The Climax of Creation

The first thing that said, I think the first thing that happened was probably look good is counterpart said what a beautiful lady and I think they probably talked for hours as if they were long-lost best friends and I think what is happening in verse 23 is that the man is introducing her to all the other creatures as if he says I now listen up is now at last bone of my bones? Sounds a bit different in the series because he preached these lessons over 30 years ago, but it's important truth that is relevant today. Our culture seems to downplay the importance of humans in the universe. God's word paints a different picture.

Humans are the climax of God's creation. And that's the title of today's lesson. The climax of creation. If you're able to open your Bible to Genesis 1 as we get started with today's Genesis chapter 1 is focused on God's creative acts of creating the universe and the latter part of the chapter. Chapter 1 the last few verses in the chapter 2 verses 4 to 23.

Focus on God's climactic creative act in creating man and woman.

Now the interesting thing is I study this passage in Genesis chapter 1 until again. It struck me that the name used for God. In chapter 1 is the name Elohim and that is the name that speaks of God's power is majestic strength and as John Wesley wrote, as I have mentioned that God created the heaven and the earth, and he didn't have to try that's so true because God with all this power just snapped it into being and into existence by his word, the name Elohim is used which refers to his power.

However, when we read the accounts of God creating man and woman were introduced to a new name. This is the name Jehovah your English translations will probably in chapter 2.

Add the word Lord to God so that you read in chapter 2, Lord God, Jehovah refers to two things that I think are worth noting. The first is the Jehovah refers to the personal God Jehovah speaks of God's loving, dental care for mankind. Isn't it interesting as he moves to the creative account of where he creates man and woman that the name changes. Now, not the majestic powerful God but the loving God, the personal God. We will see him directly involved in creating, but secondly refers this name Jehovah to the covenant keeping God. This is the name that emphasizes his covenant with mankind and this is a covenant that is not fragile nor self-centered.

This is a covenant that will last forever.

It is sacrificing and this is the thought used here because, as God created man and woman he know that they would sin. He knew that they would fall he know that they would need a ring team or so, the covenant keeping God still brought them into existence as if to say, I will provide for you a Redeemer.

Now the end of chapter 2, he will bring man and woman together with the same ID of the covenant between man and wife should resemble the same as the covenant of God for man. It is not self-centered. It is self-sacrificing. We as man and wife represent the covenant, the Jehovah God has for his creatures. So you find a name change.

That means so much and I want to the notice there's going to be a change.

As we read through Genesis chapter 1. You remember as we study the first part of the chapter that it talks about everything being spoken into existence as God says, let there be let there be let there be which will notice a difference here in verse 26 of chapter 1.

Would you note that, please. Then God said, let us Minos, as if the triune God is calling into what conference here. The fact that they are about to create man we know from the New Testament writings that it was actually Jesus Christ in the words of Christ to formed and created the universe and man. He was the person in destroying God the did the creative act, but it's interesting that he now changes in said let us make man will notice the next phrase in our image, in our image, not physically, for God's spirit is speaking to the fact that man will be created with the mind with emotion with the well within mortality just like God man is made in the image of God see ladies and gentlemen. The reason that you are able to laugh, is because God can laugh and he created you, like himself, with the ability to laugh the reason you can cry is because God can wait and he created you in his own image with the ability to wait.

The reason that you can decide. Love shows live do all that you do is because you are created like your creator God in his image capable of doing the things that he's given you the ability to do the resemble his own character.

Now do notice verse 27 God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him this and underline it male and female he created them. They are both the same and that God created them.

They are both immortal souls. They are not toys. They are not objects. They are immortal beings, both male and female. You'll also notice here that God strikes a death blow to a unisex idea that there is no difference back. I have been startled and things that I've read lately work they are saying that the reason boys act like boys and girl Zach like girls is because the parents condition them culturally. When they were literally always give a little boy a hammer than regret that you did you give a little girl and all, and because of this, you create them to act like they do this strike the deathknell that theory as well because God created them male, with all the inerrant masculine traits and female, that is, with all the feminine traits. It's been a real joy to parent both boys and a girl in one of the fascinating things is being able to know the difference between our children. The boys act a certain way. Now it's they are different in that they follow the same pattern. It usually destructive, but they are different but yet they are so much like little boys attend us our little one-year-old is on an entirely different wavelength, even as a one-year-old he's already beginning to reveal the feminine qualities inherent in the female nature inherited from her mother and on back to her mother Eve is fascinating. One of the boys will fall down and chill run over you know and to rush over to pat him on the head, and you can almost hear her saying can I get you anything milk is best to borrow my pacifier order.

She such a little mother factor. What really worries me is that she's already beginning the work were talking about a one-year-old girl. She looks at me and wrinkled up her nose invests her eyelids as if she can get away by doing that with me again, her mother says that Janice has me wrapped around her finger.

That's not true. Our meeting on the palm of her hand, but I'm not wrapped around her little finger, but all the differences that are so obvious, even as a little one-year-old little two-year-old boy. Why is it that way because God blinded that way. He made them male and female. This also strengthened deathknell to the theory that homosexuality can be a satisfying relationship. If a man could've satisfied a man. God would've created another man, but he created woman with all of those distinctive characteristics that make them so different that's part of this design so don't fear the differences will try to blend them together exemplify making much of those differences in a this is an election year. I read son laughed out loud last week of a man who said we really do need a woman for president of the United States and he said you know, at least they wouldn't spend billions of dollars on nuclear arms bakeshop around they found them on sale.

We can talk more about the differences in how they complement. In the weeks ahead. Would you notice chapter 2 verse seven.

I want you to notice the creation of man.

Chapter 2 verse seven and the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life for Nefesh the immortal soul and man became a living being literally became lending Alliance would never die below the clay carrier of his soul would pass away his soul would live forever is a mortal.

The words dust from the ground you could jot into the margin of your Bible or into your notes that this could be literally translated, a lump of earth. God literally took a lump of verse and from it formed man the work performed is the same precious word used by the prophet Jeremiah as he talks about the Potter taking a lump of clay and putting it on the potter's wheel and for me of vessel God took infinite care.

The nuances of mankind are from the fingers of God he created man. I read this past week that our bodies are actually made up of the same 15 or 16 chemical elements found in the earth the next time you are prone to become proud just remember that on the market.

The owners of our body are worth about lesson five dollars. Let me give you some of the results of a particular book that I read and I would encourage you to go invite at the bookstore fearfully and wonderfully made. I don't want to take a lot of time reading and yet I do not by any means have all of this memorizes. Let me give you what I discovered about the human body that is self fascinating and that's where I want to center our attention only give you what I a greater appreciation for the creative act of God in the way that he took time and care, the design whereby you and I are made. Let me read just a couple of things about different parts of our bodies. The body comes equipped with an internal police force of about 50 billion active white cells. They attack all the bacterial forms that invade the body as an internal thing that takes place every day inside the human eye.

There are 107 million cells, 7 million of them are cones, each loaded to fire off a message to the brain when a photon of light crosses its path. The other 100 million cells are called broad and are capable of distinguishing a thousand shades of color. The human brain will receive millions of reports simultaneously for myself. The brain absorbs sorts and organizes them all to give you an image of what you're looking at the normal year is astounding can detect sound frequencies as faintly as 1 billionth of a centimeter. The vibration is transmitted into your inner ear by three bone. For instance, when a note is struck on the piano.

The piston of bones in your inner ear vibrates 256 times a second. The brain sorts and records the vibrations that in turn produce impulses you perceive someone striking middle say a relatively new study that is explored in the world of genetics is the study of the DNA molecule. The strands chemically coiled in a rope like session inside each cell now were breaking it down or actually getting inside each individual cell the nucleus of the cell.

Each cell has a specific purpose inside the body. Yet each one contains all the instructions for the bodies 100,000 gene that is the DNA inside your body. One of them has a specific purpose and yet included in the information that DNA knows is the specific purposes of every DNA in your body.

They tell us that the DNA contain enough instructions to fill 6 million pages. The DNA is so small that all the genes in your body could fit into an ice cube. Yet if the DNA were unwound and joined together end to end.

The strand would literally stretch from the earth to the sun and back again 400 times your bones go unappreciated times are created to withstand enormous wear and tear and normal person will walk on his 4 feet nearly 3 times around the world in a lifetime. It's interesting that no engineers been able to match the simple human bone. They'd love to be able to develop a substance is strong in light and efficient as bone magic grows continuously. It lubricates itself and requires no shutdown time and repairs itself when damage occurs.

These are only a few instances we left time to get into the miracle of skin senses of touch and taste the way that our hands is created where the only living creature that has the from shape as it is unable to grasp like we can affect. Isaac Newton wrote.

If there were no other evidence other than the human from I would believe in the existence of God when engineer was looking at the chart at all nerves and muscles and tendons and all of the different things that make up the human body and he was heard to exclaim.

Imagine when God put together the first time it worked. Imagine that no box before the fall down. Would you notice versus eight and following. In chapter 2. This is the planting of the garden and the Lord God planted a garden toward the east. Any word Eden means the light was paradise and there he placed the man whom he had formed it out of the ground the Lord caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the site. Good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the next few verses we'll talk about the different rivers of water that the location, in fact, some think that perhaps Eden was located near the Persian Gulf because of the references here. Geographically, the rivers that are talked about verse 15 then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it. The word garden is the Hebrew word began which literally means enclosure.

There was paradise.

In fact, planet Earth was paradise itself, and yet within paradise. God created an enclosure and had boundaries. It was for Tyler was something that man would spend his life managing ruling dominating, enjoying this was Eden. This was the garden inside of paradise where man and woman were to live. Now you already noticed.

Of course reference to two specific trees. Can I give you the importance or significance of these traits of your heaping notes. First of all, the tree of life is the symbol of immortality is the symbol of immortality. It is that simple whereby man and woman could live forever.

Now we know that the ability to live forever, was directly given from God and yet he used the tree as the symbol and eating of that fruit would be the means. The method the vehicle for which they would live forever.

There is another tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is the symbol of choice, the symbol of choice.

Why, because God did not want robots even in the garden. Yet, in his wisdom gave them the ability to choose whether to obey him or to disobey him. God wanted a relationship.

Even back in the garden with Adam and Eve a relationship that's a two-way street where they would love him and he would love them and this was the test, of course, as you know after mandate. He was kept from the tree of life and I've always wondered why. I think I may have discovered the answer because of what it represented. If Adam and Eve and eaten of the tree therefore becoming sinners if they had then eaten of the tree of life they would've live forever confined in their wicked state you on the blessings that God has given you a man's death. We will not live forever as sinners forgiven as we are. It would be a tragic thing to live forever like we live today. Death will open the gate to heaven where we will be given glorified perfect bodies, our souls will match the Savior's is perfection. So God kept them from that and then gave them another symbol that was the symbol of forgiveness in the coats that he gave them to where the animals died evidently and atonement for their sin. Their blood was shipped. Now I want you to notice in verse 18 God's first statement of displeasure.

Then the Lord God said it is not good for man to be alone struck me about this verse was that here is man living in a perfect environment. He is a perfect occupation, one that he loves.

He gets up in the morning ready to go ready to take care of the garden is a perfect relationship as perfect as it can be when God and God sums all this up and says it's just not good so he and his perfect timing plans to create a woman knew what I love about God is his timing and rushed up to Adam as a wife to create one for you, Adam.

What is said I need a what I need a wife. I'm not so sure I know is so God sets him up as a perfect matchmaker, would you notice what he does in the next few verses out of the ground. Verse 19 the Lord God formed every beast a note God in verse 18 is already decided to make him a mate and told Adam yet what he does versus he forms the beast of the field and every bird of this guide.

He brings them to the man obviously coming in pairs to see what he would call them and whatever the man called the living creature that was its name.

And man gave the names to all the cattle to the birds of the sky to every beast of the field and he's naming all of these and they comes to the very end ended.

Adam says, in effect, it's almost as if it were his thoughts there was not found a helper suitable for him hours to start the Lucknow was named a few hundred animals and now he's on the lookout. Lessee is only one of me and there's two of them and he's naming God doing he's making Adam come to the point where he realizes he is allowed to have the other half and then God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. Verse 21 and he slept and God took one of the ribs and closed up the flesh at that place and the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man. Now the word translated fashioned in verse 22 and the Lord God fashioned or formed as a different word than when God formed man to beautiful word that could be translated sculptured. It's as if God is any master who would paint a beautiful portrait knelt over that rib, that flesh and he sculptured a beautiful woman, one who would become the counterpart of that we need to answer the question why the rib. Let me give you three reasons why was it the rib God took to fashion or sculptural woman. First of all, to show the unity of the human race will come from Adam and this is a tremendous theological truth will come out in the book of Romans where we are all in adamant because we are all in and out often from Adam.

We are all sinners will have Adams nature box.

The second Adam will come along Jesus Christ and we who are in him will be forgiven. So this truth will come out even later in the New Testament. It's a beautiful theological truth number two to guarantee the dignity of womankind to guarantee her dignity. She is not made from an inferior substance. She's made from the same thing that man is made from now. I don't want you to picture in your mind.just taking a bow and a rip he actually took flesh and blood around that rib. He took a chunk, as it were, fashioned her from the same substance that man was created from number three to illustrate the closest of kinship to illustrate the closest of kinship. God didn't take a bone from the foot she probably read or heard is if man would tread upon her as if he were above her. God didn't take something from his head as if she were to be superior or above God didn't take a bone from Adam's hand as if she would be the servant of man and do his work. God took the bun from the side to illustrate the closest of companionship, she would be by his side. She would serve as Queen of the garden paradise that it would serve as King. I love the next part. Verse 22 now would you put on your imagination here.

Just imagine it says in the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and he brought her to the man and the man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. I really don't think that was the first thing that Adam said the text doesn't say that's the first thing that instead, it just says that he said this, I think the first thing that happened was man probably looked at his counterpart said wow it is the first time in whistled in the history of mankind. What a beautiful lady and I think they probably talked for hours as if they were long-lost best friends and I think what is happening in verse 23 is that the man is introducing her to all the other creatures is as if he says all right now listen up is now in fact, the literal Hebrew can be translated. This is now at last bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, and she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. I believe this was the introduction of woman to everything that got it created.

Let me apply a couple of things that strike me from this chapter.

The first is found in the garden of Eden itself, the garden of Eden men and women would represent a place where mankind would choose who we would obey the tempter for the creator.

It reminds me of another garden where Jesus Christ struggled with the will of his father and the sweat drops of blood and finally he said in the agony of assault not mine will, but thine be done. No were not in the garden of Eden and were not in Gethsemane but ladies and gentlemen, I believe you and I are in a garden work place. Choosing who we will follow we will obey the tempter or the creator the garden and the only thing in this chapter the placement of Jesus Christ tree. A tree is been used throughout Scripture on several occasions to symbolize some powerful truths. The tree in the garden represented choice again Moses in the wilderness. The children of Israel were being very rebellious and God sent the poison of vipers to bite them and then he told Moses to lift the serpent up on a tree and whoever will look at the tree will be healed.

That represented healing and those that looked were healed. But of course I also think of Calvary were first Peter chapter 2 verse 24 records more in his own body our sins on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, live in the righteous by his stripes we are, my friend. There is a tree in your life as well. You either stand before the tree called Calvary as a forgiven individual. You stand before is an unrepentant unbeliever tree is lifted up today bearing Christ is ours to choose to accept him to accept that atonement of the taken as her personal savior and if not, I hope you stay in Jesus Christ today. You've been listening to wisdom for the hearts with pastor and author Stephen Davey. The lesson is called the climax of creation and it comes from our vintage wisdom series called origins Stephen sounded different from what you're used to hearing because this was recorded over 30 years ago, but we wanted to air it because we knew it would be a blessing to you. Do you take adequate opportunity to rest and reflect on God's word and the goodness of God in your life. The devotional for today in our heart-to-heart magazine is called the gift of rest is a good reminder for those of us living in a fast paced world look on page 17 of the magazine to find today's devotional.

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