Creation Day 3 - Genesis 1.9-13 - John MacArthur

8/13/2019 Creation Day 3 - Genesis 1.9-13 - John MacArthur

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"Creation Day 3"

Genesis 1:9-13

by

John MacArthur

All Rights Reserved

A co!y o" this #essage on cassette ta!e

#ay be obtained by calling 1-$00-%%-

GRA&'(

Let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 1. We

are continuing in a study of creation, theaccount of creation, the only authoritative

account of creation given in the first chapter of

the first book of the Bible, the book ofbeginnings, Genesis.

Let me read down through verse 1. !"n thebeginning God created the heavens and the

earth. #nd the earth was formless and void

and darkness was over the surface of the deepand the $pirit of God was moving over the

surface of the waters. %hen God said, 'Let

there be light,' and there was light. #nd Godsaw that the light was good and God separated

the light from the darkness. #nd God called

the light day and the darkness &e called night.

#nd there was evening and there wasmorning, one day. %hen God said, 'Let there

be an epanse in the midst of the waters and

let it separate the waters from the waters.' #ndGod made the epanse and separated the

waters which were below the epanse from the

waters which were above the epanse and it

was so. #nd God called the epanse heaven.#nd there was evening and there was

morning, a second day. %hen God said, 'Let

the waters below the heavens be gathered intoone place and let the dry land appear.' #nd it

was so and God called the dry land earth and

the gathering of the waters &e called seas andGod saw that it was good. %hen God said, 'Let


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the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding

seed and fruit trees bearing fruit after theirkind with seed in them on the earth,' and it was

so. #nd the earth brought forth vegetation,

plants yielding seed after their kind and the

trees bearing fruit with seed in them after theirkind and God saw that it was good. #nd there

was evening and there was morning, a third

day.!

(ow let me sum up what the Word of God in

this much of Genesis has taught us aboutorigins. With plain, understanding of the tet,

the inescapable account says that the eternal

God created out of nothing without preeisting

material the heavens and the earth, whichsimply means the universe. &e created the

universe as it is now in a se)uence of si solardays, the first three of which we *ust read. &ecapped &is creation, as we will find out, on

the sith day by creating man in &is own

image, an intelligent being with personality,with self+consciousness and cognition. %his

creation occurred in a period of one week of

normal days, about --- or so years ago. #ndthe entire creation was mature and aged at the

instant of its creation. eath did not eist, nor

any corrupting influence and the creation was

good. eath and corruption entered thecreation for the first time at the /all of #dam

and 0ve which is recorded in the third chapter

of Genesis. When they sinned in disobedienceto God death entered the scene, prior to that

there was no death. %hat means there could be

no evolutionary processes because nothingdied.

Later the surface of the earth was reshaped

drastically and dramatically by the great

universal /lood described later in the book ofGenesis. # flood which rearranged the earth

cataclysmicly as water rose literally above themountains coming down from above and

surging up from the bowels of the earth. #s a

result of that flood only eight people survived,(oah, his wife, his three sons and their wives

and the animals survived which were in the


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ark and from that the replenishing of the earth

occurred. %hat is the Genesis record.

#nd as " told you last week, science is not a

hermeneutic. $cience is not a principle for

interpreting Genesis or for that matter any

other passage of $cripture. #nd the accuracyof the Genesis account is no different than any

other biblical tet. #ll $cripture is given byinspiration of God. #ll $cripture is moved in

the hearts of men, produced in the hearts of

men by the working of the &oly $pirit so thatthey wrote down precisely what the $pirit

wanted them to say. #nd esus summed it up

when &e said in ohn 12312, !%hy Word is

truth.!

(ow from that foundation we must concludethat any form of evolution is a contradictionand a denial of the clear revelation of

$cripture, and " mean any form...whether it

comes from an atheistic evolutionist likeulian &uley, or whether it comes from a

theistic evolutionist like &ugh 4oss, any form

of evolution is a contradiction and denial ofthe clear revelation of $cripture which

indicates that somewhere around --- years

ago God created the entire universe as we

know it in si 56+hour days.

%here's only one source of the account of

origins and that is the Bible, the Word of God.#nd in particular and in specific, Genesis

chapter 1. #s " have been saying, there are no

scientific facts that necessarily contradict theGenesis creation account, rather all true

science supports the biblical creation teaching.

"t has to be that way because Genesis is true.

%herefore all true science is in support of the

Genesis account."t's a hard thing for people to admit thisbecause science for so long has reigned

supreme on the throne of contemporary

thinking. 0volution has been a given...in factit's become an absolute in our society. But it is

systematically coming apart at the seams. %he

more we know about the nature of the


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universe, the more we reali7e the utter

impossibility of any form of evolution...evento the degree, and this is an interesting source

to )uote, that 4obert 0. $mith, a member of

the western 8issouri affiliate of the #merican

9ivil Liberties :nion whom you would knowto be no friend of $cripture, says this, and "

)uote, !/or the past five years " have closely

followed creationist literature and haveattended lectures and debates on related issues.

Based solely on the scientific arguments pro

and con, " have been forced to conclude thatscientific creationism is not only a viable

theory but that it has achieved parody, if not

superiority over the normative theory of

biological evolution. %hat this should now bethe case is somewhat surprising, particularly in

view of what most of us were taught in

primary ad secondary school.! &e goes on, !"npractical terms, the past decade of intense

activity by scientific creationists has left most

evolutionist professors unwilling to debate thecreationist professors. %oo many of the

evolutionists have been publicly humiliated in

such debates by their own lack of eruditionand by the weakness of their theory,! end

)uote.

;aul #ckerman has written a book calledIt's aYoung World After All. #nd in it he says this,

some of you have been to isneyland, " can

tell. "n the book he says this, !Let me be blunton this matter. 0volutionists around the world

have had to learn the hard way that evolution

cannot stand up against creationism in any fairand impartial debate situation where the stakes

are the hearts and minds of intelligent,

undecided but nevertheless ob*ective and

open+minded audiences. 0perience will prove

that the same is true for the age issue as well.0volutionist's beliefs regarding the origin and

development of life cannot withstand thescrutiny of an informed opposition and neither

can evolutionists claim to the effect that the

universe has eisted for ten to twenty billionyears and the earth for 6.< billion years. %o

delay the collapse of widespread public


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acceptance of such claims, it will be necessary

for evolutionist scientists to carefully avoiddebate,! end )uote. %hey cannot survive a

debate and so they won't debate.

(ow there's an illustration after an illustration

about science, some facet of science thatsupports a young earth and a biblical account

of creation. "'ve tried to give you a few as wego along. &ere's one that " find somewhat

fascinating. 0very once in a while you see on

the weather report that there's some indicationof how many raindrops fell and it added up to

a tenth of an inch or an half an inch or three

inches or whatever. "t's not a very

sophisticated test that they do to determinethat. %hey *ust have a container with an open

top and when it rains they measure how muchwater is in the container. =ou can do thatscience yourself. "t rains a certain number of

raindrops and it fills up the can to a certain

level. %hey can then go out after it stoppedraining and tell how much it rained by

measuring the amount of water in the

container.

(ow it is possible by that simple method with

a slight modification in your procedure to turn

the rain gauge into a kind of clock. Let'sassume that we live in a location where it rains

continuously and rains at a known rate. When

we set the container outside under thoseconditions of continuous rain in a known rate,

we can therefore by measuring how much

water is in the can determine how much timehas gone by. ;retty obvious. $o that the can

with the water in it becomes a measure of

time. "t becomes a kind of clock. %he longer

the container has been eposed, the more

water is in it. %he more water is in it, thelonger it's been eposed. $o we can measure a

certain amount of time having gone by by theamount of water that's in the can. (ow " know

"'m not taing your intelligence with that, "

don't want to, " *ust want to give you a simpleillustration.


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#nd when you see the people in southern

9alifornia make a road through a mountainand they cut a wedge out of that mountain to

make a road and you look at the side of that

cut mountain you see various lines of

stratification, or when you go to the Grand9anyon and you see the ama7ing geological

stratification that has occurred there, you're

seeing what evolutionists assume has been thiscontinual building up of sediment for billions

and billions and billions of years.

(ow evolutionists believe this. they believe

that for billions of years this sediment has

been building up. But there are a number of

ways to pose problems to them, here's one that" find very interesting. $cientists can tell you

*ust about how regularly meteors shower theearth. %hey've measured that for a long, longtime. %hey can tell you how many meteors

burn up in space before they hit the earth, and

how many meteors generally, some verysmall, hit the earth each year. With the passage

of billions and billions of years and the

building up of sediment, it should be true thatthat sediment has within it meteors at every

interval. "f the continuity and the perpetuity

and the uniformity of meteor life is e)ual to

the continuity, perpetuity and uniformity ofeverything else in this theory of uniformity,

then this earth has been being showered with

meteors for 6.< billion, or however old it is.#nd so you should be able to go down the

strata, you should be able to go down the

geologic column and find meteors all throughthat column, like the rain shower, therefore

you could measure the age of the earth.

"nterestingly enough this is what the data

shows. # survey of all literature on theoccurrence of meteors in sedimentary rock

failed to turn up one single case of a meteoritebeing found anywhere in any geologic

column. %he meteorite clock indicates we

have a very young earth...all the meteors areon the top.


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;hilip ohnson has written a fascinating book

calledDarwin on Trial. "f you're interested inmore scientific information, read that book, he

marshals abundant scientific evidence against

evolution, as do many, many other writers.

(ow that's *ust sort of a little bit of anintroductory tidbit about the science side of

things. " want to mention one other thing that's

a biblical issue before we look at day three.

%he )uestion always comes up..at what point

were angels created> %hey're not mentioned inGenesis 1, so how do we know when angels

are created>

Well neither Genesis nor for that matter anyother tet of $cripture states specifically when

angelic beings were created. What is definiteis that they are creatures and they were createdand they did have a beginning. %hey are

immortal. ?nce created they live forever. But

only the triune God is eternal, withoutbeginning and without ending. #ngels are

created beings.

(ow some have suggested that they had to be

created on the sith day because it was on the

sith day that God created man and angels,

according to &ebrews 1316 were created to beministering spirits sent forth to minister for

them who will be the heirs of salvation, and

since they were created to serve those whowere human and who receive salvation

therefore they would have been created along

with them on the sith day. " find that a prettyweak argument frankly, because that's not all

angels do. %hey don't *ust minister to the

saints. "n fact, if you go into heaven in

4evelation 6 and < you find them

doing...what>...worshiping God.;rimarily and throughout all eternity they willbe worshipers of God. $o it would be fair to

the purpose of angels which is primarily to

worship God to associate them in the createdorder with some point at which they would

begin to praise and worship God.

%hey...they're definitely seen in the book of


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4evelation worshiping God at the

consummation of history. #nd it seems to melikely that they could well have started

worshiping God at the beginning of history.

"n fact, there is one passage of $cripture to

which we can turn. "'ll *ust refer to it, you canlook at it another time. ob @ verses 6 to

2...ob @ verses 6 to 2. #nd it tells us that theangels were present when the foundations of

the earth were laid and were re*oicing over it.

$o it could well have been that that was dayone if the foundations of the earth means that

original formless void earth that had not yet

been shaped and refined into its final form, if

it means the foundations in the sense ofelements and the components that were there,

but as of yet not shaped into their final form,then the angels would have been created atthat time. ;salm 1-6, write that down, ;salm

1-6 verses 5 through < speaks of the shining

of God's light during the original creativeprocess and mentions the angels *ust before

referring to laying the foundations of the earth.

(ow if the shining of God's light refers to

verse , !Let there be light,! which occurred

on day one and it was followed by the

foundations of the earth and it means thereforethe shaping of the earth that occurs actually on

day three, it could well be that the angels were

created after that shining light and before thefoundations of the earth, meaning the shaping

of the earth rather than its unformed character,

the shaping which took place, as we will see,on day three.

$o you can take your choice. But " believe that

the angels would have been created by God

either prior to the full creation of the earth thatis described on the first day of creation so that

they could worship God for doing that, or theywere certainly created before the shaping of

that earth on day three when the land was

separated from the waters as we read.

(ow the )uestion of when they were created

obviously isn't important enough for God to


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include it. What is important is to know that

they are created by God. %hey, as it says, inthe (icene 9reed are the product of the creator

of all things, visible...that would be the

material world...and invisible...that would be

the spirit world of angels.(ow let's return to the tet of Genesis chapter

1. " think it's fair to assume at this point theangels have been created and they are there

praising God and worshiping God for the

wonder of what they are beholding as &e isbringing &is creation into magnificent and

beautiful shape. Aerse 1 gives the overview,

!"n the beginning God created the heavens and

the earth,! that's simply an overview ofeverything. Aerse 5 then goes back to describe

how &e did that. ?bviously it includes all ofthe elements and all of the components, enihilo out of nothing &e made all the

necessary materials from which to shape &is

universe. #nd then there came the earth inits...its preliminary condition, formless and

void, that is it was chaotic, it was not yet

pulled into the order which would sustain lifeand it was not yet inhabited. #nd God then

creating that earth surrounded by darkness

adds light to it in verse . #nd so you have

this unformed, uninhabitable earth, a kind of acomposite of elements not yet put together in

their final form, and you have that surrounded

by darkness until the light is created thatsurrounds it.

#nd then on day two starting in verse , Godcreates the heavens. %he earth is engulfed in

water, as we remember, clearly indicated to us

in verse 5. %he earth is engulfed in water, God

slices into that and sends some of that water

upwards and it seems to me best to understandthat that water goes all the way up beyond the

stellar heavens because the space between theupper water and the lower water is called the

epanse or space. "t's called heaven, and it's

where the light is and it's where later on thestellar bodies, the celestial bodies, the sun, the

moon, the stars, are all placed. $o part of that


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water goes to the infinite ends of the universe

in some fashion, we don't know eactly how toeplain all of that. (othing more than what's

in Genesis is a *ustification for being

dogmatic. But God then leaves the earth still

engulfed in water but &e has created a heaven,that heaven then is filled with light when you

come to the end of day two.

%he earth is still uninhabited, uninhabitable

and not in its final form until day three. Before

we go to day three " *ust want to sticksomething in here for your thinking. ?n the

day that God created the epanse there was

this tremendous cataclysmic movement of

water coming off the earth and *ust literallymoving to the etremities of the infinity of

heaven. %his great epanse that we know asspace, the great epanse that we know asheaven takes its shape. #nd it came into being,

*ust imagine the speed with which the whole

of the infinite heavens were created. # littlelater when we talk about stars, we're going to

talk about how vast outer space is, it *ust

staggers your mind. #nd all of that came intobeing instantaneously, the full vast universe.

$cience has come to the place where they have

to recogni7e this. %here are scientific clues,they call it the !Big Bang! theory. We like to

call it the !Big God! theory. We know it was a

big God. %hey think it was a big bang. World8aga7ine records this...this was the 8ay 1

issue this years, " *ust read it. $cientific

evidence for the Big Bang becomes more andmore theological according to 9osmic

"nflation 9osmology. %he idea is that

somehow the whole universe *ust went like

that....

# 8r. Greg 0asterbrook>C eplains, )uote,

!%he entire universe popped out of a pointwith no content and no dimensions, essentially

epanding instantaneously to cosmological

si7e. %his is now being taught at $tanford, at8assachusetts "nstitute of %echnology, and

other top science schools. %his eplanation of


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the beginning of the universe bears haunting

similarity to the traditional theological idea ofcreation e nihilo, out of nothing.! 8r.

0asterbrook )uotes one of the world's top

astronomers, #llen>C $andage>C of the

?bservatories of the 9arnegie "nstitution assaying, )uote, !%he Big Bang can only be

understood as a miracle,! end )uote.

ay two was a big bang by a big God who

instantaneously created the universe. (ow we

have an unformed earth. We have light. #ndwe have a vast universe. #nd we come to day

three in verse D. !%hen God said, 'Let the

waters below the heavens,! now that would be

the waters that are on the earth still, the otherwaters have gone above the heavens by

contrast. #nd clearly that language indicatesthat. !Let the waters below the heavens begathered into one place and let the dry land

appear. #nd it was so.! (ow God on day three

is going to shape the earth.

"t begins, verse D does, as always in the

Genesis account, !%hen God said...! =ou see itagain in verse 11, !%hen God said...! #nd

verse 16, !%hen God said...! #nd verse 5-,

!%hen God said...! #nd so it has been in the

past, verse 5, !%hen God said,! verse , !%henGod said.! 0verything comes into being from

nothing by God simply speaking it into

eistence.

?n the first day God divides light from

darkness. ?n the second day God divides thewater below from the water above. ?n the

third day God divides land from sea. !Let the

waters below the heavens...! %hat clearly is

the water that still remains on the earth. %he

water above has gone into the epanse ofheavens. %he waters now still remain on the

earth. Back in verse 5 the earth is covered withthe water...the surface of the deep, it's called,

and the surface of the waters. $till the earth is

engulfed in this water. Beneath the water is thesolid matter hidden beneath the waters

covering the earth.


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God then commands these waters that cover

the earth to be collected or gathered into oneplace. %he $eptuagint uses the word

!synagogue,! a gathering place. #ll of the

water surrounding the earth is now gathered

into one place and at the same time verse Dsays, !God said, '#nd let the dry land appear,'

and it was so.! $o God separates the water

from the dry land. %his is *ust a simplestatement, a simple sentence, but can you even

begin to fathom the cataclysm that occurred

when that was spoken by God> #ll of asudden the material that is in its unformed

condition, buried under the depths of the

surface sea starts to move. #nd all of those

necessary elements start to work to produceland, to push up to create the surface of land.

%he water moves, gathering itself into one

place. %remendous chemical reactions getunder way as the elements combine with each

other to form the comple of minerals, the

comple of rock and soil, making up the solidearth as to its crust and its mantle and its core.

ust a staggering act of creation.

&enry 8orris writes, !Great earth movements

got under way. $urfaces of solid earth

appeared above the waters and an intricate

network of channels and reservoirs opened upin the crust to receive the waters retreating off

the rising continent.! 9ontinent rises...it may

well have been only one great continent, laterdivided into multiple continents by the

cataclysm of the breaking up of the tectonic

plates during the /lood when the fountains ofthe deep broke open the continent and pushed

it into its current form. But at this time the

continent, perhaps only one continent, rises

and all the water is gathered into one place.

%his is an incredible thing. %he water isassembled not only in one great sea, but

assembled certainly into numerous distinctbasins. %he gathering of the waters is a plural

term. %here were multiple waters. %hey were

all gathered so that they touched each other inthe sense that they were all connected. %here

would have been underground reservoirs,


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there would have been underground tubes,

streams and rivers and springs and fountainsbut all connected together. #ll the water

flowing everywhere in the earth

interconnected.

#nd the condition would not be, as " said, thesame as our post+flood seas. 0verything

changed at the time of the /lood. But Godcreated the seas and &e created the dry land.

(ow " want to show you that this is the cleartestimony of $cripture that God created all of

this instantaneously. Look at ob @. %his is

worth a look because "'m going to take you in

to something that is fascinating to me. ob @verse @, now the Lord is talking to ob here

and, believe me, the Lord is not anevolutionist. ob @3@, the Lord asks ob, *ustreminding ob that he ought to keep his mouth

shut. =ou know, in verse 6 before we get to

verse @, &e says, !Where were you when " laidthe foundation of the earth>! %hat's not

evolution, folks, that's creation. Where were

you> !Where were you when the morningstars, the angels, sang together an all the sons

of God shouted for *oy in creation>! %hat's

that tet that indicates that they were there at

creation. "n verse @, !/or who enclosed the seawith doors, when bursting forth it went out

from the womb, when " made a cloud its

garment and thick darkness and swaddlingbandE and " placed boundaries on it and " set

up bolt and doors and " said, '%hus far you

shall come but no farther and here shall yourproud waves stop.'! Where were you, ob,

when " created the sea and " bounded it with

shore lines and " told the sea...=ou can't go

beyond that, that's your limit. "t's a reference

to God's creative work as described on daythree in Genesis.

%urn to ;salm 26. ;salm 26, first of all, and

verse 1, here the psalmist is etolling God

and in verse 15 he talks about God being hisFing from of old, his ancient Fing whose

works, deeds of deliverance in the midst of the


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earth...who works deeds of deliverance in the

midst of the earth. %hen in verse 1, !%houdidst divide the sea by %hy strength...%hou

didst divide the sea by %hy strength.! "n other

words, it was =ou that created the sea. #nd he

adds in verse 1 this most interestingstatement, !%hou didst break the heads of the

sea monsters in the waters.!

Go to ;salm 1-6, "'ll come back to that in a

minute, but ;salm 1-6 verse 2. &e says in

verse < &e established the earth on itsfoundations so that it would totter forever and

ever. 9an you imagine a lopsided world going

around like this...> #nd we'd all be going

around the same way, *umping off a few feetevery rotation. %hat's called the science of

isostasy, that the earth is in perfect balance.%he heavier materials of the earth sunk to thecenter, the lighter ones to the outer part and it

is perfectly balanced.

Aerse , !%hou didst cover it with the deep as

with a garment,! that's eactly what Genesis 1

says, !%he whole of the earth was coveredwith water, the waters were even above the

mountains. But at %hy rebuke...verse 2...they

fled. #t the sound of %hy thunder they hurried

away, the mountains rose, the valleys sank tothe place which %hou didst establish for them.

%hou did set a boundary that they may not

pass over, that they may not return to coverthe earth.! 9ertainly that could refer to the

creation work of God, it could also refer to

what God did after the /lood had engulfed theearth. " think " lean toward the fact that it

refers to creation because of the description of

&im establishing the earth in verse < and

covering the earth with water in verse as

with a garment. " think this is creative contetand the language of the psalmist is describing

what happened when God drew the landtogether and separated the sea.

Aerse 1- continues the same creative contet.!&e sent forth springs in the valleys, they flow


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between the mountains,! and so that again is a

creative statement.

"n ;roverbs chapter @ and notice this is all in

the wisdom literature, in ob and ;salms and

;roverbs, it has a certain poetic design. But in

;roverbs chapter @ verse 52, it's talking aboutwisdom, wisdom personified here. #nd verse

52, actually you can go back to &is everlastingnature, God at the beginning possessed

wisdom, verse 55, from everlasting &e

possessed wisdom. Before the mountains weresettled, before the hills were brought forth,

verse 5


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monster that rebelled against God. %here were

apparently some ancient myths among thepagans that when the gods were designing the

world and wanting to provide land and the sea,

there was some great rebellious sea monster

they called 4ahab who was trying to preventGod from separating the land from the sea,

who wanted the sea to overrun the land. #nd

God had to confine the sea and confine thissea monster that was wanting to rebel. #nd so

God in defining the borders of the sea and the

shore line in legend had to defeat this greatmonster known as 4ahab who wanted to fight

against God. %hat was the legend. %hat is not

in the Genesis account but that was the legend

that there was some monster trying to preventGod from separating land and sea.

"saiah ! #nd again, here is this same mention

of 4ahab again, this...this sort of paganmythical sea monster.

=ou see it also in ;salm...one more and "'ll

leave you alone on this point, but " think it's aninteresting point, ;salm @D verse 1-, !%hou

%hyself didst crush 4ahab like the one who

was slain.!

(ow here's the way it goes. %he Gentiles or

the people around...wouldn't be Gentiles atthat point since "srael wasn't necessarily

defined that early, although it would have

been by ;roverbs times, but the pagan people

around had invented these creation myths in

which the gods were attempting to separateland from sea and there was resistance by this

great sea monster who was fighting topreserve his sovereignty and to be able to

overrun the land and drown whoever he

wanted to when he wanted to. %he great godswere able to defeat the sea monster.


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sea, but this was not done by suppressing the

will of the sea which sought to rebel againstGod, the God of heaven. God simply said,

!Let the waters be gathered together, and it

was so.!

" said all that *ust to take a shot at those criticsof Genesis who want to turn this tet into

legend, or myth, or give it some unfoundedpoetic license. %he writer of Genesis

meticulously avoided making any use

whatsoever of a well+known legend that evenappears in other wisdom literature, and is even

referred to by the prophet "saiah. &e using it

metaphorically to speak of anything that reeks

rebellion and havoc. %here was no such battle.God said it and it was so.

Back to Genesis 1. $o verse D, !Let the watersbelow the heavens be gathered into one place,!

that would include subterranean lakes,

subterranean rivers and streams and springsand wells all interconnected. #nd the land

probably in one great massive continent. #nd

by the way, *ust as a footnote, if you take thecontinents of the earth and push them all

together, it's almost a perfect fit, almost as if

they cracked and split apart.

Aerse 1- then tells us that God named what

&e had made. !&e called the dry land erets,

earth, and &e called the gatherings of thewatersyamim>C, seas. #nd God saw that it

was good.! "t was good.

"t had been so, &e said back in the very

beginning that &e created light and there was

light. &e said &e created heaven and it was so.

#nd &e created in verse D dry land and seasand it was so. But now &e says it was good...it

was good. Why> Because it was nowhabitable...it was now habitable. ?h the lightwas good in and of itself, according to verse 6.

But the earth now came good. #nd then the

plants, verse 15, were good. #nd verse 1@, thebodies in heaven were good. #nd verse 51,

everything &e made in the sea and in the air

was good. #nd verse 5


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good. #nd verse 1, &e made man and &e

looked at all of it and it was very good. %here'sno sin there, folks. %here's no death. "t's *ust

good.

$o by the time you get to where we are in

verse 1- you have the tripartite universe.%ripartite meaning three partsE earth, sea,

heaven...that's the created universe. #nd it wasgood and God could say it was good because it

had reached the point where it could contain

and sustain life. #nd so God moved into thesecond phase of creation on day two, verse 11,

!%hen God said, 'Let the earth sprout

vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees

bearing fruit after their kind with seed in themon the earth,' and it was so.! #gain " remind

you it came because God said it, &e spoke itinto eistence, verse 11, always andunmistakably God speaks it into eistence.

#nd this is vegetation. Aerse 11, !Let the earthsprout vegetation.! (ow " think that's a

general category and there are two parts to that

category. %here are plants, verse 11, and trees.Aegetation is divided into two parts...plants

and trees.

own to verse 5D, God said, !Behold, " havegiven you...speaking to man...every plant

yielding seed that is on the surface of all the

earth, and every tree which has fruit yieldingseed it shall be food for you and for every

beast.! $o God divides the vegetation into two

parts...plants and trees.

#nd what is the difference> %he difference is

the plant has the seed in it, and the tree has the

seed in its fruit. %hat is clearly indicated inverse 11. ;lants yielding seed and fruit trees

bearing fruit with seed in them. %hat's thedistinction. #ll the vegetation which itselfcontains the seed would come under the

plants, all the vegetation which in its fruit

contains the seed would come under the trees.#s soon as the inanimate material was ready

to sustain life, without delay life in its simplest


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form was created and intended to be the food

for all of the higher life yet to be made.

(ow " want you to notice that first of all in

describing the plants &e says of them in verse

11, !;lants yielding seed.! &e says it again in

verse 15, !;lants yielding seed.! #nd again inverse 5D, !;lants yielding seed.! &e continues

to repeat that feature to let us know, and this isso important, that the vegetation was capable

of...what>...what>...reproduction. %hat's the

whole point. &e made full+grown, fully+mature vegetation with seed in it that could be

dispersed. ?ne of the great, great wonders of

the world is the science of seed dispersal. "

watched an entire video on that *ust absolutelyastonishing to see how God designed seed

dispersal, not the least of which isaccomplished by birds in your own yard,sometimes even attempted on your car and on

your head. ;re+fertili7ed seed dispersal is very

efficient.."'ll leave it at that.

%here are a number of other ways. ?ne of the

wonderful works of the wind is seed dispersal.%he whole science of seed dispersal is *ust

absolutely phenomenal. ;lants were made then

by God not as seeds, but as full+grown plants

containing seeds that could then multiply.%hat's the way the whole of creation was

made, and " remind you of that again. "t was

made mature. When man was created hewasn't created as an infant, had to grow. &e

was created as a full+grown man. 0verything

was created full+grown.

(ow this brings up an interesting point, and "

think you'll find this also fascinating. %here

was then plants made by God which had seed

in them. Go over to chapter 5 verse < for aminute, cause if " don't eplain this somebody

will ask me. Aerse 6 talks about the account ofthe creation of the earth. %he account of the

creation of the heavens and the earth, when

they were created in the day of the Lord, Godmade earth and heaven. (ow verse


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plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the

Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth andthere was no man to cultivate the ground.!

%hat's an interesting verse.

&ow can you say...how does this fit> (o shrub

of the field was yet in the earth...well, therewas a time when there weren't any

shrubs...that was a brief time when the earthwas shaped and it was..." don't know how

much time. "n a 56+hour day God waited after

shaping the earth, separating land from the seabefore &e put the plants on it. But there was

no shrub of the field. %here was a time when

there was no shrub of the field in the earth and

no plant of the earth had yet sprouted.

=ou could say, !Well sure, that was prior tothe second creative act on day three.! But theproblem with that is the reason is eplained in

verse Well,

as " said, if you're talking about day one andtwo, there were no plants on the earth. %here

were no plants in the field, no shrub of the

field. But how does that connect with the factthat the Lord hadn't sent rain and &e was

watering the earth with a mist> #nd how does

it connect with the fact there was no man tocultivate the ground> %hat's pretty specific

language.

Let me tell you the right answer. %he firstword in &ebrew in verse "ncluding man who was

created on the sith day. Aerse 5 of chapter 5says God rested on the seventh day. $o we're

already past the seventh day. But there's no

siahof the field. #nd there's no asab>C yet


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because there's no rain and there's no

cultivation.

When did rain come> When did rain come>

When did it rain the first time> %he /lood.

#nd when was the first time anybody

cultivated anything> #fter...what>...after#dam's sin. $o what you have here is not a

description of something during creation, but adescription of something after creation but

before the /all and before the rain. #nd you

look a little more closely, the wordsiahandwe need to find a usage for this that makes

sense. Go over to verse 1@ of chapter . "n

chapter verse 1@ you have, of course in

chapter sin and the /all, and the curse, nowwhat God did when &e cursed #dam, verse 12

toward the end of the verse, !9ursed is theground because of you in toil you shall eat ofit all the days of your life.! (ow look at verses

1@ and 1D. !Both thorns and thistles it shall

grow for you.! Aerse 1@, !#nd you shall eatthe plants of the field. By the sweat of your

face you shall eat bread till you return to the

ground because from it you were taken for youare dust and to dust you shall return.! own in

verse 5, the Lord sent them out of 0den to till

the ground, to cultivate the ground. %horns

and thistles are synonymous withsiah. #ndplants with asab. %he asabof the field would

be the wheat and barley and other cultivated

when man began to till the ground. #nd thesiahof the field would be the thorns and

thistles that grow themselves and they

grow...they grow, " guess you could say, aspunishment wherever the soil isn't properly

tilled. #nd they grow particularly well when it

rains. &e's describing this wonderful world

that was watered by a mist over the surface of

the ground. "t was that world to which Godbrought man.

Well let's go back to chapter 1. %here were

plants, edible ones, of course, that yielded

seed, verse 11, and fruit trees whose seed wasin their fruit, bearing fruit after their kind with


23/27

seed in them on the earth, and it was so. $o

you had those two categories of vegetation.

ust one very important note, catch this little

phrase, it's repeated over and over, verse 11,

!#fter their kind.! Aerse 15, !#fter their

kind.! ?nce in the middle of the verse, towardthe end of the verse, !#fter their kind.! 8ay "

encourage you a little bit> %hat phrase isrepeated ten times in the first chapter of

Genesis...ten times. %he &ebrew word for

!kind! is min, m+i+n. What it does is indicatethe limitations of variation. # plant can only

bring forth something of its own kind. # tree

can only bring forth something of its own

kind. "t only has the capacity to function onthe basis of the genetic code that is in it. (ow

whether in the &ebrew !kind! corresponds toour word !genus! or our word !species! or ourword !family! or our word !phyla,! or

whatever you want to use. #nd "'m

remembering words from my college class andhave no idea what they mean. But whatever

the &ebrew word minmeans, whatever it

corresponds to in 0nglish, the one thing it doesdo is eliminate any possibility of an

evolutionary process because whatever the

plant is and whatever the tree is, it can only

reproduce after its own kind. %o say that allliving things come from a common ancestry is

refuted by the ten+times repeated phrase !after

its kind...after its kind.!

" used to illustrate this with college students

by talking about amino acids. " mean, it getsso individual that you're made up of amino

acids and your body, no matter what you put

in it will only reproduce more of you. "n fact,

if you put too much in it, it will reproduce

more of you than you care to see. But aminoacids are called the building blocks of life.

(ow you could decide that you were going toeat fried chicken the rest of your life. %wenty

years from now you would not cluck. (o

combination of chicken amino acids andhuman amino acids will produce Big Bird. #ll


24/27

you will ever produce is more of you no

matter what goes in. %hat's after their kind.

"n the wonderful resurrection chapter of 1

9orinthians 1< verse @, God gives it a

body...well, go back a little bit, !%hat which

you sow doesn't come to life unless it dies,! inverse , verse 2, !%hat which you sow, you

do not sow the body which is to be but a baregrain or a seed, perhaps of wheat or something

else.! !God gives it a body *ust as &e wished

and to each of the seeds a body of its own. #llflesh isn't the same. %here's one flesh of men,

another flesh of beast, another flesh of birds,

another of fish.! #nd God is saying there are

distinctions. %here are designs beyond whichany living organism cannot pass.

%he meaning of seed can be easily grasped.$eed is clearly the ability to reproduce a form

of life in its own likeness. !"mplanted,! says

&enry 8orris, !in each created organism wasa seed programmed to enable the continuing

replication of that same organism. %he modern

understanding of the etreme compleities ofthe so+called (# molecule and the genetic

code contained in it has reinforced the biblical

teaching of the stability of kinds. 0ach type of

organism has its own uni)ue structure of the(# and can only specify the reproduction of

that same kind. %here is a tremendous amount

of variational potential within each kind,facilitating the generation of distinct

individuals and even of many varieties within

the kind, but nevertheless precluding theevolution of new kinds. # great deal of

hori7onal variation is easily possible but no

vertical changes.!

" mean, look around, look at all the differentlooking people here. # lot of different looking

people, all people. %he eact limits of kindmay be a little more challenging. We don't

eactly what Genesis meant but we do know

limits were set. #nd we understand that.?rganisms were to stay within their own kind.

%he biggest thing we could say is birds remain


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birds, and animals remain animals, and fish

remain fish, and reptiles remain reptiles, andinsects remain insects. #nd that itself halts the

entire evolutionary process. %hat's how God

created.

$o we have already talked about genetics andhow genetics guarantees that no evolution can

occur. "t is absolutely impossible. 8ichaelBehe, whom " mentioned, who wrote

Darwin's Black Box, not a 9hristian but

literally )uestioning everything aboutevolution, devotes two chapters in his book to

showing that as more is learned about the

ama7ing compleity of cellular structure, the

theory of chemical evolution is becomingmore and more impossible. &e says, !%his

stuff is the pre+biotic chemist's nightmare.!

$o what do you have> Go back to the tet. "n

Genesis 1311 and 15 you have the origin all

vegetable life and you have not only its origin,but you have its orderly continuity fied by

means of certain seeds and kinds that

perpetuate that life. (ever has a plant evolvedinto something higher, only on the $ci+/i

channel...not in reality. "n fact, if you study

mutations and change in genetics, it's always

negative...it is always negative. "t is alwaysdownward. %he study of fruit flies has been

something evolutionists have given their life

to because it...fruit flies have such a short lifespan they can observe it over many

generations. #nd the theory is you can see

enough generations to see change, to see theevolutionary process taking place. %he only

problem is they take these fruit flies and in

order to make them mutate rapidly, they

bombard them with radiation, they radiate

them. #nd radiation, eposure to heat,chemicals and radiation can create mutations,

we know that. %hat is true, we understand thateven in the chemistry of radiation that's used

with regard to cancer. "t has the ability to

cause cells to be killed and to change. Butmutations do not create new structures. =ou

may have in the study of fruit flies crumpled


26/27

wings, oversi7ed wings, and undersi7ed wings,

you may have double sets of wings, but youdon't have a new kind of wing. (or does the

fruit fly become a honey bee. 8utations, by

the way, are very rare. #nd this is fortunate

because they are virtually all harmful. %hey alldecline. #nd in most cases mutations never

even survive. %hat's why evolution has been

called !fact+free science.! %hought you wouldlike that one.

$o, what are we learning then> Genesis 131 to15 shows us that the intelligent agent is the

living God who on the third day of creation

separated the land from the sea, caused plant

life to sprout from the land. %wo categories,plants which have their seed in them, trees

which have their seeds in the fruit that comesfrom them...they therefore are able to replicatethemselves throughout the end of time as long

as a given species eists. God looked at it all

in verse 15 and saw that it was good. #nd thenGod signs off again in verse 1, !#nd there

was evening and there was morning, a third

day.!

%here was ereband there was boer. %here

was a 56+hour day, that is so clear. %hose

terms, evening and morning, are used morethan a hundred times in the ?ld %estament and

they always refer to a 56+hour day. God did it

on the third day.

Let me close. ob 5 verse 2, God's the ob*ect

of this, the sub*ect of it, !&e stretches out thenorth over the empty space,! what a statement

&e stretches out the north over the empty

space. !&e hangs the earth on nothing. &e

wraps up the waters in &is clouds and the

cloud does not burst under them. &e obscuresthe face of the full moon and spreads &is

cloud over it. &e has inscribed a circle on thesurface of the waters,! that's the hori7on of the

earth, !and the boundary of light and darkness.

%he pillars of heaven tremble and are ama7edat &is rebuke. &e )uieted the sea with &is

power and by &is understanding &e shattered


27/27

4ahab, by &is breath the heavens are cleared

and &is hand has pierced the fleeing serpent.Behold, these..." love this...are the fringes of

&is ways and how faint a word we hear of

&im, but &is mighty thunder, who can

understand>!When God..he's talking about rain...and when

God breaks into the darkness with light andrain and storms and lightning and fury and all

of this, we're *ust hearing a faint sound, a faint

indication of &is immense incomprehensiblethunder. We're only looking at the fringes of

&is ways. What a God we have

/ather, we thank =ou again for the Wordwhich gives light in this most important and

urgent area of creation. %hank =ou for thistremendous portion of $cripture and may weworship =ou all the more for the greatness of

=our power, who call these things into

eistence which were not. =ou are the creator,=ou are our Lord and $avior and our great

4edeemer and our friend, a friend to sinners.

What a glorious truth that is. %hank=ou...thank =ou. #men.

H 1DD2 Grace to =ou

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Creation Day 3 - Genesis 1.9-13 - John MacArthur

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