make a budget.  They never learned how to think and make solid decisions, but I digress, at least for the moment. Let’s get back to the garden.

Adam probably did not understand the concept of death.  He surely understood the command not to eat of the tree. 

It begs the question:  Can we obey when we don’t understand?

I didn’t have to search much for the answer.  Trust in the Lord with…

We are directed to obey even when we can’t understand.  We have some things in common with Adam.

Everything that we know about death we take by faith.  We have been to some funerals.  We have been to visitations, but they have all been on this side of death, at least for us.

Everything we know about life after death comes by faith.

We have faith in the one who spoke everything into existence and gave us commands to do or not do something, that his promises are also true.

We have faith that there is life after death, even though we still don’t comprehend death. Yes, we know that they won’t be here next week.  Better take them off the fellowship team.

We understand that someone isn’t here anymore, but everything we know about death and life after death comes to us by faith.

God’s ways are so much higher than our ways.  God’s thoughts are beyond our comprehension, but we have the mind of Christ.

We can’t comprehend all that God thinks and knows and does, but we have been given enough to live as he wants us to live.  We can take the yoke of our Master and learn from him.

For us, that’s the same as not eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil when we can’t understand the consequences.

So, let’s trust in the Lord and in his commands and learn from Jesus our Master, even when, perhaps especially when we don’t understand all of the consequences of our actions.

Amen.

Of Heaven and of Earth

 Read Genesis 2

We begin the second chapter by finishing the week begun in chapter 1.  

On the seventh day, God rested, blessed the day, and made it holy.  He modeled the Sabbath which would be further defined once God chose a people through whom to reveal himself to the world and explained more fully once the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

God rested.  It is a model for us.

For those who have been reading faithfully, you might have a little dissonance after reading these first two chapters. To resolve this wrestling match that might be taking place in your mind, I give you one word:  Babylon. OK, it should be two words:  Babylonian Captivity.

Chapters 1 and 2 are essentially two accounts of creation. Basically, they are separated into the account remembered by those in the Northern Kingdom and the account remembered by those in Judah.  We see differences in how God was addressed in the Torah.

In one source, God is addressed as Elohim.  In the others, God is presented as Yahweh or Jehovah. When these accounts were finally put into a single writing, the authors—the scribes—had a choice to make.  They could reconcile both creation accounts into a single account or present both accounts with fidelity to the way they had been told for centuries.  They chose the latter and we have been given both accounts.

Ezra the Scribe, probably directed this effort to put these essential words into writing. In any case, one account gives us seven days and the other picks up somewhere on the third day.

If we look at the chapter breaks by account, the first three verses of chapter two really belong in chapter one.  The biblical scribes did not always use this approach as we shall see later on.

Let’s look at what’s happening in this second account. We pick up on day three when God brings forth plant life and water from the ground to sustain it.  There is no rain. 

In the book of Second Opinions, we find that the Aramaic word for this time with no rain is Oklahoma.  This is 2022, so I am required to advise you that was tongue-in-cheek.

Then we jump ahead to the creation of man.  In the first chapter, we get a summary.  God created man—male and female in his own image. In this second chapter, we get a bit more narrative.

·       God formed a man from the dust of the ground.

·       God breathed life into the man.

·       The man became a living being

That’s a cool story right there, but it is so much more. God created everything, but we are special.  We are:

·       Of the earth

·       Filled with the breath of God

·       Both being and creature

We are very much of the earth.  We are very much of God.  If you want to see the intersection of heaven and earth, just look in the mirror.  We are made from the earth in the image of God and have our life breathed into us by God.

We don’t get that extra tidbit in the first account. Somewhere along the way, I should mention the full biblical witness.  It’s not just Old Testament and New Testament. It can be book to book, chapter to chapter, or verse to verse.

In some cases, the full biblical witness clarifies.  In other cases, it expands our understanding.  Sometimes, it gives us challenges and struggles, but we should take on these challenges and press on in the struggles.

If you are looking for a day-to-day sequence, I hope you got your fill in the first chapter as here we go back to the third day and talk about vegetation and food including the fruit of many trees. The second chapter is less sequential than the first.

Of those trees, two are mentioned.  One is the Tree of Life and the other is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  God puts the latter off limits to Adam.

The account moves on to the rivers and precious stones of the area and describes a very nice place to live, and then we see a little more interaction between God and the man, who we don’t see the man called Adam until after he gave everything else a name.

The name Adam essentially means the man or humankind with some relationship to the earth from which he was made. That plural version might be something to remember as we go forward.

Maybe, Adam just got tired of hearing, “Hey Dirtball” from his Creator.  Of course hearing God say: You da man had to be a boost to Adam’s ego.

God told the man that he placed in this garden that he was to take care of the garden and that he was free to eat from any tree except one—the one called Knowledge of Good and Evil. Those were simple, straightforward instructions.  What could go wrong?

The answer to that question doesn’t come until later, but first God had Adam name all the living creatures.  Even after naming all of the livestock, birds, and wild animals, God found none of them fit to be Adam’s helper.  You know what comes next.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.  Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones

    and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called ‘woman,’

    for she was taken out of man.”

Now is the time where I would traditionally insert the what can I get for a rib joke, but I’ll leave that for your lunchtime discussions.

God made humankind male and female alike.  They were as God made them—naked.  They were not ashamed.  They were as God made them.

Next week we will get into the beginnings of the clothing industry, but for now, humankind was content to be just as God made them.

So where does that leave us other than ending the chapter with two naked people in the garden?

How about, we think on this.  We are of the earth and we are of God.  God created everything and every creature, but we are special.  Not only do we have dominion over the earth.  We are told to subdue it.  We are to manage it.  We are stewards of the earth and would one day like to hear our “Well done” from our Lord. 

But we are also of heaven.  God made us to be like him.  Initially, we were like him without having to carry the burden of the knowledge of good and evil.  I think the term for that condition is bliss, perhaps blissful ignorance.  What a wonderful situation to be in.  God created everything good, but he did give us some instructions—very simple instructions at first—but instructions nonetheless.

We know what comes next.  That does not excuse you from your daily reading.  Dig into it.  As you do, think on this.  We are of God and we are of the earth.  We live—and we know that we can live fully on this earth, and we will live with our Father in heaven in our true home.

Jesus has already prepared a place for us.

In the meantime, because we have this full biblical witness, we know that we can live in the Kingdom of God now.  The Kingdom of Heaven is all around us if we have eyes to see.

When we struggle with our decisions, remember, you are of the earth and you are of God.  Our earthly side can make some strong arguments, but we know that it is God who has good plans for us.

All life struggles.  Look at plant life growing towards sunshine and shooting out its roots in all directions.  Look at newborn animal life struggle to walk and avoid becoming the next thing on the predator buffet. There is struggle in life, but we have an additional struggle—to be like the God who created us—to know his goodness. Later, humankind would strive—struggle—to respond to God’s mercy and grace as the most important thing that we do.

You are made to wrestle with the ways of the world and the ways of God.  God will help you choose him and his ways but do not become discouraged when you wrestle with the ways of this world.

If you have made some bad choices in the past—and you think your cause is lost, know that God loved you then, loves you now, and will love you forever. He already chose you to be with him.  Choose him and his ways every moment, every day in spite of the struggle that comes from being of the earth and being of God.

The other day someone asked me what I was doing for the fall.  I thought they meant the fall of civilization, so I started telling them how much ammunition and toilet paper I had stored. They meant fall as a season.  Oh, well, to me the season doesn’t change much as far as what I do, other than when we get to winter, I don’t get to walk into the office much.

Next week we will look at what has been labeled the fall of humankind—subtitled Sin Entered the Word, but there was no fall or sin without God already having a plan of redemption for our shortcomings.

We are of God. We are of the world.  We are unique among all living things in God’s creation. 

We are made in his image and likeness and we know that we are called to bring glory to his name and we should enjoy him as we do—yes, enjoy God very much.

Amen.

What if...

 Read Genesis 1

You will get the full chapter at the 11 am service, but let’s just do some fun stuff here.

On the first day, God did light and darkness.  God called the light good.

On the second day, God separated the waters above and the waters below. Later God would separate land and water on the earth, but what about the water above.  What’s that all about?

What if the earth was encased with a shield of water?  What if it acted like super sunscreen?  How would we know?

How about people living to a very old age.  Methuselah lived to be 969 years of age.   Noah was 500 years old when he and his wife had kids.

Imagine that Facebook post:  EMPTY NEST STATUS SOON TO EXPIRE.

Then what came next?  The flood.  Remember, because you live in Oklahoma, any time someone mentions the flood, you are required by Oklahoma law to say, “We got 2 inches of that.”

Where did all of that water come from?  What about the water above? What if all the water in the flood came from the protective waters that were above the sky?

When you have a few minutes, think on this. Maybe you are on a long drive by yourself or there are only 3 minutes left on the spin cycle before you can put the laundry in the dryer.  If you go start something else, you will forget the laundry and have to wash it all again.  So, think about his for 3 minutes and wait on the spin cycle to finish.

Think about what again?  Water above, water below, the flood, people lived longer before the flood, was there any mention of disease before the flood, look at the disease and cancer since the flood—that should give you something to think on for the next 100 miles or until the spin cycle stops.

How long was a day before the 4^th day?  There was light and darkness, but the sun and moon were not a deal until day 4.  There were still days because on day 1 we are told there was evening and there was morning and that constituted the first day.

Was it 24 hours?  Was it 24 billion years? After day 4, we expect that days were 24 hours, but we have no way of knowing.

Measuring time is a man-made thing.  Once upon a time, people measured the day into 12 equal parts and the night into watches, usually of 3 or 4 hours.

Genesis accounts for a day as from sunset to sunset.  It’s only by day 4 that there are heavenly bodies to define time for day and night and for seasons and for sacred days, at least as we measure time.

So how long did creation take?  It’s 6 days, right?

How long was 6 days at that time?  At least 48 hours.  We expect days 5 and 6 were 24 hours long, those before it, well, go figure. It could have been another 96 hours or 96 billion years by our modern calculations. It could have been 96 seconds. 

If we look at the creation, we see God’s intricate designs at the macro level and the micro level.  God created it all.

Let’s go back to the beginning of beginnings, ok, let’s do verses 1 and 2.  Where did the formless stuff come from?

Where did the divine Playdough come from?  What? Let’s try verse 2.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

God had something to work with to make the earth.  Where did it come from? Let’s try verse 1.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

In the most general terms, the first verse of our Bibles read, God created. In the original Hebrew, God bara’ (בָּרָא) everything. 

Go to John 1.  Everything that was made was made through him, that includes the divine Playdough.

It also leaves us the Big Bang theory, but at the same time shoots holes in it.  The sun, moon, and stars didn’t show up until day 4 but God had matter to work with on day 1.

That doesn’t discount that it could have all been spoken into existence scattered purposely to create the universe.  Day 4 just did what we have seen elsewhere, put form to formlessness.

Hopefully, there is some fun stuff to chew on.  Enjoy!

But you know that I like to send you out with something to affirm or challenge you, not just food for thought.  Let’s go with this.

God create it all.  The creation account need not agree with modern science, but science to be valid should always be in accord with God and this account.

Genesis is not a science book and is not a book of details, but our science books should not include as fact those things opposed this creation account. They often do, but we who live by faith, need not be worried.

The world may not agree, but we need to have eyes to see.

What must we see?

God created.  Think on those two words this week.

God created.

Amen.

In the Beginning

 Read Genesis 1

So we begin בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית ba re sit or how the Hebrew people addressed this account.

We begin our journey through Genesis without a long introduction.  I will talk about its authorship and composition as we venture through this study that will take a year.  Don’t punch out on me.  It will be a good trip.

We begin our journey through Genesis with a thought that we cannot understand as a finite beings.  What thought?

In the beginning…

We cannot truly comprehend the beginning.  For us, there was always something beforehand.

We have been to the beginning of a baseball game, but there was travel for the teams, umpires had to arrive, the dirt of the infield had to be watered, especially in western Oklahoma and so many other things had to happen before the game could begin.

Before that the field had to be built, the game of baseball had to be invented, and someone had to learn how to market hot dogs and popcorn and five times the going price.

Something always came before.

Think to your governor or senator or county commissioner.  Their election was not the beginning.  His time or her time as governor might have begun on a specific date, but much occurred before. There was a campaign, there was a decision to run, there was fundraising, there were boring speeches to be made, and so much more.

Genesis begins, in the beginning.  This is before humanity existed and before human consciousness.  It was at the beginning to which we cannot find antecedent.

But there was that which preceded the beginning. There was God and God created all that we know, and surely much that we have yet to know.

What did God create first?

Evidently, God created the elements for heaven and earth as we are told the earth was formless.  It was a lump of divine Playdough, but God was there and the Spirit of God was there and if we jump all the way to John’s gospel, we see that Jesus the Son was there. And if we think about both accounts, it seems that Jesus had to do most of the work.

Where did God start?  He began with the heavens and the earth and it appears there was plenty of water to work with.

He began with light.  He separated the light from darkness, which means that initially there was darkness, just darkness.  The default setting for this cosmic playdough was darkness.  God specifically made light. Light will continue to be a big concept throughout God’s relationship with humankind, which at this point had not yet been created.

We don’t see the dark called bad, but the light is good.  There is some food for thought as we consider future analogies and metaphors in our biblical studies.

Is this important?  It gives us the sequence for the first day.  Darkness then light. There was darkness then there was light making the first day.

I mentioned before that there must have been a lot of water, so on the second day, God separated the water into two big parts.  There was water that would be on the earth and water that would be above the sky.  To do this God created an expanse, a firmament, a sky that would separate the waters.

Then he called it a day, the second day.

The third day was a busy day.  God separated the waters on earth by land. Then he began with the vegetation—plants and trees.  God created life.  It was plant life but it came with the ability to propagate itself.  We’re talking seeds.

Within the first life on this planet was the ability to create new life.  That’s a very intricate design. Day and night, water and sky, land and water, and everything required to make a planet were very impressive, but now life.  That’s big time even when everything that has come before is big time.

Life and the ability to continue life in the time to come were upon the earth.  It is at this point that God begins declaring his creation to be good.

On day 4 God populated the sky with lights.  There were two main ones for us.  The sun would govern the day and the moon the night.  It is at this point you might have to wrestle with the chronology of creation.

If the sun wasn’t onboard until day 4, where did the day 1 light come from?  It came from God, of course.  God said, let there be light.  On day 4 we see what we saw from the beginning.  God gave form to the formless.

Instead of thinking that there could be no light without the sun and the moon, consider that God gave form to light.  Some went to the sun and would be reflected by the moon.  Much was distributed throughout the universe.

It was not a random scattering.  The lights in the sky enable us to define seasons and even sacred times.  Some of those sacred times might later be part of God’s feasts that he told his people of, once humankind progressed that far.

A sacred time might be a single star to appear at a specific time that would lead wise men to Jerusalem to witness that the Messiah had been born.  All of this was put into place before human flesh was created on the earth and  from the earth as we will see in chapter 2.

God called it a day and declared it to be good.

Day 5 was fish and wildlife day.  God stocked ponds and oceans and commanded these aquatic creatures to multiply.  He had to create these creatures first, then stock the ponds.

And he didn’t forget the birds either.  God created birds. That was day 5.

So, there’s life in the air and life in the seas, and you guessed it, day 6 is about life on the land. So, God created livestock—cattle—as well as wild beasts.  He made things that would creep and slither on the ground. 

Most of you are too young to know who Ian Anderson is.  He is the main lyricist and flute player for Jethro Tull, and I’m not talking about the guy that perfected the horse-drawn seed drill.

In one of his songs, Bungle in the Jungle, he penned the line:

He who made kittens put snakes in the grass.

But as you will see during the day and at the end of the day, God called it all good, but we are not quite there yet.  God had something big that he saved for last.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image,

    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

As God created fish and birds and animals and insects and even snakes there were some governing words attached, according to their own kind.  These creatures were segregated by genus and species if we want to venture into the modern vernacular.

They were put into families that would not breed with other families.  God designed each of these creatures to make more creatures like it, but not to mix the DNA outside of the family.

When it was time to make man, God said that he would make humankind in his image.  Humankind would rule over the other lifeforms on the planet.  We will get to the story of God making Adam out of the earth, but here we see that we are designed to be like God and not like the creatures he gave us to rule over.

God also gave humankind special instructions.

·       Increase, multiply, propagate—ok, those were not unique.  Every living thing was to do that. God told humankind to do it until the earth was filled.

·       Subdue the earth.  What’s that mean?  Bring it under your control and manage it.  From the beginning, we were entrusted with the earth.  We have stewardship over the earth. We are trusted with the earth. I think that we could have done a better job with this trust based on the Walmart bags that we have scattered all over creation.

·       God also gave us a diet.  It appears that we started out as vegetarians, though he did create livestock from the beginning.  Over the ages, the divinely prescribed diet would change for various reasons, but it looks like we began as vegetarians. One of those reasons would be for God to separate a people for himself and then to reconcile all things to him.  Yes, there is a lot going on here in these first days.

God looked over what he had done and declared it good.

Before we go to chapter 2, let’s understand a basic framework.  This is not a science book, but science should agree with what we find here.

If it were a science book, it would fill the Library of Congress, and that’s in 8-font print.  It’s a window to understanding creation. What could possibly be more important than understanding?  How about trust.

What does it mean that science should agree with this creation account?  There is no time frame attached to what happened before God spoke everything into existence. Only by those things created can we measure what we call time.

There is no list of kingdoms and phyla and other classifications for the life bestowed upon the earth, but all life came only from God.

When science announces a discovery, it should be in accord with what we know about creation through this account or we should expect this new evidence to be dismissed at some point. The latter may not happen in our lifetimes. We may have to contend with all sorts of theories that the world accepts at face value.

Revisions in scientific knowledge are expected.  That’s the nature of science. Let the world search and research.  Let scientists challenge this biblical account and search some more.

Humans have a desire for this—inquiring minds want to know, but understand any true discoveries will be consistent with the creation account that we have.  We who live by faith simply wait for science to catch up with what God has revealed to us.

We truly walk by faith not by sight in this matter.  We were not there.  Neither were the scientists.  The scientific method is a good thing.  It questions. It experiments. It repeats experiments, It extrapolates.  It theorizes, but in the end, it is a best guess when it comes to creation.

Good science may fill in some details where we only have a big-picture account, but those details must be in accordance with that divinely inspired account.

The creation story in Genesis is a faith statement.  Faith about what?

·       God created the universe

·       Everything that God created, he created good

·       God designed life to begat life according to its kind

·       We are made in God’s image

·       God trusted us with the creation

That’s what we should understand so far. As we study Genesis, we must take into account the full biblical witness.  We must never lose sight of these things.

·       God loves you

·       God has good plans for you

·       Salvation and the fulness of life are in Christ Jesus

As we try to grow in understanding, remember that trust in the Lord is more important than our own understanding.  We cannot fully comprehend the thoughts and ways of God, but we are given the mind of Christ.

Some would say that we cannot understand the New Testament without understanding the Old Testament.  Understanding the Old Testament may be necessary to understand much about God as revealed in the New Testament, but it is not sufficient. We are blessed to have the New Testament through which we may also understand the Old Testament better and to help us understand more about a God not confined to linear time.

We need the full biblical witness to truly be a workman approved as we handle the word of God.  Let’s study the beginning without losing sight of what we already know so well.

·       God loves us

·       God is love

·       I am saved by grace through faith

·       I am a new creation whom God has liberated from sin and death

·       I am to be a light unto the world

·       We are to be known as disciples of Christ Jesus by our love

·       We are commissioned to take God’s love to the world

·       We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling—as the most important thing we do in response to God’s grace

The list could go on, but what I ask of you is not to lose sight of who you are and what God created you to do now—in this time—even as we study the beginning of all that we know.

So, it’s on to Genesis 2 next week.

Amen.