GENESIS DAY ONE, PART II

TEXT: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

QUICK REVIEW FROM LAST WEEK 

1. Foundations are important:  

    

    1.) Genesis 1:1 is the foundation for Genesis 1-11

    2.) Genesis 1-11 is the foundation for the rest of the Book of Genesis

    3.) Genesis is the foundation for the rest of the Word of God

2. THE UNIVERSE HAD A BEGINNING

The first verse in the Bible tells us that the universe was brought into existence—it was created by God. 

3. GOD HAD NO BEGINNING! 

The Bible tells us that time, space, and matter (the universe) had a beginning, but God was just there! How could this be? If God made time, then God had to exist before time. We know that time can be measured. For instance, we measure time with our watches by measuring minutes or hours. Each time we have a birthday, we know that a whole year of time has passed by. As time goes on, we get older—everything that exits gets older. But if God made time and exists outside of time, then He does not age.

And that brings us to our teaching tonight. Let’s pray. 

WHO MADE GOD? 

Some people say, “Surely God had a beginning!” Or “Who made God?” 

Let’s ponder this question very carefully. Consider a watch. Did someone make the watch? Of course they did. A watchmaker made the watch. A watch could not have come into existence by itself! So, is the watch more intelligent than the watchmaker? NO! The watchmaker is greater than the watch. We know that someone had to make the watch. That of course would be the watchmaker. Yet, the watchmaker is greater than the watch. So who made the watchmaker? Someone greater than the watchmaker. The Bible tells us that this someone is God. 

If someone made God, who would that be? A super God. And who made the super God? A super, super God? And who made the super, super God? A super, super, super God! We could keep saying this forever—and we would never get to the end! We would always have someone bigger to make someone. This doesn’t make sense. It means that there must be someone who is biggest of all. And that someone is the infinite God! 

The Creator God of the Bible exists in eternity, and the scripture teaches these three things about who the uncreated God is:

1. He is omnipotent. This means He is all powerful. Luke 1:37 says it very plainly, “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

2. He is omniscient. This means He is all-knowing. Colossians 2:3 says about Jesus, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

3. He is omnipresent. This means He is everywhere at once. Proverbs 15:3 says “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” 

The word we use to describe God is “infinite.” This word means “without end or limit—greater than any amount we could number.” If God always exists, and no one made God, then it means His knowledge is infinite. It means His power is infinite. It means His understanding is infinite. It means His wisdom is infinite. It means God had no beginning—He is always there—He is the great I AM. He is the infinite Creator, He knows everything there is to know, and has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding. Everything about God is infinite. His love for us is infinite. As Jeremiah 31:3 says, “He loves us with an everlasting love.” He is infinitely good! As the scripture says, “His mercy endures forever.” Psalm 100:5

As we read God’s Word, it is important to remember that we are finite beings. We need to let God, who is infinite, tell us from His Word what He wants us to know. We must do our best to never take our ideas to God’s Word and try and make it say what we want it to say. 

Another way to understand our own finiteness is to think about our education. We have to learn to read and write, and then maybe go to school or college and earn a degree so we can be a tradesman, a scientist, a doctor, a teacher, or some other profession. But God never had to learn anything because He has always known everything. Everything we take a lifetime to learn He has always known. God knows it all! How great is our God!! The God of the Bible is truly infinite, without any limitations, forever!

CAN GOD REALLY HAVE NO BEGINNING? 

But what about people who say, “It’s silly to believe in God, because no one could just have no beginning and always exist.” Usually these people believe that the universe just came into existence by chance—as a result of naturalistic evolutionary processes. 

If people don’t believe in an infinite God, then we need to ask them where matter came from and where space came from. Many will say that matter has just always existed. This means they have faith that matter just exists (they believe in eternal matter), whereas we have faith, an objective faith that makes sense by what we observe, that God exists. So the question for the unbeliever to answer is this: where is the evidence that matter by itself ever made anything? They simply can’t answer that question. They cannot provide any evidence that matter ever made anything. You see, it takes intelligence to make things. Man is intelligent—he makes cars, computers, and airplanes. So we need to tell them that it is more scientific and logical to believe that intelligence has always been there rather than their belief that matter has always existed! 

Some will tell you that matter just appeared out of nowhere. They have faith that matter just came into existence by itself and then just made everything! 

But the problem is that no one has every observed matter to do that! To believe that is to have blind faith. Actually, it’s a faith that lacks any credibility because it doesn’t explain what is observable. It is much more reasonable and scientific to believe an infinite intelligence, who has always been, made everything, just as the Bible tells us. Yes, that means that we have faith that God who exists in eternity created everything, but it is not a blind faith like those who reject God. Our faith makes sense of what we observe, and science confirms it in many ways. 

In the New Testament Book of Romans we read: “For His (God’s) invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). 

Here we are told that if anyone does not believe in the infinite Creator God, they are without excuse, because God has made it obvious to everyone from just looking at what is seen that God the Creator exists! For example, when we look at cars, planes, computers, trains and buildings, we would never think that they just arrived here by chance. Matter just didn’t make those things! Intelligent people made them! However, trees, flowers, animals, and people are so much more complex than the things that man has made. In fact, a single cell (and we are made with trillions of them!) is more complex than anything man has made! And inside each cell God created a program, similar to a complex computer program in the DNA molecule to make the cell work and even make copies of itself. If it took intelligence to make simple things like cars, planes, computers, trains and buildings, what kind of intelligence did it take to make the first trees, flowers, animals and people, and then to also enable them to make copies of themselves? A much greater intelligence. In fact, an infinite intelligence—the God of the Bible! The God of creation! 

God made the first parents, Adam and Eve, and designed them to have children. When we look around the world today and see the trees, flowers, and animals, we need to understand God made the first trees, flowers and animals and also programed them to make copies of themselves. So the trees, flowers and animals are copies (descendants) of the original ones (“made after their kinds”) that God made. So we truly can say that God made all the trees, flowers, and animals as long as we understand that created the original ones and designed them to reproduce or make copies of their own kind year after year since the beginning. 

This is important, because as we come to the event of the Fall (Genesis 3) we must understand the world today has greatly changed from the way it was originally created. Now sin has affected everything, so in the present world, we are not looking at the world God originally made. More on that later. 

When you think about it, if we are amazed at the wonderful things man makes, we should be more amazed and give great glory to the One who made man and all things—the God of the Bible! We should kneel down and worship our infinite Creator. And we should recognize that we know almost nothing compared to what God knows. This should put things into perspective as we study God’s Word. 

CONCLUSION

I will end tonight with giving you four scientific facts seldom taught in our schools: 

1. The origin of life is unknown to science. The Law of Biogenesis observes that life only comes from life. Louis Pasteur proved scientifically that life does not, cannot come from non-life. 

2. Natural selection, the supposed basis of evolution, can only select from existing characteristics and does not produce any new genetic material. 

3. Mutations, said to be the source of new genetic material, are harmful to life and often lethal. Deliberately induced mutations in over 3,000 consecutive generations of fruit flies have failed to produce a better fruit fly, or to increase its’ viability—the ability to live and grow and survive. 

4. As Charles Darwin admitted, there is no actual evidence of any species having developed into another species!