The story of Noah and the Flood is one of the most important stories in the Old Testament. It speaks to us about salvation and God’s faithfulness, as well as the faith of one man in the face of a wicked generation. You can look forward to those happy themes in future weeks. Within the story of the Flood, most preachers try to skip over Genesis chapter 6. But that is where we must begin today. Genesis is one of the most unsettling, disturbing and depressing chapters in the whole Bible. Spoiler alert – everybody is going to die! Much as I would love to dodge preaching on this passage, we can’t. So here goes. Before we get to the good news, we have to start with the bad news – possibly the worst news anybody has ever been given.

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.
A great big flood is coming! So big it would wipe out all the people and all the animals on the planet. An occurence so destructive that it gives us the truly terrifying English word – a cataclysm. It was what disaster movies love to call an ELE – an extinction level event. And the flood was coming because of all the corruption and violence which had spilled over from human beings to pollute even the earth itself. So the story of the flood begins by confronting us with
THE SERIOUSNESS OF SIN
5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Things had gone from bad to worse The only way forward would be for God to send a great big flood and wash all the wickedness and evil and corruption and violence away and wash away all the spilled blood which was tainting the land. That is how bad things had got, due to human sin.
Somehow, in our lifetimes, the world has forgotten the seriousness of sin. I was struck by the slogan I saw a few years ago on a T-shirt. It said, “The only rule is that there are no rules.” That is how very many people live their lives today. “There are no rules.” In earlier generations it was different. Even people who “feared no man” would fear God. Even if they weren’t afraid of being caught and punished by human law, moast people were still afraid of being punished by God. They knew they would face a reckoning one day. Today life is different. The vast majority of people live their lives as if there was no God because they think God doesn’t exist. Many people pick and choose which laws they will obey and which they will ignore. Very many people are content to live just by the eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not get caught.” People have forgotten the seriousness of sin.
Have you ever heard of Billy Sunday? He was probably the most influential evangelist in America in the first two decades of the 20th Century. One of Billy Sunday’s most memorable quotes is this. “One reason sin flourishes is that it is treated like a cream puff instead of a rattlesnake.” The truth is that sin is not an enticing indulgent cream cake. Sin is a rattlesnake – it kills people.
Ezekiel 18:4 and 18:20 both say “The soul who sins will die.” Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” In Noah’s time, the wickedness and corruption and violence of human beings brought death and destruction on them all.
I wonder if you remember, back in the 1970s and 1980s there was a long-running series of television adverts from the National Dairy Council starring many of the popular entertainers of the time: Les Dawson, Barbara Windsor, Cilla Black, Tommy Cooper, Joan Sims, Frankie Howard. I particularly remember one from 1985 which featured Kenneth Williams as Dracula. The simple slogan they used to promote the sales of calorie filled dairy products was created by an up and coming copywriter by the name of Salman Rushdie. “Fresh cream cakes – naughty but nice”. “Naughty but nice”.
A century ago everybody knew what “sin” was. Breaking the Ten Commandments. The seven “deadly sins” of pride, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, lust and sloth. But over the years the world has softened the meaning of sin. People prefer to talk about selfishness, which points to the effects our sins have on other people and on ourselves. But selfishness completely ignores the truth that sin is most importantly rebellion against the righteous, holy and almighty God. Slowly and subtly, sin has been rebranded as things which may be self-indulgent but are essentially harmless. Just, “naughty, but nice”.
But that is a lie. Genesis 6 shows us that human sin was so serious that God sent a great big flood to wipe out humanity and start all over again. Everybody died. That is the seriousness of sin.
Let’s move on. There are five places in the New Testament which look back to Noah or to the Flood. Only Hebrews 11 verse 7 talks about Noah’s faith. Other passages use the event of the flood to point to a different very important truth –
THE CERTAINTY OF GOD’S JUDGMENT
Genesis 6 5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.’
Some people think that because God is love, he is too loving to punish human sins. So they think there won’t be any day of judgment. That idea is wrong. The Flood was God’s punishment for sin on Noah’s generation. It stands throughout human history as a dramatic warning of the reality of God’s future judgment on sin which is waiting to come on all people.
2 Peter 2:5 … if (God) he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; … 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.
The events of the flood are not just a demonstration of God’s ability to save his own people. The Flood also points to the grim reality of God’s judgment on those who are unrighteous. Since God judged the world then, he will certainly do so again. Metaphorically, an even bigger flood is still coming!
J.B. Phillips “… you may be absolutely certain that the Lord knows how to rescue a good man surrounded by temptation, and how to reserve his punishment for the wicked until his day comes.”
The certainty of God’s judgment. You will see why I was struck by a book by Ray Comfort entitled “Hell’s best kept secret”. What is the great truth that all the powers of evil want to keep secret? What is the fact which would change the world if people only accepted it? Simply the truth that God is a Holy and righteous God and every single human being will one day face judgement for all the wrong things they have done! Judgment is coming.
When Jesus pointed to the events of the Flood, he did so as a warning to his generation to be ready to face the judgment of God on the great day when he will return in glory.
Luke 17 26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.”
Matthew 24:39 ends the saying, they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.
Just like in Noah’s time, most people don’t realise that there is another even bigger flood coming our way – God’s certain judgment on a sinful world. So much of Jesus’s teaching was challenging people to get ready to face God’s inescapable judgment. Think of the parables of the sheep and the goats, of the ten virgins, of the wicked tenants in the vineyard, of the ten gold coins, of the wheat and the weeds, of the net, of the rich fool, of the wedding banquet. Get ready!
Hebrews 9:27 tells us: people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.
Romans 1 in particular warns about God’s judgment on human sin.
Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness. … 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. …
Paul goes on to name many shameful examples of human sin and immorality.
29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. 30 … they invent new ways of doing evil;
Just read the newspapers or watch the news. Human wickedness and violence continue to corrupt the earth as much as in Noah’s generation. The historical event of the Flood is the solemn warning through the millennia of the certainty of God’s judgment which is to come. An even bigger flood is coming! Which brings us finally and joyfully to
NOAH’S FAITH
This whole sermon series is looking at the great heroes of faith from the Old Testament listed for our inspiration in Hebrews Chapter 11. But the focus in Genesis 6 is not on Noah’s faith. Did you notice that 2 Peter 2 verse 5 celebrates Noah in a different way.
2 Peter 2:5 (God) did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness,
Noah was “a preacher of righteousness”, “a herald of righteousness”. J.B. Phillips translates this verse as “Noah, the solitary voice that cried out for righteousness”. The New Living Translation says, “Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment.”
We don’t read about Noah preaching in words but we certainly do see his faith in his actions. First we read about his character and his lifestyle.

Genesis 6:9 “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” (NIV) Like Enoch who we heard about last week. The Good News Translation says, “Noah had no faults and was the only good man of his time. He lived in fellowship with God.” So Noah’s blameless life was already an example and a rebuke to all the people around him. And then on top of that, Noah expressed his faith by obeying God’s instructions and building his ark, however foolish that made him look. Genesis 6 22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
For decade after decade, for almost a hundred years, Noah kept on building. This ark was, to say the least, very big and very conspicuous. Noah would have faced mocking and ridicule. I am certain people would keep coming up to him and asking what on earth he was doing. “Why are you building a huge boat here in the middle of dry land?” Noah would have told them every time, “A great big flood is coming”. And he would have explained to everybody what God had told him. The flood which is coming is God’s judgment on human beings for all their sin and violence and corruption. So not only by his blameless life, but also by building the ark very publicly, Noah was a preacher and herald of God’s righteousness, warning the world of God’s judgment in the cataclysm which was coming.
And that is the challenge Genesis chapter 6 presents to Christians today. Are we prepared to follow Noah’s example and be preachers and heralds of God’s righteousness, by blameless character and courageous obedience to God? Even if we face mocking and ridicule, or worse. Are we willing to stand up and warn the world of the judgment which is coming? The message of the seriousness of sin and the certainty of God’s judgment is just as unpopular in today’s world as it was in the days of Noah. Are we willing to stand up as preachers of God’s truth in this world of postmodern relativism and post-truth which has abandoned very idea of truth? C. S. Lewis once said, “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.”
Did you see the newspaper reports this week about Hatun Tash. She is an ex-Muslim originally from Turkey. She’s now a Christian convert and street preacher, particularly at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park. During her preaching she has been attacked by mobs and wounded with a knife. On one occasion when she was attacked in June 2022, when the police arrived they did not challenge her attackers but instead they arrested Ms Tash and put her in a cell overnight. She has just received an out-of-court settlement of £10,000 from the Metropolitan Police for that wrongful arrest. Amazingly, that is the second time they’ve given her that amount of money: the police had already paid out in October 2022 for two earlier wrongful arrests while she was preaching at Speakers’ Corner. Preachers of righteousness.
In last Monday’s (23/9/2024) Spectator Brendan O’Neill wrote an article: “The plight of Hatun Tash shames Britain.”
“That there is a Christian preacher in 21st-century Britain who has been abused and hounded and slashed with a knife, and yet her name is virtually unknown, is profoundly troubling. It suggests liberals’ commitment to liberty, especially the liberty to utter, is thin indeed. In a more normal era, Tash would have become a cause célèbre, even among lovers of liberty who hated her brash style. … What do we value more – the right of an individual to speak freely or the right of certain groups never to feel offended? Right now, it’s the latter we have sacralised. This is confirmed by both the police’s heavyhanded response to Tash’s (preaching against) Islam and the shameful refusal of the intellectual classes to speak out against the violent harrying of this supposed ‘blasphemer’. These people are sending a message, however unwittingly. They’re saying it is better that a woman be prevented from expressing her deeply-held beliefs than for someone to feel offended by those beliefs. It is better to silence (his inverted commas) ‘blasphemy’ than to hurt a person’s feelings. … The failure of liberals, and the state itself, to defend a preacher’s right to preach will have an awful impact.”
Just as it was in the days of Noah, the world is running ever faster away from God. Are Christians willing to be “preachers of righteousness”, whatever it costs?
I want to finish by sharing a dream I had one night which many folk have agreed was an example of prophecy. This is not an illustration I invented – the Holy Spirit revealed it to me in a dream. One Sunday back in Brentwood I was all prepared to preach a sermon on taking risks for the sake of the gospel. On the Saturday night I dreamed that on the wall of our church I saw a painting. The painting I saw very vividly in my dream showed beautiful fields next to a river on a bright sunny day. On the riverbank a large group of people were having a lovely picnic together as rowing boats were drifting past along the river.
Next in my dream, to the right of that painting on the wall I saw a second painting. That was of a scene further along the same river. Just around a bend, where the people having the picnic could not see, there was a Niagara Falls sized waterfall. All the people in all the boats passing by were plunging to their deaths over the waterfall.
Meanwhile all the time the people on the riverbank in the first painting just went on enjoying their picnic. Nobody was throwing out lifelines to the boats passing by. Nobody was shouting out warnings to the boats. Nobody had even put up a sign saying, “Danger, waterfall ahead.” They just went on enjoying their picnic. Those were the paintings which I saw in my dream.

I am happy to say that the story of Noah and the Flood will bring us plenty of hope and encouragement and inspiration in the weeks to come. But for today, Genesis chapter 6 shows us the seriousness of sin and the certainty of God’s judgment. Are we willing to follow Noah’s example and be preachers and heralds of God’s righteousness? To warn people of the certainty of judgment? Because another great big flood is certainly coming!

There are between 5000 and 7000 languages in use around the world today. Chinese is spoken by 1.2 billion people in the world in 31 different countries. That is almost four times as many people as the next most popular languages English and Spanish which are each spoken by around 330 million people across more than 150 countries between them. Arabic is spoken by 221 million people and Hindi and Bengali by around 180 million people each. Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and German make up the top 10 most commonly spoken languages.
Some people think that the world would be a much less troubled place if everybody spoke the same language. Back in 1887 the artificial language Esperanto, meaning hope, was constructed with exactly that aim. But no country has ever adopted it as their official language and there are probably less than 2 million people who actually speak Esperanto. If politicians ever do decide that every country should speak the same language, I just hope it won’t be Chinese! But although more effective communication is always a good thing, the Bible makes it clear that just speaking the same language won’t solve all the world’s problems. Differences in language are not the cause of divisions between peoples and nations. It is greed and selfishness and injustice which lead to conflicts and wars. And we see those very same sins in the story of the Tower of Babel which tells us where all the languages of the world came from in the first place.
THE SINS OF THE FIRST BABYLONIANS
Genesis 113 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
“Let us build ourselves a city.” These were the descendents of Noah, who God had rescued from the great flood of his judgment in the ark. Yet in only a few generations people had forgotten about God. This new city of Babylon became the focus of growing human arrogance. They had grand designs, but they were leaving God out. God has never permitted human beings to create a social order from which the Divine Creator is excluded. Nor will he ever let us do so. A world rejecting God would limit and ultimately destroy humankind.
“With a tower which reaches to the heavens.” The name Babylon means “gate of god.” The great tower of the temple was a ziggurat, the kind of vast structure built by lots of nations to honour their false gods thousands of years BC. The people believed their gods actually lived in these ziggurats. The people were trying to put God in a box – but God won’t let people do that!
“So that we can make a name for ourselves.” Human beings since Adam and Eve have always been driven by pride. In the days after the flood we read of Noah’s great grandson called Nimrod.
Genesis 10 8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who grew to be a mighty warrior on the earth. 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the LORD.” 10 The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Calneh, in Shinar. 11 From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah 12 and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.
Nimrod had ambitions to rule the whole of humanity. The Babylonians had the same desire to build themselves a reputation which would last forever.
“And not be scattered over the face of the earth”. They were seeking their security in walls and buildings instead of in God. In doing so they were setting themselves in opposition to the purposes and the sovereignty of God.
The Babylonians give us examples of sins to avoid. The sin of thinking we can live our lives without God. The sin of thinking we can build our own way to heaven.
GOD’S JUDGMENT ON THE BABYLONIANS
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
When we think of what happened in the Flood, the punishment God brought on the Babylonians for their pride and arrogance could have been much more severe. The limit to God’s punishment on Babylon was a sign of God’s mercy.
“Let us confuse their language”. And this breakdown of communication had other inevitable consequences.
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
The name Babel sounds like the word for confused. This confusion stopped the building of the city and the people were scattered all over the world. God intervened just enough to stop mankind from going completely off the rails. Of course the Babylonians did not want to be scattered, but God’s action was sufficient to stop the building of their tower. And so God’s greater purposes of ultimate salvation were not thwarted.
GOD’S JUDGMENT ON MAN’S EFFORTS TO IGNORE HIM
Babel was the first time but certainly not the last that human beings rebelled against God by ignoring Him. It has been the pattern of human life ever since the Fall.
Romans 1 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
Humanity’s rebellion against God has often been expressed in buildings and cities. Still today we find so much poverty and injustice, fear and crime, loneliness and loss of meaning in the breakdown of community of our big cities. So many are tempted to immorality or addictions in the anonymity of city life. And false religions flourish in cities, partly I am sure because people are insulated from the natural world which reveals the glory of God through its beauty and its sheer power!
Cities and empires are often a focal point for sin. We find that in the Bible in its portrayals of Rome as Babylon.
Revelation 18 18 “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.
3 For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”
19 “ ‘Woe! Woe, O great city, where all who had ships on the sea became rich through her wealth! In one hour she has been brought to ruin!
Behind the evil of human cities and empires we can sometimes see the power of the evil one, the devil, sometimes embodied in his human representatives.
And however much humanity tries to sort out its own problems, things will continue to go wrong whenever God is not at the centre!
GOD’S PROMISE OF A PERFECT FUTURE
Men and nations have always been trying to build a better future from themselves – usually at the expense of other men and nations. The last century has seen attempts to build world peace based on cooperation rather than domination but those efforts, such as the League of Nations and then the United Nations, have not been completely. Breaking down language barriers and establishing dialogue is always a good thing. But human beings will never be able to build a lasting peace. Pride and greed will always get in the way in the end. Any attempts at cooperation which leave God out will fail and may even bring down God’s judgment as it did at Babel. The Almighty Creator God is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and will not be ignored!
But God does have a plan for a perfect future for human beings. This season of Advent encourages us to look ahead in anticipation of that future. We read God’s promises in the prophets.
Isaiah 9 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
In His first incarnation the Lord Jesus Christ brought the beginnings of that wonderful future. And the church began to experience God’s perfect peace as the confusion of the languages was reversed on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit filled all the believers and gave them the spiritual gift of speaking in other languages so that everybody could hear them praising God in their own language.
So at the birth of the church the Holy Spirit removed the confusion of languages which entered the world at Babel. God brought unity in diversity to the growing church.
Galatians 3 26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And that peace and unity will ultimately be fulfilled in the eternal city.
Revelation 21 21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
Only God can build that heavenly city. The story of the Tower of Babel teaches us that any hopes of lasting peace and harmony build on human efforts are naïve. The only hope for the world is the peace God gives and the gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Psa 104:31 May the glory of the LORD endure for ever; may the LORD rejoice in his works-

1. God rejoices in his works because his works are an expression of his glory.
2. God rejoices in the works of creation because they praise him. – Even the great sea monsters in the deeps that nobody has even discovered yet!!
3. God rejoices in the works of creation because they reveal his incomparable wisdom.
4. God rejoices in the works of creation because they reveal his incomparable power.
5. God rejoices in the works of creation because they point us beyond themselves to God himself. God means for us to be stunned and awed by his work of creation. But not for its own sake. He means for us always to look at his creation and say: If the work of his hands is so full of wisdom and power and grandeur and majesty and beauty, what must this God be like in himself!!

The Lord rejoices in His works! God indeed delights in his creation. So should we! We thought about the wonders of Creation earlier in this series. Creation is amazing! Whether is is puppies or plants or planets or particles there are so many parts of God’s creation for us to enjoy! To study and to enjoy! Celebrate Creation!

A clergyman once acked the noted biologist J.B.S. Haldane what one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator from a study of his creation? Haldane is said to have answered, “The Almighty must have “an inordinate fondness for beetles” Beetles–more precisely, insects belonging to the order Coleoptera–make up a hefty 20 percent of all known biological species – 350,000 different species of beetles on the planet!

Celebrate Creation! God created everything in perfect balance. Psalm 104 echoes Genesis 1 speaking of the symmetry, ecological balance and majesty of creation. The six days of creation reveal the plants, of the animals, of human beings, of the times and seasons. And leads on to a glorious declaration of praise at the wonders of God’s creation. Then Psalm 104 reminds us how the whole of creation remains under God’s tender care.

Psalm 104:10. He makes springs pour water into the ravines; it flows between the mountains.
11 They give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
12 The birds of the air nest by the waters; they sing among the branches.
21 The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God.
22 The sun rises, and they steal away; they return and lie down in their dens.
23 Then man goes out to his work, to his labour until evening.
24 How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
27 These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time.
28 When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.

God provides food for all he has made. In the framework of creation, God has provided all that we need. Day by day in his faithfulness God continues to provide for all that we need!

Gen 1:29 ¶ Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground- everything that has the breath of life in it- I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

So human beings were originally vegetarian!! But after the flood God changed that.
After God rescued Noah and the ark from the flood which brought judgement on the evil which human beings had brought to the earth, God made this promise to Noah and his family in GENESIS 8: 22
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
Here is God’s Promise of the blessings of seasons and harvest forevermore.

9: 1 ¶ Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. … 3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

So God gave Noah and his descendents permission to become meat-eaters and use animals for food. And he also gave human beings the carnivorous teeth to enable them to eat the meat too! Now there’s something to think about.

God gives all creatures – including us human beings – all the food we need. But he also gives us a job to do!

Stewards of creation

GENESIS 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Gen 2:15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Taking care of the world God has made includes at least two responsibilities. Caring for God’s creatures, and caring for the people God has created.
Caring for God’s creatures

God still cares about his creation! The story of the flood reminds us of this truth.

Genesis 9:8 ¶ Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you- the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you- every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

The Noah covenant, the rainbow covenant was not just with Noah but with ALL living creatures!!

So God cares about the animals he has created – and not just the beetles. He cares when animals are mistreated and abused in laboratory experiments, some of which may be justifiable but many of which certainly are not! God cares when animals are reared and treated in barbaric conditions to give supermarkets bigger profits! God cares when a species becomes extinct, as dead as the dodo!

I read a most disturbing story: “Lions are close to extinction”

Lion populations have fallen by almost 90% in the past 20 years, leaving the animal close to extinction in Africa, a wildlife expert has warned.
There are now only 23,000 left, compared to an estimated 200,000 two decades ago, according the University of California. A study in Kenya says that the only hope for lions and other predators is for humans and wildlife to live together as Kenya’s human population will double in the next 12 years. It’s not just lions. Populations of all African predators are plummeting. The wild dog population has fallen to between 3,500 and 5,000 and there are now fewer than 15,000 cheetahs.

“People know about elephants, gorillas and rhinos, but they seem blissfully unaware that these large carnivores are nearing the brink,” he says. Predator numbers are dropping because people are killing them to protect livestock. People have always killed predators. But there’s only so much damage you can do with spears and shields. Now people have rifles and poisons. Wild predators and farmers could co-exist peacefully. Improved fencing and dogs to raise the alarm when predators approach could cut attacks drastically. But with each lion killing livestock worth on average £200 a year, equivalent to one cow or three sheep, people think that “bullets and poison are always cheaper than good husbandry”.

Human beings were created in the image of God to be stewards of creation. That isn’t just the responsibility of Christians – but the task God has given shared by every human being! We all have a responsibility for the planet!
Caring for other people

God has provided the whole earth with more than enough food to go round.

Psalm 104:14 He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate- bringing forth food from the earth: 15 wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart.

God provides the food – but millions die hungry. There are different problems with the same underlying cause. In some places the populations are growing too quickly and there is not enough food to go around because people are packed more densely into an area than the crops can sustain. People are having to move into areas where there is no safe water supply because the areas near the safe water are too crowded. And there are other places where people are starving because the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Landowners rob their tenants. Governments spend money on wars instead of on food and development and health care.
The underlying cause of all these problems is simply greed. Too many people taking more for themselves and not caring if others suffer and die. This works at a local level, and at an international level.
God calls all human beings to care for each other. But especially he calls his Church to speak out for the poor and the needy and the oppressed! We thought about this in our home groups a year ago. God calls us to “act justly”.

‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.’ (Proverbs 31:8,9)

We have a Biblical responsibility not only to meet people’s immediate needs but also to ‘loose the chains of injustice’. Being religious, or even having compassion and showing charity, are not enough. We must ‘loose the chains of injustice’ to tackle the root causes of injustice in our world.

• A call to act justly – loving our neighbour in Bulgaria and Uganda and North Africa and in the house next door and down our street.
• Social action – caring for the starving and aids victims and orphans – wherever they may be!
• Drop the debt – releasing poor countries from the debts which mean that they only get poorer as the rich get richer.
• Fair trade and consumer power – international trade agreements and purchasing fairly traded products to make sure that the producers of our food earn a fair wage.
• Rich Christians are challenged to consider the environmental impact of their lifestyles and to ‘live more simply that all may simply live’

In the beginning God looked at all He had created and saw that it was very good. So we should celebrate creation. But we should also remember that God made man to take care of his Creation.
GENESIS 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

This means caring for the planet, caring for the animals, caring for the people. This is our responsibility in this wonderful world which God has created for us to enjoy. Human beings were created in God’s image to be stewards of Creation.

Two weeks ago we saw how Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. The Tempter the Devil led them to believe lies about God and to confuse good and evil, so they disobeyed the one command God had given them. So Adam and Eve spoiled the relationship they had with God and that had terrible consequences for them and for all their descendants. They lost their immortality and they were banished from Eden forever.
But there was hope for humanity. God made a wonderful promise.
Genesis 3 14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
God promises that salvation will come through a descendent of Adam and Eve. So you can imagine how overjoyed they were when they had their first born son. Not only were all the usual joys of parenthood, but here God’s promise was beginning to be fulfilled. Here was a descendent who might crush the serpent’s head and open the way back into Eden again. Would Cain turn out to be that descendent? He might have been, if Cain had made different choices. It all went wrong when the time came for Cain and his brother Abel to offer their sacrifices to God. Abel was a shepherd. Cain grew crops. So they brought their own kinds of sacrifice.
Genesis 4:2 Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

We don’t really know why one kind of sacrifice was acceptable to God and the other was not. There are different theories. Some people think that God must already have prescribed the sacrifice He expected. Throughout the history of Israel from Moses onwards God commanded that the sin offering would be a lamb and that blood should be shed.
Hebrews 9 18 This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19 When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20 He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” 21 In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. 22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Other people think that the problem with Cain’s offering was that he did not give God his best. Cain just brought “some fruits of the soil.” But another principle in the Old Testament about sacrifices is that only the first and the best is good enough for God and Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The first and the best for God.
Some people think that Cain’s problem was that his attitude was wrong, and that God saw that. Cain’s offering might have been meaningless because his heart wasn’t in it. Time after time later generations fell into that particular trap. Remember God’s words through the prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah 1 11 “The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?” says the LORD.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
12 When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts?
13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
14 Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood;
16 wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong, 17 learn to do right!
In Isaiah’s time the Israelites were offering empty rituals, not sincere worship, not worship in Spirit and in truth. Empty worship is a mistake some people make in every generation. Perhaps that was Cain’s problem.
Then again Hebrews chapter 11 gives us another clue about what was unacceptable about Cain’s offering in the very passage we are going to be looking at this evening.
Hebrews 11 4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.
This verse tells us that Abel’s sacrifice was an expression of his faith in God. By implication Cain’s was not. True worship must always flow out of a genuine faith in God.
Whatever the problem was with Cain’s offering, we do know that the God of the Bible is always holy and just and fair. God had good reasons for accepting the sacrifice Abel brought and for rejecting the sacrifice that Cain brought. So God gives this solemn warning to Cain, which is of course a warning for all of us as well.
Genesis 4 So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
Here we have the first appearance of the ugliest word in the Bible and that word is “sin.” What a terrifying picture this is. Sin is like a wild and ferocious animal waiting to pounce, a savage and destructive beast which will devour Cain. And it is so sad to see that man ignore God’s warning and slide downwards to his own doom.
First came envy. Sibling rivalry is nothing new, the very first brothers in history were divided by it. But it is easy for all of us to fall into jealousy. Envy of other people’s possessions, or of their success, or of their popularity, or of their happiness. It is even possible to be jealous of the blessings other people receive from God when it seems God is not blessing us in the same way. Here is a powerful prayer. “Lord, grant that others become more holy than I am, as long as I become as holy as I should.” We can all fall into jealousy.
Galatians 5 19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Envy led Cain on to anger. Jesus warns us that being angry with somebody is as serious a sin as murdering them because in our anger we are murdering them in our hearts.
Anger led on to hatred. In the New Testament the First Letter of John uses this story of Cain and Abel as a warning to Christians.
1 John 3 11 This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. … 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
God calls us to love other people from the heart, to love the unlovely and to forgive each other. When we don’t do that we risk falling into Cain’s sin.
Envy led to anger, anger led to hatred and hatred ended in murder.
Genesis 4 8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

If only Cain and Abel had got their act together and made up and lived as friends instead of rivals, humanity might not have fallen so far away from God and the history of salvation might have been very different. But as we see the sins of envy and anger and jealousy which led Cain to murder, we need to trust in God’s help to escape those very sins ourselves.
Of course God was not asleep while all those things were happening and Cain attacked and killed his brother. So he asks Cain that vital question.

9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

God didn’t ask that question to find out the answer. God already knew what had happened. God was watching. God asks him, “Where is your brother Abel?” to give Cain an opportunity to confess his sin and repent and be forgiven. But Cain ignores that opportunity and compounds his sin by lying.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
No sign of repentance there. Cain dodges the question with a feeble joke. How different history might have been if only Cain had taken that God-given opportunity to confess and repent and be forgiven. Instead the lie he chose to tell condemned Cain to bear that guilt and shame forever.
Throughout history God has given people countless opportunities to confess and repent and find forgiveness.
Acts 17 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”
The sad fact is that time and again people choose to follow Adam and Eve and Cain in rejecting God. And another sad fact is that without confession and repentance and forgiveness, human sin always has consequences – the judgment of the holy God.
10 The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”
13 Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

When repentance does not come, judgment surely does. And what a terrible punishment! God’s curse. God’s curse. Driven out from the land. Forced to roam as a restless wanderer. Yet protected by God from a premature death until the punishment is complete.
15 But the LORD said to him, “Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.

Yet the ultimate punishment is even more dreadful.
16 So Cain went out from the LORD’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Cain is banished from the presence of God. What an amazingly vivid picture of hell. Wandering lost and separated from God forever. This is the consequence of sin for everybody who rejects God, as 2 Thessalonians 1 puts it.
8 (God) will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.
Here was the punishment Cain faced when he chose to sin as his parents had done. And more than that, Cain forfeited his place in the line of salvation. Cain had children, but the descendent of Adam and Eve who would destroy the devil could not come through Cain or through Abel. However God’s plan of salvation was not thwarted.
Genesis 4 25 Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” 26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.
What a wonderful story! I really don’t know why Jeffrey Archer bothered to write a book called Cain and Abel because the original Bible history has all the ingredients of a best seller. Jealousy. Anger. Hatred. Murder. Justice. Hope.
And there is one more truth we need to learn from this passage from verse 9.
9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Of course, the answer to that question is YES! The truth is that Cain WAS Abel’s keeper. Of course he was – he had killed him! But in a more general way, all of us ARE responsible before God for how we treat other people. All of us are responsible for the relationships we have with our brothers and our sisters and our neighbours and our friends. We are responsible for their well-being in this life. And we are also responsible for making sure that they know about God’s call to confess and repent of our sins and God’s wonderful offer of forgiveness and eternal life to all who put their trust in Jesus Christ. Yes – we are indeed our brother’s keepers and our sister’s keepers!

There is so much truth in Genesis chapters 1 to 3. In the beginning, God. We have met the God who is Almighty. God who is eternal, beyond time and before time and outside time, God who is Creator. God who is good and pure – and to begin with everything He created was good too, it was very good!

God created human beings. And He created them in his image, in His likeness.
We saw a month ago what being made in the image of God actually means. The Mental image. The Creative image. The Moral image. The Social image. The Spiritual image. That is what human beings are. The representation of God within Creation. And we have been entrusted with dominion over the whole of creation. That is what we were created to do. The representatives of God ruling over and caring for creation. Made in the image of God

And then we read God placed man in a garden in Eden. The word “Eden” means ’delight’ and ’pleasure’ and that is exactly what God intended for Mankind. In Eden, God provided Humankind with everything necessary for his happiness and well-being. Physically, he had abundant food and drink. For his heart, God gave him a companion so as not to be alone. For his spirit, God gave him purpose and responsibility of caring for creation and becoming a creator too. God also surrounded Man with beauty. To satisfy the soul, Man had the ability and opportunity to walk and talk with His Maker, each day, like good friends.

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, … and the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

GOD IS A GOD OF RELATIONSHIPS

God was walking in the garden. Enjoying the beauties of all He had created. But in the garden specifically because He wanted to walk with Adam and Eve – the crown of his creation. That was why human beings were created – to enjoy relationship with the Creator.
Can you imagine what it must have been like ? For Adam and Eve to walk in the Garden side by side with the Living God. To talk face to face with God. That was what God intended for human beings – but only a few since have had that wonderful experience.

ENOCH Gen 5:22 Enoch walked with God 300 years;
NOAH Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.(Genesis 6:9)
Genesis 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless.

Enoch, Noah, Abraham. And the Bible tells us that Moses TALKED with God, face to face.

Ex 33:10 10 Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshipped, each at the entrance to his tent. 11 The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.

Numbers 12:6 8 With him (Moses) I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD.

God walking and talking with human beings. That is why he created us, in his own image. If we want to know a bit about what God is like we can look at ourselves, as human beings created in God’s image. We are created for community, created for relationships. Relationships with the rest of Creation, relationships with the animals, relationships between man and wife created to complement each other, relationships with God.
Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD) wrote, “You awaken us to delight in your praise; for you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Human beings were designed to have a walking talking relationship with Almighty God. God walking among human beings. He is our God – we are His people. That is what it means to be truly human. God is a God of relationships. God intended to walk with human beings in the garden forever. That is what we were created for. So what went wrong?

Let me make one thing very clear, I believe the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is history. It believe these events happened just as the Bible describes them. Different people understand Genesis chapters 1 and 2 in different ways. Some people read them literally, as seven days of 24 hours each. Other people read them symbolically with the “days” representing long periods of time. But when we get to Genesis 3 and beyond I understand these chapters as history. And it was in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve that sin entered into the world.

THE CAUSES OF SIN

The devil –
3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Believing lies about God
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.

Confusing good and evil
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Leading each other on into sin
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

THE NATURE OF SIN

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.
Uncontrolled appetites – selfishness, greed, lust
Pride and independence – rebellion against God, wanting to lead life apart from God’s guidance, Thinking we know better than God

Disobeying a clear command.
3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

We don’t know exactly why eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would be wrong for Adam and Eve. But we do know that God does not give commands without good reason. And eating that fruit did give Adam and Eve personal experience of evil. God knows best – and this story of the Fall of humanity shows that truth so clearly. We disobey His commands at our own peril. Disobedience offends God, but it also brings us harm.

RESULTS OF SIN.

Adam and Eve hide from God. Their guilt separated them from God. Here is surely one of the saddest verses in the whole Bible.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Instead of running towards God to be with Him, Adam and Eve ran away from God to hide from Him.
John 3:19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

God is a God of relationships – so when Adam and Eve hide away from God, God seeks them out. “Where are you.” Even though God knew and indeed had seen and heard everything which had happened, God still wanted relationship with the man and the woman. Just as God says to each and every one of us still today, “where are you?” God wants relationship with us just as much.

Fear and despair
9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

God had created human beings to be in relationship with Him. When that relationship is spoiled or broken, life loses its meaning and purpose.

Damaged relationships
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Not only was the relationship Adam and Eve had with God spoiled. The relationship they shared wife was damaged too. Here we have the first recorded argument between a husband and a wife. As so often, the row was over who was to blame for their problems. Passing the buck. God blamed the man. The man blamed the woman. The woman blamed the snake and the snake didn’t have a leg to stand on!

Personal responsibility
People make all kinds of excuses when they do something wrong. It was somebody else’s fault. It was just a “moment of weakness.” But God holds both Adam and Eve personally accountable for disobeying His command and rejecting Him. But they were not the only ones to be affected. And as a result of Adam and Eve’s sin, God’s image in human beings is tarnished and warped. We have an innate bias towards choosing wrong instead of right. As John Newton once put it, “By nature, I was too blind to know God, too proud to trust Him, too obstinate to serve Him, too base-minded to love Him.” The Bible tells us that that original sin, multiplied by millennia of history and billions of people, is the reason for the great mess the world is in today.

GOD’S JUDGMENT ON SIN

All relationships have limits and boundaries. God had set one simple boundary to his relationship with Adam and Eve, one rule to be obeyed as a sign of respect for God’s holiness. And when that law was broken, when our first ancestors ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then we see that God is a Holy and Righteous God. Disobedience had consequences. God’s judgment on the Garden, judgment on the man, judgment on the woman and judgment on that ancient serpent the devil. I think it was a sad day for God when He administered His punishment upon Adam and Eve. But we must never forget that any relationship we have with Almighty God will always have limits – we must never forget He is a Holy God.

Judgment on the devil

14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!

Judgment on the woman
16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Judgment on the ground
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
Thousands of years before we knew about pollution and the ozone layer and global warming the Bible warns us that human selfishness and greed damages the planet.

Judgment on the man
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

There is the greatest punishment. Human beings were created immortal and sin has taken away their immortality. “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul that sins shall die.”

Fortunately for Adam and Eve and for us, their offspring, God is not only a just God but He is also a God of infinite mercy and bountiful grace. Even after Adam and Eve had disobeyed the only law God had given them, even while He was punishing the First Couple, God showed great mercy and grace. We see that mercy in at least three actions.

14 The LORD God said to the serpent, …. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

God reveals that one of Eve’s descendants would crush or destroy the devil and all His works. This seed of Adam, this descendant will undo the damage done by devil’s deceit and the disobedience of Adam and Eve. That descendant is none other than the Saviour Jesus Christ. A promise of hope in the midst of judgment.

Then God acted to deal with the problem of shame which their actions had brought to Adam and Eve.

21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

And finally God showed his mercy by making it impossible for Adam and Eve to eat again from the Tree of Life,
22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.” 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

God banished them from Eden! How was that a display of God’s mercy? By eating the fruit of the Tree of Life, Adam and Eve would become immortal. Just think about living forever with a body that is subject to pain, sickness and disease. Think about living forever with guilt, shame, fear, disappointment, sadness and discouragement. Consider what it would be like to live forever in a fallen world of crime, oppression, betrayal, hatred, strife and war.
We all yearn for immortality. We all wish to live and never die; however, not under those circumstances. God did not want that for Adam and Eve and their descendants. So, in His divine mercy, God made sure that such a tragedy would never take place.

So here in the Garden of Eden we see so much about what God is like. The God of relationships – who longs for a relationship with each one of us. The Holy God, but also the God of mercy. The God who has made a way to deal with the problem of sin and made a way for us to enjoy that relationship with Him.

The Westminster Catechism reminds us that the Chief End of Man, our destiny as human beings is, “To Glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” God created us for a relationship with Himself. And the good news is that one day we will all enjoy that relationship. We will be even closer to God than Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden.

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Rev 22:3 The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

So one day all we WILL walk with God. We WILL glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, (Genesis 20:11)

But just HOW did God make the world?

There are basically three ideas around about how the world came to exist.

Scientists

Most science today assumes that everything came into existence by natural processes and random chance

From the subtle unchallenged assumption of evolution in David Attenborough’s natural history films, to the explicit anti-theism of Richard Dawkins and Steve Jones, science and the media are united in rejecting the idea of a Creator. Possibly the greatest Science Fiction author Isaac Asimov made the same mistake as very many people – “I am an atheist, out and out. I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he does not that I don’t want to waste my time.”
The large majority of scientists close their minds to the evidence for God’s existence – so in the end he can’t see what many others can! But Christians HAVE seen that evidence. We have experienced the power of God and seen him at work! Scientists should NOT ignore that evidence, but rethink their scientific assumptions until their science fits with the real world! It was Albert Einstein who said “Science without religion is blind. Religion without science is lame.”

“Posterity will some day laugh at the foolishness of our modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature the more I am amazed at the Creator.” – Louis Pasteur

Science will never prove decisively whether God created everything or not
As we said two weeks ago, knowing God as creator is a matter of faith not science.

Heb 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

This verse says to me that science will never ever give conclusive proof about the process of creation or even the existence of God. We will always need faith to interpret the scientific evidence correctly.

“God is not discoverable or demonstrable by purely scientific means, unfortunately for the scientifically-minded. But that really proves nothing. It simply means that the wrong instruments are being used for the job.” J. B. Phillips (1906–1982)

Science develops theories based on observations about the universe. Almighty God is by definition greater than the universe and outside and beyond and before the universe. So we need faith to recognise what God has chosen to reveal of Himself within the universe.

We need a “change of mind” if we are ever going to see God.

Two people were walking along a river bank one day when they saw a man across the river. “How can we get across?” They shouted. “Why would you be wanting to do that then?” The man asked. “We want to get to the other side” they explained patiently. “Don’t be daft,” the man replied. “You’re already on the other side!” What we see depends on our point of view, on where we are standing to begin with.

Many people are so blinded by the way the media suggests that science has replaced God that they simply cannot see God. Some scientists are so locked into their way of looking at the world that they genuinely cannot see the evidence for God which is all around them. But for anyone who looks for it with the eye of faith, that evidence is plain to see. Scientists just need to switch their way of looking at the world – to move from a world which excludes God to a world which allows the possibility of God in it.

In contrast to scientists, Christians (and Jews and Muslims) and most people of faith believe that God created the whole universe.
ALL Christians believe that God created the universe. The Nicene Creed begins, “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.”
We believe that because, as we saw two weeks ago, from beginning to end the Bible teaches is that God is Creator. God created space and time, matter and energy, all things out of nothing, AND God designed and formed and shaped everything into the way we see things today.

ALL Christians agree that God is Creator. Where Christians have different opinions is over HOW God created the universe and particularly HOW LONG it all took.

“Young Earth” 7-Day Creationists

They read the first two chapters of Genesis entirely literally. So they believe that God made the universe from nothing in just six days of 24 hours each. From the ages of Adam and all his descendents they work out that the earth was created only some thousands of years BC and so the earth is now less than 10,000 years old. This is why they are described as “Young Earth” or 7-Day creationists and this view usually associated with a fundamentalist understanding of the Bible.

This view is sharply opposed to the view of scientists who think the universe is between 13 and 14 billion years old and the earth is 4.5 billion years years old and that human beings like us have been around for a couple of hundred thousand years. Scientific ideas such as evolution and the existence of dinosaurs in biology and continental drift in geology seem to contradict the idea of the entire creation taking only seven days.

“Old Earth” Creationists

Many other Christians don’t see the same problems with evolution or dinosaurs or continental drift. They still believe just as strongly that the God of the Bible is Creator of the whole universe. But they disagree that everything came to be just as it is now in the space of just 144 hours only 6000 years ago. They believe that God created what scientists call “natural processes” like evolution or continental drift, and worked through those processes to shape planet earth and all the life on it over billions of years. Old earth Creationists are happy to accept that the theories of science describe HOW God made the earth while the Bible explains WHO made the earth and WHY. This view is sometimes called theistic evolution or evolutionary creationism.

Young Earth Creationism is very popular with American Christians. On the other hand evangelical Christians in Britain more often believe in Old Earth evolutionary creationism. But which view is right?

The first thing I want to say is that we just don’t know. We won’t be sure until we get to heaven. I have good friends who hold either view. But then I want to say a few more things, not just as a scientist but also as a student of theology and Biblical interpretation. I want to explain why I am an “Old Earth creationist”.

The debate between 7 day “Young Earth Creationism” and “Old Earth Creationism” is a matter of Biblical Interpretation for Christians

The whole weight of Young Earth Creationism rests on interpreting that word Day in Genesis 1-2 as literal 24 hours.

But You don’t have to believe in a 7-day creation to believe in the infallibility of the Bible. “Young Earth Creationists” say that if you don’t believe in a 7-day creation then you don’t believe in the authority of the Bible! That is just rubbish! Old Earth creationists like me are as committed to the authority and reliability of the Bible as anybody else – we are actually disagreeing over the interpretation of just one word as it is used in just three passages of Scripture.

Events of creation were revealed, not observed. Until Day 6 there were no humans around so the Genesis account did not come from human observation. It was revealed in some way to the author of Genesis. All revelations have to be subject to interpretation, and in the Bible revelations are more often symbolic than literal.

There are different kinds of language in the Bible: some is symbolic or metaphorical

When we approach amy Bible passage we must try to work out what kind of language it is written in. Eternal and spiritual truths, things we can never fully understand or adequately describe, often can’t be expressed in literal language. So religious truth is usually expressed in words used symbolically or poetically, using similes and metaphors, sometimes bending language almost to breaking point. We make a big mistake if we try to understand literally language which was intended to be understood symbolically.

For example, think about when Jesus told his parables. Was the “Good Samaritan” a real living person? Did a genuine “Prodigal Son” ever leave his father? Were the parables history? Surely these were carefully constructed stories conveying powerful spiritual truth. The parables did not necessarily relate to historical events. We have to ask similar questions about the Creation Narratives in Genesis chapters 1-2. Are they intended to be “scientific truth” in 20th century terms? Is the language literal or is it instead symbolic or poetical language?

“Old Earth Creationists”, like me, are just as committed as anybody else to the reliability of the Bible as the Word of God. But we believe that Genesis is teaching religious and not scientific truth. Therefore we believe that the language of the Biblical account of creation is symbolic rather than necessarily literal. Genesis teaches WHO it was who created the earth (God) and WHY, but not scientifically HOW it all took place.

In the Bible the word “day” does not always refer to a 24-hour period. We read phrases such as “the Day of the Lord.” In particular Psalm 90 and 2 Peter 3 are significant.
2 Peter 3:8 (quoting Psa 90:4) But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
If the days in Genesis are from God’s perspective not a human point of view, many problems disappear!

Old Earth Creationists regard the “days” in Genesis as long periods of time. Other parts of the account are SURELY symbolic – God “said” (what language did God say it in?) God “breathed” into Adam’s nostrils. When we’re talking about what God “says” and “does” human language HAS to be symbolic. When it says “days” surely these are God’s days. It’s not necessarily right, and in my view mistaken to insist that the days in Genesis 1-2 have to be understood as literal 24 hour periods. (There were not even a sun or a moon until the third day!)

Notice how well the order of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 actually fits with scientific ideas of evolution, ideas which did not come alone till thousands of years after Genesis was written. So I have no problem with the idea of development or evolution. There could well have been were dinosaurs, living and dying out before humans were created in that long long period of the fifth “day”.

We talked last week about how God created human beings in his own image. We are all set apart from the animals because we embody the mental image, the creative image, the moral image, the social image and the spiritual image of God. Biologists and psychologists cannot explain these aspects of our humanity – evolution doesn’t explain it. The Bible tells us that God breathed the breath of life into human beings and Old Earth creationists understand this as a specific act of creation giving to particular animals those qualities of the image of God which make us distinctively human.

The Language of Science or History as we know them only existed from the 18th century onwards

It seems very unlikely that the writers were trying to produce a textbook of science and history because science and history as we know them have only been invented over the last few hundred years! Everything in Genesis 1-2 must have been revealed by God to those writers in ways that the people THEN could understand, not in the language of history and science which weren’t going to be invented for thousands of years. The Bible accounts need to be read in the context of the kinds of literature which were around when they were written, not as if they were written today just for us. Let me tell you a story.

Man walks into a doctor’s surgery.
Doctor, Doctor, I keep on singing “The Green Green Grass of Home all the time.”
Doctor says, “You’ve got Tom Jones syndrome.”
Man asks, “Is that common?”
Doctor replies, “It’s not unusual!” Boom Boom.

We know what kind of story that is by the formula, beginning, “Doctor, Doctor” and ending “Boom Boom”. It’s a joke.
The joke only works if we know certain key facts – Tom Jones is a famous singer and two of his greatest hits are “The Green Green Grass of Home” and “It’s not unusual.”
To “work” as a joke it is completely irrelevant whether an actual man ever did walk into a specific doctor’s surgery or not. It is a funny story. The “genre” of joke does not demand historical accuracy.
We wouldn’t find that story in the Bible because elements of it would be outside their time – anachronistic. In the same way, to find literalism, or scientific details or even historical language as we use it today in Genesis 1-2 talking about events before human beings were around, would be anachronistic. It is a misunderstanding of the genre of the language.

The problem which I have with Young Earth Creationists is that they are fighting the wrong war on the wrong battleground! The challenge is NOT to prove to the scientific world that the earth came into being in 6 days less than 10,0000 years ago. That is not a question of science but a question of Biblical interpretation and systematic theology.

Focus on proving a 7-day creation distracts people from the more important task of pointing to God as Creator

Almighty God is Creator of Heaven and Earth! Whether the earth was created in seven 24 hour days is an issue of Biblical interpretation, not science. The debate between science and seven day “Young Earth Creationism” is a red herring from the vital Christian message we have to proclaim about God as Creator. The idea of creation in 7 days is a major barrier to for some, especially for some scientists. Public arguments over Young Earth Creationism is likely to drive people away from God, not bring them to God. That certainly happened to some of my friends who today are eminent scientists.

So HOW did God create the world. In literally seven days as Young Earth creationists believe? Or through natural processes which geology and evolutionary biology describe as Old Earth creationists believe? What the Bible DEFINITELY teaches is that Almighty God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. With the eye of faith, we can see the Hand of the Designer, the eternal architect, in all He has made. And science which studies the wonders of creation will never ever be able to prove or disprove the existence of the Creator who is beyond and above His creation.

Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

Genesis 1 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
God created human beings to be the crown of his creation. We are set apart from the plants and the animals. Human beings are not distant cousins of the animals. We are great and wonderful and different and the most excellent of all God’s works. Only human beings are created in the image of God, a special expression God’s divine nature within creation. But what does that really mean, “made in God’s image”?
The phrases, “In God’s image” or “In God’s likeness” imply there is some resemblance between human beings and God. The God of the Bible does not have a physical form, so the likeness is not physical. There have been different ideas over the centuries about what the image of God in human beings refers to. All of them may be aspects of the truth. So if the likeness of God in human beings is not physical, what might it be?
Mental
Many have thought that it is the capacity to think and to reason which sets human beings apart from plants and animals. Part of that is the sophistication of human language and communication. Another aspect is our ability to calculate and to reason with logic and to harness energy and indeed every aspect of what we call science, which is simply the Latin word for knowing. This is the mental image of God.
Creative
God is the Creator and some people have regarded the creativity of men and women as the image of God in us. Both the ability to make things with our hands but also the whole aesthetic aspect of our beings – our appreciation of beauty and the creation of glorious art and inspiring music and all the range of our emotions. This is the creative image of God.
Moral
The Bible reveals to us that God is holy and just and righteous. Human beings are set apart from plants and animals in that we have the ability to distinguish between good and evil. In Romans 2 the apostle Paul writes this.
Romans 2 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)
Every human beings has a conscience. We can create laws and we all have the ability and the freedom to choose between right and wrong, truth and lies. This is the moral image of God
Social
Even back in Genesis 1 the Bible reveals to us that God is more than an individual. Genesis 1:2 speaks of the Spirit of God Who is in some mysterious sense distinct from God. Then we read
Genesis 1 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Let us make God in our own image. Let us … God is plural not singular. And the image of God is both male and female. So if I happen to say “man” in this sermon please remember that I am always referring to all human beings, all men and women, both male and female.
The witness of the whole Bible lets us recognise that God is the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three in one and one in three, unity in community. And with hindsight we can see that all three parts of the Trinity was involved in the work of Creation. God Himself is not singular but plural, not an individual but a community even within the Godhead. This has the implication that the image of God in human beings is somehow wrapped up in community. We are social beings. In Genesis 2:18 God saw Adam and said, “It is not good for man to be alone,” and so created Eve to be Adam’s companion. Human beings are created to be in relationships with the capacity and the need for love. Created for relationships with other human beings and supremely for a relationship with God, of which marriage is given as a picture. Human beings are the only creatures who can have a meaningful relationship with their Creator. This is the social image of God.
Spiritual
In John 4:24 Jesus tells us that God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and in truth. Human beings are made in the image of God because we are spiritual beings.
In Genesis 2:7 we read, the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
In Hebrew the word ruach means both breath and spirit. When God breathed the breath of life into human beings He gave us a spiritual dimension to life which plants and animals do not have. Man is the only praying animal. We are created to know God, with the capacity for the kind of relationship with God which Adam and Eve enjoyed, walking with God in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. We can worship and pray and exercise faith and love God and each other with God’s kind of love. This is the spiritual image of God.
Dominion over Creation
Genesis 1 26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
The idea of ruling over creation follows immediately after the idea of man being made in God’s image and in God’s likeness. So over the centuries some scholars have seen this responsibility to rule over Creation as the explanation of what it the image of God in human beings actually means. This understanding is supported by a bit of Hebrew grammar. In the phrases “in God’s image” and “in God’s likeness” the little word “beth” usually translated “in” has another possible translation. Instead of meaning “in God’s image” it could mean “as God’s image”, in other words, “in the capacity of” God’s image or “fulfilling the role of” God’s image. In that case we are not talking about what human beings ARE as God’s image but of what human beings DO as God’s image. Early in human history, Rulers and Kings would have great statues built of themselves in remote parts of their kingdom to remind their subjects who their King was. In some languages those statues would be called the image of the king.
So in the capacity of the image of God human beings are appointed to rule over Creation as his appointed representatives. That is part of what “the image of God” in human beings means,. The command to have dominion over creation and to subdue it is the job human beings are given in our role as the image of God. Almighty God is the Creator and the Sovereign Lord of creation. Human beings are appointed to rule as God himself would rule. Dominion over creation is an aspect of the image of God.
Made in the image of God. Mental. Creative. Moral. Social. Spiritual. All of these are aspects of the image of God in man. Not just one aspect of our humanity but everything that makes us human. Made in the image of God – that is what human beings are. And entrusted with dominion over the whole of creation. That is what we were created to do. So here is the most important thing. Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God, the exact representation of God’s being. God made man in His own image so that one day God could become a man. There is something about the human body which is uniquely appropriate to God’s manifestation of Himself. Since God knows the end from the beginning, He designed human beings knowing that one day Christ would become a man to reveal God to the world. A human being is the only creature that God could one day become – because we are all made in the image of God. And there are some enormously important implications of that truth.
First, but probably least important,
Idols are forbidden
Here is the reason for the Second of the Ten Commandments. It is immoral to try to make idols or any other images of God because that is an insult to God. It would be impossible to represent God even in the slightest by anything human beings could fashion. But it is also wrong to make idols because God has already created an image of Himself on earth and that image is us – people! We are created by God, in God’s image and God’s likeness, described by God as “very good.” Any other image would be sacrilege!
Sanctity of human life
Here is the reason for the Sixth Commandment. We are made in the image of God, and therefore to murder is always evil. To destroy plant life without reason would be careless. To destroy animal life without good reason would be cruel. But to destroy the life of another human being is to destroy one who bears God’s image. Murder is an offence against the one whose image is carried. For this reason murder is accorded the death penalty as part of God’s covenant with Noah in Genesis 9:5-6.
Genesis 9:5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.
Murder is always wrong! And the Bible reason for that is that all human beings are made in the image of God. So ALL human life is sacred. This truth is the root of all laws concerning murder. This fact is vitally important in discussions about abortion and stem-cell research. It is just as important in discussions about end-of life decisions and euthanasia.
Equality and social justice
Here is the reason for the Bible’s insistence on justice and equality. All human beings are created equal. Race doesn’t make any difference. Gender doesn’t make any difference. Ability or disability doesn’t make any difference. Background, upbringing, status, wealth, none of these things matter. All human beings are created in God’s image and for that reason all are equally and infinitely precious in God’s eyes.
Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God
Colossians 1:15 tells us that Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. In Himself Christ sums us everything that human beings were created to be and to do. We will learn in a few weeks how Adam and Eve rebelled against God. When they did the image of God in human beings was defiled and marred for all their descendants. All aspects of the image of God in mankind were tarnished and human beings are now “a caricature of God”. But God’s image is still there in ALL human beings. And God became a human being in Christ so that we could be redeemed and His image in us could be restored again. Through Christ we can become new creations and be transformed into His likeness as we put our trust in Him.
Look around at the people sitting next to you – in front of you, behind you. You can even smile at them if you want to! Each and every one of us here today is a miracle of God – created in God’s image!

Made in the image of God. Mental. Creative. Moral. Social. Spiritual. That is what human beings are. And entrusted with dominion over the whole of creation. That is what we were created to do. Made in the image of God – the only creature that God could one day become. Christ shared in our humanity so that we can have the possibility of sharing in His deity.

In the beginning, God Reading ISAIAH 40:12-31

The Nicene Creed begins: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible

All Christians believe that God created the heavens and the earth and indeed the whole universe. All Christians believe God is our Creator. Over the last hundred years or so Christians have debated just how God created everything, and we will think about that question in a couple of week’s time. But for today we are starting our series in Genesis at the very beginning.
“In the beginning, God ….”

In so many places the Bible tells us that God is Creator.
In the seven days of Creation in Genesis 1
Day 1
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
Day 2
6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.
Day 3
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.
Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
4th Day
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. …. He also made the stars.
5th Day
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
6th Day
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
7th Day
Genesis 22 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work.

Genesis 5 tells us again that God created human beings in His own image and Genesis 6 repeats that God created humanity. Genesis 14 uses the title, “God most high, creator of heaven and earth.”
In Exodus 20 God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses and the Israelites and the reason behind the fourth commandment is very significant.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, …. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
So the distinctive Jewish pattern of keeping the seventh day holy for God is intended as a weekly reminder that God is Creator of all things. That is repeated in Exodus 31.
Deuteronomy 1 refers to God as Creator
Psalm 89 praises God with these words. 11The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it.
Psalm 104 says, He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Psalm 148 is a whole Psalm calling the whole of Creation to praise its Creator. Angels and heavenly hosts, sun, moon and bright shining stars.
5 Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created.
6 He set them in place for ever and ever; he gave a decree that will never pass away.

We read God’s own words in Isaiah 40.
12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? …..
22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. …..
25“To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One. 26Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. ….
28Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
Isaiah 42:5 This is what God the LORD says— he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:
In Isaiah 45:12 God again declares Himself to be Creator of the whole universe. “It is I who made the earth and created mankind upon it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts.
Ecclesiastes, Amos, Habbakuk and Malachi talk about God as Creator and every verse of the Old Testament and of the New Testament assume it. The apostle Paul talks about God as creator in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians and 1 Timothy. Preaching in Athens in Acts 17 Paul said,
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.
The Letters of James, 1 Peter and Hebrews speak of God as Creator. The Book of Revelation gives us a number of pictures of worship in heaven including these words in Chapter 4.
8 “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” …
11“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

Jesus calls God Creator in Mark 10:6 and Mark 13:19. And Jesus Himself is named as Creator – Colossians 1:15, John 1:1-2
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made,
Colossians 1:15 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
We will be thinking more about what Hebrews tells us about Jesus in our service this evening but here is how that letter begins.
Hebrews 1:1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.
There are so many places where the Bible tells us that God is Creator of heaven and earth. But just one verse tells us two more things which are very important in our understanding of Creation. That verse is
HEBREWS 113 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Let me deal with the second half of the verse first.
As Christians we understand creation to be creation from nothing, what philosophers with their love of Latin call creation “ex nihilo”. If God had merely shaped what now exists from “stuff” which had already existed that would be termed creation “ex materia” But God’s work in creation was not merely to shape everything that now is. Hebrews 11:3 tells us “By faith we understand … that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” God did not just shape things from what already existsed. When Christians say God is Creator, we mean that God made absolutely everything that exists. God did not just create all the matter and all the energy in the universe. God created the universe. Before that act of creation, there was nothing. There wasn’t empty space – there wasn’t any space at all. God created space. God’s act of creation did not occur at a particular time – before Creation there wasn’t any time at all. God created time. Creation from absolutely nothing. This point is clear from other verses as well.
Revelation 4 for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
John 1: 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made,
Colossians 1:15 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
Absolutely everything owes its existence to God: matter, energy, even space and time. After bringing everything into existence, Christians also believe that God then formed and shaped everything to be the way we see it. But we believe that what God started off with was nothing at all, creation ex nihilo, creation from nothing.
But the first half of Hebrews 11:3 also tells us something very important.
HEBREWS 113 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
This point is vital. It is by faith that we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command. Not by science. Not by philosophy. But by faith. Neither science nor philosophy will ever be able to prove conclusively whether God exists or not. Science and philosophy can only ever tell us about this universe of space and time. The God of the Bible is greater than the whole universe, beyond space and outside time. We know God is Creator in the same way that we know anything else about God, through faith.
When we tell our friends who are not Christians that we know God created the world because “the Bible says so” that is not going to be a convincing argument for them even though we know it to be true. When we already have faith in God it is easy to see that God must exist and that God is Creator of everything that exists. But when a person doesn’t have faith in God already then it isn’t usually going to be possible to give them any kind of proof which will convince them that God exists or that God created the universe. What we believe about God as Creator follows on from other things we believe about God. If we want to show somebody that God exists, we should talk about Jesus and who Jesus is and what Jesus did and above all about the historical fact that Jesus was crucified but on the third day Jesus rose from the dead. We should talk about our own experience of God acting in our own lives and in the lives of people we know. That’s where our little book of our testimonies, “The Difference Jesus makes” is so valuable. Then when people have faith in Jesus they come to trust the Bible. And at that point we can explain how we know that God is Creator and how we know that we can trust what the Bible teaches. When somebody already believes in God then we can show them how God creating the universe is not contradicted by science or philosophy.
In fact both science and philosophy give us good reasons to believe that God exists and that God created everything. But those reasons will not usually be convincing proofs that God is the Creator if somebody doesn’t already believe. .
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command,
Having said that, I was originally a science student and then a science teacher before I studied theology and became a minister. So let me give you three reasons from philosophy and science which help me to be sure that God is Creator of the universe.
Back in the 13th century the Italian Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote about five ways we can be sure that God is Creator.
Aquinas’s first way talks about the “First Mover.” We observe that some things are in motion. But anything which is moving started in motion by being moved by something else, and there cannot be an infinite series of things moving things. So at some point in the past there must have been a First Mover, something which moved other things but wasn’t itself moved by something else first. That First Mover is God.
Aquinas’s second way is similar and talks about the “First Cause.” Anything which has a cause was caused by something else and this series of causes cannot be infinite. So there must have been a First Cause, something which caused other things but was not itself caused by anything else. That First Cause is God.
Taking those two ideas together, the First Mover and the First Cause give me a good argument for saying that God is creator. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the universe beginning with a big bang which brought time and space, energy and matter into existence. But what caused the Big Bang? What set all that into motion? For me the obvious answer is God.
My second argument comes from the fifth of Aquinas’s five ways which talks about intelligent design. Look at the world around us: the beauty of a sunset, the majesty of the night sky and the intricacy of flowers. Look at the amazing ways which the human eye or the brain work. Look at the amazingly complex interplay of proteins DNA and RNA in the mechanism of inheritance. Having studied bits of biology I look at these things and interpret them as examples of design in Creation and evidence for the existence of the Creator, God. The French biologist Louis Pasteur said, “Posterity will some day laugh at the foolishness of our modern materialistic philosophy. The more I study nature the more I am amazed at the Creator.” Then again, I look at human beings and I see creatures with a conscience with the ability to distinguish right from wrong. I see people with an intuitive longing to worship and to pray and in that I also see evidence of a Creator who made human beings in His own image with the unique capacity to have a relationship with God. The argument from intelligent design.
Then there is a third argument which having studied bits of physics I find convincing. We find ourselves in an expanding universe in which the fundamental constants were exactly right for stars and planets to form. We find ourselves on a planet which is exactly the right size and composition and distance from the sun for the conditions to be right for human life to develop. If any one of these factors had been ever so slightly different, we wouldn’t be here. Some scientists talk about probabilities or infinite numbers of parallel universes but I am convinced that we live in what some Christian physicists call a “finely-tuned universe”. The probability of everything being so exactly right for us to exist is evidence for me that God exists and God created us all.
The argument from First Mover and First Cause. The argument from intelligent design. The argument from a “finely-tuned universe.” There are other things I would also say to people trained in science or philosophy. I don’t claim that these arguments will convince anybody who does not already believe in God. But for those of us who already know Jesus, they are persuasive reasons for believing that the Bible is true and that God is indeed our Creator.
“In the beginning, God ….” Bow down and worship, for this is your God!