| The Study of Genesis |
| By Brother Vernon Nunemaker |
| Lesson 1 |
| Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Let's turn to II Tim. 3:16-17 The Apostle Paul says all scripture is profitable to us, many people read and study in the New Testament(NT), but never study much in the Old Testament(OT), they find it boring, but Paul says all scripture is profitable. This first lesson will be on the beginning of the Bible, The Holy Bible, Holy because it's author is holy and because he expects those who read and study his Holy Bible to become Holy like him. The word Bible means book and the Bible is the best selling book of all time, but may be the last choice when many of us want to read something. The Bible contains the mind of God and his relationship to man, first to all man, then to his chosen people, Israel and then again to all mankind through his plan for the salvation of man, through his only begotten son, Christ Jesus. The part of the Bible we are about to study is the OT, this contains the history of man and our world for about the first 4000 years, from the creation until about 400 years before the birth of Christ. We will see how God dealt with all men originally, then how he dealt with his chosen people Israel. Let's look at what Paul said about this OT or old law in Gal. 3:24 As we grow from childhood to being an adult we have many teachers along the way, teaching us all the things we need to know in order to make a physical living in this life and to grow spirtually we need teachers to teach us all the things we need to know in order to live in such a way that we will be able to spend eternity in heaven one day. In the NT we will find the words of Christ and his covenant with us today which was later given to those who wrote it by the Holy Spirit, but I think in order to get a good picture of God the father, we need to study the OT and look at his dealings with man, then I think we can get a better idea of what he expects from us. The first book Genesis which means "the beginning", contains the account of the creation of our universe and man, the fall of man, the first murder, the flood,to Abraham to the decendents of Abraham going to live in Egypt. Now let's look at Gen. 1:1 This is a simple verse, it shouldn't be hard to understand, but as it seems with all scripture, many people in our world today have a problem with this verse. God chose to make this verse the cornerstone of his holy word to us. Indeed this verse could be considered the cornerstone of our faith. In this verse we are asked to believe that there is a God and that he created all things, if we don't believe that then we might as well close this book and forget about everything else that it says. Heb. 11:6 says that, without faith it is impossible to please God, so without faith in the first verse of God's word, we could keep everything else we find in his Holy Bible and still not be pleasing to God. So here is the starting point of our faith, but as we say, many people are trying to tell us these days that this verse is not right, that rather than God creating our universe, it came into being in some other way. Let me ask a question here, if you had never seen a watch before and you were just walking along and found a watch, would you think that that watch just came into being on its own somehow, or would you think that somebody made it? Well, because of all the intricate gears and springs, I'm sure you would come to the conclusion that somebody had made it. Our universe is a lot more intricate in it's wotking than any watch, so it too must have a maker. Our earth is spinning at a rate of about 1000 miles per hour, yet it is made in such a way that we think we are standing still. Our earth is hurtling in it's orbit around the sun at about 62,500 miles per hour, yet it still is made in such a way that we don't even realize it. Now could something like that just happen, or did it require a very intelligent being to design it that way. We humans get to thinking were pretty smart sometimes, but if we stop and consider how little we really know about this universe that God made for us, and the living things that he created here on earth, we can see how little we really know compared to him. Look at Isa. 55:8-9, we have only begun to learn some of the things that God has known all along. The Bible is full of examples of the things that God has known, that men has just recently discovered. For example in the early 19th century when George Washington was sick, the accepted treatment for many ailments at that time was to drain the " bad" blood out of the sick person, and that's what they did to George Washington, they bled him so much that he died. but if man had just believed the Bible, they would have known what God said in Gen. 9:4 "God said that blood was the life of the flesh". Also man believed that the world was flat up until the late 15th century, but God through Isaiah talked about this in Isa. 40:22 "He says the earth is like a circle, round, not flat. In the 19th century a scientist named Herbert Spencer came up with a theory that all things in our universe can be expressed in terms of 1 of 5 things, time, force, energy, space, and matter. This man was celebrated as one of the great intellectuals of his day and was even nominated for the Nobel Prize, but look at this first verse of the Bible again, in the beginning, "time" , God, "force", created, "energy", the heaven, "space", and the earth, "matter". It took man almost 6000 years to discover something that God put into the first verse of his word. One other thing we might note about this verse before we go on, the word used for created denotes that it was made from nothing, not that it was formed from something that already existed. Many people over the years have tried to twist God's account of creation, to fit in with some of the scientific theories of creation but that just won't work, all the other theories of creation begin with something, God began with nothing, and when we reject what God says about anything, that exactly what we end up with, NOTHING. 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and the darkness WAS upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. God made the materials, but they were just raw materials, they were without form and void, and dark. But God's Spirit was ready to act to bring order out of the chaos that was the earth. Can we compare this to the life of someone who has not obeyed the Gospel? The raw material is there, but because of sin, they are without direction, there is no order in their lives, as far as his or her relationship with God, it's void, but God's Spirit is there ready to do the work necessary to bring order out of chaos of that persons life. Let's look at what Paul said in Eph 2:12......When we are without God then we are spiritually without hope and our life is without spiritual order. |
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