“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Genesis 1:1.
I was taught by Dr S B Cooke in the Homiletics class back in 1965, that the introduction to a sermon was most important. It could mean the capturing and holding a person’s attention or the turning of it away never to recapture it.
These are the first words of God’s inspired, infallible revelation to mankind! We surely must acknowledge that they must have been wisely chosen and of great importance!
I. I THINK THAT THE FIRST THING I WOULD HAVE YOU NOTE IS THAT THE LORD WOULD HAVE US UNDERSTAND HOW CREATION CAME INTO EXISTENCE!
1. The source of all things is not left to man’s speculation but is revealed clearly to us.
God made all things out of nothing. ‘Ex Nihilo’. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear,” Hebrews 11:3. Man claims that science supports ‘Evolution’! This but one of the many lies underlying Evolution. A scientific fact is something that has been witnessed and seen to be so. There were no witnesses to the ‘beginning’ of all things. Evolution is a mere theory, a theory unsupported by science! Dr Leonard Harrison Matthews [1901-1986] in the Introduction to an edition of Darwin's Origin of Species, states that Evolution is but a theory! (Refuted: 2 Laws of Thermodynamics)
2. Rejecting God’s truth has resulted in the wildest, maddest, most foolish speculations.
Mad as they are, these theories are eagerly grasped and God’s truth rejected by poor, fallen, sinful man! Notions of ‘Evolution’ did not begin with Charles Darwin in the 19th Century. Various forms of man’s alternative to God’s revelation may be seen in the records of heathendom, ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese and Islamic thinkers! There is an abundance of unanswered and unanswerable publications for any interested person to study in order to see the utter folly of evolution. ‘In Six Days’ - 50 scientists’ testimony in support of the Bible- (https://answersingenesis.org/answers/books/in-six-days/).
(Sound of an Alarm website has much material on the subject).
3. The whole controversy is but the devil seeking to deny God’s Truth.
“When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it,” John 8:44. Every lie has its birth of the devil. “The Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world,” Revelation 12:9. 2 Cor 4:4.
II. BEFORE THE ‘BEGINNING OF CREATION’ GOD BROUGHT INTO BEING SOMETHING OF GREAT IMPORTANCE!
There was something that ‘began’ before the ‘beginning’ in our text! It was something that concerns many here and which has its origins before the beginning of creation.
I refer to God’s wonderful plan of the redemption of His people.
1. God chose a people before the creation of the world.
“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love,” Ephesians 1:4.
See John 10:3-4, 14-16, 26-27.
2. God entered a covenant with His Son whereby that people would be saved from their sins.
“And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” Revelation 13:8. John 10:11, 15.
3. The outcome of that plan is an eternal home in glory.
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” Matthew 25:34.
III. THE CREATION WE SEE TODAY WILL BE RENEWED BY GOD’S POWER AND MADE FIT AS THE ETERNAL HOME FOR ALL THOSE WHO ARE ‘NEW CREATURES IN CHRIST’!
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea,” Revelation 21:1.
1. Great White Throne of Judgment marks the end of the old creation.
Rev 20:11-15.
2. The renewal of creation.
2 Peter 3:10. Foreshadowed in the flood of Noah’s day, verses 6-7. Rainbow back then symbolised that world would never be flooded again. Another rainbow, Rev 4:1-3, 10-17, symbolises the eternal state.
3. Then shall the purpose of God in creation be fulfilled.
Rev 21:2-8.
This has long been the hope of God’s people, Isaiah 65:17.