Genesis - 1
Introduction
We are all interested in our roots. Children will ask, ‘Where was I born?’ or ‘Where did our family come from originally?’ Some people in Britain have journeyed many miles to find the village or the very house where their ancestors lived. People in America have travelled back to the British Isles or Europe or Africa to do this. Going back to our beginnings or roots gives us a sense of belonging, a feeling of significance, of having a place in history. We understand ourselves better when we have some understanding of our own history and our own place in the human race.
That is why it is so important to go back to the beginning of everything concerning this world and mankind. That beginning is set out for us in the first book of the Bible, called Genesis. The name means ‘Beginnings’ - the start of everything.
Here we are walking about on this planet Earth. We see so many people all around us each day. If you can imagine a video camera that has been running all the time, recording the world’s history, what a film it would make! But then imagine being able to run the film backwards. Cities would get smaller, styles of dress would alter, transport would get slower, and peoples would move from their present countries back to earlier centres of civilisation. Before long the number of people on earth would be shrinking to a handful, and then just to the one couple from whom the whole human race started.
As the film continues to run backwards you would see the creation of the animals, birds, and marine life; the sun, moon and stars; the trees and the plants. Next you would observe the separation of land and water, an empty and dark world, and then the great miracle of its beginning out of nothing.
I wonder how many times have you heard the question, ‘How did the world begin?’ I also wonder how many different theories have you heard from equally brilliant men on how they think it happened? The point is this, that with all their sophisticated equipment and complicated equations they do not know exactly what happened. They will tell you, ‘We may reasonably suppose’, or ‘In the light of present knowledge it is reasonable to assume….’ And then they give you their supposition or assumption.
If we had that video film I was talking about, we would know what happened. But we do not have it. What we do have, however, is God’s word, the Bible. I know it has been ridiculed, attacked, burned and torn up, but it has outlived, out-taught and outshone all its critics and enemies. The way it has been preserved, the nobility of its moral teaching, the fulfilment of its prophecies, the way it changes people’s lives for the better - all these things tell us it is no ordinary book. It is God’s revelation to us, telling us about this world and how it began. It tells us about ourselves and our relationship to He who has made us. It tells us how we can come into fellowship with Him through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Genesis, the book of beginnings, we start to learn about God - who He is and what He is like. You will often hear people say that first impressions are the most memorable. They are usually accurate impressions too. Well, in Genesis we receive our first impressions of God, for this is where He begins to reveal Himself to us in his written revelation. I emphasise his ‘written revelation’ because God has also revealed Himself in this astonishing universe, and best of all in the person of his Son, the lord Jesus.
What we need to do these days is to take the book of Genesis seriously. Sadly, there are even some churches which do not do this, and some preachers who do not believe the first eleven chapters.
They will say those opening chapters contain religious truth, but are not scientifically accurate when it talks about how the world began.
Our Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles certainly did believe them as a true account of what happened at the beginning. They referred to such individuals as Adam and Eve and Noah, regarding them as real people who did just what the book of Genesis says they did. Christians can rely on those early chapters of Genesis just as much as the other parts of the Bible.
The mind of man is naturally inquisitive and is bound to wonder where and how everything began. The answers are in the book of Genesis. Interestingly enough, one Christian organisation now gives itself the name “Answers in Genesis” to show clearly the basis of its beliefs and Gospel witness.
When we begin to look into Genesis a number of fascinating truths emerge. In the first place we learn about how the world began and what is man’s place in it. How often down the centuries have people looked at the oceans, the mountains, the heavens above and wondered about man’s role in it all. Genesis tells us, but we learn far more beside.
We learn of man’s uniqueness and how he is different from the animals. Genesis describes the special creation of man by God his maker, not by evolution. There is a huge gap between the animal kingdom and the human race. You can give blood transfusions quite safely across the varying nationalities, but animal blood cannot be given to a human being. It is of a different chemical structure. Similarly, organs transplanted from animals do not take; they are rejected by the human body. The various racial groups on earth can inter-marry and produce healthy children because we all belong to the human race.
When animals are bred with those of a different kind you produce a cross-breed or hybrid. That animal tends to be sterile or weak, so you cannot produce a further generation.
This is exactly what Genesis teaches, that each kind produces its own kind, not some other breed which is entirely different. The animal kingdom is a quite separate domain, and although we are fond of animals and should take an interest in their welfare, we are not descended from them. Man is the crown of God’s creation here on the earth. We have the responsibility of caring for his creation and managing it responsibly.
You may wonder about things that go wrong in our world; the storms, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, eruptions and earthquakes. You look at all the evil and suffering there is and wonder why we cannot have a better world. Genesis tells us about that too. It tells us not only about the God Who is our Creator, but also about how He has taken the initiative in bringing salvation to spiritually lost mankind. Though man has spoiled God’s perfect creation, and through his disobedience, has brought the blight of sin on the world and been separated from his Creator, Genesis tells us that God promised a Saviour in order to show mercy to his rebellious children. That promised Saviour is God’s own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In the New Testament letter to the Romans chapter 5 we are told that “sin entered into the world through one man (Adam), and in this way death came to all, because all sinned.” We are also told that, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
This, then, is how Genesis gives us our first impressions of God. It introduces us to the great, eternal Creator who is beyond our understanding and yet who has come near to us in the person of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know for your self this great and loving God who made all things and made you? Can you call Him your own heavenly father? Seek Him and call out to Him so that He may reveal Himself to you in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is another verse in the letter to the Romans, chapter 10 verse 13, with which I finish this talk: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Will you call on Him today?