Now as we begin this first program we trust that as we open the Word that you will learn, and grow in the Grace and knowledge, which is why the Lord has left us here. Now let’s just get right into the meat of the Word of God, and since we’re going to be following a format of "Through the Bible" as our program title indicates, we’ll be starting in the Book of Genesis, but before we start looking at the Scriptures which we will probably do in our next program, for this lesson today I just want to give an overview of the plan of the ages that the Almighty Triune God precipitated sometime way back in eternity past. That’s when, according to Acts chapter 2, the Triune God met in counsel, and with the foreknowledge of God, set everything in motion.

Of course the beauty of Bible study is to see that God as Sovereign as He is, nevertheless let men and nations exercise their free will and yet here we are as close as we can tell nearly 6000 years from the creation of man’s beginning. Also everything since that time has fallen right in place according to God’s timetable. Now how He does that without making human beings simply robots is beyond our understanding, but it’s so factual, and we can see it. Everything that was prophesied concerning His first coming was all fulfilled to the last jot and tittle. Everything that has been more or less prophesied concerning the end time, we can now see that these prophecies are falling into place. And it’s all according to His timetable, and yet He has never made man or governments just robots.

So as we consider the subject matter in this half hour we want to look at the overall scheme of things as God laid it out from eternity past beginning with the creation of man. Now I don’t like to get involved with controversy to the origin of the universe. I always say, so what. What difference does it make, because the main thing we have to understand is at sometime in the past, "God created it out of nothing" and we’ll be covering that in the next lesson.

At this time I’m going to put a timeline on the chalkboard, and I’ve been doing this now for the 20 some years that I’ve been teaching. I also want to explain why I prefer a chalkboard, and why I put information on the timeline as we teach rather than using transparencies, overheads, and some of the other technologies. Way back in my college days, if I had a professor who would write the things he was teaching on the chalkboard as he taught, then I could identify with it, and could write it in my notes and could remember it. On the other hand I could look at something that was pre-prepared and laid out on a note page for me, and when test time came I didn’t know it. So I’m still using that same old format, that when I put it on the board, I want you to possibly put it on your own note page. I think I personally have lead more completely indifferent, and ungodly (no sign of God in their life) people from that kind of background to a knowledge of salvation using this timeline than any other one thing.

I remember years ago, a gentlemen came up to my ranch, and it was at the end of a long day of ranching. I got off my tractor and he was waiting for me. He had a lot of questions, so I took him into the house and set a cup of coffee in front of him, I ask him, "Well where are you coming from? What are you thinking?" And I’ll never forget the question he asked me, and I’ve said many, many times, that I wish more people would ask that same question, and it relates to the biggest problem in Christianity and the world today. His question was, "Who in the world is Jesus Christ?" You see, the world doesn’t really know who He is. In our study of the Corinthian letters show how He is above every name. He is above everything that has ever been named or created. And one day He’s going to defeat the final enemy of mankind, death itself. But it’s the same Jesus Christ that created the universe.

Remember as we lay out this timeline it brings the whole Bible into focus, so I would encourage you to learn to use this timeline. Many people have shared with me, "this timeline is what got them interested, this is what began to make sense out of what the Bible is saying." So I’m going to go over to the very left hand end of the timeline and begin. And remember this timeline will show the unfolding of human history which is God’s term for His story.

We’ll start back here with the creation of Adam and Eve at approximately 4004 BC, and we’ll just keep moving on up through time. As you can see I already have the cross out here in about the middle of the timeline, so I always like to go to about the middle between Adam and the cross and put in the man Abraham, and that would be at 2000 BC. But before we move on toward the cross after Abraham, let’s back up about 400 years from Abraham to Noah’s flood, and that would make the flood at approximately 2400 BC. In other words, about 400 years before Abraham comes on the scene we have the flood of Noah.

Now coming back to our timeline, we have one other important event that took place between Noah’s flood and Abraham at approximately 2200 BC or 200 years before Abraham and that was the Tower of Babel. The one thing that I always like to emphasize when we teach the Tower of Babel is that every false religion, every pagan religion, every cult, every mythological, every idolatrous religion, has it’s roots at the Tower of Babel. Remember God had ordered mankind to scatter after the flood, and they would not. So that group of people was determined to find an alterative way to approach God, and that was the whole idea of the Tower of Babel. It was a place of false worship. So from the Tower of Babel for the next 200 years the human race just goes deeper and deeper in false religions so that by the time you get to the call of Abraham at 2000 BC, I maintain that there wasn’t a single believer in the true God left on earth. Once again the whole human race has succumbed to Satan’s counterfeit religions which had begun at Babel. In other words, they were all idolaters including Abraham himself.

So after that debacle at the Tower of Babel, God does something totally different when He calls out Abraham. Remember from Adam to Abraham, approximately 2000 years mankind has had opportunity of experiencing a salvation as Adam, Abel, Noah and so forth, but for the most part mankind had rejected it. So God had seen in 2000 years of human history man would not succumb to His offer of simply being obedient and believing what He said, and so now He’s going to do something totally different, when He calls out this man Abram (Abraham). God is going to bring out of this river of humanity that’s headed for a lost eternity, this one man Abraham. He’s going to give him a covenant in Genesis chapter 12, and He’s going to tell this man, "that out of him will come a nation of people, the nation of Israel or as we better know them "the Jews." So from Genesis chapter 12 all the way up into our New Testament, the Bible is dealing almost totally with the nation of Israel.

God put that nation of people in one geographical area of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, which we call the Holy Land. The ancients even before Abraham, for one reason or another referred to that land as the Divine land, and they didn’t really know why. It was evident that God had his finger on that little piece of real estate. Well after Abraham had been promised a nation of people, in a geographical area of land, the third part of that covenant, as we always emphasize, was the coming of a government, in the person of a king. So here is the beginning, then, of God dealing with the nation of Israel, under covenant promises, and is setting the stage for the coming of their King who would be the government. You know common sense tells you that you can’t have a nation of people operating as a society if there is no kind of a government, because then all you have is anarchy. Of course that happened often in Israel’s history. The Book of Judges tells us so plainly as we see in the last verse of the Book.

Well that’s anarchy, but they had that constant promise out there in front of them, that the time would come when God would provide their government in the person of the King, the Messiah, who would be the Son of God! So your whole Old Testament, whether it’s history, Psalms, or the Books of the prophets, is preparing the nation of Israel for the coming of their King, and their Messiah, and Redeemer, because there had to be salvation before any of the rest of the promises could come to past. Now then as we come up through the Old Testament, and we reach the time of Christ and His three years of earthly ministry, this is going to be the whole vortex of His ministry. The reason for all His signs and miracles was to prove to this nation of Israel that He was the Messiah, and a lot of people miss this.

They think He performed His miracles only out of compassion, because He felt so sorry for the sick, blind and so forth. Now that was certainly true, but the main thrust of His signs, miracles and wonders was to prove to the nation of Israel who He was. We’ll emphasize that when we get to our study of the four gospels. For example in Matthew chapter 16 as they have nearly come to the end of that 3 years of earthly ministry, and Jesus and the twelve are up there in northern Israel, up at the head waters of the Jordan River, and Jesus asked them the question:

When we read those portions, I always point out to people, Peter didn’t add anything about the cross to his profession of faith because he didn’t know about the cross. Peter doesn’t say a word about resurrection, because he doesn’t know about the resurrection, and yet Peter said everything that needed to be said, because Jesus never said a word against it, but rather He commended him by saying:

So was Peter right? Absolutely he was right, and we see this throughout the four gospels account. Then there was Martha at the account of Lazarus’s death, and she was a little up tight you know that Jesus had been absent when He should have been there to heal him from his sick bed, but Jesus’ answer was what?

"Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. 24. Martha said unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. (then Jesus gave that classic answer) 25. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. 26. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? 27. She said unto him, Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world."

Then you can come all the way up to Saul’s conversion, before the Gospel of Grace had even been whispered, and Saul has that tremendous conversion experience on the road to Damascus. After he had his body replenished with food, and he’d gotten his sight back, he goes straight to the synagogue of the Jews, and what does he preach?

So the whole thrust of the Old Testament promises is that their government, in the person of the King and Messiah and Redeemer, would one day come to the nation of Israel. Well we know now from history, as well as from the Book, that Israel didn’t believe who Jesus was, for the most part. Only a small percentage believed that He was the Promised One, and so the majority cried out for His death. And that is where we have another classic statement, which was word for word from the Old Testament Scriptures "We’ll not have this man to rule over us!"

And so Rome carried it out at Israel’s request and He was crucified. Alright then, that takes us into that area of the timeline beyond the cross when Israel now, because of their rejection, is funneled back into the mainstream of humanity which we call the dispersion. This is when they were sent into every nation under heaven. This is when the temple was destroyed, and the priesthood was destroyed, and when Israel almost loses her national identity, for sure, as they are dispersed into the main line of humanity. And it was all because they rejected their Messiah and their opportunity for their king.

But you see, even though Satan may have thought that he had won the victory here, he may have thought he was close to destroying everything that was prophesied through the nation of Israel. But Satan didn’t know that just shortly before 70 A.D. when the temple would be destroyed, that God raises up the other apostle, the Apostle Paul. It was through Paul’s preaching of the Gospel of the Grace of God, God pulls out a people for His name which the Bible calls the Body of Christ, which is the Church. It’s a whole new concept which was never known back here in the Old Testament or the four gospels or even in the early Book of Acts. They had no idea that God would, without Israel, pull off of the mainstream of Gentile humanity, as well as the Jew, and would put them into one Body, which we call the Church, and it’s all by Grace.

And so here on the timeline a few years after the cross I like to call this unknown period of time the Age of Grace, the calling out of a people by His name. This period has been going on now for 1900 + years. Now when the Church is complete and filled up then God has to take it out. So I am a strong proponent of the Rapture of the Church just shortly before the beginning of that final seven years. The Old Testament prophesied this final seven years of Tribulation, and always split it into, 3 ½ and 3 ½ . So as we come to the end of the Church Age and she is taken out of the way by what we call the Rapture, and God can then finish where He had left off with Israel back here where they crucified their king.

Again, we know that the Scripture is so meticulous all the way through prophecy. I guess I could take you back, at least mentally, to Daniel chapter 2. And you remember that great dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and how he lost his dream, and couldn’t remember it? But Daniel was brought out of his place and because of this interpretation he was elevated to the second man in the kingdom. But nevertheless, Daniel recovered the dream and interpreted it. And the dream, you remember was a great image of a human man. And his head was made of gold. The chest area was made of silver. The belly area of brass. The legs of iron. And then the ten toes were made of mixture of iron and clay.

Now you want to remember that as you come down the line of these metals we go from the most valuable, gold, all the way down to the least valuable, iron, and that which was isn’t even good for anything and that’s the iron and the clay. But the Scripture says that Babylon was that first empire. It was the greatest empire that the world, up to that time, had ever seen. But the amazing thing that it says is that an inferior empire would destroy it. I can remember about 25 or 30 years ago that’s the word that made me dig a little deeper. How could he call an empire that would defeat another empire "inferior". Well, when you come down these metals, as I’ve already mentioned, you go from gold to silver to brass to iron, which are decreasing in value, but they are increasing in their hardness, or their ability to be used for manufacture.

In other words, I always give the example that you certainly wouldn’t make a plow with gold, even though it was as cheap as dirt because it has no strength. But iron, then, is the metal of choice. So what we have it a descending value which shows the descending ability of government to govern from an absolute dictator such as Nebuchadnezzar, down to the Medes and Persians who now had to have the consensus of two to the Greek Empire which was divided before 4 generals (you had to have a consensus of four) and then you come down to the Roman Empire, which was the first republic in human history. Yes, the Romans had a senate. If you remember correctly it was a senator who assassinated Julius Caesar. And then you come down to a weaker consortium of material and that’s the iron and clay, which we feel is the revived Roman Empire, which is coming upon western Europe even tonight.

Now then, what is the opposite? Well, as they ascended in military power, they descended in political power. That’s the quickest way I can explain it. And so everything through human history is an increase in military power of one kingdom over the next. But as the next empire came along and divided the authority, it weakened their political structure.

You know we love democracy, absolutely we do. But when it comes to getting things done, it’s the most inefficient government that man ever dreamed of. And yet, we can see that prophetically the world had to come to the place where we are tonight. And that is that every little nation from here to Timbuktu wants to have a democratic form of government. Who would have ever dreamed 50 years ago that the world in general would come under democratic forms of government? It’s prophetic! When you get down to the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, all of our democratic governments are as weak as cotton thread. And if you don’t believe that all you have to do is look what happened in Albania just a few months ago. Just over the fact of losing their investments, the little nation went into total anarchy. Well, that would have never happened under a strong armed dictator. But under a republic form of government, or a democratic form of government, the people can topple a government just by simply marching down the street. And this is what causes the instability.

So the Church’s is going to be Raptured out and the last 7 years of Tribulation comes to an end with the Second Coming of Christ as I’ve already shown here on the timeline. At that time Christ will return at His Second Coming and then He will be ready to set up the Kingdom that has been promised to Israel ever since Genesis chapter 12. And so there we have in this sort of an overall nutshell, the whole picture of human history from Adam to the cross, to the calling out of the Body of Christ, the Church, whereupon the Tribulation will come in under the rule of the anti-Christ, another world ruler. And then at the end of that Christ returns victoriously and the earth will revert back as it was in the Garden of Eden. And then we go into those final 1,000 years when He will rule and reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Now we’re going to start with Genesis chapter 1:1 in this lesson, and we would invite you to take your Bible and follow along with us as we study God’s Word. As you study with us you might also take notes as the people here in the studio do, because it’s the only way to really get involved in Bible study. I trust that you don’t just read your Bible, because you have to learn how to study it, and I think that’s the reason the Lord constructed it the way He did. He did not just lay it out in 8^th grade reading form, but rather all these little tidbits are buried, and you just have to compare Scripture with Scripture to dig them out.

We’ll be taking this rather slowly, in fact in our study format, Genesis is something that we take verse by verse. We will almost take it that slowly in the Book of Exodus, but there will be parts of the Old Testament that we will just skim over rather lightly. And then we’ll come back into a Book like Daniel, and take it pretty maticulously, then the four gospels, and when we get to the Book of Acts, I definitely teach that Book verse by verse, as well as all of Paul’s epistles. But for starters now let’s look at the very first verse in the Bible.

Now there’s where I usually stop. Like I said in the last lesson, we don’t know when in the beginning was, and I don’t concern myself whether it’s billions of years or if it’s thousands, I say it really doesn’t make that much difference, but what does make a difference is "WHO" started it all? GOD!

So in the beginning whenever it was, God started it all. Here we have the term of Deity spelled G-O-D in our English, but in the Hebrew it was Eloheim. And Eloheim in the Hebrew is a plural word. If you have a text in your Old Testament that refers to the pagan gods, plural, it’s the same Hebrew word only without the capitalization. It’s the small "e"- eloheim. And so it’s the Triune God of a plurality of persons. And I’m a stickler in that I am a firm believer in the Trinity, or the Triune God. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Now always remember that none of them supercede, or are above one of the others. They are all co-equal. And we see this teaching throughout all of Scripture. Now, in the beginning, whenever it was, God, the Triune Godhead created… Now again, the word in the Hebrew is "Barah", which means "called out of nothing". I think this is so important. God didn’t start with something and then somehow rearrange it. He started with absolutely nothing but Himself. And out of that nothingness He called the universe into being.

Now when we get into the New Testament here in a little bit, I’m going to show you what person of the Godhead actually spoke the word and called it into being. But for here, as the Triune God spoke the word and out of nothing He created everything. The heavens as well as the earth. Now I think it’s rather interesting that way back here in the very first verse of Genesis before the nation of Israel has even been hinted at and before we have any idea of the call of this man Abraham, that God is already giving us a clue that throughout all of His dealings with you and I, as members of the human race, He’s going to constantly divide things between heaven and earth. Now, why would He do this? Genesis chapter 12.

As soon as Abraham is called out of Ur of the Chaldees, as I showed on the timeline in our last program, God separated him from that mainstream of humanity and promises that out of that one man will come a distinctive race and nation of people – the nation of Israel. But here’s what makes them distinctive. From the very onset of the promise to Abraham until the nation is finally dispersed after they had rejected their king, Israel had it constantly drummed into their mindset that they were a special, called out, separated, covenant people of God, and all their promises are earthly. And so we refer to them as God’s earthly people.

Now, the last time I taught this someone misunderstood me and when I said that there is nothing in the Old Testament pertaining to a Jew dying and going to heaven. Well, what I really meant was, concerning his eternal abode. Now, we know that when an Old Testament saint died he went to Paradise. He certainly didn’t stay on the earth. And even today when a Jew dies he goes to his place of reward. If he’s a believer he goes to Paradise. But what I have in mind when I say that the Jew who had no concept of dying and going to heaven, I meant in their resurrected state. When the Jews experience their resurrection as believers, they will not be a heavenly people, they are going to be an earthly people, in that earthly 1000 years kingdom that is still future. And so consequently, even in their life in the flesh, all of Israel’s promises were earthly.

And that’s why so many of them had such tremendous wealth. Abraham was a wealthy man. Isaac was wealthy for his time. Jacob was wealthy. David – glory of all of his kingdom, included wealth. You know Solomon and my when the Queen of Sheba saw it, the first thing she said was "the half has never yet been told". Well, why? Because those Jewish people were enjoying those earthly promises.

Now when we get over into the epistles of Paul and the out calling, as we mentioned in our last program, and God now calls out of the mainstream of humanity, the Body of Christ, the Church, a mixture of predominately Gentiles, but also Jews, now we have a group of people to whom all the promises are not earthly, but what? Heavenly!! Every thing that is promised to the Church is not earthly, it’s heavenly. And our future is going to be to rule in the heavenlies. Well, this is immediately what I want people to recognize that as you study your Bible, you have to separate these two entities in God’s dealing. When you separate completely the nation of Israel even in the New Testament from the Church, the Body of Christ then all the contradictions disappear. All of the major questions disappear. And every thing becomes so sensible.

I had a young man just the other day out in Indiana to come up and he said, "My wife’s been a Christian a long time. I’ve never interfered with that but I’ve never had any interest. I never went to Church with her, I never read the Bible. I had no interest. But I watched a few of your programs and you’re the first one that makes sense." Well, I don’t take the credit for that. I believe that’s the work of the Holy Spirit. But the Bible is a sensible Book and it makes sense IF you simply keep these two areas (the nation of Israel and the Body of Christ, the Church) separated.

So in the beginning the Triune, the Almighty God, called out of nothing, everything. The heavens. The angelic hosts. The earth. Everything that’s in it all began with our Creator. Now let’s take a look at how the New Testament treats this very same event, as we have here in Genesis. I’d like to have you turn now with me to John’s Gospel, chapter 1. All these writers are inspired of the Holy Spirit. They are moved of God to write what they write. And so now naturally John, as he speaks of the beginning, is going to use the same language that Moses did. I feel Moses wrote the first five books. And so John’s Gospel, chapter 1 and verse 1 says "In the beginning…" He doesn’t say twenty million years ago. He doesn’t say ten thousand years ago. All John says is "in the beginning" just as Genesis says. But in the beginning, according to John was the Word. It is capitalized so it is a term of deity.

So in the beginning was the Word, a person of that Triune Godhead, and this person, the Word, was with God, that is from eternity past, whenever that was, and the Word was God. Now we know we have some cults that disagree with me and they try to tell me that Jesus was not God. Well that flies in the face of the Book. Jesus was just as much God as God the Father or God the Spirit. And we’re going to see why I say that in just a few moments.

In other words, the Triune Godhead was complete and they were in absolute consensus with what they were going to do. Now verse 3.

"All things were make by him;…" (by whom? The Word.)

Now you know I’m a stickler for grammar because after all the whole idea of language is to communicate. And that is what the word "Word" implies. There had to be a person of the Godhead who would communicate with whatever it was that they’re going to call creation out of. Now personally, I think it was God Himself. But now, that’s not unusual. God talks to Himself. Every once in awhile my little wife will be in the kitchen and I’ll hear her and I say, "Who are you talking to?" She’ll just say, "Forget it, I’m talking to myself." Well, I imagine you all have the same experience from time to time and God does too.

I’ve mentioned the fact one time that Martin Luther just had a real hang up with Christ’s statements from the cross when He seemingly spoke to God. And Martin Luther came to the conclusion that it was God speaking to God. Absolutely it was. And so the Word was the communicator. He was the one who spoke the power of creation. When we get to Hebrews in a little bit I’m going to show you that it’s the Word, the Son of God, Christ, who has spoken in this Book. This is the Word of the very person of the Godhead who is the Communicator, which is God the Son.

Now if you doubt that this is speaking about God the Son come down to verse 14 and there is the clincher.

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (Now you know God the Father or God the Spirit never became flesh so who is it? Well it’s God the Son – it’s Christ!) (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

Now let’s move on quickly to Colossians, which is well into Paul’s writings. Let’s go to chapter 1, and here we find a tremendous little portion of Scripture. Remember we’re fitting this all back with Genesis 1:1. Now let’s look what Paul says in Colossians chapter 1 and we almost have to come down to verse 12.

"Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: 13. Who (speaking of the Father. Here’s where grammar comes in. Who is modifying the word Father.) hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son."

Now in verse 14 the modification is going to change.

"In whom (the Son) we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: 15. Who (speaking of the Son) is the image (that which you can see and touch) of the (what?) invisible God,) (remember the Triune God is a Spirit, He’s invisible, and) the first born of every creature.: (and now look at verse 16, and tying it with Genesis 1:1) For by him (the Son) were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities, or powers: (yes, Satan himself is a created being. He was created by God the Son. Not only did He create) all things (but they) were created by him, and for him:"

And then you come down into verse 17 and not only is He before all things, not only is He the Creator of all things, but:

And what does that word mean? Held together. Why doesn’t the universe just explode in nuclear fission? Why don’t the planets act like an atom and split one another into tremendous energy and explosion? And I think someday they will according to Peter. Well why don’t they tonight? Because God the Son controls every particle of it with the power of His Word.

Now let’s come back with me to the Book of Ephesians chapter 3, and look what the apostle Paul said here. Let’s drop in at verse 9.

"And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, (the same God of Genesis 1:1) who created all things by Jesus Christ:"

Now isn’t that something? I make a point of that for a reason. I remember when I was teaching a class up in Iowa years and years ago, and I made the point, have you ever stopped to realize that the people who nailed Christ to that cross, and set Him up as a public spectacle were the created being of the Creator that they were crucifying? That shook up that class, because they had never had that kind of concept of who Jesus really was. But it’s true! It was the created beings, crucifying their Creator! I hope you never lose sight of that fact. I know when I have to think of my own salvation, I just have to thank God, that here He is, the Sovereign totally God of the universe, and yet it’s the same God that died the death that I should have died. It’s the same God that rose from the dead, and extended eternal life to all that would believe, and you can’t separate that from Him. He is, and was the Creator!

Now let’s go to another over in the Book of Hebrews chapter 1. For sake of tying in what I said moment ago with regard to every word of this Book, how it came to us. Yes the Holy Spirit inspired it, but it’s the Word of God the Son. And the apostle Paul over and over says: "I hear Him speaking to me." Who? Jesus! Now look what it says here in Hebrews 1:1

"God, (the Triune God of Genesis 1:1. The Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit) who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers (that is the forefathers of Israel in the Old Testament) by the prophets, (But don’t stop there, because this same God) Hath in these last days…"

What are the last days of Scripture? Everything from Christ’s advent on. A lot of people think that the last days are just like the Tribulation and the Second Coming. No that’s the latter days. The last days is that whole period of time from His first advent to the end of the Age of Grace. So in these last days, from the time of His first advent, this same God hath already:

"… spoken unto us by his Son, whom he (God) hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;"

Now isn’t that plain, and isn’t that beautiful? Let’s go back to the Book of Acts chapter 2 for a moment and look at a passage. I’ve been using this more and more in my teachings lately just for an example. It’s a perfect example of how everything as I said in the last program is under the Sovereignty of God, without seemingly taking away the free will of mankind and nations. Yet everything comes to pass as He originally foreordained it. Nothing ever takes God by surprise or is He ever a day late.

You know I told my classes here in Oklahoma so many times, that if there is a period of human history where that truth is so evident that God is Sovereign, and yet He’s let generals, and presidents, and dictators seemingly make decisions of their own free will, yet the Sovereign will of God shines through. There is no greater time where that is so evident than in World War II. All you have to do is go back and look at the history of World War II and how many times things just all of a sudden fell into place at just the right time, it’s absolutely amazing. Well here is where it all began in Acts chapter 2, verse 22 and 23. This is where Peter is addressing the nation of Israel with regard of them having crucified the Christ.

"Ye men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders and signs, which God did by him (Jesus) in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: 23. Him, (Jesus of Nazareth) being delivered by the determinate counsel…"

I think in at least my own thinking, and I never want to do violence to the translation here, but I think in my own English I could use the word determining counsel. You all know what it is to counsel. It the meeting of minds. In other words when our president calls a cabinet meeting, what’s the purpose? For counsel. They’re not going to make a decision until there’s a meeting of the minds, at least we certainly hope that’s the way it works.

Now that’s exactly what the Triune God did someplace way back in eternity past. Now I don’t think they had to sit there all afternoon between the three of them, and batty this back and forth. No, no, but nevertheless the Triune God sometime in the past came together, before anything was ever created, and what did they do? They laid out this whole plan of the ages. And in that plan of the ages, was the coming of Jesus of Nazareth to the nation of Israel. In that plan of the ages, was the nations rejection of the their king, in that plan of the ages was the crucifixion, was the resurrection, was the ascension, and every little jot and title detail was all formulated back there in this pre-determining counsel, before anything ever began to happen.

Now in the moment or two we have left let’s go back to Genesis 1:1, and just look at it once again.

"In the beginning (whenever that was) God (the Triune God in all of His power and Sovereignty delegated to the Son to call it all into being). created the heaven and the earth."

So the Son spoke the Word, and the universes began to come together. He spoke the Word and the angelic hosts were created, and He spoke the Word to that dust, and Adam appeared. He put Adam to sleep, and He spoke the Word and who came on the scene? Eve. And so it is in all creative acts of God, it’s God the Son, yes the same One that hung there on that cross of Cavalry that spoke the Words of creation, and everything begin to happen.

Now for just a little review of what we have learned today. Everything in God’s dealing with the human race you have to separate between Him dealing with the nation of Israel, His earthly people, and the Church to which is His heavenly people.

Now as we begin this lesson, I’m going to have you come right back to where we left off in the last lesson and that would be Genesis 1:1. I want to spend some time on the word G-O-D in that verse. You know so many people have all kinds of ideas about God. How many of you have heard the expression or even used it, "The man upstairs," or "Somebody up there is looking after me." Well listen, this is bringing God down so far beneath what He really is. I think we have to constantly remind ourselves, that yes, He is the friend of sinners, He is the One who has promised never to leave us nor forsake us, He’s the God in spite of His Sovereignty that is a God of Love, and Grace and all these other things that we’re going to look at in this lesson. We’re going to look at the attributes of God, and consequently what I want to wind up this program on is, since He’s that kind of a God, we can be perfectly comfortable in placing all of our faith in what He has said.

People can’t seem to get the idea that what God has said, we can believe it. This is not a Book of myths or a Book that was put together as the Jews sat around their ancient campfires as some like to put it. But as Peter says in his little epistle, "Holy men of God wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." And that wasn’t just the Old Testament, but the New Testament as well. The Apostle Paul over and over makes it so clear that everything he wrote was by revelation by the ascended Christ. When the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation, it was all by Holy Spirit inspiration. Every Word of this Book from cover to cover is the Word of God and we can believe it, because IT’S proven itself over and over.

Well the first thing that I like to point out in this lesson is, that God has these certain attributes. I think it behooves us to just constantly remind ourselves of these from time to time that God is Sovereign. He is absolutely Sovereign, and there is no one above Him. He never has to go to someone else for advice or for questioning. He is absolute in His Sovereignty. Secondly, we can say that God is immutable, and the best verse that most of us know concerning that is in the Book of Hebrews where it says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever!" He has never changed in the past, He has not changed as of today, and He will never change in the eternity future, because He is immutable!

I have some school teachers in my classes and they like to tell me that the kids will remind them every once in a while, "After all we’re living in the 1990’s," as if that makes all the difference in the world. But concerning God, the things that God laid down at the beginning are still applicable today. God hasn’t changed His attitude toward sin simply because it’s a later time in human history. He is immutable, and the things that He declared anathema back there in the Old Testament, are still the same in His sight today, and they will be in the future if He tarries, because God changes not! God is always the same!

Those of you who dealt with human beings a lot more years even than I have known, that you’ve had people in your experience that maybe at one time you could trust them explicitly. But maybe sometime years later you found that that you couldn’t trust them, well what’s happened? Well they’ve had a change their attitudes and they are not immutable, but God is. God never changes!

Alright, so number one, God is Sovereign, and number two He is immutable, and now for number three, and they don’t necessarily have to be in this order. God is Omniscience. Now the only way I can spell that word is put omni and then science. It’s the same word as science and knowledge. So God is all knowledge, He Omniscience! There is nothing that God doesn’t know, and He doesn’t have to go looking anything up in a text book. I’ve got some lawyers in my classes, and some doctors in my classes, and they all agree that to be a good professional man you don’t have to know everything, but you do have to know where to look it up. So that’s our human weakness, as we can’t know everything. Fortunately we can go to our libraries and men like this can go and search things out, but God doesn’t have to do that. God doesn’t have to go to His library, because God is Omniscience! God knows the end from the beginning!

I think I gave an illustration in one of my classes or maybe it was on television in an earlier time, and the first time I read it I had a hard time swallowing it, but you know the more I got into this Book, the more I could agree and believe it, and he made this illustration. Now this is mind boggling, believe me it is. That in the life of a woman or female, of any of the species, there are thousands upon thousands of ova, eggs. In the male of the species there are billions upon billion of sperm. They’re so small you have to put them under the microscope to see them. But God in His Omniscience has put every human being that has ever been born together according to His will.

Now that’s hard to swallow, I know it is. The billions in China? Yes. The millions here in our beloved America? Yes. The millions that have been aborted? Yes. God in His Omniscience, and Sovereignty has put together every sperm and every egg that has ever been fertilized. Now if that doesn’t boggle your mind, then I don’t know what it would take to do so.

But on the other hand, the first beautiful night that you can go look at a starlit sky, just step out and try to comprehend how many billions upon billions of stars there are. Now you know it isn’t just billions of stars, but now we know there’s billions of galaxies in which there are billions of starts, so now we’re talking about trillions and trillions of stars. Do you think God has lost sight of anyone of them? Not a one. So He is Omniscience, He is all knowing.

Now the next one for your list is He is Omnipresence. In other words you cannot go anywhere without God being there. David, in the Psalms, even puts it in a place that’s really hard to swallow, when he said, "Lo I go to the deepest Hell, God is there, and though I go to the highest Heavens, God is there. I’ve also read that astronomers feel that our universe is always expanding outwards, but does it ever go beyond God? Never.

So that brings up the next attribute of God. He is Imminent. You cannot comprehend a place that is beyond the God of this Book, He is Imminent. Now that’s beyond me, but I believe it, and we’re going to come back to why I can believe it, and why God expects me to believe it and you to believe it.

Now for another attribute of God. He’s Righteous, He’s Just. God has never treated anyone or anything unfairly. Now a lot of times terrible things happen, even to believers, and I know as humans we are often tempted to question, "Well is God fair? The other day Iris and I got news of a very sweet lady who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I told Isis, "Isn’t it amazing, it just seems the dearest and sweetest people on earth are the ones that get stricken the most often", and we do say, "Well God why?" In fact David asked the question back there in the Psalms: "Why do the wicked prosper?" And that is a valid question from the human standpoint, but does God ever make a mistake? No. He never makes a mistake because of his attribute. God is Righteous, He’s Just.

I mentioned this one day to a seminary president that I talked to quite often on the phone, and had made the expression that Grace was an attribute. And this gentlemen said, "Les I’d never thought of it that way before." Well you know when you talk to a highly educated man, I’m more apt to think that he’s right and I’m wrong, but I feel that the Grace of God is an attribute. Remember very few people, even believers, understand the Grace of God. Why? Because it’s an attribute that’s so far above and beyond the human intellect that’s it’s hard for us to comprehend. I’ve had many people, after they’ve heard me teach, that had never really had a grasp of Grace, until they heard me teach it.

I read a book every once in a while by a dear old theologian from England, and I don’t recommend the book because it’s a commentary on just six verses. I showed the book to Andre, and he said "How could anyone write a book that think on just six verses?" And I said, "Because he’s wordy." But I love to read the dear old gentlemen, whose dead now, but I showed Andre a quote that I have highlighted in the book, and I’ll paraphrase it because it brings out this very attribute of Grace that I’m talking about. He makes this statement, "Unless we teach and preach the Grace of God as Paul delineated it back there in Romans chapter 3, where he said, ‘he was slanderous accused of promoting sinful living just to prove that the Grace of God was greater’" The old gentlemen goes on to say, "Unless we teach and preach Grace at the possibility of being accused of that, then we’re not teaching Grace as this Book lays it out."

So we have to understand that this is so far beyond our human understanding, that a Righteous God, Holy, far above sinners the Book of Hebrews says. And yet His Grace is always grater, and will always go farther than man’s greatest sin, but I always include with that, "That’s not license!" Grace is not license, but rather Grace is that attribute of God that He is capable of absolutely forgiving and cleansing and calling Righteous the most vile sinner that will believe Paul’s Gospel for salvation. I always like to use the example here in Oklahoma, where several years ago we had the steakhouse murders in Oklahoma City. It was terrible, and I would have been the first to say, put that guy to death, and the quicker the better, because of the horrible crime that he had committed, but God doesn’t look at it that way. God looks at that murderer as a man that is still capable of His Grace. Now I know that’s beyond us, because it’s an attribute of God.

Another one of God’s attributes, which is next door to Grace, is His love. What an attribute that God can love beyond lovely. I’ve been to Haiti and we ministered with Andre down there for a whole week, and a lot of those people naturally are not easy to love. They’re poor, they’re poverty stricken, but you see there isn’t anybody that God can’t love. You go into the ghettos in our huge cities, and crime and drugs run rampant, is anybody so far down the tube in those areas that God can’t love? No. We can’t always comprehend it, but God loves them, and He has already purchased their salvation, if they’ll just cash in on it. They’re already pardoned. A lot of people don’t realize that, but the most vile sinner already has his pardon done, but he has to believe Paul’s Gospel in order to appropriate it. So on and on we could go.

These are all attributes of this same God who created everything. He created man as we will see in coming lessons, He put him in the garden knowing what he would do, and yet the moment he sinned, the very next thing that God does is, put in gear the whole plan of redemption, where He is promising the "SEED" of the woman in Genesis 3:15. And as some Bible scholars have put it, that begin that Red Scarlet cord of Redemption that goes all the way through this Book. Now that’s not all of the attributes of God, I could go for at least another half hour, but that’s enough for this time, so I want you to come back with me to the Book of Hebrews.

You’ll find the Book of Hebrews, naturally over in the New Testament, and let’s look at chapter 11:6. Again I think this is a verse that we have to classify as one of the absolutes of Scripture, and of the God who we’ve just been talking about. We know we’re living in a culture where people don’t want absolutes, but rather they want all restraint removed, but listen there are absolutes, and a Sovereign God is the One who has declared them. Here in this passage we have one of at least two absolutes that I’m always trumpeting on the most. There’s more than that, but I usually use the two here in Hebrews, and this is the first one.

"But without faith it is impossible to please him: (God, up in verse 5) for he that cometh to God must (repent? No, but rather) believe…"

That’s why I’m almost screaming at people that today God’s whole requirement for salvation is believe Paul’s Gospel of I Corinthians 15:1-4. And how do we believe the Gospel? It’s in this area of faith, without which it is impossible to please him.

Hebrews 11:6a

"But without faith it is impossible to please him (God) for he that cometh to God must believe…"

Now remember there are three words in Scripture that all basically mean the same thing. To believe, to trust, and faith. They all mean the same thing. When you trust the Word of God, you’re believing it, and when you believe the Word of God, you’re exercising faith, and when you exercise faith, you’re trusting and believing. Do you see that? So you have to believe that He is, and in that area of believing, you must understand that He is a rewarder of them that seek Him.

In other words, will God ever fail an individual? Never! I think, especially my Oklahoma classes know, that I like to use illustrations that are the most simplistic, because those are the ones that stick the hardest. As you came into the studio this afternoon, I could have just sat here and watched everyone of you that came in, and I would not have seen a single one of you examine the chair that you sat down in. Did you? Not a one of you examined the chair you’re setting on to see if it would hold you up. Now if we were in an area where the chairs were weak, and you couldn’t depend on them, that’s what you’d have to do. You’d have to examine your chair to make sure you don’t suddenly become embarrassed and fall flat on the floor.

Why did you not bother to even check the chair that you’re sitting on? You have the utmost faith in it, that it’s going hold you. See? You believed before you sit down that that chair was going to hold you. Now bring that up into the spiritual realm. God expects the human race to put that same kind faith in what He has said, just as much as you place your faith in these material things that you take for granted. It’s the very same application, that when God has said something, we can believe it, and when we believe it, God is going to reward us with the greatest experience in all of human history, and what’s that? SALVATION!

To have that blessed assurance, not only of eternal life for that which is to come, but for the here and now. I tell my classes again, in Oklahoma, over and over, too many Christians have the idea that salvation is just simply a fire escape. They get saved so they won’t go to Hell. Well that’s all well and good, and that’s certainly part of it, but listen there’s a lot more to it than that. Salvation and the knowledge that you’re a child of God is that day by day assurance, that you’re His, and He is yours, and how do we know that? Because this BOOK says so!

Over and over I’ll show people verses, and say, "Do you feel this?" "No." "Can you see this?" "No." "How do you know it’s true then?" "Because the BOOK says so, that’s what God’s Word says." "And when you take God at His Word, what is that?" "FAITH!" I think I’m going to go ahead and put that definition on the chalkboard. I also know for those of you I’ve taught in years past that you know this forward and backwards, that "Faith is taking God at His Word" Now that is faith, and I have never found a better definition for it. When you can read something in this Book, and even though you can’t understand it, we believe it. Why? Because it’s God that said it.

When you go back to Genesis 1:1 where we’ve been studying, and it says, "In the beginning, God created (call out of nothing) the heaven and earth." Now I can’t prove that, and science still can’t prove it, but I believe it.

I like to refer my classes to an article I read quite a few years ago written in one of the scientific magazines that I was subscribing to at that time. This writer was discussing the origin of the universe, and of course with all of his big scientific terminology and all that, what it all boiled down to was, that he was now convinced that the whole universe at one time had come from a single source of light. Boy I read that to my little wife and said, "Honey do you hear what he’s saying?" Because WHO is LIGHT? God is! And so where did everything come from when Christ spoke the Word? From Christ Himself! But here was the kicker in the article. He ended up his article, and after expounding on all the tremendous outburst of the beginning of the universe, he came to this conclusion: He said, "I can foresee the day, (and I suppose he was talking in terms of billions of years,) when that whole thing will come back to that original source of light."

Well what does Peter say:

This old world is going to be melted down, it’s going to dissolve. And everything as we now see it is going to totally disappear, but is that the end of it? No, but rather Peter says: "There will be a new heaven and a new earth," and then when you jump over to the Book of Revelation chapter 21, what does John say:

So you see, it all fits so beautifully. This is just to prove, and this is all I try to get people to understand, "Take God at His Word!" When you do that, it makes everything turn right side up, if we simply believe what He has said. Now going back to our timeline again, and we’ve already looked at a good portion of that timeline that was foretold way back in the Old Testament, and the first half of it has already come to pass. I think there’s 360 some prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming. Every one of them were fulfilled to the last detail. Well listen, if God has already fulfilled the first half of the prophetic proclamation, then why in the world can’t people believe that He will fulfill the last part. Well He will because His Word has said so.

Now for a quick recap: With all the attributes of God that the Scriptures has declared and has proven, how in the world can someone say, "But I can’t believe it." It isn’t that they can’t believe it, but rather they don’t want to believe it. When people decry the habit of smoking, and say, "Oh if I could only get rid of this habit, but I can’t quit." I say, "Do you want to quit?" "No, not really," is the answer I get so often. Well if you don’t want to quit, then I guarantee you one thing, you’re not going to quit, because the one has to come before the other.

Now in this lesson let’s come back to Genesis chapter 1, and we might as well begin with verse 1.

We’ve been talking about that for the last three programs, and now as we move into verse 2, years ago this verse shook me up, and of course I didn’t have an answer for it.

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."

Now from my understanding of the word "created" which is "Barah" in the Hebrew, and I’ve even read some Hebrew commentary on it not too long ago, that the word meant "perfect creation." In other words God did not create the mess as I call verse 2, because when you look at that verse the earth is under flood water, it’s void, or of no use, and yet that which evidently God had created perfectly in verse 1 must have been without a flood, and yet here in verse 2 it is void, and under water.

Now I’ve learned over the years to call verse 2 "The First Flood," and Noah’s was the second. Well what happened here in verse 2? Why did God destroy that original beautiful earth that He had created by the word of His mouth? Well naturally something cataclysmic had to have happened, and I think the best way we can find the answer for that is go to the Scripture itself. I know some theologians will disagree with me, but just as many will agree, but this is the way I feel the most comfortable with this whole idea that between verse 1 and verse 2 something terrible happened, so that God had to destroy the earth with a flood. So now let’s turn to Ezekiel chapter 28, and we’ll begin with verse 13.

Now I don’t take this approach just simply to pacify the evolutionist concepts of the billions of billions of years of time. No way at all. I don’t do this to just simply insert the geological ages of time, which I don’t agree with. I don’t agree with the evolutionist approach whatsoever. I’m a creationist, and believe that in the beginning God spoke the Word, and everything was created as He wanted to create it. But I do have to feel that after a certain period of time, and I don’t know how long that was, it might have been 5 years, or 500 years, or even 5 billion, I don’t know, and again my answer is, "So what!" But I do feel that there was an interruption because of something that drastically took place, and I think we can begin to find that answer in Ezekiel chapter 28. Here God is speaking through the prophet Ezekiel, and he writes to this personality:

"Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tablets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou was created."

You know what’s so interesting? So many things we’re introduced to won’t be heard of again until we get to the Book of Revelation and here is one of them in all these beautiful gemstones. They will be repeated again when we have the description of the Holy City coming down out of heaven. The Tree of Life is another one where we see it in the Garden of Eden, but not another reference to the Tree of Life until the Book of Revelation and eternity. So the Book of beginnings ties in so beautifully with the Book of endings. So here in Ezekiel chapter 28 this personality we find has been created, and has been in Eden. All of these beautiful gemstones were a part of his make up and I think, of even his outward appearance. Now verse 14.

"Thou art the anointed cherub…" (angelic beings)

So we have an angelic being that God is talking to, and he was anointed. In other words he had a place of special responsibility among the angelic host. Now reading on:

Now if I understand the Hebrew translation of that, the word covereth really meant "ruler" In that case it would be, "Thou art the anointed angel that rules." When you speak of rule, you speak of a kingdom, so this angelic being evidently ruled over a kingdom of angelic beings. Not mankind. Let’s get this straight. We’re not talking about humanity, but rather, an angelic kingdom. Now reading on:

Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth (rules) and I have set thee so; thou wast upon the holy mountain of God:…"

"…thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones (these gemstones) of fire."

In other words these gemstones were brilliant. All these stones that are listed up here in verse 13 were just fiery in their brilliance. Now I’m not much of an authority on gemstones, but I have heard people talk about the fire of a diamond. Well what are they talking about? It’s brilliance as it responds to light, has fire. Now you have the same thing here. This angelic being lived and moved in the midst of such fiery gemstones. Now verse 15. God goes on to say:

"Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, (se we have here a created, angelic being whom God had put over a kingdom) till iniquity was found in thee."

Isaiah 14:12

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! (he was an angel, the cherub that covereth) how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! (now here we have already the hint that he has fallen from his place of rule) 13. For thou hast said in thine heart, (here becomes the evidence of what this angelic being did) I will (do you see that exercise of will) ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: (now symbolically stars in Scriptures are angels. So he is going to exalt his position above the angelic host) I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:"

Do you see all of his "I will’s? Lucifer is in total rebellion against his Creator? Now verse 14.

"I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; (and he’s not going to stop there) I will be like the most High."

And in the Scriptures who is the Most High? Again, the God of creation. This angel that God had given dominion over an angelic kingdom that I think was on that earth in verse 1. It was a beautiful earth, filled with all the glitter of the gemstones, but also an earth beautiful with all the things of God’s creation, such as the trees, and flowers, and grass, and you name it. It was all there, it was beautiful beyond description, and it was an angelic host that populated it. Not mankind, but angels. And this Lucifer was ruling over the earth. But Lucifer, or Satan as we now know him, was never satisfied, and he still isn’t even tonight. So in his heart, he lusted to take the place of God Himself, and he honestly thought he could pull it off.

Now we know that those are descriptions of Satan. Now verse 4.

"And his tail (this is symbolic of a dragon) drew the third part of the stars (or angels) of heaven, and did cast them to the earth:…"

So his enticing language depicted here, a tail, literally drew the third part this angelic host, and did cast them to the earth. Now continuing on with verse 4.

"…and the dragon (Satan) stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born."

"And the angels which kept not their first estate, (what does that mean? They didn’t stay in that kingdom that Lucifer was ruling back there in verse 1 of Genesis 1) but left their own habitation, (in other words they followed Satan in his rebellion) he (God) hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."

Now come back with me all the way to the Book of Matthew just to show you. Satan, even though he was cast out of his place of authority over that beautiful kingdom in Genesis chapter 1 verse 2, yet he has never changed. Satan has not given up his whole role, and his whole reason for existing is to constantly thwart the plan of the Sovereign God. In other words, coming back to my timeline, just as soon as God put that perfect pair in the Garden of Eden, who came in to throw a monkey wrench into the whole caboodle? Well Satan did, and he caused those human parents to sin.

Now then as soon as God brings Adam and Even out of the Garden, and promises that out of the seed of the woman would come the Redeemer of the human race, Satan immediately puts in gear everything at his disposal to stop the coming of a Redeemer. He does it by first bringing to death with the murder of Abel who was in the line of the coming of the Just One. Then when Abraham comes on the scene, and God makes that covenant with Abraham, Satan turns on that little nation that’s going to come out of that covenant agreement like no other group of people on earth. And if you ever look at what has happened to the Jew down through their history, never forget that’s it’s been the attacks of this same Lucifer, this same Satan who is trying to thwart the very plan of God.

You see, since God placed everything concerning prophecy on this little nation, everything concerning Christ’s first coming rested on the little nation of Israel. So if Satan could destroy Israel, he could destroy God’s plan of bringing a Redeemer. I think that when Christ was on the cross, Satan must have almost jumped with glee, thinking that he had finally succeeded. But resurrection morning he found out differently, he was defeated, but he still hasn’t quit.

Now here in Matthew chapter 4 as Christ begins His earthly ministry, and He’s been 40 days and 40 nights out there in the desert, and the first thing Satan comes up with is the temptation to satisfy His hungry. But forsake of our speaking of Satan’s ruling and reigning I want to begin with verse 8.

"Again, the devil taketh him (Jesus) up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them:"

Now you want to remember Satan is a spiritual being, and Christ was Spiritual even though Christ was in the flesh. So from that high preeminent area, not only could they look physically in all four directions, but spirit beings that they were, they could look all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and up to the end of time. They could look at all the empires and kingdoms that had come on the scene, and look what old Satan has the audacity to offer Christ. Now verse 9.

Now just let that sink in for a moment. Satan is offering all these empires of the world, past, present, and future to the Lord Jesus if He will just fall down and worship him. If the Lord had done that then Satan could have honestly said, that he had ascended above the Almighty. So you see old Satan never gives up. Now I usually ask my classes when I’m teaching this, "Were these kingdoms his to give?" Yes! Scripture tells us that Satan is the god of this world. Satan has been the head of the nations ever since Adam left the Garden of Eden. Satan is ruling and reigning the nations of the world today as well as anytime before. In fact a verse just comes to mind over in II Corinthians chapter 4:3-4, and this says it better than I can.

This Satan, this Lucifer who rebelled and wanted to usurp the very throne room of God, and was cast down, and his beautiful kingdom was destroyed with water. And even though the fallen angels were locked upped, God in Omniscience again, and in His Sovereignty permitted Satan to roam free, and permitted Satan to become the god of this world, as we will see here.

When Paul speaks of our Gospel, he’s talking about I Corinthians 15:1-4. How that Christ died for our sins, and He was buried, and He rose again the third day, and that’s what Paul refers here then as our Gospel. It was the Gospel of salvation that was revealed only to this apostle from the ascended Lord in heaven he tells us in several places in his epistles.

"In whom (the lost of this world) the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

Well we’re going to continue right on where we left off last week, so if you’ll turn with me to Genesis chapter 1, we’ll pick right up with verse 6. We trust that you’ll study your Bible with us, because the only reason we teach is that people might understand what the Bible says, and what it doesn’t say. We also trust that with the help of the Holy Spirit the Scriptures will become clear to you.

Remember in our last lesson when we left off I encouraged you to read these next few verses from verse 6 all the way down through verse 23, and take note of the fact that there is not a single word that indicates creation as such. But rather the language is that God has taken that which we have found in the previous verses, which was underwater, was under darkness, as a result of a previous judgment, and now we find God is simply restoring everything to a functional operation. Then when we get down to verse 20 we’ll see that God reinstates the act of creation in the animal kingdom and then the creation of mankind. But from verse 6 through 19 it’s merely a restoration process.

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it (the firmament) divide the waters from the waters."

Now all you have to do here is just very carefully analyze the wording, and it becomes evident what took place. The word firmament is what we call our atmosphere, it’s what we call our sky, and it may also involve a certain portion of what we would call space, the closer planets or whatever. But for the most part I like to look at firmament as our atmosphere. If you pick that verse apart carefully it says, "that God is going to divide the water that was covering the earth as a result of earlier judgment in the form of a flood." I referred to it earlier as the first flood.

But now the Scriptures said that God is going to divide this water by taking ½ of it and moving it above the atmosphere. I like to picture that, if I may, as a giant vapor belt out in space, above the earth. Later in the Scriptures we’re going to see that vapor belt come back on the earth in the form of Noah’s flood, which was several hundred years later. But for now let’s just picture this vapor belt out here in space, but remember that ½ the water has been left on the earth. Now let’s read what happens next in verse 7.

"And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament (the atmosphere) from the waters which were above the firmament: (atmosphere) and it was so."

See that’s just plain English. He takes ½ the water, and He lifts it up above the atmosphere, but He leaves ½ of the water on the earth. Now verse 8.

Remember I said in an earlier class, that there were three heavens mentioned in Scripture. He’s got the first heaven which we realize is the atmosphere, it’s the heaven that the birds fly in, and the Scripture in Jeremiah 9:10 uses that terminology, "the fowls of the heavens"

God also has the second heaven, which we understand as space. We get a glimpse of that in Genesis chapter 15, when God told Abraham, "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able." The second heaven is the home of the stars, sun, and moon.

But God also has the third heaven which you’ll find in II Corinthians chapter 12, where Paul speaks of his own experience, "having been caught up into the third heaven," which is the very abode of God, or heaven as we normally think of it.

So those are the three terms of heaven in Scripture. So what we have then is the earth’s water has been divided where ½ of it is up here in this vapor belt above the atmosphere, up into the first or maybe even the second heaven, and the rest of the water is left on the earth. Then we find in verse 9 and 10 that God separates the water left on earth, and makes dry land appear, and the rest of the waters He calls seas and oceans.

Now those of you who have heard me teach longer, know that I don’t get dogmatic on a lot of these things, and say, this is the way it was. If you don’t agree with me on some of these things that’s ok. But coming back to this vapor belt, I would like to spend a little time on that because this gives rise, theoretically it would seem, that this vapor belt, much to the consternation of science today, talking about a "green house effect," and that’s exactly what they had back here in Genesis. I think this vapor belt was such that it shielded the earth at that time from the damaging part of the sunrays, but now with that moisture in place these sunlight rays would be defused. So consequently there was no direct sun beam hitting the planet, but rather it was all defused, and consequently the planet was tropical from pole to pole.

Now, archeological evidences shows that at one time that had to be the case, because we’ve found up in northern Siberia frozen in the deep ice of the far north, tropical vegetation, and tropical animals. So we know that at one time this old planet has a constant tropical temperature, and consequently a green house effect. The world as we understand it was one temperature, and that explains the fact as the Scriptures does, that it never rained before Noah’s flood. But rather at that time the earth got it’s water from beneath, because there was no opportunity for weather. Again with the sunlight defused all around the globe, rather than hitting the earth directly as it does now, there was no shift in temperature or increase in what we call atmospheric pressure, because everything was pretty much constant, and that gave rise to the beautiful calm, constant weather in that pre-flood experience. Remember also that all things were perfect, it was just absolutely beautiful, it was beyond our comprehension. Now verse 9 and 10.

Remember when God called something good, there was just absolutely nothing amiss. Now with the dry land and everything in place, we see the natural order once again comes on the scene:

See there’s not a word in there of creation, is there? All these things have been here before, and with earth brought back to a place of production, it just naturally came back on the scene. You know we’ve had something like that happen in our own recent days that makes this so believable. Even though we take all of this by faith, and a lot of things are beyond logic, and beyond comprehension, I think it’s certainly appropriate that we can just look at the logical aspect with God’s dealing with mankind and His creation.

Logically we have the beautiful example of Mount Saint Helen. Remember a few years ago Mount Saint Helen just literally blew it’s top, and just devastated that whole area all around it, and now they are already writing about how beautiful the new growth and vegetation and the wild life is all coming back even better than it was before. So I think this is so logical that when God restored the production to the earth, it naturally came back into existence. There was any need for creation, it was already there, and all it needed was the condition as it was even after Noah’s flood. Now then looking at verse 12, you’ll see it’s a repetition of verse 11.

Now of course this all flies in the face of evolution doesn’t it? That’s why there’s the constant argument between the adherence of the Genesis account of things, and the evolutionist’s account. God emphases over and over in these early verses of Genesis that everything was created after it’s own kind. We know that even today with all of our knowledge of biology that you still can’t take something from one species, and cross it with something totally different. Now I know there are times when seemingly they can take cells from one species and they will survive for a little while, but never for long. And the reason for that is, God has said, "everything after his own kind." And there is no room for such a thing as evolutionary process that these came from one original germ cell.

Now it’s also interesting that we can see even in human biology that we can take cells from pigskin and help burn patients. I don’t know how many of you ever read about that, but I read more than one article where they could actually take thin layers of pigskin and put it on a human burn patient, because the pigskin would breath, and react so well with the human physiology that it just enhanced the healing process, but not for long. After just a few days, those cells died and would sluff off.

The evolutionists say, "See everything came from the same place." But we that are creationists would say, "It just shows there was One Master Mind in creation." Everything that God has created has come from that One Master Mind, and even though there may be similarities, that does not tell us that they came by way of evolution, but rather the same Creator is the instigator of all of this. Now verse 13.

And again as I said earlier that I have no problem with the 24 hour day, because we’re not talking about things just suddenly being created as we say in verse 1. But now creation is coming back on the scene quite naturally. Now verse 14.

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; (he makes everything functional again. Whatever He had placed over the earth in that first catastrophe between verse 1 and 2, and had made darkness and water cover the earth, had blotted out the sun, so what ever it was, God simply removed it and now all these things are in view, and are now to be able to do what they’re supposed to do) and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years."

"And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. (just a statement of fact and we believe it. When God said that it was done, we can trust that He knew what He was talking about.) 16. And God made two great lights;…"

Now the word made there if you’ll look up in a good Hebrew dictionary is not even close to the word creation. It’s a word that more or less just uses that word that He made it operational. It doesn’t say that He brought it out of nothing as the word "Barah" does in verse 1. So even the word made here does not indicate a creative act.

"…the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the starts also.(God brought them back into operation) 17. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven (the second heaven, where the stars, moon and Sun are) to give light upon the earth. 18. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good."

Now remember He’s getting everything ready for the appearance of the human race. This earth as I mentioned earlier was created to be inhabited, and this is the process of getting it all ready. Now verse 19.

"And the evening and the morning were the fourth day."

Also remember we started with the first day of creation with what we know today as Sunday. So we’ve already come through Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and on the Thursday of that week we come to verse 20.

"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. (So God began with marine life, and that’s all it says about it.) 21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good."

Now again we have to remember God did not create every sub-species within a specie. We know from our study again of various life sciences that we can have mutations in various species. So consequently we can start with a head species, and then we can have all kinds of sub-species that would come on the scene after a long period of time. In fact there are still mutations taking place today. So we can readily understand that God didn’t have to create 15 or 20 types of horses, and that many types of all the other animals, and birds, but rather they would come on the scene as time would go by.

Now after the creation of the birds, the marine life, and all these things in verses 20 and 21, we have God blessing them in verse 22.

So now we’re all the way through Thursday. Here in verses 24 and 25 it is again just simply a review of the previous verses"

Do you see that constant repetition of "after his kind?" I always try to emphasis as I teach that whenever the Bible repeats something rather often in a short period of time, even in a chapter or two, it’s there for emphasis. God wants us to take note, that over and over God created everything, whether it was the plant life, bird life, marine life, or animal life, everything was created within it’s own kind and nothing has ever been able to break away from that one fact. Now verse 26. We’re not going to have time in this lesson to even get close to exhausting it, but it behooves us to move, and take as much of it as we can. Remember this is the sixth day of that first week of creation, and this will finalize it, because the seventh day or the Saturday sabbath, God is going to take that day for His rest.

Now the Scriptures always so accurate, and isn’t it unique that the plural pronoun is used here referring to God.

Let’s just stop and analyze this. Why the plural pronoun? Well if you remember when we first started back in Genesis 1:1 we spent a good bit of time emphasizing that God is a Trinity!

Now that’s a plurality of personalities, and yet each one of these are a distinct personality within themselves. So what we’ve really got here then is that the Triune God, the Trinity. is saying:

"Let us make man in our image,…"

Now you also want to remember that I pointed out that the God of Genesis 1:1 was "Eloheim." And it too was referring to Triune God, the Trinity, but if you remember when we went into the New Testament in John’s gospel, and in the Book of Ephesians, Colossian, and Hebrews, it emphasizes the fact that even though the Triune God was involved in the Creation, the New Testament tells us that "God the Son" was the One who spoke the Word that cause creation to become a viable act.

I always like to emphases the fact that as soon as we get to any of the acts of creation, we’re dealing with God the Son. Jesus the Christ, is the One who actually spoke the Word, and things happened. That’s why in John’s gospel 1:1 we have:

I always like to note here that the word "Word" denotes "communication" You can’t commutate anything or accomplish anything without putting it into words. So God the Son was the One who, by the spoken Word, created everything that has ever been created including man himself.

"And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:"

But we can’t leave out the other two, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit, because they’re all three involved.

So now the pronouns are referring to the Trinity, but it’s the Lord Jesus as we know Him in the New Testament is the One who called this human being in reality. Now let’s finish verse 26.

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them (mankind) have dominion…"

As I teach I like to emphasize certain word from time to time, and here is an important word. Man is to have dominion. Do you know what that word means? He is to have absolute control over everything that God is going to put under him. And look what it is:

Man is going to be the prime ruler or overseer you might say over all that has been created on the earth. Now verse 27.

Now there’s an awful lot in that verse that we certainly don’t have time now in this lesson to get into it and we won’t even try. But this creation of mankind is going to be the crowning act of His creation, and that’s why God left it until the sixth day. Everything else has been coming on the scene for man’s benefit, and now we have man, and consequently since God created man in His own image, and since he is the crowing act of creation, this is why God has put such an emphasis on the sanctity of human life.

Tonight we know that in many areas of the world, life is cheap, isn’t it? But that is not the way God intended it to be. God intended the human race to be head and shoulders above anything else of his creation. Man is unique because nothing else was created in the image of God. And for that reason God had to finally in the Law, say: "Thou shalt not kill." God mandated it that man was special and since he was special, then life was not to be taken cheaply, but rather he was to be protected, and for this reason when the Law came on the scene, God made provision for capital punishment, and all these things to protect the sanctity of life.

We also have to realize that for the first approximately 1600 years of human experience, from Adam until Noah’s flood, there was no written Law. Man simply had it on his conscience what was right and wrong. Neither was there any formal system of worship. Now all this I think was for a purpose because as we come on through the Scriptures, and we come up through the human experience, and the unfolding of God’s program, you’ll notice that man moved from one set of circumstances to another. It isn’t that God had to change, because God never changes. But to show us how man just step by step has to be somehow shown, had to taught, the various aspect of human behavior.

But going back the first 1600 years, man is without a form of worship, and without a written Law, and what did he prove? Mankind couldn’t exist that way, because by the time you get to the end of this period of human experience, what’s the picture? Violence is filling the earth, it’s corrupt, and they have completely turned against God, and it’s a flop. Man made a mess of the whole thing, so God is going to destroy them with the waters of Noah’s flood, and then He’s going to come up with something totally different, and we’ll be looking at that sometime down the road.

Now we’ll be picking up again in Genesis 1:26, as that’s where we left off in our last lesson. Remember we merely spoke of the fact that the plural pronoun here in this verse referred to the Triune God, - God the Father – God the Son, - God the Holy Spirit.

The best way to do that is by putting these three circles on the chalkboard. Let’s divide man into what the Scripture calls him, Body, Soul, and Spirit.

Now in order to pick that up Scripturally, we need to turn to the Book of I Thessalonians, chapter 5. I know there are some theologians that speak of man as simply "spirit." Others will say, "No, man is soul." Then there are others who, like myself, will say, "You can divide soul and spirit, because the Bible does." Now I know there is a very close affinity between the soul and the spirit, and yet the Scripture does divide them. The reason we’re looking at these verses is merely to establish that the Scripture does speak of man as being, Body, Soul, and Spirit.

"And the very God of peace sanctity you wholly; (or completely) and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

"For the word of God is quick, (alive) and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, (The Word of God is able to separate between the soul and spirit) and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

Now what I like to do in order to make this a little plainer and easier to understand is that in the area of man’s soul we again become a trinity of sort, and here is definitely the invisible. And that is we are made up of the mind, the will, and the emotions. Now usually if you go into a college psychology course, those are the first things that you will learn. I like to call that make up the soul. If you will analyze these three words carefully, you suddenly realize that they are all definite enmities.

Now these three aspects then of our innermost being is what I like to call the personality, or the real you. Now is that hard to comprehend? Put this also then into the three members of the Godhead. "God the Father – God the Son – God the Holy Spirit" Each one of those have enough Scriptural verses to back me up when I say that God the Father has mind, will and emotions. God the Son has mind will and emotions. God the Holy Spirit is also a person, and He too has mind, will and emotions. Now that’s what makes a personality, and it was in that area of the person that we’re created in the image of God, because God has all of these attributes. Now doesn’t that help?

Now when God created Adam, and He gave Adam that invisible personality, He also placed within Adam a spirit concept that would connect Adam with his Creator, or with God. So right from the beginning Adam has total and complete fellowship with his Creator. Now the body is just simply as the Bible calls it, a tabernacle. It’s a temporary dwelling place. Another word for tabernacle is the simple word, tent. A tent is certainly not very permanent, but rather it’s something that you use temporarily, and that’s what our body is. Our body is just a tent in which God has placed a person, the personality, the invisible personality of the mind, will and the emotions.

Now, starting out Adam is created sinless, perfect, he has a body that will never have to die. He’s got a soul that is in perfect fellowship and communion with God as is his spirit. He is a perfect creation. Now, all of this to say, as we said in our last half hour, God is creating mankind as the very epitome, the very crowning act of creation. We are created in the image of God, given a will, so that we can choose to either be obedient or disobedient and the whole concept of this thing boils down to the very attitude of marriage in the human relationship.

In other words, God has already had myriads of angels. But the angels were never beings that He could fellowship with, or He could have love extended and love returned. But now He’s going to create mankind for the soul purpose, by giving him a will, and by man choosing to be obedient to his Creator, the Creator will have someone that He can fellowship with, He can extend love to, for all eternity. As I see scripture, this is the primary reason for man being created in the first place. God wants a creature that He can love and will see that love returned.

Turn back with me, if you will, to Ephesians. The letter of Paul to the Ephesians in chapter 5. And I know over the years I’ve had a lot of young people in my classes, single people, and especially to the young men, I will always direct this particular portion of Scripture. I am of the mentality that if a home survives or doesn’t survive, I blame the man. Now, I know there may be alternatives to that, but for the most part, I think the success or the failure of the home and marriage is primarily the man’s responsibility. Here in this passage Paul is dealing with this very thing – the marriage relationship.

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. (There’s the key) 23. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body."

Not just of the soul, and that’s what most of us have heard over the years – the salvation of the soul. And that’s all that too many spiritual people, theologians, concern themselves with. But what they’re missing is that God is just a concerned about our body. We’re going to have a new body someday, but until we do, it’s not just the salvation of the soul God is concerned with, but with the whole person – the body, the soul and the spirit. And in this verse he says he is the saviour of the body. Now verse 24.

"Therefore as the church (the body of Christ) is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be (subject) to their own husbands in everything."

Now, I’ve told young men that over and over again. That is a commandment that the husband is to love his wife. And do you know what? The Scripture never tells the wife to love the husband. Never! Now, I know Peter says that mothers are to instruct their daughters on how to love their husbands, but that’s a far cry from commanding it. The reason is, and this is why I tie this in with Genesis chapter 1, just as surely as God put man on the scene with a will, that when God would extend His love and His Grace and blessings on this creature, God expected love returned.

Now if you will, let’s come back to Genesis and for the few moments that are left, come back to chapter 1, seeing that he was given, as we mentioned last week, dominion over all of creation, under God, naturally. And this is why God has given him the mind and the will and a set of emotions. So that as a created being he has all the capabilities for this dominion. I don’t think any of us can really understand the tremendous intelligence and the perfection of this man, Adam. He had everything going for him. He was, for all practical purposes, immortal. He wouldn’t have had to die. He was made incorrupt. There wasn’t a corrupt cell in his body. Everything was put in place that he could have lived forever. Now I say, "could have". That was his potential. But what did God also know? That he wouldn’t! But that’s beside the point. God puts him on the scene with that opportunity of living forever. He could have been the progenitor of a perfect race of beings. It was his potential.