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Genesis chapter 1, beginning in verse number 1, the Bible reads, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And of course those are some of the most famous words in the entire Bible, the words that start out the Bible. And it's amazing because there are so many phony false versions of the Bible out there today, if you don't have a King James Version, and they already start tampering with God's Word in this verse. Unbelievably. I mean, just right out of the gate, Genesis 1-1, they make a change to this verse. See, the Bible says, In the beginning God created the heaven, singular, not plural. He created the heaven and the earth. And that's very important because what God created there in verse number 1, is not referring to the sky and the earth. It's actually referring to the heaven as in the place where God lives. And I'm going to prove that to you as we go through this. Let's keep reading. The Bible reads, And the earth was without form and void. The word void means empty. And darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. 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 I'll get to that in a moment. But right away we see that God is delineating things into days. He starts out by creating the earth. It's without form and void. It's empty. And it's covered in water completely. Now later on, on the third day, God's going to cause the waters to be gathered together into one place, that the dry land might appear. But at this point, there's no dry land appearing. There's just a globe of the earth covered in water, and it's complete darkness. And the Bible says, The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Then God divided the light from the darkness, and according to the Bible, a day took place that had an evening and a morning. Basically, there was a beginning of a day, and then there was an end of the day, which went into what was called night, in verse number 5. So we right away have this cycle beginning. Even before the sun, moon, and stars are created on the fourth day, you already have days and nights beginning. And the Bible says the evening and the morning were the first day. You say, Well, I think he's just talking about an indefinite period of time. Well, no. He's talking about a literal day because he's talking about evening and morning. He's talking about it getting dark, getting light. He's talking about a cycle of a day, not just a figuratively speaking thousand year period. You know, people will say, Well, with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years. Yeah, but there's no thousand year evening and thousand year morning. He's putting every word in the Bible for a reason, and the reason he uses the words evening and morning is to show us that he's actually talking about a day. Now, a lot of people will attack Genesis chapter 1 because they believe that science contradicts the Bible, and they believe that they have to somehow make the Bible match up with science, and so they have to kind of take a loose interpretation because a lot of people feel that literally interpreting Genesis 1 and just reading it and just believing what it says is going to somehow contradict what science teaches. Well, first of all, if the Bible contradicts science, I'm going to go with the Bible. And you say, Well, you don't blame us on science. Well, you know what? There's a lot of science I don't believe in, frankly. And the Bible says to beware and to avoid oppositions of science falsely so called. See, according to the Bible, a lot of what we call science today is not really science. And the Bible warned us about people who would oppose God's word with what they call science, which God does not even consider science because it's not true. And you have to understand that science is constantly changing, and yet every generation thinks that they have it right, even though they were wrong 100 years ago and 200 years ago and 300 years ago, but now we've got it all figured out. And keep in mind, folks, the people that are telling you that evolution is a scientific fact and that the Earth has been here for billions of years, these are the same people telling you to get a flu shot. These are the same... I'm serious. That's not even a joke. These are the same people that are basically... Well, women go to give birth and they cut open one-third of them and pull the baby out by cutting it out of its mother's stomach. Now, obviously, there are times when a C-section could save the life or something like that, but it's one in several hundred amongst most people. But amongst hospitals, it's one and a third. That's what they call science. To me, that sounds like barbarism. When one-third of women go in to give birth and end up having the baby cut out of their stomach? Now, I can see doing that in an emergency situation, of course. And I know many people who've been in emergency situations that had a C-section, but when it's one-third, give me a break. We've got a bunch of quackery going on in the medical world, and I'm not even going to go into it. It's outside the scope of this sermon. We've got all kinds of bizarre scientific theories out there that later are proven to be false and that are constantly being revised. The Bible is the one thing that never changes. And the reason why people think that the Bible contradicts science is just because they don't know the Bible. Like, for example, I've heard a lot of people say, and my wife told me that she grew up thinking this. And until she talked to me and I opened the Bible to her in Genesis and showed her what the Bible really said about creation, she thought that the Bible said that the earth was flat and that there was a big dome over it and that there were holes in the dome with light shining through, and that's what the stars were. And you know where it comes from? It comes from this Jewish encyclopedia. And all over the place, all kinds of books, you'll see them quoting, well, the Jewish encyclopedia says that there was this thing called the firmament, which was a big dome, and it was this, it was that. I'm going to prove to you tonight that the Bible does not teach that the firmament was a dome or that it was any kind of a solid object, like they try. Well, it starts with the word firm, okay? That doesn't mean anything. You can't go by the etymology of firm. I mean, if I said to you, you know, the joystick, you're not thinking of a joy stick. You see what I mean? Words come from various etymology. You can't just sit there and say, well, it starts with firm, so it must be a hard object. That's just not true. There are a lot of other explanations for why certain words are used, and you can't sit there and define a word always by the etymology, because we can all think of tons of examples of words that are completely different from the pieces that are put together to make that word, so you can't always go by that. This Jewish dictionary is saying that, you know, according to the Hebrew, I looked it up in this Jewish dictionary and said, according to the Hebrew biblical view, the earth is sitting on top of a big column. It's flat, it's on a column, and it's got a dome over it. You know what? That was written by a bunch of Christ-rejecting, anti-Christ Jews, because the Bible says, who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ, he's anti-Christ that denies the Father and the Son. So why don't they call it, instead of the Jewish encyclopedia, the anti-Christ encyclopedia? And that's why they're a liar. The same person who tells you that Jesus Christ is not the Messiah is the same one who's going to lie to you and tell you that the Bible teaches that the firmament is a big dome or a big tent above the earth. That's not what the Bible teaches. I'm going to prove that wrong tonight. You see, if you actually read what the Bible says in Genesis 1, there's nothing in here that contradicts true science. There's nothing in here that contradicts common sense. It all makes perfect sense if we read it and see what it actually says. It doesn't have to be figured. It's totally literal. There's no reason that it shouldn't be. It makes perfect sense. In fact, it's scientifically accurate. Now let's look at this thing of the firmament. Because after God created the light and the darkness, and when he created the light and the darkness, he created what's known as a day, which is a period of light and then a period of darkness, 12 hours each. Jesus said, oh, they're not 12 hours in a day. And so the Bible reads in verse 6. Now we're on to the second 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, which 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. Now, a lot of people look at this and say, what in the world is the firmament? Because it's not a word that we use. It's only used a few times in the Bible. And so they say, well, this solid layer that has water on top of it and so on. But hold on a second. The Bible doesn't stop here. If we look at everything that the Bible says about the firmament, it becomes very clear and apparent what the firmament is. Now, some people will teach that the firmament was something that existed back then and that after the flood, it's not around anymore. They teach that there was a special layer of water before the flood, kind of a canopy, they'll call it. Who's ever heard of that theory before? Okay, let me prove that to be false. Keep your finger here in Genesis 1 and go to Psalm 19. Psalm 19, right in the middle of your Bible, is the book of Psalms. Psalm 19, and I'm going to show you that the firmament is not something that existed before the flood, some different feature that the earth had before the flood, but it's something that we still have today. The Bible says in Psalm 19, verse 1, the heavens declare, and the plural, notice, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the what? The firmament. The firmament. Used to show his handiwork? No. It says the firmament showeth his handiwork. So present tense, the firmament is up there, and we can look at it and see God's glory. Now look at Psalm 148. More evidence that the firmament was not a feature that was before the flood, and now it's gone. Let me prove it to you. This will prove it to you beyond a shadow of a doubt. Look at Psalm 148, verse 4. Praise him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. So, does the Bible say in Psalm 148 that there are still waters above the heavens? Yeah. Okay. Now, what did it say in Genesis 1? It said that the firmament divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and what did he call the firmament? It says, look down at your Bible, Genesis 1.8, and God called the firmament heaven. So, is that consistent with what we see in Psalm 148? Water above the heavens, water above the firmament. Now, you say, what in the world is the firmament talking about? Let's get more evidence. Look down at verse 20. The Bible said, we're jumping forward in time to the fifth day, but it says in Genesis 1.20, and God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that had life, and fowl that may fly above the earth, listen to this, in the open firmament of heaven. Now, doesn't that say right there that birds are flying in the firmament? So, is the firmament a solid dome? Is the firmament a solid tent? No. It's an area where birds live and where birds fly. That's where birds fly. That's where birds live. You're not going to believe what the firmament is. It's the sky. It's that simple. That's why he told us what it was right away. Because I look at the word firmament, and I got to tell you, I'm scratching my head saying, I don't know what this is. As a kid, as a teenager, reading this as an oldie, I scratch my head and say, what is the firmament? But he tells me what the firmament is because he said God called the firmament heaven. Now, the reason you don't see the word firmament a lot for the whole rest of the Bible is because you see the word heaven or heavens a lot talking about the sky. And so God doesn't use the word firmament because he called the firmament heaven, so that's what he keeps calling it for the rest of the Bible. So, if you let the Bible define itself, God didn't say he called the firmament the dome. He said he called it the heaven, and all through the Bible, it talks about the fowls and the birds flying in the heavens and clouds in the heavens and so forth. And you say, what's the water above and below? Because there's water in the atmosphere. That's all there is to it. There is moisture and water. That's why it rains, because there's moisture in the clouds, and there's moisture even when there aren't clouds, and there's moisture in the air that's up in the sky, and that's what that's talking about. There is pressure and so forth that keeps some water up in the air and some water resting, setting down upon the earth, and there's a difference between the water that's in the ocean and the water that's in the air in the sky in the heaven, okay? And that's what the firmament is. More evidence is in verse 22. Well, we already looked at that, but anyway, you saw the evidence. Birds are flying in it and so forth. Now, look if you would at verse number 14. Now, in verse 14, and I realize I'm jumping around, but I'm trying to cover the subject of the firmament. It says in verse 14, 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 for years, and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give lights upon the earth, and it was so. My next question says, Are the sun, moon, and stars located in the firmament according to the Bible? Is that what that says? Yeah, let them be for lights in the what? In the firmament. Let there be lights in the firmament. Now, you say, wait a minute, Pastor Anderson. How can the lights be in the firmament of heaven and how can the birds be flying in the firmament of heaven? It's very simple, and let me explain it. If you go to 2 Corinthians 12, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, it's very simple when you understand the fact that there are three heavens. There's not one heaven, and firmament and heaven are two words that are being used synonymously in Genesis chapter 1. He said that firmament was called heaven, and he called where the stars and sun and moon are located the firmament of heaven. So he's using those two interchangeably and trying to show us both what they mean. But look at 2 Corinthians chapter 12. The Bible reads in verse number 2, I knew a man in Christ above 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell. God knoweth such an one caught up to the third heaven. You see that? Now, if you have a third heaven and this man was caught up to the third heaven and then it says he was caught up into paradise, well, the Bible says that the tree of life is in the midst of the paradise of God. And the Bible says that when he was caught up there, he heard unspeakable words which is not lawful for a man to utter. He heard God speaking, he was in heaven, he was in the third heaven, and he was there in paradise. Why? Because there are three heavens. First of all, and I'm going to tie this all together. First of all, there's the heaven where God lives. That's known as the third heaven. Why? Because it's the farthest away from where we're standing. And that's where the man was caught up to and said throughout these 12 into the third heaven. Then there's the heaven, which is the outer space is what we would call it today. That is also called heaven in the Bible. Outer space is called heaven. And then there's what we would call the sky or the atmosphere or the part of the atmosphere that's really close to us that has a lot of water in it and has water above it and so forth. So those are your three heavens. It's basically expanding out. You've got the place where God lives, which is a faraway place that's beyond the farthest star, where God lives, and that's the third heaven. Then you have the heaven that's outer space, and then you have the heaven that is the sky. That's why you have birds flying in heaven, you have sun, moon, and stars in heaven, known as the heavenly bodies, and then you have God living in heaven. Those are three different places, proven by the fact that he called it the third heaven. Heaven came up the third one, unless you had the first and the second. It's not possible to have the third. You know, I'm Stephen L. Anderson III. Well, no, because there was no Stephen L. Anderson before me. Therefore, I am the first. So I hope that that clears that up for you and helps you to see that. Now, with that in mind, jump back to verse 1 of Genesis 1. What does he say here? In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Now you say, wait a minute, Pastor Anderson. How do we know he's not talking about the sky? Because all through the Bible, he uses it for both. He'll talk about the sky, he'll talk about space, he'll talk about the place where he lives. Which one is he talking about? Well, he has to be talking about the place he lives, not the sky, and here's why. Because in verse number 6, God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters. Verse 8, and God called the firmament heaven, and the evening and the morning were the second day. When did God create the heaven known as the sky? On the second day. So he couldn't have created it back in verse 1 if he's created it on the second day. You see what I mean? Now, if you get a modern version like the New King James or the NIV or the HIV or whatever you pick up, the Bible will be corrupted here to say the heavens and the earth, thereby giving the impression, if we say the heavens, we're not talking about the place where God lives. When you put an S on the end of it, you're not talking about the place God lives. When you say the heavens, you're talking about looking up into the heavens and seeing the birds and seeing the sun and the moon and the stars, are you not? If I said up to the heavens, you wouldn't think you're going to where God lives, because that would be singular. You'd think you're going up into the sky in an airplane or something. So if you say to me and God created the heavens and the earth, you're saying he created the sky and the earth, well then what in the world are you creating in verse 8 on the second day? You're just creating the same thing again. No, you're creating something different, which proves that we're talking about the place where God lives in verse number 1. Now that's important. Why? And I'm trying not to go too deep tonight, but I want you to understand this chapter and see that there's a lot more to this chapter than meets the eye. Okay, look at verse 2. We're getting somewhere. 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. Now, the Bible says that the earth was without form and void. Void means empty. So God starts out by saying he created two things. What were the two things in verse 1? The heaven and the earth. And then he comes right in there and says the earth was without form and void. Did he say they were both without form and void? Did he say they were without form and void, and God said, let them be like, no. He said he created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void. Go to Genesis chapter 2, and let me show you why this is important. Now the Bible says in verse number 4 of Genesis chapter 2, these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created. Now, in retrospect, in chapter 2, we're talking about all of it. We're talking about the heavens, including the sky. That's why it says in verse 1 of chapter 2, thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. So it's not that the King James Bible doesn't know how to put an S on the end of the word heaven, because they put an S on it at the end in verse number 1 after the plural had been created. But he says in verse 4, these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, in the day, now watch this. You're going to have to really pay close attention to the wording of this verse. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens and every plant of the field before it was in the earth and every herb of the field before it grew, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. Now look at that verse very carefully. That clearly says that God created every plant of the field before it was in the earth. Does everybody see that? There was a day when God created every plant of the field before it was in the earth. You say, what? God was creating the plants of the field before they were in the earth, and God created every herb of the field before it grew? What does he mean by before it grew or before it was in the earth? Well, if you remember on day 3, God, when he caused the waters to be gathered together into one place and from the dry land to a prair, he said, let the earth bring forth grass and the herb yielding seed after its kind and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind whose seed was in itself upon the earth and it was sowed. And God caused the earth to bring forth grass and herbs and plants, and they grew out of the earth when God spake the word. But those plants, according to Genesis 2, 4, and 5, existed somewhere else before they were in the earth. They were already created. Why? Because they existed in heaven. Because the Bible teaches that heaven is a place, not just a figment of somebody's imagination or just some kind of a spirit world where people are floating around on puffs of air or something, but actually a physical, literal place. And if you remember when John's caught up to heaven, there were beasts. There were angels. There were thrones. There was gold. There was a sea of glass. There were people singing. There were people living there. There's eating and drinking. There are trees. There's the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. The paradise is in the third heaven. Now, God created a paradise on this earth called the Garden of Eden, and in that paradise were trees and a river, or four rivers, gold and animals and all these things. Well, the paradise of God in heaven is the same way. There's all the same elements up there. Gold, there's plant life, there are animals, and so forth in heaven. And so that's why the Bible says that God created them before they grew on the earth. He'd already made them, okay? He planted a garden in Eden to mirror the paradise of God in heaven where the tree of life is located. One day when there's a new heaven and a new earth, the city, heavenly Jerusalem, will descend from God out of heaven. It's already ready-built up there and descends down. Jesus said, In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. So we're talking about a physical place with houses and mansions and a city that's going to come down. There are plants. There are animals. There are people. There are objects. It's a literal place, the third heaven. And so that's why we see that the plants and so forth were already created. So when the Bible says the earth was without form and void, it's empty. The earth is empty, and the sky is also empty because when he creates the fish and the birds, he says that they'll fill the waters and the seas and let, look, you fill something because it's void. It's empty, well, you fill it. He fills it with fish, and he fills it with birds. Jump down, if you would, to chapter 1, verse number 22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill. So remember, the earth was without form and void, so he's telling the animals to fill it. He says, And fill the waters and the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. So he's filling up the firmament, or the heaven, and he's filling up the sea with animals. And so it's no longer void. So what I'm trying to say is that in Genesis 1-1, when God created the heaven and the earth, the earth was without form and void. It had no creatures, no dry land, no plants, no animals, nothing. It was totally without form and void, totally dark, and heaven, that's not the case. Heaven was come ready furnished when he created it. Now you say, wait a minute, Pastor A, how could God create all that stuff in heaven in one day? I mean, it took him six days to make everything down here. Obviously, God did not have to take six days to create the earth. Because God, and people will mock this and say, Oh, do you really believe that God can create the earth in six days? Well, they believe that the whole universe, you know, exploded in a trillion trillionth of a second to all of its observable size. And people always get mad at me when I preach this and say, No, you're wrong, because the universe is always expanding. But wait a minute. They teach that in a trillion trillionth of a second, it was as big as what we see. So I don't know, okay, yeah, their theory about how there's something else out there, whatever. The bottom line is that everything we see here, as far as the eye can see, they claim it got there in a trillion trillionth of a second. At least God took six days. But here's the thing, God didn't have to take six days. God could have done it in one day because he created the heaven in one day. Ready, furnished, plants, everything. Done. One day. There's no breakdown of heaven being created. On this day he made this, and then he made the angels, and then he made, you know, these plants. No, the plants were already made before they were in the earth. That means they were made on day one. Or really, in a way, even kind of before day one. Because, you know, right as he's invented day one, I guess you could say, right in the beginning he created the heaven and the earth. He created the earth void. He created heaven void. There's no mention of that in scripture. And so I hope that helps you to understand. That either really helped you to understand or it really confused you. One idea. You're either going to walk out really understanding this or you're going to walk out knowing less than when you walked in. But anyway, now a lot of people will try to, here's another way that people will try to twist this chapter. They'll try to preach what's called the Gap Theory. And what they'll say is that there's a gap between Genesis 1-1 and Genesis 1-2. And they'll try to teach that billions of years went by. Now what they're trying to do is to please man and satisfy so-called science and try to somehow make the Bible jive with so-called science. Now, I don't feel the need to try to make the Bible jive with so-called science. You know, and people are, oh, we need to show proof of the Bible. Faith is the evidence. Amen. Somebody came out of the Bible, I think they call it the Evidence Bible, right? Isn't there something like that out there? That these creation heads like to use? And it's like the Evidence Bible. You know what? Just take any Bible, and I love the Bible that Trent gave me. Trent gave me this Bible. It's just the text of the Bible. That's it. That's the Evidence Bible. Because faith is the evidence. You don't have to put it in some chart of a muscle and make it the Evidence Bible, some picture of some scientific discovery. No. Faith is the evidence. People say, show me evidence for the Bible. There is no evidence. It's faith that is the evidence of things, or the substance of things not seen. It's not seen, so there's not evidence in the sense of vid evidence, like a vid, video, seeing something. Look, you're not going to see evidence that just proves the Bible. No. You hear God's Word, and faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. You don't see it, you hear it, and faith cometh by hearing, and faith is the evidence. So this book that I'm holding in my hand is the evidence. Well, don't forget calling it the Evidence Bible. Just cross out the word Bible and just call it the Evidence. This is the evidence right here in my hand. And so is the evidence. We believe the Bible, period. We believe the Bible because we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's why we believe the Bible. And because we believe God's Word is true. And there's no science that can contradict the Bible. The Bible keeps just being shown to be right over and over again in my life and in other people's lives. And then anytime we look at it and there's a new so-called scientific discovery, you know, the Bible already knew the earth was round. That's found in the Bible, in Isaiah chapter 40. The Bible already knew that the earth is hanging upon nothing, as the Bible says. You know, I know the Jewish Antichrist Dictionary says that it's sitting on a column of pillars or whatever. But the Bible clearly says that God hangs the earth on nothing. It's that simple, you know. I mean, I don't know what else to tell you. There's nothing you can show me in the Bible that is nonsensical or not factual with what we see in the natural world. It's just not out there. There's plenty of things that they're wrong about, but this book is never wrong. And so they feel that they must somehow prove that the earth can still be millions of years old and yet the Bible be true. Well, I'm sorry. If the earth is millions of billions of years old, then the Bible isn't true. I'm sorry. Sorry. Because the Bible clearly says that God created the earth in six days and that on the sixth day He created the man, and the Bible tells us how old that man was when he died. He's 930 years old. And when that man, Adam, died, it tells us how old he was when he had his children, how old his children were when they died, all the way down to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. So you cannot tell me this earth is millions of billions of years old. You can calculate it within a few decades, probably somewhere around 6,245 years old. That's about the number where it falls. And, you know, give or take 10, 20 years, but you can calculate it. And I've done a whole sermon where I proved that from the Bible. I calculated all the years. We went through Genesis, went through Exodus, and all the way through and showed that that's what it is. But there's no evidence that the earth is millions of billions of years old. That's somebody's theory. That's what somebody will put out there and try to claim that they have all this proof. How do you prove that? Well, this civilization said they were around that long. So what? I can come start my own civilization and say we've been here for 50,000 years. That doesn't make it true. Oh, we found this fossil. It's all nonsense. It's all a figment of somebody's imagination. None of it can be proven because in order to prove something, you'd have to start with something that you knew was that old, right? In order to figure out how old stuff is, you'd have to start with something that you know is that old, right? Then you can put your little device on it, you know, and say, okay, now I see how the device works. Now I can find other stuff that's that old. For example, if you're calibrating a thermometer, you dip it in the water and it's boiling, you draw a line on the thermometer and say that's 212 degrees Fahrenheit because that's where water boils. And then when the water begins to freeze, you stick the thermometer in, you draw a line and say that must be 32 degrees. You stick it under your tongue and you say that must be about 98.6, the human body temperature. And you can calibrate the thermometer with things that you know, like you know the boiling point of water, you know the freezing point, you know the reason. Well, how did anybody figure it out? They made it up. They decided to call it 212. Guess what? It was a guy named Fahrenheit who made that up. Another guy made up a different system, you know, and on and on. Another guy named Kelvin came up with his own system. And so you got all these different systems. It's just made up measurements, okay? But in order to tell how old something is, you say, well, they checked it two different ways. You can check it 20 different ways. You have no constant. You see, they don't even understand their own religion, which is science. In science, don't you have to have a control group or a constant? They have no constant. They have a bunch of unknowns. It'd be like solve this equation, x plus y equals z, solve for x. That's what they do with this evolution is that they have no constant. They don't know for sure anything is that old. They can't prove it. And so they're just making stuff up. I could say, oh, yeah, x plus y equals 3. I can solve that. It's 1 plus 2. Well, no, it might be 2 plus 1. It might be 3 plus 0. You don't know what it is because you got to have more constants in order to figure it out. And so it's a bunch of nonsense. So people will try to twist the Bible to fit so-called science. And here's what they'll do. They'll say, well, there's a gap between Genesis 1-1 and Genesis 1-2. And basically, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Then millions and millions of years went by. And then it was without form and voice. Now, that's not what it says, is it? So they're adding to the Word of God. Now, let me show you where this comes from. Go to Jeremiah chapter 4. This is where this doctrine comes from or where they use to create this doctrine. Now, for example, here's a Bible right here. It's called the Scofield reference Bible. And this is a really popular Bible. I've even been in churches where they said, you know, open your Bibles to John chapter 1. And by the way, that's page 1114 in your Scofield reference Bible. So pretty much everybody feels like, oh, man, I got to get that Bible and then I can turn it to the right page number and, you know, I can be like the pastor who's got one and everybody's got... I grew up with a Scofield reference Bible. When I was a kid, when I was a teenager, this is what I read from every day. And it's got the King James Bible, but then it's got all these other crazy notes and things that are distractions to you. You know, you're trying to read the Bible. Man, when I was a kid, I read all the notes. I got all distracted. I'd get off on these tangents. But this is a really popular Bible amongst independent fundamental Baptists. And listen to this false doctrine that it teaches. You're turning to Jeremiah 4. But it says in Genesis 1-1, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Then right in between verse 1 and 2, not off to the side, not at the bottom, in between. So you just... you can't help but read. It's impossible not to read it. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Earth made waste and empty by judgment. See Jeremiah 4, 23 through 26. So right in the text, they told us, oh, there's a gap here. You got to go to Jeremiah 4 to figure out the gap. Now, here's the problem. Do you really think that God made the Bible that hard to read to where it's like, all right, I'm excited. It's January 1st. I'm going to start out reading the Bible. Let's do this. It's my New Year's resolution. I'm going to do chapter 1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and we already have to go turn to Jeremiah to figure out what really happened. I mean, is Genesis 1-1 that complicated? I don't think this chapter is complicated. He called the light day. I mean, it's like something you read this to a kindergartener or a three-year-old. See, he called the darkness night. He made the stars. It's not complicated, but they make it complicated. Oh, turn to Jeremiah chapter 4 right away. And I don't think that God wrote it to where it's impossible to understand unless you go to Jeremiah 4. Now, here's what they do with Jeremiah 4. Look at this. This is their big evidence. It says in verse 23, I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void, and the heavens, and they had no light. Now, right there, you see, folks, that has to be talking about creation. How? Why? It doesn't, because keep reading. He says, I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled. Now, hold on a second. When the earth was without form and void in Genesis 1, were there any mountains? No. No. No. So he said, I saw the earth without form and void, and I beheld the mountains. Well, guess what? There were no mountains because the dry land didn't appear until day three, okay? And then he says, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly, and I beheld, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. Now, if the birds of the heavens fled, wouldn't that mean that they were there and then they went somewhere? Okay, where did they go? I mean, if this here, when he says the earth was without form and void in Jeremiah 4, if he's talking about the whole planet, did they go to the moon? Did they go to outer space? Because he doesn't say, I saw their dead bodies laying there. No, he says they left. They're gone. They flew away. They went to Mars. They went to Venus. They went, you know. That doesn't make any sense, okay? But see, the reason that people must understand is that the earth, the word earth in the Bible usually is not talking about the planet necessarily, okay? And a lot of people will just hear the word earth when they just think the planet, the planet earth. But hold on a second. I could reach into my garden and pick up a handful of earth. The Bible talks about people putting earth on their heads, not talking about the whole planet. It says they put earth on their heads. It's talking about they took a handful of dirt and put them on their heads. So when he says the earth, and keep in mind, let's let the Bible define itself. What did God define as earth in Genesis 1? Did he define the whole planet as earth or did he define the dry land as earth, right? Genesis 1, you don't have to turn there, but I'll read it for you. The Bible says in verse number 10 of Genesis 1, and God called the dry land earth. So he's not talking the whole planet in that verse. Now there are times when he talks about the whole earth, okay? And he could be referring to the entire planet, obviously. The whole earth. But often he's just referring to dry land in general, okay? So when Jeremiah looked and he saw the earth without form and void, and when he saw the mountains that they trembled, basically an earthquake, and that the hills moved lightly, and when he saw that there was no man and that the birds had fled, and he says in verse 26, And I behold unto the Lord that the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord. So there's not a lack of cities here. There's just a broken down city. At the presence of the Lord and by his fierce anger. Now, let's get the context of the chapter. What's Jeremiah talking about? Well, Jeremiah's not talking about the planet because all you have to do, and we're not going to read every verse. I'm just going to quickly show you from verse 1 through the chapter. Look at verse 1, the word Israel. Verse 3, Judah and Jerusalem. Just glance at these and see the words. Verse 4, Judah, Jerusalem. Verse 5, Judah, Jerusalem. Verse 6, Zion. Are you getting the idea that he's only talking about a certain area? Yeah. Verse 10, Jerusalem. Verse 11, Jerusalem. Verse 14, Jerusalem. Verse 15, Dan and Ephraim. Those are two tribes of Israel. Verse 16, Jerusalem. Judah. And on and on, the Bible is clear. He says in verse 22, right before he talks about the earth with Elphorim, he says in verse 22, For my people is foolish. Talking about the nation of Israel. He has people in the Old Testament. They have not known me. They are sawed as children. And they have none understanding. They are wise to do evil, but to do good, they have no knowledge. I behold the earth, and lo is without form and void, and so on. He's talking about punishing his people by destroying the land with an earthquake. And by destroying the cities. That's what he's talking about. Keep reading. And then when we finish it up, he says in verse 27, For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate. This is when he saw it without form and void. Yet will I not make a full end. So is he destroying everything? No, he's not making a full end. He's only partially destroying. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens shall above be black, because I have spoken, and I have purposeed, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it. The whole city. What city? We heard it like 20 times. Jerusalem. The whole city shall flee from the noise of the horsemen and bowmen. They shall go up into the thickets and climb upon the rocks. Every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein. And when thou art full, what wilt thou do? On and on and on. And he says in verse 31, For I have heard a voice as of a woman had traveled, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child. The voice of the daughter is like, He's not talking about the past. He's talking about the future. How clear can that be? He's not saying, Man, Israel is so sinful, and I'm going to bring judgment on Israel and the nation of Judah and Jerusalem has done so much wrong. By the way, remember back in Genesis 1-1? Let me fill in a little gap for you. It was actually without forming void because for millions of years there were other people and other birds and other plants and other animals. And I destroyed them all and started over in Genesis 1. But that's all another story that shall be told at another time. Back to how I'm going to destroy Jerusalem. No. He's talking about future events. And by the way, there's going to be a time coming on this planet in the future where there's going to be parts of this earth that are without form and void. And where there are going to be parts of this earth where whole cities are leveled. And there are going to be parts of the earth where the mountains and the hills will be removed from earthquake. And there will be times when the sun and moon will be darkened and the heaven will be darkened. This is future. This is not past. Very clear. But if you're just a young person and you don't know any better and you're not studying the Bible, you're not reading... Look, if you're reading Jeremiah starting in chapter 1 and finishing up in chapter 52, you're not going to have any trouble understanding chapter 4. But when you've got somebody cutting your Bible up into little pieces saying, okay, read one verse here. Now jump over here and read four verses. Now jump back over here and read one. That's why I don't use study Bibles. Amen. It gives you a King James, plain Jane version. Plain. Just the Word of God. And if you have all these notes, just ignore them until you can get... You know, see Brother Trent? Because he got me one that's just empty. I love it. It's void of anything but the Word of God. It's just the Word of God and no more. I love it. And so the bottom line is that people can twist your mind with these study Bibles. The Bible is not intended to confuse you if you're saved. If you're saved, it's to enlighten you. And there's no way in the world you'd come up with this on your own. Because if you were reading Jeremiah in context, you'd get the gist of what he's saying that would make sense. But if you're just, well, let's just type into the Concordance void. You know, you might get some crazy ideas just looking at a verse here, verse here. That's why it's important to read the whole Bible in context. Read it cover to cover. Read the whole book. Not just bits and pieces. And get rid of this... I mean, you don't have to read very far in this thing to figure out that it's like a sci-fi version here. Even just in verse 2, it's already putting weird ideas into your head. Now, you say, Pastor Anderson, I still don't agree with you. I still believe in the Gap Theory. Okay, well, here's a verse. Go to Exodus 20 quickly. And here's a verse that just demolishes the Gap Theory. Now, I gave this big, complicated explanation where we actually turned to Jeremiah 4 to prove it wrong. But really, all I had to do was just say go to Exodus 20. Because in Exodus 20, the Bible just flat-out refutes the Gap Theory. And if somebody still believes in it after this, they probably just don't believe that the Bible's God's Word. Because the Bible clearly spells it out in verse number 11 of Exodus 20. The Bible says, For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth. What verse is that in Genesis 1? Which verse is that? Which verse is that where the Lord made the heaven and the earth? The singular, the heaven and the earth. What verse is that? Verse number 1. Okay. Comma. The sea and all that end in the mist. What verse is that? Rest of the chapter, huh? So do you see a gap there? He said in six days, he made heaven and earth and everything else. That means that verses 1 through the end of the chapter all took place in six days. Because otherwise, he wouldn't have said, he would have said, Well, in six days, the Lord made all the stuff that's in heaven and earth. No, he said he made the heaven and earth in the six days. Which means that Genesis 1-1 took place in the six days. End of story. Case closed. You know. We're laying the gap theory to rest forever. We're just having a moment of silence for the gap theory. Just die. So what else can we learn from this chapter? Let me just... Some stuff I'm going to tie in with chapter 2 next week. If I don't cover certain things this week, some of it's going to get a little bit tied in because chapter 2 is a really interesting chapter and we're going to tie in some stuff with chapter 1. But let me just give you a quick overview now that we've cleared out some of the definitions. We already read the whole chapter. Day 1, what did God create on day 1? The light and the darkness. And God divided the light and the darkness. He called the light day. He called the darkness night. Evening, the morning, the first day. Second day, he created the permanent. What does the Bible say the permanent is? It starts with an H. Heaven. Heaven. Not a dome, not a tent, not a canopy, not an easy up, but he said it is the heaven. That's what I call it. That's what I'm going to call it for the next 1188 chapters. And so it's not hard to figure out that the permanent since it has birds flying in it, it's called the heaven. God calls the sky the heaven, singular, and the heavens, plural, throughout the Bible, and so forth. It's pretty clear. Why did he not put an S on it in chapter, in verse 1? To make it clear that he was talking about the place where he lives. That's why he's trying to make that clear. Because if he would have said heavens, you would have assumed he's talking about the sky. Now you could say, well, but he did create, you know, outer space at that time, which is also going to, but he's trying to make it understandable in verse 1 that he's talking about the place where he lives, not the sky. Okay, so day 2, he creates the firmament or the atmosphere. That would be what we would probably call today, the atmosphere. Okay. And then in day 3, he causes the sea, because at that time the whole globe was just covered in water. On day 3, he causes the waters all to be gathered together into one place and for the dry land to appear. And it says he called the dry land Earth. We went over that. And the gathering together of the water called, he seized. And God saw that it was good. Now, as the word seized Now, is the word seized singular or plural? So are we talking about one gigantic sea? Or are we talking about multiple seas? Now, the Bible does say that the waters were gathered together to how many places? Is everybody following me? The water was gathered together to how many places? He said, Let the waters of the heaven be gathered together unto one place. See that in verse 9? Okay. But he called the gathering together of the waters seized. Now, a lot of people will teach that the Earth used to just be one giant land mass that was just like a round land mass or just kind of one solid shape. And that's what Earth was like as far as the dry land. Well, I wouldn't call, and again, I'm just looking at this thinking I wouldn't call that seized if you just have one big piece of water and one big piece of land. Now, if you looked at it the way that our Earth is now, we have different continents. Now, I'm not saying the Earth looked the same way back then because the flood took place and a lot of changes took place. And there is a verse about the Earth being divided in the days of Pele later on in the book of Genesis. And if you kind of look at the continents, you can see how they kind of fit together. They could have drifted apart. That's one theory. I don't really care about it. I'm not really that interested in that subject to be honest with you because it's not something the Bible spends a lot of time dealing with. But I will say this. There was some kind of a delineation, even though the water was all connected, in the sense it was all in one place, that it was all contiguous water that was called seas. Let me explain it to you this way. We have four oceans, do we not? What are the four oceans called? The Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian, and the Arctic. But wait a minute. Are they all connected? Yeah. So couldn't you say they're all one in a sense? But then you could also call them plural seas. Because there's the North Sea and there's the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Even though it's all contiguous, there's not a line, you know, okay, we're just crossing the border, you know, from one ocean to another. You're not necessarily going to know it like that that you just crossed over. Okay. They are seas, but they are one contiguous body of water. What was it like back then? I don't know, but I find it hard to believe that it was all just one sea. Because the Bible calls it seas. I think it was seas plural. So there were different shapes of land that would create different areas that we could look at and say, okay, that's a sea, that looks like a sea over there. I'm not going to pretend to know what it looked like. So on the third day, he creates the dry land and then he also on the third day causes the dry land to bring forth grass and plant life. Now, did those plants exist previously? Yes, they did, according to Genesis chapter 2. Then on the fourth day, he creates the heavenly bodies. Now, this is an interesting portion. I'm almost done. I'm just going to blast through these last few. It says in verse 14, God said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night. So, he's already been having days and nights, but he wants to use a physical, you know, a body of light in order to divide it. He wants to use the sun and the moon. He says, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let there be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years and let there be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and it was so. You say, well, where did the light come from before that? Well, listen to me. The Bible ends up kind of how it started and in the end, there's no sun. Did you know that? In the new heaven and new earth, there's no sun. He said, they have no need of the sun. The lamb is the light thereof. God provides the light just from his own presence and so they have no need of the sun at the end of the Bible. Well, at the beginning of the Bible, you start it out for the first few days with no sun. That's because God just provided the light. God is light and so God was the light at that time. God provided the light but he creates these two heavenly bodies. Part of the reason he created them was for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. Okay, now, that tells me that a legitimate day, according to the Bible, is not what someone decides with an atomic clock somewhere saying it's this many minutes and this many seconds and this many atomic whatever. No. According to the Bible, a day is going to be the time that we cycle through day and night as far as light and darkness which is approximately 24 hours. Now, if it's not exactly 24 of our hours, well, that's our hours problem because according to God, the sun is what decides a day is. That's the definition of a day. And what does that tell you that the definition of a year is? The time that it takes the earth to go around the sun is one year. Now, we have a definition of a day that's 365 and a quarter days, right? And that's because that's how long it takes for the earth to go around the sun. And so that's why we have a leap year every four years. Now, isn't this leap year in 2012? And so this year, we're going to have an extra day because every four years, we've got to make up for that quarter day in sync with the sun. Now, did you know that on certain years, we don't have a leap year to make further adjustment because it's not exactly 365 and a quarter. Now, there are a lot of people who will make a big deal when they're looking at Bible prophecy and when they're looking at passages. Somebody looked at my chart where I determined the exact age of the earth using only the Bible, up to the point where the Bible stopped recording time, of course. And they said, well, you need to adjust this whole chart to show a Jewish year, which is 360 days. Well, wait a minute. God's on a 365-day year in Genesis 1. You know why? Because he said the sun decides what a year does. And he said that's the purpose of the sun is to give us years and to give us seasons. And so therefore, you know, I'm going to define a year as a solar year because that's what the Bible defines it right here, that a year is a solar year. Now, could a year be considered 360 days? Sure. You could consider 30 days a month, 31 days, even though it's loosely based on the lunar cycle and so forth. You could call it 360 days because it's rounded off, because it's just close to a year. Or, for example, if people think that's a year, that's what they're going to consider a year. And they might use a 360-day year, and then every once in a while, they're going to have to do a serious adjustment because they're losing five days every year. Or else somebody might have an exactly 365-day year. They're going to get off course with that, eventually. But, biblically, Genesis 1, a year is a solar year. The sun is what determines the definition of a year, according to the Bible. And the sun is what determines the definition of a day. Did you know that there are even leap seconds? Not only are there leap years, there are actually leap seconds because I guess the clocks that we use today are not exactly accurate. So every so often, every few months, they throw in an extra second, and I guess it goofs up GPS systems and machinery sometimes, that extra second. But you know what? It just shows that man's way is never going to be perfect. God's way is perfect. And so He said in verse 15, Let there be four 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. Now, again, this is not a scientific inaccuracy. This is not saying that the moon is bigger than the stars. This is saying that the light from the moon is greater than the light from the stars, and that's a fact. Because the sun provides the most light, the moon provides a lot of light at night. On a night when there's a full moon, you can see in the dark, you can see what's going on because the moon is shining so brightly, and the stars provide less light. And not only that, but the Bible says God made two great lights, and He made the stars also. It doesn't really mention the size of the stars. It doesn't go into that. He says in verse 17, And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 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 on and on. Verse five, He creates all the fish, and He creates the birds, and so forth. On day six, He creates the land animals. And when He's done creating the land animals, He said in verse 26, 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, animals are not made in God's image. Man is made in God's image. And not only that, do you notice that God uses the plural? And God said, That's singular. Let us make man in our image. That's plural. Why? Because the Trinity. And you say, Trinity's not middle. Yes, it is, because the Bible says these three are one, and that's what Trinity means. Three and one. Tri, like tricycle. Inity, like unity. Trinity means three and one. There are people who don't believe in the Trinity. Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons do not believe in the Trinity, and also there are a lot of Pentecostals who don't believe in the Trinity. Because a lot of people will make the error and say there's only one. There's not three, there's just one. And that, you know, the Father became Jesus, and you know, and so forth. No, because this says our, that's plural. But then there are other people. So that's where the Jesus only Pentecostal movement is wrong. Jesus said, glorify me. He said to the Father, glorify me with the glory that we had together before the world began. So there was a plurality even before the world began, when it said in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. So there is a Father, a Son, and a Holy Ghost. Right? But there's only one God. The Bible's clear. There is one God. It says in 1 Timothy 2.5 and many other places. But that one God is also the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And you say, well, how can that be? Because these three are one. It's that simple. And people get in all this confusion. Well, are you preaching, are you preaching modalism? Or, you know, I'm not even saying that wrong. I ain't saying it. I don't even care how to say it. It's stupid, you know. Are you preaching that there are three persons or three entities or three manifestations? Look, I don't want to get into a bunch of man-made terms where somebody's going to try to pin me down whether I'm talking about three persons or three manifestations. Let me tell you what I believe. God was manifest in the flesh. That's what I believe. Jesus Christ said, I and my Father are one. That's what I believe. But I believe that there was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. I believe that there's three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and that those three make up one God. Put whatever label on that you want. That's what the Bible says. Are you saying manifestation? Well, that is what the Bible says. God was manifest. But I don't know what you mean by that. You know what I mean? And so the Trinity is biblical. There is a three in one. So there are false Pentecostal features that say, well, there aren't three. There's just one. There's only one. There's not three. There's just one. No, there's three that are one. And then there are other people who say that the three are not one. That's your Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses that say, well, Jesus is the Son of God, but he's separate from God. He's created by God. He's a different person than God. No, he's not a different person than God. He is God. He said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I and my Father are one. These three are one. That's the Trinity. That's a biblical doctrine. You can put a bunch of names on it and titles and so forth that nobody understands, but I'm trying to speak in words that are easy to be understood here with the Trinity. It's biblical. Let us make man in our image after our likeness. Right away we see it in the Bible as a scriptural concept. He said let him have dominion. Dominion means lordship. It means you're the boss. It means you're dominating. It means you're in charge. God put us to rule over the animals, to use them, to use them for food later on. In this chapter, I don't have time to go over it, but in verses 29 through 31, God talks about how he gave them plants to eat and seeds and fruit and plants and herbs. That was their food back then, but later on, he's going to tell them to eat meat. He says even as the green herb, I've given you all things. He's saying eat all meat. Eat all green herbs. God gave animals for us to eat and also God gave animals for us to make clothes out of. Why? You say who invented that idea? Well, God did, because you remember when Adam and Eve sinned, they decided to go green. They were trying to save the animals. That was the first PETA movement in the Bible, was when Adam and Eve wanted to go vegan on their outfits, and so whenever they sinned, they sewed together fig leaves to try to make clothes that were a little more sustainable to the environment and not hurt any animals. No animals were harmed in the testing and making of those aprons. So they made these aprons in Genesis 3, but then God said, no, that's not gonna cover your nakedness. So Eve made them coats of skins. He killed an animal and took the skin and flayed the skin off that animal and said here's how you make some real clothes. He put them in a leather jacket right out the gate. He said these are real clothes, buddy. And so, you know, take that hip clothing off and put on a leather jacket, you know. You're gonna get a real nice outfit here. And so he created the animals for us. He didn't create us for the animals. Oh, dawg, we, you know. And look, and it seems stupid, but wait a minute. There are people who worship animals in India, millions of people right now, all throughout history. They bow down to the golden calf. They worship animals. And there are even some people I've seen in America who worship their animals. They write greeting cards to their animals. And here's the really creepy part. They receive a bat. That's what's weird. I went to the, we saw at the store, my wife and I, where there were greeting cards that you write to your animal, and then there were greeting cards that you fill out that your animal sends to you. That's scary. You know, if I'm gonna write cards to my dog, I don't want to get a response, okay? That's crazy. But anyway, so, you know, we got people who worship animals, and they literally, somebody wrote to me one time and said that they would be willing to go to hell for their dog. I mean, that was just bizarre. I mean, they said they love their dog so much, and it's their whole life is wrapped up in it. And the sad thing is, you're probably thinking it was a joke, but it was such a long, in-depth email. You wouldn't think it was a joke. It was real. It was the mind of a warped person. But the Bible's clear that animals, we're the boss on this planet. I tell my dog what to do. My dog does not run things. And I got a chow-chow. Who knows what a chow is? I have a dog. So I got a chow, and somebody told me, they said when I got the chow, they said it's very important right away that you make sure that that dog understands that you are the alpha pack leader at home. Because that dog wants to be in charge, and it's a really dominating type dog. They didn't use that word. It's a dominant animal. You must show it that you're the pack leader. And so I was joking around for weeks and weeks when we got the dog. Every time I would tell the dog, I am alpha pack leader! Go out the back. And I would tell them, No! You are not the pack leader. And look, we are the alpha pack leaders of this world. Not a chow or any other animal. And it's funny because they say the lion is the king of the jungle and the king of the beast. And the Bible says the lion, which is strongest among beasts and turneth not away from any. But hold on a second. You know who can defeat the lion is man. Yep. That's right. It's funny because me and brother Ryan, we were looking up some facts on lions. We were talking about how big lions are. We were trying to differentiate between the mountain lion and the lion lion. So we were looking it up on the internet, and it listed predators of lions. It just said man. Because it lists other animals as predators. Lion's predator is man. Now we're not animals, but we're predators. You know, when it comes to the lions or anything else. We dominate on this planet. We rule. Every animal is subservient unto us. And we're not animals. We are made given to God. There's no verse that calls us an animal, by the way. Or it calls certain people beasts and animals. You know, when they're weirdos. But that's about it. And so I want to finish with this one thought. Verse 31. And God saw everything that he had made. And behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. So everything God made was good. It was very good. You know, God's not the author of confusion. God didn't make a bunch of bad stuff. God made good things. He made righteous things. Now some things turned bad. Like Satan turned bad, and a lot of the angels turned bad. And also mankind turned bad, and so forth. But God has made man upright, the Bible says. But he has sought out many inventions. God gave free will, and man chose to become bad. But God created everything, and it was very good. That means the animals he created are good. And you know, I look at all the animals, and I think that they're great. I think he did a great job, don't you? I love to go to the zoo and the aquarium and look at the animals God made. Look at the plants that he made. It's really a marvelous creation that he made. Great foods that he made for us, and great things. And so you just look around, and truly the heavens declare the glory of God. And the firmament shows his handiwork. And everything he has made is truly very good. Everything he does is very good. Let's prioritize that word prayer. Father, thank you so much for your word, dear God. And thank you that we can learn something from this chapter. There's really a lot we can learn from this chapter. About how things bring forth after their own kind. And we're going to reap what we sow is a theme that we can learn from this chapter. And we can learn about the vision and light and darkness. And we can learn about the Trinity. And we can learn about creation. And we can learn about so many things in this chapter. And I just pray that you would just help us not to be deceived by the world, and by science falsely so-called, and by so-called self-styled experts that are just burned out hippies who want to believe that there's no God. Help us to make your word the authority in our lives. And not to believe the lies of Catholicism or Judaism or atheism that will try to all say that the Bible is a myth in these chapters. Help us to just take it for what it is and what you said that it was. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.