Thank you.
You
All right, everybody welcome to steadfast baptist church
Glad you could all make it here tonight. Let's go ahead and take out our hymnals
The song number 202
My Redeemer
In that song number 202
Song 202
Oh
Mercy
See
With
Oh
See
He purchased me
Hey
I will see
My Redeemer
Sing
He purchased me
Hey
Amen good singing inspires for a prayer
Heavenly Father, we just thank you again that we could be here tonight
I just pray you'd speak to us through the message to fill pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit
Help us all to be edified and applied to our lives. We love you. Just pray these things in Jesus Christ name. Amen
Next is gonna be 56
And we all get to heaven
I hope that's for everybody here tonight. We all get to heaven. Hopefully you're already saved
song 56
We all get to heaven
Sing the wondrous love of Jesus
Sing his mercy and his grace
And the vengeance bright and blessed
He'll prepare for us a place
We all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We'll sing and shout the victory
While we walk the pilgrim pathway
Clouds will overspread the sky
But when traveling days are over
Not a shadow, not a sign
When we all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We'll sing and shout the victory
Let us and be true and faithful
Just keep serving every day
Just one glimpse of him in glory
Fill the doors of life for day
When we all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We'll sing and shout the victory
A mark to the prize before us
Beauty will behold
Soon the burning gates will open
We shall tread the streams of gold
When we all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus
We'll sing and shout the victory
If you're not sure about getting to heaven, see Brother Duncan after the service
And he'll help you getting there, alright?
And if you need a bulletin, lift your hand nice and high
And one of our ushers can come by and get you a bulletin
On the inside we have our service and soul winning times as well as our church stats
I'm just going to get a count real quick for any soul winning for the past few days
Was there anything to report from this past Thursday?
Nothing, what about Friday?
Anything on Friday? Two for Friday? Alright, what about Saturday?
Alright, three
for Saturday, today I know the church event had five, anything outside of that?
Alright, 27, wow, praise the Lord on that
And on the right, we have the list of our expecting ladies
Continue to pray for them, we also have our prayer list
So continue to pray for anyone that's mentioned here as well
If you have additional prayer requests, you can just email those to our church
Or you can put a prayer request on one of our communication cards
If you don't have one, you can ask an usher and just slip it in the offering plate
Especially if you're a guest or visitor
And we'll add that to our prayer list and we'll be in prayer with you on that
We do try to update that every week
So if you have something that's continually changing or evolving
Just please let us know so we make sure to update that or to keep it in the bulletin
Also we have a baby shower, January 29th on Saturday
For Miss Tina Galasso, it's for her baby boy
It's from 12.30 to 2.30 here at the church
If you're able to bring a dessert, please do, or a dish to share
She's registered on Amazon and also it's nursing is only preferred
And again, all ladies are invited, so even if you are new to the church
It's a great way to just make friends, meet other ladies and everything like that
So we do try to encourage all the ladies who are welcome to attend
But please sign up just so we have some idea of who will be participating
On the back we have a list of our upcoming events
We have the Marathon of Waco sign up sheet, February 26th
We have a soul winning seminar that's going to happen March 24th to the 26th
We have a homeschool field trip to the zoo, April 29th
When we get closer we'll actually have a sign up sheet for that
But I just want to give you the date
If you have any child that you're homeschooling, at least one child that's 5 years old
Or older still being homeschooled
You can still bring the other kids with you if you need to
But you do need to have at least one child that's 5 years old that's your homeschooling
And it's going to be done that Friday
And the church will obviously provide for the entry and everything like that
I've been to the Fort Worth Zoo, it's a pretty cool zoo
I know they were working on the cats exhibit the last time we were there
I hope they're finished, does anybody know if they've done the cat exhibit? Not yet?
Alright, we've got to pray by April that we get some cats
That's pretty cool, you know, but there's a lot of other good stuff at the zoo
We really enjoy it every time we've gone
That's something to keep in mind, also May 21st we have the Austin Soul Winning Marathon
We have a fire-breathing Baptist in October
Congratulations to the Cardona family on the birth of Josiah James
He was born the 21st, 8.34 am, weighing 8 pounds 4 ounces and 20 inches long
Great babies, that's really good
Also a couple baby and toddler room reminders and just church reminders
Just make sure to monitor all your children
We do have a mother baby room right here with the window
And that is for newborns and crawlers
Please no walkers, also you can if you have a walker
You can use the area here that's kind of more the toddler area
Make sure all newborns and infants are kept safe
And that it's a good environment for all
Please make sure to respect the signs that are posted
Please don't let your kids get in and out of those rooms before or after service
It's not a cool hangout spot, it looks cool
We want it to be welcoming, but we just don't want kids running in there by themselves
That they get injured or damage something
That's it for announcements
This evening I'm continuing our 7 days of creation series
And so we're doing day 2 and I'm really excited about that
Brother Duncan will you lead us our next song?
120, 140
140
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
Song number 140, let's sing it all together
We have an anchor
While the offering plate is being passed around, please turn your Bibles to
Genesis chapter 1
Genesis chapter number 1
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was
without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said,
And God saw the light that it was good, and God
divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day,
and the darkness he called night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,
and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and
divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.
And it was so. And God called the firmament heaven,
and the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters
under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.
And it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering
together of the waters called he seas. And God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit
tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself,
upon the earth, and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass,
the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed
was in itself, after his kind. And God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the third day. And God said,
Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night.
And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.
And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light
upon the earth, and it was so. And God made two great
lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.
He made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament
of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day
and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw
that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life,
and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament
of heaven. And God created great whales and every
living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after
their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind. And God saw
that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply,
and fill the waters and the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
And the heaven and the morning were the fifth day. And God said,
Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing,
and beast of the earth after his kind. And it was so. And God made
the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind,
and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind. And God saw
that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image
after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him,
male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God
said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and
subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God
said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the
face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree
yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat. And to every
beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth
upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for
meat, and it was so. And God saw everything that he had made,
and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the
sixth day. Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, thank you so much for this day, and thank you for
this evening to be able to gather together and hear your word preached. I pray that you would just open up
our hearts to receive your word this evening, and that you would fill Pastor Shelley with the Holy Spirit.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. So we've been doing a
creation series, and we're in day two, and there's not necessarily a lot
of verses here in Genesis that talk about it, but I feel like there's
a lot of other verses that we can kind of talk about. And I feel like this
particular day is a day upon which there's a lot of varying
viewpoints and ideas, simply because some of the wording
is a little bit obscure from things that we usually
talk about. But I believe it's very clear what the Bible is describing
here, and I'm going to present what I believe this is talking about. But it says
in Genesis chapter 1 verse 6, and God said,
let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.
Let it divide the waters from the waters. God made the firmament,
divided the waters which were under the firmament, and the waters
which were above the firmament it was so. God
called the firmament heaven. The evening and the morning
were the second day. So in the day one, if you
remember, we had essentially the heaven and the earth, and
then we also have light. That's kind of your three components that are created there
on day number one. The earth is described as being without form
and void. It's basically just water at least from a surface
perspective. You just kind of have water. As far as its
exact shape, we don't know if it was really already in the exact
shape it is right now, or maybe it was a little bit more loose. I tend to believe it was
already essentially as it was. It looks pretty much like a sphere,
a perfect sphere, just covered in water. But in day
two, we have a separation of water from water.
The Bible makes it very clear that he wanted a firmament in the midst
of the waters. Now what would this firmament
be or look like? I believe it's very clearly the atmosphere
that's being created here on day number two.
There's kind of an interesting pattern that you have in the creation where
you kind of have at first heaven and earth, light. Then you have day two
firmaments, clouds, oceans. Number three, you have land and sea.
You kind of have the environment or the habitat for then the next three
days of creation because on day four, you have sun, moon, and stars
which are going to go where? They're going to go in that heaven that was created.
Then you have fish and fowl which are going to go where? In the waters that are
under the firmament and in the firmament itself.
You kind of have those two. Then you have the land and the sea which is where
you're going to have your beast and everything. You're going to have beast and man
on that sixth day. It kind of correlates one to
another as far as the setup and then basically how it's going to be
habited, used, and everything like that. It works in tandem.
The atmosphere, and I'm going to use a little bit of science this evening as well to
talk about this, but the atmosphere is definitely
a study of science and there's a lot of different terms that
we use to describe the atmosphere. I'm going to kind of talk about
a few of those. If you just go to Wikipedia and you look up atmosphere, this is what
it says about the atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth, commonly known as
air, is the layer of gases retained by Earth's gravity
that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere.
The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure
allowing for liquid water to exist on the Earth's
surface, absorbing ultraviolet, solar, radiation,
warming the surface through heat retention, greenhouse effect,
and reducing temperature extremes between day and night, the dinural
temperature variation. According to modern science,
they believe the atmosphere is an absolute must for life to even
exist on the Earth because it really helps in
lots of different ways. It helps moderate temperatures, meaning that we're not going to have super
extreme temperature differences necessarily from night and day
whereas other planets that maybe have
a less atmospheric presence, their temperature on the
surface has much greater extremes when it comes to
going to night and going to day. So the fact that we have this atmosphere actually
helps retain some of the heat, helps retain some of the
basically the necessary elements to keep life
sustained on Earth, to help water to be sustained on Earth.
And really, I believe that what's being set up here
is our generic basic water cycle. Now, whoever learned
about water cycle in high school or maybe junior high or something like that,
let's talk about it for a second, okay? Now, let's go in the Bible and prove
the water cycle from the Bible though, okay? Go to Jeremiah chapter number 10.
Go to Jeremiah chapter number 10 in your Bible
and here's the thing, the water cycle
kind of has three stages. Your first stage
would be what's called evaporation, okay?
And evaporation is essentially where the liquid or water
liquid form is heated to a point where it
turns into a gas and then that gas basically is going to
ascend in the air. So in the first stage of a water cycle
you have evaporation, okay?
Now, I believe you can find a text in your Bible
that describe this process. Look at Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 11.
Thus shall you say unto them, the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth,
even they shall perish from the earth and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth
by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom and has stretched out the heavens
by his discretion. When he othereth his voice, there is a multitude
of waters in the heavens and he causeth the vapors
to ascend from the ends of the earth, he maketh lightnings
with rain and bringeth forth wind out of his treasures. According to the Bible, the Bible
describes a process by which vapors are coming and ascending
from the ends of the earth. That sounds like evaporation.
Okay? Go if you would to Jeremiah 14, you're not even that far.
Now, these gases don't stay in a gas form. Once they continue
to elevate, what happens is you get further and further
away from earth's surface, it becomes colder. The atmosphere is a lot
cooler the higher you get up. So what happens when that gas turns
and gets a little bit colder is it's called condensation.
Okay? And it's going to basically turn into clouds.
So here you're going to have
condensation.
And if you look in Jeremiah chapter 14, look at verse 22,
are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause
rain or can the heavens give showers?
Art not thou he, O Lord our God? Therefore we will wait upon thee, for thou
hast made all these things. So according to the Bible, the heavens
give showers, right? Okay. Now that's going to kind of get to our next part
of the life cycle too, but it's very clear what's really giving the showers
is the clouds, right? Go if you would to Ecclesiastes chapter number 11.
Go to Ecclesiastes chapter number 11. So the
heavens are storing up water that will eventually shower.
That's what we call clouds. You look up in the sky, you see these white things.
What are they? They're clouds, but it's really that water has
gone through the process of condensation, turned into a cloud,
and then if the cloud gets too big or too heavy,
something happens. Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 11 verse 3. If the clouds be
full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth, and if the tree
fall toward the south and toward the north and the place where the tree fall, there it shall be. So according to the Bible
in Ecclesiastes chapter number 11, what happens when the clouds basically
become too full is you have precipitation.
This is basically where you have rain,
snow, or even hail, right? You have your three
kind of trinity there. You have a lot of trinities in the book of Genesis, let's be honest.
But here you have a trinity of the water cycle. Now, again,
I believe that this is basically being established and created here on day two
is you have this water cycle, and it's a really interesting
cycle where essentially water just keeps going through this process.
It evaporates, turns into a cloud, and then it rains on the earth,
and then it basically gets deposited either under the ground or
directly into another body of water, and then that body of water evaporates
and then it basically just goes through this perfect cycle of purification
and basically God created a system upon which where water just
constantly is cycling through, and we have fresh water, rain,
and it helps to take the water that's in the ocean and
literally, if you think about it, use that for farmland,
right? Because you can take the waters from the ocean, turn it into a cloud, that cloud then
travels over the earth wherever the land is, and then that
rains, and that causes us to have food, right? Trees and life
and all the things that we need, and then it basically goes back through this whole
process and this whole cycle, and so we kind of see that being established
and created. So, if we kind of keep that in mind,
you know, when the Bible says that God separated
the waters from the waters, I think it's very clearly talking
about the fact that you have waters on the earth and then you have clouds
in the sky, and then what do you have basically in between is you have the firmament,
okay? So, I would suggest or I would
propose that what's being described in Genesis
chapter number one in the second day of creation is that God created
clouds, okay? Now, there's some people that don't like that
theory or they try to come up with all kinds of other theories that are really
bizarre, okay? But I want to explain why I
believe it's clouds this evening, and here's the first objection to
why some people would say, no, I don't think it was clouds that was created on day two.
They would say, well, there was never any rain in the beginning
or like all the way up to Noah. Like, I've heard someone say that it
never rained a single time until Noah got on the ark. Who's ever heard that
before? Anybody else? Okay, so that's a common thing, right? I don't believe that,
okay, number one. But number two, even if that was true,
I still believe I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that clouds existed, okay?
Now, go if you would to Genesis two for just a second. Where do people
get this idea? Well, I'll show you where they get this idea, okay? Genesis
chapter number two, look at verse number five. The Bible says,
So, in Genesis chapter number two, the Bible says that it had not rained
upon the earth, okay? But you have to understand where we're talking about
in our timeline of events. Genesis chapter
two, what it does is it goes backwards in time.
So, essentially, you have the very beginning of Genesis
chapter number four, and it goes backwards in time.
So, essentially, you have the very beginning of Genesis chapter
number two. It talks about the seventh day and the Sabbath, whatever.
But then it kind of goes back to day five, and then it's kind of explaining
all the events in the creation of day five, and it talks about how he created a garden,
and then he put man in the garden, and he's kind of, or I'm sorry, day six. I'm saying day
five. So, I'm meaning day six. It goes back to day six and
explains God creating all the beasts and creating the garden and creating
Adam, and he names the animals, right? So, it's saying at
the point of day six, when God is creating the garden
and mankind, it hadn't rained yet. But if we think about
it, that's only six days. We're not talking about
an eternity or years or whatever. We're just saying six days. And, in fact,
I would even suggest that it's really only about five days
because day one, there wasn't even any clouds.
I would say clouds were created on day two. So, it's basically just saying
in the first few days of creation, God had not caused
it to rain yet. Not at that point. Why? Because there's not
anybody to basically take the advantages of
the herb or the field or whatever. It also says in the next verse that he caused a mist
to come up from the ground and to water the earth, okay? But, here's the question.
When did it eventually rain? I don't know. I can't necessarily prove the
day, the first day that it rained, perhaps. What I can suggest
to you is that clouds existed, okay? And I certainly don't believe that rain just
never existed because how, you know, the mist
coming up kind of seems to be like a supernatural, miraculous thing
that's going on in the Garden of Eden. Not really necessarily how God
sustained things. Ecclesiastes makes it clear that there's no new thing under the sun
and things are pretty much always going to be the exact same
throughout history. Now, go over to Proverbs chapter eight. Let me prove this for you,
okay? Proverbs chapter number eight. Let's talk about
creation. Now, what's interesting about Proverbs eight is it's talking about wisdom and then
kind of the latter portion of Proverbs eight, it kind of makes this switch
where it's like wisdom just turns into we're talking about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that kind of makes sense because he's the word of God and we get wisdom
from the word of God and it's kind of talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. But look
at verse number 23. It says, I'm sorry, verse 22,
the Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way before his works
of old. Now, possession is a great word.
I love this word when you think about what he's talking about. If Jesus
Christ is possessed by the Father, what does that mean? Because when we hear the word
possessed, sometimes we might think of like demon possession, okay?
But that's not what it's meaning. It's the fact that he's the son
of God. So he's God's possession and that he's God's
son, right? They already have that relationship. My children are my
possession and so the Father is possessing the son because
it's already a son before the works of old. Meaning what? Jesus
Christ was the son of God before anything ever existed. He's always been
the son of God. You know, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today,
and forever. So that's what it means when it says that he was
possessed by the Lord, okay? But notice
before his works of old. So if we're going to say, what time are we in
in verse 22? Wouldn't that be kind of eternity?
We're just in eternity past, right? From everlasting, essentially.
Look at verse 23. I was set up from everlasting, okay?
From the beginning, or ever the earth was, when there
was no depths, I was brought forth. When there was no fountains abounding with water, before the
mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth. While as yet
he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the
highest part of the dust of the world. Now, here's the thing. When did God create
the earth? Day one. So if he's saying before
that, what are we talking about? We're still in eternity. We haven't even
gotten to the first day of creation yet, have we? So verses 22 through
26 are only talking about eternity past, saying before anything existed,
any water, any hills, any earth, any of this stuff, I was
already there. I was, in a sense, brought forth, okay?
Now, when was he brought forth? From everlasting.
So, you know, figure that one out, alright? But what it's clear is
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He's the only begotten of the Father from eternity
past. Bible says in verse 27, when he prepared the heavens,
I was there. Now, when did he prepare the heavens? Day one.
So now we've entered into day one, okay? Day one of creation, when he
made the heavens, who was there? God, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost. All three of them were there. John chapter one makes it very
clear that in the beginning, you know, well, yeah.
In the beginning, God, I'm sorry, wow. I'm trying to quote Genesis chapter number one.
In the beginning, God, right? But we also have that Jesus Christ
was with God, and he is God. All things were made by him,
right? So God the Father is speaking. Jesus Christ is
also creating. It's his hands that are creating according to Hebrews chapter number one.
So, in the Bible, we have right here in
verse number 27, we're entering into day one. When he prepared the heavens,
I was there. When he set a compass upon the face of the dead. Now think about Genesis
chapter one, day one. Doesn't he talk about the deep?
Right? So he's kind of got the heavens, and then he kind of talks about the deep, how the Spirit
of God was moving upon the waters and, you know, the face of the deep.
Okay? So, Jesus was there. How about verse number 28?
When he established the clouds above, when he strengthened
the fountains of the deep. Now what I think is happening, and I'm just
going to kind of explain to you what's happening this passage. He's starting
an eternity past, then he went to day one, so then what do you think we're on
now in verse 28? I'll give you a hint. Day two. Okay?
So what he's saying is happening on day two. Clouds are being
established and the fountains of the deep. Wouldn't that be the waters
that are under the firmament and the waters that are above the firmament? And then what do you think
would happen in John verse 29? Wouldn't it be day three? When he gave to the sea
his decree that the waters should not pass his commandment
when he appointed the foundations of the earth. Now I'm skipping ahead in our
series, but what happens on day three? He has the dry land
appear, and what does the dry land do? It creates a boundary for the
seas, it causes where waters have a stopping point, and then the land appears.
So that's what's being described in verse 29. So he has eternity, day
one, day two, day three, right? And he keeps elaborating
in verse 30, then I was by him as one brought up with him, and I was
daily as the light, rejoicing always before him. Now I like
this phrase because it talks about how he was brought forth, but then notice it says in verse
30, as one brought up with him. It's like
he was brought up with him, but we know he's just always been with him.
Right? So we kind of use contradictory terms in our mind
to help explain the fact that Jesus Christ is the son of God, yet he's from eternity.
He was brought forth, but he was always with him.
He's brought up with him. It's just, you know, just kind of describing Jesus Christ.
And he's always daily as the light, rejoicing before him. Verse 31, rejoicing
in the habitable part of his earth, and my delights were the sons of men. But we kind of would skip
to day six of the creation of men. But if you follow this timeline,
notice what's actually happening. Clouds are being described as being created
on wind. Day number two. And wouldn't it make sense if Jesus is trying
to tell us that he was before all creation? He would say, hey, before, you know, anything was created,
day one, day two, day three, even before men,
like I was there. I was enjoying it. I saw it.
I did it, you know, even. So that's kind of the essence. Go to
Job chapter 38 now. Go to Job chapter number 38. So we have very clearly
in Proverbs, it's saying in verse 28, when he established the clouds
above. How would you argue with me that Proverbs
chapter number eight is not describing the creation week at all, though?
I mean, you have to admit that that was all about the creation week, isn't it? Talking about him
establishing the earth and creating all the different things that are happening. So when
are we believing that clouds themselves were established
in the creation week somewhere? Wouldn't it make sense to put that in day two
where it's literally describing the firmament separating the waters
from the waters which are above? Okay. Job 38,
look at verse four. Where was thou when I laid the foundations
of the earth? Declare of thou's understanding. Who hath laid the measures
thereof, if thou knowest? Or who has stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who
laid the cornerstone thereof? When the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with
doors when it break forth as if it had issued out of
the womb? When I made the cloud,
the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling
band for it? So notice how he's
talking about creation again and then he describes the earth
as having a garment. What is its garment? Clouds.
And then what's even beyond the garment? A swaddling band
which is darkness. Okay. And if we think about the earth
and we understand the atmosphere, this is going to make perfect
sense. Now I want to kind of draw a few things here for a moment.
We've done a lot of verses here. Let's get some drawing, okay, so we can
kind of conceptualize this. So day one, in the beginning
God, right, okay, created the
heaven and the earth. Now,
don't judge me on scale or shape, okay, because I don't know what
the heaven looks like as far as the shape, right? But we do know the earth's sphere.
So you can get that one right there, alright? So we're going to say this is our earth
and we have heaven here
and God exists outside of his creation, okay? So that was day number one.
Right? Now, what's happening in day number two
is this earth, you know, it's just all waters according to the
Bible, you know, it's kind of without form and void, it's just the face,
you know, the face is just waters essentially. Well, those waters
if we kind of zoomed in a little bit, we have
a separation from water and water and in the
middle we have something called the firmament or heaven, right?
This is the firmament
and it's not necessarily a word that we really use a lot.
It's not even found in the Bible that much. Some people would suggest
that the word firmament is similar to the word expanse
or here's another word space or here's another word
sky or here's another word heaven or here's another word
heavens, right? These are all going to be very synonymous one with another.
But we have this space as it were dividing
between the waters and the waters firmament, okay?
Or heaven as it were and we have the waters which would be the sea
and we have
the clouds. Now, obviously the sea is going to get a more
defined shape once we have the earth giving some boundaries as it were
but that's basically what we have. Now, as we kind of
go into some other passages, let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter number 2.
Go to 2 Corinthians chapter number 2. Some people would start to question
some of the things that I've said or
they kind of are confused about what I said and point number one
was this that they say that it didn't rain on the
earth so therefore there couldn't be clouds but I just illustrated two passages that talk about the
creation week and clouds were there. So, you know, whether it rained or not
is inconsequential. I believe very clearly the waters that were
above the firmament are clouds, okay?
Number two reason why they say that's not the case is because they say, oh,
there's lights in the firmament in the latter portion
of Genesis. It'll say that he created the sun, moon, and stars and he put them in the firmament.
So that has to be different than, you know, this
firmament because we all know for a fact that the sun, moon, and stars
are not in the heaven, sky,
or firmament below clouds, okay? We realize that.
But there's two ways to interpret that passage and I think both are true. Number one,
from an earthbound perspective, though,
all of those items are in the heaven. You know, when we look
up, where do we notice the sun, moon, and the stars? We notice them in
that firmament. Now, we understand through science and understanding
other scripture that they're not literally in this firmament
but from an earthbound perspective we see them there, okay? But here's
the thing, this is not your only firmament or your only heaven
mentioned in the Bible. In fact, the Bible describes multiple
heavens, okay? And it even uses the word heavens
and in 2 Corinthians chapter number 12, this is
a little bit, has nothing to do with creation per se, but it
just describes another heaven, okay? And it gives a very clear descriptor
of it. It says in verse number 2, I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago
whether in the body I cannot tell, whether out of the body I cannot tell,
God knoweth, such an one caught up to the third
heaven. So we know at least from this verse there's at least three heavens,
okay? I don't believe there's more but I'm just saying, you know, we're just at least using
deductive reasoning. We could assume very clearly there's at least
three heavens and the Bible does describe them. So
if we kind of take a perspective of
the earth, we have our earth here, and then
again, this is not scaled, okay? Don't judge me on my scale.
Here's our clouds, right? And then we have our
sun, maybe I should use some different colors to help you
with this drawing, okay? We've got our sun,
we've got our moon,
and then we've got some stars, okay?
Well here would be
the first heaven for sure.
This would be our second heaven
and then somehow above all this is our third heaven where God
resides, okay? And all three of these could be described
as heaven or firmament. So whenever it
says firmament later in Genesis chapter number one, it is
accurate, it's the firmament, but you know it's not necessarily saying this firmament.
It could be describing this particular firmament because what is firmament?
It's a space, okay? Now, go if you would
to, I want to go to Psalms 68,
okay? Psalms 68. Here's another thing that some people
don't understand and they'll go to a lot of verses in Psalms and they'll get really confused really quickly, okay?
The word heavens is a
tricky word in your Bible, okay? Because
when you hear the word heavens, you
automatically think of a multiple
of these being described. Like one and
two or two and three or all of them or something like that.
But I will prove to you that the word heavens
can mean this one, this one or this one and all in a singular fashion,
okay? So you cannot use verses that use the word
heavens to prove any of your theology beyond a shadow of a doubt because you have to
use the context to even decide what heavens are even describing, okay?
Let me just prove to you beyond any shadow of a doubt
that what I just said was true, okay? Psalms 68, look at verse
33. To him that writeth upon the
heavens of heavens which were of old, lo, he does send out
his voice in that mighty voice. Now
if the word heavens here is meaning a multiple, then
you would have to believe in four heavens based on that verse, okay? Because it says that he
writeth upon the heavens of heavens. That would be a minimum
of two times two which would make it a four-timed heaven.
Or there's something else that we're describing here, okay? So already
there's no way to have the word heavens mean a multiple in every single context.
It can simply mean anything. But notice who's in the heaven
of heavens in this verse. It makes it very clear that it's talking about
the Lord, okay? If you back up, verse 30. Sing unto God,
ye kingdoms of the earth, O sing praise of the Lord, Selah, to him that
writeth upon the heavens of heavens which were of old, lo, he
does send out his voice in that mighty voice. Here's another thing. When were the heavens
of old, right? So we have a very clear verse. Go to Psalms
147 now.
Go to Psalms 147
for a moment.
And look at verse 7. The Bible
says, Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praise upon the harp unto
our God, who covereth the heaven with
clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon
the mountains. Now here's the thing. When you hear the word heaven, almost all the
time we think of number three. But wait a minute. Didn't it say
who covereth the heaven with clouds? So we could
say very clearly that number one is heaven. Genesis chapter number one
already said that he called the firmament heaven. Here it's calling it heaven,
okay? In one verse we talked about heavens of heavens,
but go if you would to Psalm 36 now.
Psalm 36 verse number 5.
Psalm 36 and look at verse number 5. The Bible says,
Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens,
and thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.
So in Psalm 36 verse 5,
we actually have this being described as heavens.
Why? Because the word heaven and heavens is pretty much interchangeable
in your Bible. Okay, so don't start making a lot of weird doctrine based on
the plurality of the word heavens because it's very
clearly talking about the clouds here. Go to Jeremiah chapter 4. Let me prove it even further.
Jeremiah chapter number 4, and I know we're kind of dancing around
in the Bible a little bit, but I just want to prove all these things real quick and then we'll get into some doctrine.
But it says in Jeremiah chapter 4, look at verse number 23.
The Bible says, And I beheld the earth, and lo, it was out
form and void, and the heavens, and they had no light.
They held the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
Now if you read this in like a, I believe a scurvy
commentary, it would say that this is Genesis chapter number 1.
This is not Genesis chapter number 1, okay? But what is being described is
Jerusalem being laid desolate and how it's now without form and
void and basically it's just a dark, gloomy day. But look what it
says in verse 25. I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all
the birds of the heavens were fled.
So when it's describing where the birds are, what does it say their habitation is? Heavens.
So again, without a shadow of a doubt, this can be called heavens
if you want to because it's talking about the birds of heaven. Birds don't fly in this one.
I don't know if you don't, and they certainly, you know, I don't know of any birds that are flying up here, right?
Okay, so the number 1 heaven could be firmament,
heaven, or heavens, right? Let's prove this, our
next layer here. Go to Psalm 8.
Psalm chapter number 8, and look at verse number 3.
Psalm chapter number 8 and look at verse number 3. Now this will help you
because the word heavens mentioned in your Bible like so many times. I mean these words are used in your Bible so many
different times. So when you have the right understanding, it will help you as you read it. But Psalm chapter 8, look at verse 3.
The Bible says, When I consider thy heavens
the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars
which thou hast ordained. So when he's talking about the heavens
plural here, what is he describing though? The moon and the stars. Where are the moon and the stars? They're up here.
So I can call that what? The heavens.
Go to 1 Chronicles chapter 27. Go to 1 Chronicles
chapter number 27. So I'm using multiple
references here because I don't want you to not trust me on this, okay?
1 Chronicles
chapter, yeah, 1 Chronicles
27 verse 23. The Bible says, But David
took not the number of them from twenty years old and under,
because the Lord had said he would increase Israel like to
the stars of the heavens. Okay, so
we can call this the heavens. Can we not? Okay, now go to Psalms
2. Go to Psalms 2. Here's another interesting fact.
You can call number 3 heavens. Okay?
Let me prove this. Psalms chapter 2, look at verse number 4. Now that's a pretty
famous verse. Talking about God, what does it say
in verse 4? He that sitteth in the what? Heavens
shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in vision. So where is the Lord? He's in the heavens.
And it says
he that sitteth. Where is God the Father sitting?
In the third heaven, okay? We're not mincing words
here. This is very clear. Go to Psalms 103. Go to Psalms 103
and we're just going to look at a couple more Psalms real quick.
And look at verse 19.
The Lord hath prepared, verse 19, the Lord hath prepared his throne
in the heavens and his kingdom ruleth
over all. So again, where is his throne at? Third heaven, but what is it also
described as? Heavens. Go to Psalms 115. Go to Psalms 115
and look at verse number 3. Psalms 115 and look at verse number 3.
And the reason why I'm explaining this is because there's so many weird views and I don't
have time to explain all the weird views, so I'm just trying to explain to you what the Bible means when it
uses certain words. So then when you hear the weird views, you're like, that's not true.
Okay, because what if someone comes and he's like, there's four heavens. You know, it's the heavens of
heavens. You know, that's like at least two times two and it's the fourth dimension and it's like
get away from me. That's what you should say, alright?
There's three heavens, okay? Psalms 115, look at verse 3.
But our God is in the heavens.
He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Where's our God? Our God's in the heavens, okay?
Go to Revelation chapter 12. Let me show you another example of this. And this is not even
just God. How about saved Christians? Where would you say saved Christians are? Wouldn't you say
heaven? You know, when I ask someone at the door, I'd say, hey, if you were to die today, are you going to go to the
heavens? I don't say that. But after this sermon, you might think about it.
No, I'm just kidding. But look what it says in Revelation chapter 12
and look at verse number 11. And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb
and by the word of their testimony and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice,
notice this, ye heavens and ye that dwell
in them. So who's he talking to?
Saved believers that are already in heaven and he's telling them that are what?
In the heavens to what? Rejoice. Ye heavens and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants
of the earth and of the sea for the devil has come down to you having great wrath because he
knoweth that he hath but a short time. So there's people in the heavens, God's in the heavens.
We have all three of these can be described as
heavens. Now, again, what I thought was interesting
if you think about it is it described the clouds as the
garment and then it talked about this
swaddling band of darkness that was above.
Now, I'm going to kind of try to draw our atmosphere
for a second. And this is kind of an interesting thing. But we have
according to modern science we have a couple things going on here but
let's just have our earth again. I know I got a lot of things on the board
but we kind of have a first layer which is called your troposphere.
And I'm just going to go trope, alright?
Then you have what's called the stratosphere
and then you have what's the mesosphere.
...
And then you have the thermosphere
and then you have the exosphere, okay?
...
As you go up and through these different elements, this is about
12 kilometers, this is 50, this is 80,
this is 100, and then this is like 10,000,
okay? It's kind of ridiculous. But this first
section of 100 kilometers and down is really
what's called the homosphere and it's kind of, you know, there's
from a human understanding we don't necessarily understand all the boundaries that God has necessarily
established or how he makes his classifications. But I'm just giving you kind of man's
classifications. But somewhere between the mesosphere
and the thermosphere, basically right around here, is where you're
going to have that change from the sky being blue
to black, okay? This is all going to be black
up here.
Now to give you some relevant points here just so you kind of have an idea of what's
going on in the sky, again this is about
12 kilometers. That's about 7 miles
or about 39,000 feet. So you can, if you've ever flown
in an airplane, they might say hey we're cruising at 30,000 feet altitude
or 35,000 or something like that. So that's kind of the upper limits
of the troposphere and that's where you see most of your clouds even
is kind of at this upper point of the troposphere
this is where you kind of have just your clouds. And if you fly
in an airplane, lots of times you'll even go a little bit above the clouds, right? Or you're going through
the clouds, but they don't really want to go through the clouds too much because you get a lot of turbulence, right?
So they'll kind of just go just a little bit above the clouds and they'll kind of fly
in this range just above it in the stratosphere
a little bit, okay? Or you can have jets that will fly in
the stratosphere depending on exactly what kind of airline you're riding on.
In your stratosphere is where you get your ozone layer.
From
the mesosphere, if you get this high up, what's kind of interesting
is it's negative 120 degrees
Fahrenheit. So it's getting pretty cold when you
get up to here. But if we're kind of thinking about
verses that we've talked about, right? And we're kind of thinking about what we've
sent. We said the waters, there was a
firmament that separated the waters which were from the waters, okay? And you would say
well what about this section? Because it kind of seems like the blue is kind of the dividing line.
You know what's interesting is clouds exist up here too.
Kind of right here at the upper limit
of this mesosphere. And they're called not
the Lucent Clouds. And you can only see them at twilight
in certain areas or something like that. You can see them with the naked eye
and they're basically, they're also called polar mesospheric
clouds and they're like water ice crystals. We're talking pretty
cold temperatures up here, right? So there's literally clouds that kind of go all the way
up here. So you kind of have this section of water and you kind of have
your, you know, firmament as it were that are kind of
separating it. But above this point, you're free
of complete, of all water vapor. Once you get into the thermosphere
and you talk about all the black up here, you have no
water whatsoever. So you have all the water kind of trapped
in this section and you kind of have what? Water
and then you have the firmament and then you have the water that's up here
again. And then you have this blackness. And what did he say? He clothed the earth with a garment
which was clouds. And if you look at the earth from NASA pictures or Space Station
or any of that kind of stuff, there's a lot of clouds covering.
Like you'll see continents but then you'll see the continents really covered in lots of clouds
and lots of things like that. You also have other things that you'll see.
There's this cool thing that's in the, above the, or
kind of in the thermosphere is the aurora. Who knows what I'm
talking about? The aurora. This is like the coolest thing. Like
you should literally just go and check YouTube out and go online and
check out like the aurora borealis or something or
I think there's another one that's like Australia or something. And you can
see and it's just this like green like, I don't know what
vapor gas looking thing that's just kind of floating out here
in the black. And from the Space Station it's amazing. I mean it's just this like green thing that's
floating. And really the International Space Station
I don't know what to, I'm going to use red. It doesn't really look red but it kind of
floats up here. You kind of got your International Space Station.
It's kind of floating so it kind of gets the look at all that. It can
look down through the clouds so it can see all the thunder and all the stuff that's
kind of coming. And it's really just incredible when you kind of
see what they can look at. The International Space Station is flying
at about 400 kilometers above sea level.
So you kind of have these ranges again and
the thermosphere kind of that separation is about the
100 kilometer mark or 62 miles above the Earth. So
that's really, you know, I believe very clearly what's being
described here. Day number two you have what?
The water is being separated from the water. You have the atmosphere and you have the clouds
that are being created and that's that water that is above
the Earth. Now I want to go to a few more verses here.
Go if you would to Psalms
148. Go to Psalms 148.
So point number one is this. People will say, well I don't think
clouds is the water because it didn't rain. But that
verse in Genesis chapter two wasn't really describing
the fact that it couldn't rain or that clouds don't exist. It's just talking about it hadn't
rained yet in that week. Plus I've shown you many verses that show that clouds
were part of the creation week. The second thing that people would say is
that oh well I don't think in Genesis chapter number
one when it's talking about putting the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament
that could be the same as this. Well you're right, it's not.
But the word heaven, firmament, or heavens can be interchangeable for all of
these throughout the Bible. And in fact the firmament
is sometimes even described in Ezekiel as just being like this space around
angels and cherry-bem and stuff and it's kind of weird. And so like
I don't think it has to even be one of these three. It's just basically talking about a space
or some kind of area that's separation between the two.
But it's kind of interesting how you have the blackness as what the swaddling
band of the earth, which is space, and you have the garment which
is the clouds that are covering the earth.
Psalms 148, this is kind of a section of scripture where people
start getting weird. And you know, it's not weird.
Okay, so let's slow down and think about it. Because what do they say?
They say in verse four, I'll just get you the weirdness and then we'll
explain it. Praise them ye heavens of heavens and ye waters that be above
the heavens. They'll say oh that latter word heavens there
means this one and this one. So then they'll say they're
this weird like ice wall up here or something.
Water wall or something. And you get these ideas called the canopy
theory. Who's heard of the canopy theory? Okay. I've
never heard of this until recently. The double canopy theory, okay.
Coming from Adam Fanon, right, just in case you want to know.
But he teaches that there's literally, there was this like
water wall or something like the secret water wall here
and then like another secret water wall that goes like over here or something like that.
And they're like where do you get these verses? They get it from Psalms 148.
Where it's like oh the waters that be above the heavens.
Let me tell you what that is. Clouds.
Oh that was easy. But it says heavens. Yeah but I already
demonstrated so many times for you that what? Heavens could be any of these, couldn't it? So which one
are we going to attribute that to? First one. Now let me prove that.
Let's read the passage. Okay. Verse one. Praise ye
the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens.
Praise him in the heights. Now what do we think the heavens are there?
We don't know. I'll tell you the answer. It's this one.
The heights, okay. The heavens, okay. So look at verse
two. Praise ye him all his angels. Praise ye him all his
hosts. So we're thinking about the highest thing.
What would be like the next highest if we're talking about the third heaven? How about the angels, right?
They're going to be a little bit lower than that. What would be a little bit lower than that?
Verse three. Praise him sun and moon. So we're kind of working
our way down here. Praise him all ye stars of light.
Then praise him ye heavens of heavens and ye waters that be of heaven.
What would be the next thing if we're working our way down after this one?
Clouds. So what is he doing? He's just saying like let's praise
him from the top all the way down to the bottom and he's just working his way down to the bottom.
It would be weird to then interject this weird ice wall canopy thing that you
decided up here because you are working your way down.
And then it goes straight into what? The clouds. So here's another verse that people
would suggest, oh well it can't be clouds but I think I already proved that.
Go to 2 Peter chapter number three.
So look, the Bible
is real simple. It's real clear and I think it's real beautiful. I haven't heard
hardly anybody teach that Genesis 1 verses six
through eight is clouds there when it's talking about the separation but that's what I've always thought every time
I've read that. It seemed really obvious. It seemed really clear. I even tried
to make a graphical representation of this. I did.
It was on God resources channel but then they nuked my channel.
I'm a little bitter still. But basically what?
On day two God created the atmosphere. He created the waters above.
It's the clouds. Clouds are a really important thing in the Bible. I don't know if you
realize this but it's mentioned a lot and God uses it to reference
to himself and it's in the heavens. If you don't say that clouds were created
when I say they were, well when were they created? You're just kind of acting
like they're not really mentioned, they're not really special, they're not really important. I mean when you look
in the sky what is the thing you see the most? Clouds.
I mean it's pretty clear that he would just say the clouds.
Now he didn't say clouds. He said waters
that are above in the firmament and I get that but I think he just did that to just
have all the flat earthers and weirdos say stupid stuff about it.
And your buddy Kent Hovind to teach the canopy theory.
Now the canopy theory again they'll also say that there's this weird suspended ice wall
that was like pre-flood and then when the heavens were broken
or opened or something that this weird ice wall broke.
And that's why you know people lived a really long time because
there was this ice wall thing and like it allowed basically
the atmospheric elements to be different, there was more oxygen,
people could just live longer and all this stuff. Well here's the thing, undoubtedly
people lived longer during the time before
the flood. But you know the people that lived longer were like God's people.
They were like the children of Seth specifically.
You know it's not like after the flood they all just
started only living to be 120. Way beyond the flood they still
live pretty old. It's kind of this slow you know degeneration
process that's happening which suggests to me that it's more genetic
than it would be an atmospheric issue. Because if it was an atmospheric issue
it would have been immediate most likely. And really it only
seems to affect you know God's people the most
in the sense that it was like Jacob and stuff that are living really long lives
while everybody else seems to kind of have a more relatively normal life.
It's like when you sin you age quicker or something.
That could be evidenced by the fact that when you don't honor your father or mother
God's literally taking days off your life. Maybe we're just really sinful, I don't know.
But obviously God limited man's age. I think it's very
clearly either a supernatural thing or through
just the degeneration of our gene pool and just
kind of like how you know it just didn't, our genes aren't as good.
Copy after copy after copy it just starts getting worse. And some of you
you know hope not to.
But see if you get a better version to make copies with then your copy can turn out
better. So that's kind of how that works. Some of you married up in your
copying of genes. But at the end of the day
you know I don't see any evidence of a canopy.
There's no verse and you know if we're going to say that the
canopy is verse two then where are the clouds? No, no, no. It's the clouds my friend.
Okay. Mentioned in lots of different places. Here's another
verse you know they talk about weird things. Is the earth being like out of
the water and stuff like this? Look at second Peter chapter three verse five.
For this they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God the heavens
were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water whereby
the world that then was being overflowed with water perished.
Now I've heard people say like oh the earth's standing out of the water.
So there's like all this water up here or out here or whatever you know
bizarreness that they want to create or make up. Let me explain what
it means by the earth that's standing out of the water and the earth that's like in the
water. This is talking about the flood. Okay.
And it's talking about land and sea. Because guess what if you took the
ocean out guess what there would be land underneath. There's an ocean
floor. You know what that's called? Earth. Okay. So there's
some earth that's in the water and then there's some earth that's
not in the water. Like the ones we're standing on. And then when it
floods that part of the earth's in the water. And then when it dries it's
out of the water. Okay. It's not talking about you know the heavens here
or talking about anything. Obviously it brings up the word heavens in this verse. Okay.
We get that. But it then makes the shift into the earth
and it's basically just saying the world that then was instead of being
out of the water it was just all in water. It was all overflowed with water and everybody
died. Okay. That's what it was talking about. Very clearly. So
there's no evidence. I see no verse that contradicts anything that I taught to you in the Bible.
I don't see how anybody could argue any of the points
that I made from the Bible alone. Maybe if you go to the book of
Jasher or Enoch or whatever weird Jewish fables that you want to
go read. But at the end of the day you kind of have
a very clear narrative. Three verses we kind of talked about.
Here's an interesting thought that I had when I was studying
this. Because you'd say well I think it's kind of weird that it's like
heavens, heavens, and heavens. You know what? Kind of reminds me of another
phenomenon like this. The Trinity. Because isn't it? It's the Father's
God. Jesus is God. And the Holy Ghost is
God. Right? And it sometimes can be a little confusing who we're talking
about. What do we have to use? We have to use the context of the word of God to end up
understanding and delineating those differences. And so the word heavens is very
similar in that it, yeah, it could be that first heavens, that second
heavens, or the third heavens and you kind of have to let the context and the Holy Spirit
guide you and teach you what those words mean. And I love the fact
that God does not just necessarily make every verse in the Bible
hop on pop. You know, that there's a little bit of complexity, a little bit of depth,
some of the puzzle of the word of God that we have to kind of unpack it.
But here's the thing. Whenever your doctrine's right, all the puzzle pieces fit together.
When your doctrine's not right, you can point to kinds of
verses that kind of contradict your thoughts or views or ideas
and everything like that. And so, you know, I really like, you know,
the set up here and we kind of talk about the clouds and we realize that Jesus
is going to come in the clouds. You know? And
we'll eventually be gathered together with him in the clouds.
I mean, you can't really underestimate, you can't under
value the importance of the word cloud in your Bible. I mean,
clouds are just such a big, important thing. God covers himself
with a cloud and eventually we'll get to see
him. You know, eventually we'll get to see through the clouds, but the clouds are a really
important aspect of the word of God and of the Bible. And so, it makes sense
to me that they be created on day two. We have day one, light,
and then we kind of have day two with clouds being the main emphasis
or the main component. To say it's some canopy thing
that no one's ever witnessed, we have no other evidence for, no other proof for,
it really just makes the Bible stupid at that point. Like, think about it. We're starting
the word of God and we just spent a few
verses describing something that we have no idea what it is or saw or can't describe
that has no relevance to us today. Or it's clouds, which has
a ton of relevance, makes perfect sense. It's
in line with scripture. You know, God's not just doing random things in the
Bible. He lays a very specific foundation,
very important doctrines, very important things. So, whenever you have a weird
idea about a passage or view, you need to be careful to make sure
that that's right or not. Because God's not weird. God's not
illogical. God doesn't create, you know, flat discs
and then call them the circle of the earth, okay? He's not
creating a flat tart earth. You know, it's not on the back of a turtle or something
like that, okay? Everything God made is perfect and it's amazing
and it has so much value. I mean, clouds are part of the water life cycle.
You know, clouds reveal all kinds of doctrine
in scripture. And so, you know, I hope that this Bible study just kind of
helps you understand what these verses are talking about and how to interpret
some of the words of the Bible. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for
giving us the record of Genesis that we could learn how everything
was created and how everything works and we can behold
beautiful clouds in the sky. And the clouds are different
every single day and we get to see the handiwork of the Lord and we get to see
just how beautiful your
architecture is and how magnificent your wisdom is.
And I pray that we would never under appreciate all the
creation and the things that you've given us, but when we realize
that it's all coming from you and it all points to you and that we should
worship you in everything that we see. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. With that, let's go ahead and sing one more song.
We do got a baptism right after the service, so stick around for that.
Let's go ahead and take out our hymnals.
The 158
O four thousand
tongues to sing, song 158.
Sing it all together. O four
thousand tongues to sing, my great
Redeemer's praise, the glories of
my God and King, the triumphs of
His grace, my gracious Master
and my God, assist me to proclaim
His name on all the earth, the
wrath, the honors of Thy name.
Jesus, the name that charms our fears, lemons
our sorrows, sees. Tis music
in the sinner's ears, tis life in health
and peace. He breaks the power of
counseled sin. He sets the prisoner free.
His blood can make the palace clean.
It is not a veil for me. Hear
Him, ye damned, His praise, ye dove, your
lucid tongues employed. He blood behold
your Savior come and be laid for
joy. Let's go ahead and sing one more song before
baptism. Go ahead and turn to one hundred
and sixty-two. Give it another
minute. One hundred and sixty-two. To God be the glory.
To God be the glory,
great things He hath done. So
lucky the world that He gave us
His Son.
For sin
and open the life gate that
all may go in. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord
Let the earth hear His voice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Let the people
rejoice. O come to the Father
through Jesus the Son, and give
Him the glory, great things He hath
done.
For baptism this evening, for the surgery of your trusted Christ as your Savior,
then I baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
very in the likeness of His death, raised to walk in newness of life.
Thank you all so much for coming. Make sure to
congratulate Brother Sergio. You are dismissed.