Thank you for your patience in putting up with the background noise.
I am unable to wait until I get to a quiet space to record because certainly there are good words that must be spoken on behalf of God!
So yes, this platform
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
is particularly emphasizing the power of the gospel.Now, you cannot have a gospel apart from the God of the God-spell.
He is the core essence of the gospel and Who is this God?
One of His key, defining, primary aspects is His creative power.
We cannot fully have a proper perception of the gospel apart from embracing faith in our Creator.
Sentence one, day one, right out-of-the-box, God declares Himself on the scene as the Creator.
So we’re just gonna read a couple Bible verses, if that’s okay, if I have your permission.
Anyone?
Permission to proceed?
Can we read some Bible verses that help us understand and believe who the Creator is, knowing that if we have a good understanding of the Creator, then we have a personal responsibility to respond to Him.
I don’t believe in new Bible versions.
I do believe in unpacking and refreshing that which is the true Bible.
All that to say, if we were going to totally mess up Genesis 1:1 and make it kind of modernized or put it into a meme, it might sound a little something like this.
God getting right in the face of this teenager and just saying,
“I made you.”
And the teenager’s thinking, “Why am I responsible to respond to God?
Why do I have to respond at all?”
Who are You?”
And God, right in his face, “Dude, I literally made you.”
Creation is why you’re responsible to respond to the gospel.
Because God is the designer of all things, including heaven, earth, and free will, and sin, the consequences for sin, the rules of the game, redemption, His plan, love, all of this is God’s creation, but we must first believe that God indeed made …
that which obviously appears to be generated by some outside force, which is a cardboard way of saying that God made all things.
All right.
Well, let’s transition to Scripture.
You’re tired already of hearing me.
Why am I so excited?
Because look at what the Book says.
Look at the Book.
You know, if your enthusiasm comes from a ball, …
Oh, look at that pig skin.
Oh, that guy, he can run, he can jump, he can do stuff.
I’m going to tell you this.
Your enthusiasm has a cap.
It’s limited because people can only do so many things with the ball.
Remember in fourth grade when you learned the parts of speech and they told you that a preposition is anything that a rabbit can do to a log?
A rabbit can go above the log, through the log, around the log,
Well, there’s a limit on what sports can do to generate enthusiasm, but oh my goodness, is there a lot of enthusiasm about sports?
But look at these Words!
Look at the God of the Bible and your enthusiasm should be at least on par or significantly higher.
I marvel at people’s lack of capacity …
to be enthused by the meaning of words.
But let’s get into it.
Let’s try to resolve.
So, Scripture on Creation.
Let’s back it up a little bit.
Creation has to matter because then God would matter, because then I would matter, because I’m designed by God, and then the gospel matters.
So, all this is tied together.
Alright, enough intro.
Chapter 1.
Here we go.
Hebrews 11.
Now when I say Hebrews 11, if you’re at all connected with Christianity for even just a couple months, you know that’s aka the faith chapter.
The faith chapter of the Bible, right?
Hebrews 11, here it is, through faith, that’s the theme, through faith we understand.
Now I want you to notice, it does not say through understanding we have faith.
Ba-da-ba-boom-boom-boom-boom-bam!
It says instead, through faith
And we’ll talk about Who the faith is in.
Through faith, we understand.
Now, the natural man likes to understand things.
It’s got to make sense, right?
But that’s not the Bible way.
The Bible way is through faith, we understand.
Our understanding becomes fully activated through faith first.
Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God … who built that building.
Well, the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
That is saying that out of nothing God spoke everything.
And you have to believe that.
Otherwise, your understanding is darkened.
Please note, in this verse, it is not the natural perception.
It is not through understanding that we believe.
“Oh, now I get it.
Now I can understand it.
Now I can believe it.”
No, no, no.
That’s backwards.
That’s upside down.
That’s not God’s mathematics.
God’s mathematics is the exact opposite.
I need you to believe Me that I’m God and I made you.
Okay, okay, okay.
And by believing that, then your understanding turns on, right?
Rather, so in strong contrast to having to demand to understand first and then place confidence in the Creator, here the verse indicates, let’s do the supernatural level, it says rather through properly placed faith first in our Creator is then our understanding activated correctly.
Long pause.
Absorb that into your soul.
God likes faith.
God likes us to believe Him.
What is proper faith?
It is believing God, which is the opposite of believing our own intellect, our own senses,
Our own inadequate perceptions and misperceptions of the way reality we think works.
Here instead, we must believe God.
What specifically about God?
That by His Word, He formed all things which are seen and He made them out of things which do not appear.
Things that are not visually receptable to our senses.
I could not see it, touch it, taste it, feel it.
It’s not even there.
And then God made everything and I have to believe that by faith.
And when I believe it by faith, then my understanding for how the rest of the world operates gets activated because God rewards faith.
God says, you believe me?
Great.
Now I’ll help you understand why I made the worlds by My mouth.
Anyway, that was verse one.
I also marvel at human’s natural incapacity to process depth of content in today’s market.
You know, if it’s not in a meme with less than one sentence, like literally, there could be no capitalization, no punctuation.
The meme has to be so short.
I think the survey said seven words, six to seven words max on a billboard is what you’re going to do to get people’s attention span, right?
If you can’t shrink your meme down into a cartoon, you will have zero listenership is the common wisdom.
But …
God wrote a really long, thick Book and God believes that people can process words.
So therefore, just breathe in and continue and be excited.
So verse 1, all we did was understand that faith is required before understanding verse 2.
Are you ready?
What are these?
What is the topic?
What’s the theme?
We actually have a theme today.
And the theme is Scripture on Creation.
And then in parentheses, (as it relates to the gospel).
Scripture on Creation (as it relates to the gospel).
Here’s snippet number two.
We’re going to string a bunch of these together.
We’ll probably pause because eventually your heart and mind might need to breathe.
Snip two.
Here we go.
Genesis 1:1
And why did we put Hebrews first?
Well, because without faith, it’s impossible to even start.
Right?
Well, I don’t want to believe God.
Here, ask yourself this question.
What is stopping me from wanting to want to?
Why does my wanter not want to want to believe that there might be a Maker?
Am I avoiding my Maker on purpose?
Because if there’s a Maker, then I’m not the maker, right?
Does that sound logical?
If I’m not the maker of myself, then am I responsible to some kind of
factory in the sky, some kind of assembly Person.
You know, am I responsible to my Creator?
That’s why people avoid creation.
I’m responsible to respond.
And what’s the proper response?
The gospel.
The whole gospel is the proper response to knowing that I have a Creator.
Now we go to Genesis 1 … In the beginning
God created the heaven, want you to notice the word is singular, there’s no S on the first one.
In the beginning God created the heaven [singular] and the earth, [singular] … the earth.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Let’s dive in.
Are you ready to dive in?
Do you enjoy words?
You know, some people, they eat food like a dog.
Have you seen a dog eat?
You feed a dog a steak and the dog’s like, gone.
Okay.
Give me some more.
Give me some more.
And you’re like, dude, where are your taste buds?
Are your taste buds literally in your intestines?
Why would not you savor the steak?
It’s literally steak.
You know, have you ever had that frustration with your pet?
You’re like, that was like $15 worth of steak that you consumed in less than five seconds.
Your teeth, did you, what?
No.
You don’t get any more until you first prove that you enjoyed the first bite.
Chew your food.
Same with the Bible.
You got to sink your teeth in.
You got to allow the nutrients to sink into your soul.
Let God mean something to you today, right?
Who is God?
Well, He’s a great Communicator.
He’s the best fluid flow Master when it comes to words.
He’s the string of Ling.
He can put it all together.
He’s admirable.
I mean, we admire His capacity for communion, right?
Isn’t He the best at expressing Himself?
So let these words matter.
You know, people are hungry for intimacy.
What is intimacy?
Feeling close to somebody else.
How does that happen?
Allowing someone to express who they are verbally and visually.
Verbally.
With vivation.
So let the verbs reverberate into your verbosity.
[I’m just throwing stuff together now.]
Alright, let’s dive into this.
Please, I invite you to allow God to matter.
and then allow his words to matter, and then you will feel like you matter.
That’s what happens.
And then that little thing on the side of your face, the muscles, you will smile.
You will smile more if you let God’s words deeply impact
Your Everything.
All right, here we go.
Interlinear evaluation of keywords.
“I’m done already.”
No, you’re not.
We just started!
You just made a commitment that you wanted to dive into this verse.
So we’re going to break it down by highlighted keywords.
The very first keyword in Genesis 1-1 is created.
Can we agree?
In the beginning God created.
Let’s just start with the word created, okay?
That word,
transliterates into English as bārā’.
bārā’.
It’s an action verb meaning to create, shape, form.
Can you see it happening?
Is your imagination on?
Are you visualizing what God did?
Who is God?
Created.
That’s the first action in the Bible.
Created.
Here’s the meaning.
We’re going to dig.
It’s going to go a little deep.
Put on your mental seat belt.
To produce, definition one: to produce by fashioning something entirely new.
Did you like it?
That’s a spoonful of yum yum.
Ready?
To produce by fashioning something entirely new …
(Wait for it.)
This word is always used with God
as the Activator, since this action is something of which humans can only emulate, that means copy on a lower level, but not particularly perform themselves.
What does that mean?
That means when I talk and I say, “Let there be light,” nothing happens.
Nothing happens. NADA.
I did not speak light into existence, no matter how much the New Age movement wants to say, well, your words have impact on your surroundings and they impact water on a molecular level and they make that …
Dude,
All you have to do is walk into a dark room and just declare and proclaim and say, “I am the deity of this space and I declare that light will appear out of nothing.”
Okay, you do that and you scientifically prove that you can generate life, life and light with your vocabulary and your verbal undulations and we will certainly come and worship you!
Because evidently you’re worshiping yourself anyway.
Creation is something you cannot do.
Why not?
I want to do it.
You cannot.
Why?
Because the Creator creates.
Well, can’t I be the co-creator?
You’re fired!
There’s no position open!
Nobody’s hiring for a co-creator!
That is the satanic witch, Oprah, that funded this secret movement that says that you’re the co-creator and the co-captain of your life.
You are not, sir.
There’s one Creator, capital C, and it is not thee.
It’s He, not me.
Right?
You will smile and relax when you realize that the God who created everything did something that you, it’s exclusive.
You cannot participate in the creation effort.
This is essential to comprehending who the true God is.
He’s not going to share His glory.
He’s not going to share His capacity for creation.
He’s not going to let you be a mini-Him.
No, no, no.
There’s some things only God can do by Himself.
That’s what makes Him God.
And number one is He created.
And you can’t.
And that’s okay to smile.
It’s perfectly fine that you cannot speak worlds into existence.
It’s perfectly fine.
If you could do it, you would have already done it.
There’d be a new planet named after you, but where is it?
It’s not there.
It’s in your imagination.
O thou holiest of self-worship.
Anyway, stop with the sarcasm.
Back to the Bible.
Okay.
The word created.
All this before noon, right?
Means to produce, by fashioning, something entirely new, that which did not exist.
Remember the first verse?
God made everything out of things … which did not appear.
This is an action which only God can particularly perform and it is exclusive, outside the bounds of human capacity.
This word,
Created applies to heaven and earth, things which are formed.
It applies to individual man.
Biology tries to formulate a man, but God made man from dirt and breath.
Irreplicatable.
Totally unduplicatable in the lab.
Go ahead and try.
Give it another hundred years.
Certainly we will make life.
Creation.
Created.
God created.
Barach.
What does it mean?
It means to generate new conditions and circumstances.
Kind of to set the laws in motion, right?
It also means, I like this one, ready?
Created.
God created.
It applies to absolute transformations.
We’re a new creation.
God produces absolute transformations, like biblical level, miracle-level transformation of a person.
Creation.
We’re digging deep.
You ready for the next level?
Now, words mean something.
Why?
Because God gives words meaning.
Without God, there is no meaning.
And there’s no words, but certainly we have Words.
And we’re back with even more background noise.
Okay.
Another nuance of the word created means to cleanly separate and then to proceed to polish, make smooth, bring to a finish that which has been separated.
Pretty good visual, right?
For how God made the heaven and the earth.
Now the word heaven, we’re skipping ahead, the word heaven, moving to the next level, the pronunciation of the Greek word into English is shaw-mah’-yim … something like that.
The word etymology, which is the history, it comes from an unused root word meaning to be lofty, lofty.
The outline of biblical usage, number one, of course, is heaven.
or Sky.
This could apply to
-
the visible heavens, that which we can perceive visually,
-
the abode of the stars,
-
the atmosphere, etc., or number two, heaven as the abode of God.
Strong’s definition of this word, heaven, shamayim,
is a DUAL form of an unused singular root which means aloft the DUALITY perhaps alluding to the visible arch in which the clouds move as well as ALSO to the higher ether where the celestial bodies move hence indicating a two-layer or multi-layer sky
Boom!
Right?
You’ve heard of first heaven, second heaven, third heaven.
It’s layer cake.
Shumbaya. Shaw-mah’-yim
Something like that.
Alright, now earth.
In the beginning God created.
What did he create?
Heaven.
We covered that.
It’s a multi-layer cake.
Earth.
Strong’s definition for earth.
אֶרֶץ ʼerets, pronounced as: eh’-rets is the word in Greek.
The root word meaning … be firm.
Solid.
Earth.
Commonly used as, this same word is commonly used as: country, earth, field, ground, land.
All of those are solid structures.
This is earth … as opposed to heaven.
Land, a piece of ground, including, this definition of the word earth includes the concepts of Sheol, which is the land without return, the under (world).
So both the dirt land,
and what’s underneath the dirt, or the ground surface of the earth.
This is all in the definition of Earth.
The word earth here can be used in phrases to indicate:
the spatial area measurement of landmass.
You knew that, right?
Topography.
The word earth, are you ready, means: level or plain country.
It also means, in a phrase, all the ends of the earth.
Pretty nifty, right?
And we’re going to pause right there because there’s so much in Scripture on the topic of creation.
The Creator really wants us to praise Him for what He made.
He wants us to recognize that He’s the Maker.
All through the Psalms, one of the chief themes of the music is our Maker, our Creator, things that God did, and the two big things that God did was He made stuff and He provided salvation.
So they are intricately interwoven.
One should not, could not believe entirely that “I have a valid Savior who provided eternal salvation” if He is not also truthful in telling how God made the world.
Please stay tuned for part 2. Plenty more Scriptures on Creation to follow!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
