Brian Cole: 'Preparing Our Home'

Genesis 1:6-13 – Preparing Our Home

So far in Genesis we have seen how God has moved and how He has created. This text speaks of God’s generosity and the world’s grateful response! Notice He said “Let there be!”

Creation delights in doing the will of the Creator! Deut. 11:12 – “…a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are ALWAYS upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”

We don’t hear a whole lot out in the world about the creation of God, but we SEE it every day when we get up and when we go to bed – we see stars shining, we see the sun, the moon, the oceans, the mountains, the snow sparkling on the trees from the sun shining on them… And we realize there is a God! A Great God as Creator, and not only as Creator, but as sustainer and Redeemer and Savior, and we are thankful we have a wonderful God we can serve, worship, honor and praise!

Between studying the various creation theories in the past and watching and reading even more now in preparation for these Genesis messages: the more I see the sillier they become! Because when you take God out of the equation and you remove God out of creation – there’s nothing left but foolishness.

One example is a show on PBS that talks about the moon, that the moon itself is just a big piece of the earth that broke off, flew into space and now somehow it just kinda orbits the earth a certain amount of times a year and causes tides on earth…FOOLISHNESS!

God is not only Creator, but He’s a God of order! He has set everything in order. He is in charge and in control. He didn’t just wind the clock up, sit back and say: “Well, I’ll just let everything wind down on its own.” He is involved in our lives each and every second of every day. He is concerned about us and He loves us. He want’s to be involved in our lives if we but allow Him to.

We read in Gen. 1:2 that the Spirit of God “hovered” or “moved” over the face of the waters. This is where God begins to move, shaping and forming this earth and preparing a home for His special creation – MAN!!

And on the second day of creation God created a “firmament,” that is, the heavens above the earth, including all the air space and where the birds fly. But this firmament was made to separate the 2 great volumes of water. God “divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.” Down on earth, the waters under the heavens were gathered together into the seas, but above the firmament the waters were not gathered together, but evidently, they were in vapor form, and surrounding this earth was some great blanket of water vapor.

Whatever was done on the second day was significant enough for God to take a full work day to accomplish it, and planning some great things here in the second day. The Biblical phrase is: “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into ONE PLACE, and the gathering together of the waters He called seas.” 

As day 3 dawns, the earth’s entire surface was covered with water. But by the end of the day there will be not only dry land, but also vegetation. For the first time, land emerged out of the water. The cataclysm that brought this about at the command of God is almost inconceivable! All of a sudden rock and earth, still in its unformed condition and buried under the depths of a global sea, started to move to the surface of the water. The Bible, in several places, indicated that the universe and the earth that God brought into existence was quite different from what we experience now. What a staggering act of creation!! 

It’s the clear testimony of Scripture that God made this happen instantaneously! Job 38 confirms this fact. Here is the LORD talking to Job. He reminds Job that the creation is in no position to question the Creator: “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. ‘Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell Me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone – while the morning starts sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?”  Then He describes what He did on day 3 of creation: “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness. When I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt.”

The Psalmist describes the same thing in Psalm 104:5-9 – “He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at Your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of Your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will the cover the earth.

And the Lord continues to ask those who question His creation: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations, tell me if you understand!” When we attempt to attribute creation to anything other than its Maker we blaspheme God and rip the glory away from the one who deserves it. As the book of Romans said: Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images… because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever! Amen. 

Next week we will dig further into the creation process of the earth. Blessings to you all.