(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's turn in our song books to song number 185. My Savior's love. How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me. For he is large in the garden. He's brave, not my little, but mine. He had no tears for his own dreams, but swipes, drops of blood for mine. How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me. He took my sins and my sorrows. He made them his very own before the burden to Calvary and suffered and died alone. How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me. And with the ransom and glory, his face I at last shall see, will be my joy through the ages to sing of his love for me. How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me. Amen. Let's pray. Dear God, may I ask you to come to the church. Please just help us be invited by the sermon tonight and just fill pastor with your spirit. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Let's turn to our next song, song number 139. I know whom I have believed. Song 139. 139. I know not why God's wondrous grace to thee hath made known, nor why ever he cries with love, weeping for his own. But I know whom I have believed in and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him on this sad day. I know not how this saving faith will be given for, nor how believing in his work mummies within my heart. But I know whom I have believed in and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him on this sad day. I know not how the spirit moves convincing men of sin, believing in Jesus through the word, creating faith in him. But I know whom I have believed in and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him on this sad day. I know not what a good or ill may be reserved for me, a weary face or cold in days before his face I see. But I know whom I have believed in and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him on this sad day. I know not when my Lord may come at night or you may care, nor if I walk the bale with him nor meet him in the air. But I know whom I have believed in and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. Amen. We have our service time Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study. This week will be in 2 Chronicles chapter number 17. We've got the soul winning times listed below, as well as salvations and baptisms. Three birth announcements on the right hand side there. The Brock family. Congratulations on the birth of Melody Marigold, born Saturday, August 17th. And then also, of course, to the Anderson family. Dietrich Johannes, born also Saturday, August 17th, making me officially a grandpa for the first time. And then also another one on Saturday, August 17th. It was quite a day. And we had the Fide family with baby Liam Christopher. So congratulations to all of those families. Looks like everybody's doing well. And if you want to help out with the meals for them, then you can see Mrs. Amanda Wright or Mrs. Sarah Ventura. On the back, we've got the note about the baby shower that's coming up one week from today for Olivia Stiles. That is at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. All ladies and girls are invited, ladies and teen girls. Nurslings only are preferred, meaning that it's better if you can leave the little kids with your husband at home and then just show up with a nursing baby and or teenagers. If you don't know Olivia, don't worry about it because, you know, this is how you get to know people, showing up to stuff like this. So, of course, everyone's invited. You don't have to bring anything. There's going to be a catered lunch served, but side dishes are appreciated. And please RSVP with Mrs. Jenny Akinosho. If you're planning on coming, stand up, Jenny, just so in case people don't know who you are. So Jenny Akinosho is the one to RSVP with if you're planning on coming. And then thank you to those who participated in the trip out to Bryce. Six soul winners, four salvations. There's a trip up to the Navajo reservation this weekend. That's Friday and Saturday, a little overnighter. These trips are always free. We provide the transportation, lodging, food, everything. You just show up and participate in soul winning. And you get to see a lot of beautiful areas in Arizona that people could live here for decades and never see. Because Arizona's a really cool place. You could live here your whole life and not see everything that there is to see. There's all kinds of beautiful country. And most of these Indian reservations are not on the main interstates. You go way off the beaten path. You'd never see these places unless you were making a point to go to them. And they're pretty cool. And so you get to see a lot of cool stuff. And, of course, you're participating in an important work of preaching the gospel to the lost. Also, you know, these are doors that, you know, probably no one else is knocking or very rarely are these people gonna get someone coming up there to preach the gospel. You know, in the city, you know, you hope that other people are out evangelizing and so forth. But going to some of these places in the middle of nowhere, you're really filling an important need. And so I really believe in this ministry. And I'm thankful for all the people that have participated over the years and helped us achieve this vision of knocking every door on every Indian reservation. We're so close to being done. And so it's exciting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And then below that, at the bottom, just a couple other things. We've got the birthday donuts on September the 1st before the service at 10 a.m. and the Don't Go Back to School party at Svalb Park on Monday, September 2nd. That involves water balloons and ice cream. Now, what is the deal with this Don't Go Back to School party? Is this only for people who have school-aged children or is this just the whole church? Because, I mean, nobody's going to school, right? No, I'm just kidding. So all kids of all ages. What about just adults who don't have kids and just want to come and just hang out? Sorry. K-5 through 12th grade. Okay, so anybody who has kids, K-5 through 12th grade is invited. So it doesn't matter whether you're going to school, not going to school, home school, unschool, shame on you. But anyway, anybody with kids in that K-5 age range is invited. Okay, just wanted to clarify that. That's about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days going back to Thursday. Anything to report from Thursday? Okay. Okay. Anything else from Thursday? How about Friday? Okay. All right, Saturday. Okay, gotcha. Okay. Okay. All right. Gotcha. That was from the small town trip, right? Okay. Today, Sunday. Three for the main group with brother Scott. Okay, gotcha. For North Phoenix. All right. Got it. Got it, got it. Okay, anything else? Very good, keep up the great work on soul winning. And with that, let's sing our next song. Come lead us. All right, let's turn, you should have the insert for Psalm 67. Please raise your hand if you need one for Psalm 67. Psalm 67. I say we love among all nations. Let the people praise thee, oh God. Let all the people praise thee. Oh, let the nations be glad. And sing for joy. For thou shall judge the people. Righteously and governed. The nations of on earth. The nations of on earth see law. Let the people praise thee, oh God. Let all the people praise thee. Oh, let the nations be glad. And sing for joy. They shall hear, hear, hear. They shall hear, hear, hear. And God, even our own, God shall bless us. God shall bless us when all the ends of the earth shall fear him. Let the people praise thee, oh God. Let all the people praise thee. Oh, let the nations be glad. And sing for joy. Let's turn to one more song. Song 246. Song 246. 246. Reading how I love to proclaim it. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Reading through his infinite mercy. His child and forever I am. Redeemed, redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed, redeemed. His child and forever I am. Redeemed and so happy in Jesus. No language my rapture can tell. I know that the light of his presence with me doth continually dwell. Redeemed, redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed, redeemed. His child and forever I am. I think of my blessed redeemer. I think of him all the day long. I sing for I cannot be silent. His love is the theme of my song. Redeemed, redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed, redeemed. His child and forever I am. I know I shall see in his beauty the King in whose law I delight. He kindly guarded my footsteps and given me songs in the night. Redeemed, redeemed. Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. Redeemed, redeemed. His child and forever I am. All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates around. As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter number 1, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads Genesis chapter 1, beginning in verse number 1. In Genesis chapter 1 the Bible reads, 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, 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. God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters 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, an 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 in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening 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 every fowl of the air, and 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 for the sixth day. Father, thank you for the opportunity to hear your holy, precious word. I ask you, Phil, Pastor Anderson, with your Holy Spirit, and open our hearts on our ears to receive your word. I pray this in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Amen. This evening, we're going to be looking at Genesis chapter 1, one of the most famous chapters in the Bible, simply because it's the first chapter in the Bible. So it's probably the chapter in the Bible that the most people have read, since they're probably just been countless people who flipped open the Bible to page 1, read the first chapter, maybe the first couple chapters, and then just sort of bailed on it, or petered out, or something like that. But it's also a very controversial chapter. There are a lot of debates about what this chapter means, what the chapter represents, because of the fact that many people deny the fact that God created this world as a special act of creation. He created it in six literal days. And so because people dispute those things, and maybe want to believe in something along the lines of the Big Bang, or things just kind of coming into existence on their own, and humans evolving from apes, and things like that, then they want to find ways to attack this chapter. Then on the other hand, you have people that want to defend this chapter. And in defending this chapter, they could sometimes maybe go too far in the other direction overreacting to some of the atheistic attacks on the word of God, and so forth. So I want to just kind of go through this in great detail tonight, and break this down to you, and just show you some of the interesting things about this chapter, and just to show you the certainty of what the Bible teaches in this chapter. Because there's no doubt about it, to anyone who's actually a Bible-believing Christian, that God actually created the world in the way that is described in Genesis chapter one. Because this is something that is reiterated elsewhere throughout the Bible. This chapter isn't just an isolated chapter. All throughout the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament, there are references back to this chapter. And so this is the creation story. It's not at the front of our Bibles by accident. It's here to tell us where we came from, to tell us where this world came from. And science can try to claim that they've disproved the Bible, but science can never disprove this chapter. Because this chapter has nothing to do with science. This chapter is describing something miraculous. It's describing something supernatural, okay? It is not describing a natural process that happened, okay? It's God supernaturally, from nothing, creating the world in six days. Before I delve into Genesis chapter one, let me just give you a scripture from Hebrews chapter number 11. You don't have to turn there, but in Hebrews chapter 11, verse three, it says, through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear, okay? And what the Bible's saying here, first of all, is that it's through faith that we actually understand creation, right? It's not something that we delve into science to figure out because it's a supernatural, miraculous thing. And so it's understood by faith. We have to just simply believe that in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. But also it says the things which are seen were not made from things which do appear, meaning that the things that are created in this physical world, they weren't made from other physical material that already existed. And what I mean by that is that God created the world from nothing, okay? God did not take something existing and just transform it, but rather, and we're gonna get into that a little more in a moment, but God created the world, you'll hear the fancy word sometimes for this, ex nihilo, which is just Latin for from nothing. And that is what we believe, and I believe that Hebrews chapter 11, verse three makes that clear as well. And common sense also just makes it clear from just opening the Bible, looking at page one and just reading it, that's the plain reading of the text. Let's look at the first verse here. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Okay, now the first thing that I wanna say about this verse is that many people will attack these first three words in the beginning because they think they know Hebrew, they've taken a couple semesters, and they get all puffed up in their vanity of their mind, and they don't understand how foreign languages work, and so they just glance at the original Hebrew here with kind of a schoolboy understanding of Hebrew, and they walk away saying, oh, well, in the original, there's no definite article, there's no word the there. Okay, so they'll say, you know, it should be something like in a beginning, or something like that. Now, here's why this is complete nonsense, because the phrase in a beginning is nonsensical on its face. It doesn't make any sense, okay? And in fact, if you study the entire Bible, you could study the whole Hebrew Bible. You know what, you're never gonna find the definite article on the word beginning, and here's why. Because the concept of a beginning is just within itself, it's a unique thing, there's only one beginning. So it doesn't need a definite article. It's sort of like other words that we don't put a definite article in front of. For example, we could say the earth, or we could just say earth, because there's only one. So we don't necessarily have to say the earth, sort of like the word God. We don't have to say the God, we could. And sometimes in the Hebrew Bible, we have a definite article on God. Usually we don't, because you could just say God, okay? We don't necessarily have to say the Saturn, or the Jupiter, or the Uranus, because there's only one. Okay, and so when it says in beginning, it's because beginning is just a thing that exists, and to sit there and say, well, it doesn't have a definite article, that just goes to show that you don't understand the fact that in other languages, the definite article is used differently than it is in English. So you can't just apply your English logic to reading something in another language. And this is why it's so dangerous for amateurs to go back to the Greek, or go back to the Hebrew, to try to correct the King James Bible. The King James Bible is the word of God without error, okay? It's been preserved by God, it has stood the test of time, it was translated by 54 expert scholars who knew the biblical languages, they knew lots of other languages surrounding the biblical languages. They gave us the par excellence English translation of the Bible. You don't need anything else. The modern versions are junk, and don't believe these people who know a couple words in Greek, a couple words in Hebrew, and then they're gonna tell you, oh, you know, the King James translators are wrong. These 54 expert scholars who were fluent in the biblical languages are wrong, because I had one semester of Hebrew, and you know, there's no definite article. Well, again, all throughout the Bible, definite article is gonna be there or not be there based on totally different rules, because it's a totally different language, okay? You don't always need to say the in front of something that is a unique one of a kind idea, like the beginning, okay? That's why, like I said, anytime you see the word beginning, anywhere in the Old Testament, it's never gonna have the definite article attached to it, because it doesn't need it, okay? And then, by the way, if you look at this in the New Testament, this is quoted by Jesus. Jesus used the term in the beginning or at the beginning, when he talks about the man and his wife being created. And he says, you know, from the beginning, it was not so, because God made them male and female and everything. He refers to this as the beginning. And again, if you actually know the language, you would know that the English Bible is translating this correctly. But now you have these people coming along, and they wanna come up with these new exotic translations of the Bible that have never existed in the history of our English language. You know, all of a sudden, we're not sure if it's the beginning anymore, but it's always been the beginning. We could look at all other European languages, and it's the beginning, the beginning, the beginning, the beginning. It doesn't need a definite article in Hebrew. It uses it in English, because if we said in beginning, God created the heaven and earth, that's not good English, is it? Because it's a different language, okay? So don't let anybody twist you up on that or trip you up on that, because the King James is right. It's in the beginning, okay? There's only one beginning. It's constantly referred back to in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and this is what it is, okay? So it's in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. Now, the next interesting thing I wanna point out here is the singular of heaven here, because a lot of your modern Bible translations will have in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Why is that? Well, what you have to understand is that the word heaven in the Bible can refer to three different things. Three different places that are all referred to as heaven. Number one, the sky where the birds are flying around, where the clouds are, is referred to as heaven, okay? Then also, you have the universe where the stars are. That is also referred to as the heavens or heaven, right? And then thirdly, you have the place where God lives that is called heaven. This is why in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul talks about being caught up to the third heaven, because you have the sky, you have the universe, and then beyond that, you have the place where God lives. Now, here's the thing about this. The Hebrew word here could be legitimately translated as heaven or heavens. And it's translated, you know, both ways in different ways. Like for example, just flip over to Genesis chapter two and look at verse number four. Genesis chapter two, verse number four. And it says in Genesis two, four, these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens and every plant of the field and so on and so forth. So the same word can legitimately be translated as heaven or heavens. And let me give you an example of this that maybe you can understand, is like think about words in English that sound plural, but we treat them as a singular. Like for example, the Netherlands, right? So the country of the Netherlands, you could say the Netherlands is, right? Use a singular verb. The Netherlands is a country that Pastor Anderson is permanently banned from, okay? And that would be a legitimate, you wouldn't say like the Netherlands are a country that, you know, but if you were to like break it down and take it real literally, you'd be like the Netherlands, the low lands are this and that and the other. Does everybody see what I'm saying? So you could have words that have like a plural form, like an S on the end, but it's a singular thing. The Netherlands. Okay, and so that's what's going on with the heavens, okay? It's a singular idea, it's the sky, but it's a word that has a plural form, the heavens. So why did the King James translators go with a singular here in verse number one, when it could go either way, cause it's a plural form word, but it's used in a singular way constantly. Why did they go with the singular here? I'll tell you exactly why. Because in verse number one, we are not talking about the sky, okay? Now, if you translate verse number one as in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, it makes it sound like God is creating the sky in verse number one, doesn't it? Cause if I said the heavens, you're thinking the sky, or maybe you're thinking the universe or where the stars and sun and moon are. But if I said just the heaven, then you would be more likely to think about the place that God lives as being the heaven, as the singular heaven place, okay? Now, how do we know that we're not talking about the sky in verse number one? Because the sky is not created until verse number six. So if the sky is not created until verse number six, we can't be talking about the sky in verse number one, okay? In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, okay, so he creates the planet earth and he also creates the place where he lives, the heaven. Verse number two, 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 water. So when God first created the earth, he created it as a sphere or an orb that is completely covered with water, okay? The reason it is without form and void is because of the fact that if you just have a sphere that's just totally covered in water, then there aren't any shapes or forms. You're not looking at North America, South America, Asia, Africa sticking out. You're just looking at that, which is just kind of plain and generic because if it's totally covered in water, there are no features to speak of. And it's empty because there isn't any life in it. There aren't any people or animals or plants. You're not seeing mountains and canyons and rivers. You're basically just seeing an orb that is just completely covered in water and it's in total darkness and so there's no, it's shapeless, it's formless, it's empty. It's without form and void when he first creates it. So this is sort of like a painter is going to paint something. He starts out with the blank canvas and so the Lord starts out with just this ball that he is beginning with and then he's going to begin to create the details and the other things that surround the earth. But he just starts out with just a plain earth. Okay, does everybody understand that? In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. 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 let me just also point out here that the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God does have a physical existence in this world or in this universe or does have a bodily form or a bodily shape. A lot of people will try to deny this but yet at Christ baptism, we have the Holy Spirit descending like a dove upon him in bodily shape, the Bible says. I didn't make up that wording. That is straight from the King James Bible. In bodily shape, the Holy Spirit is descending upon Jesus. Here we have the Holy Spirit moving upon the face of the waters so he's physically present in this, you know, earth when it's first created. Just like at the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fills the house where they're sitting and so forth. So the Holy Spirit can physically show up, okay, according to the gospels at Christ baptism and even according to this in Genesis chapter one, 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. This brings me to the next controversial thing about Genesis chapter one which is that people will debate whether Genesis chapter one is poetry or prose, okay. Now what does this mean, poetry versus prose? Well, prose is just referring to just the straightforward language, just the ordinary way of speaking or writing. That's what prose is. Whereas poetry is when some kind of an outside constraint is imposed upon the text or the speech. Like for example, some kind of a rhyming pattern and you're gonna follow that rhyming pattern, now you're doing poetry not prose, right? But it doesn't have to be rhyming, it can often be an alliteration. Everything starts with the same letter or you could have verse one starts with A, verse two starts with B, verse three starts with C, verse four starts with D. There are lots of poems in the Bible like that where the first verse starts with Aleph, second verse starts with Bet, Gimel, Dalet and so forth. That's a common way of doing poetry in the Bible is things starting with a certain letter. Or it can be some kind of a rhythm or a meter that it follows. So everything follows a certain rhythm or pattern. But there's some kind of a constraint where you're trying to fit a certain pattern and you're not just saying what happened, but instead you're expressing things in some kind of a very structured way. And so the question is, is Genesis chapter one poetry or is it prose? Now, a lot of people really don't want this to be poetry. Okay, and I'll tell you why they don't want it to be poetry. Number one, you know, a lot of the creation science people, they don't want this to be poetry because they feel that somehow if it's poetry, then people can say it's not literal or it's not real and just kind of brush it off as, oh, it's just a poem and whatever. And then on the other hand, a lot of academics wanna say this isn't poetry because they wanna claim that it's much later than the rest of the book of Genesis. And poetry tends to be older because poetry is usually oral tradition and prose is usually written. And so, you know, there are a lot of people who are constantly making arguments for this not being poetry. In my opinion, it is clearly poetry, okay? And here's why I say that, because it's pretty hard to make an argument that this is prose when you're reading it and there's clearly repeated phrases over and over again, these patterns of, and God said, and it was so, and the evening and the morning were the first day, the evening and the morning are the second day, evening and the morning are the third day. It's clearly following all of these patterns, there's all these repetitions and poetic devices. I think it's almost kind of silly to argue that this is not poetry when it's just clearly right on the surface, it's just poetry. I mean, unless you think that poetry only rhymes, it's pretty easy to see that this is poetic. But here's why that's not a problem, is that first of all, if you flip right over to chapter two, it's not poetry at all, it's written in prose. Chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, these are not poetry at all. It's just a straightforward account. And guess what? Chapter two is still explaining the creation and God making things, it's not showing apes turning into humans or anything, it's showing God forming man of the dust of the ground and breathing into his nostrils, the breath of life and man becoming a living soul. Also flip over to Exodus chapter 20, keep your finger here in Genesis one and go over to Exodus chapter 20. The fact that it's poetry does not prevent it from being true or being the word of God or being literal or telling us where the world came from because you have all kinds of other scriptures throughout the Bible pointing back to this and stating it as fact in narratives. Look at, for example, Exodus chapter 20, verse number nine. It says, six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it, thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates. Of course, this is the 10 commandments, right? For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. I mean, right there, you have a synopsis of Genesis chapter one, the six day creation, heaven and earth, every, and by the way, there's no gap in Exodus 2011, there's no gap theory. It just says, God created the heaven and earth, that's verse one, the sea and all that in them is, that's the rest of the chapter. He rested on the seventh day, that's Genesis chapter two, verses one through three. And so it doesn't matter if Genesis one is a song or a poem that has all these little repeating choruses and all this structure that's imposed on it. God said, and it was so, God saw that it was good, evening in the morning or the first day. It doesn't matter because number one, that doesn't prevent it from being an accurate statement about what God did to create the world. Just because it's poetry, that doesn't mean that it gets thrown out. And number two, you have other clear statements by Jesus, by God at Mount Sinai that are clearly backing up the creation account from Genesis chapter one, okay? So there's no reason for us to just try to put a round peg in a square hole by just saying, you know, it just can't be poetry, it's not poetry. You know, it just is, it just is poetry, I'm sorry to hurt your feelings. Now, just to play the devil's advocate, I will give you the, you know, the argument on the side of it being prose. Probably the best argument for it not being poetry is the fact that if you notice Genesis chapter one, what word does like every verse start with in Genesis chapter one, right? It's just like, and, and, and, and, and. And so people that would make an argument for this being prose would say that, you know, typically in poetry, you don't see that. Usually that's like in a narrative where you have, and this happened, and this, and, and, and, that style throughout the Bible. But my answer to that would be, it's a narrative poem. You know, it's both, because obviously it's telling a story about what happened, but it's doing it in a poetic form. Keep your figure there in Genesis and look at Mark chapter one. Mark chapter one, and you're gonna see the same type of thing in Mark chapter one, which, you know, when we write in English, typically we would never do this. Like we wouldn't start every sentence with and. Sometimes I kind of wish that we could. Sometimes when I'm writing, I want to just start sentences with and. I love conjunctions, you know, and it's like you start running out of conjunctions. You're like, therefore, however, nevertheless, notwithstanding, moreover, because I just, I hate writing without conjunctions, but I, you know, you just can't, you can't get away with just starting sentences with and in English, right? But look at, look at the Gospel of Mark and look at verses five. We're in chapter one. Look at verse five, six, seven, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21. I'm giving verse numbers and I'm telling you to just look at the first word. 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29. Now, are you seeing a pattern here? And again, this is out of the ordinary. This is not normal for Greek. This is not normal for English. What this is is it's extremely normal for the Hebrew Bible in the Old Testament is what that is. And so this goes to show that Mark is a guy who is coming from that background of some kind of a Semitic background, Hebrew, Aramaic. So that's the style that he's gonna write with, with just and, and, and, and, and. You know, he's probably doing Greek as a second language. Probably most of the apostles are doing Greek as a second language and Aramaic or Hebrew is their first language, probably Aramaic in all cases. So anyway, back to Genesis chapter one. I just wanted to show you that just to kind of give the other side of the story for those who would claim that it's not poetry, but I think it's just kind of obvious, even just reading it in English, it's just obvious that it's poetry because of the fact that it's not a straightforward chapter just telling a story. Look at chapters two and three and it's just, it's straightforward. Chapter one is like a song. It's like a poem. I think it's obvious. But again, that shouldn't bother us because it still is backed up and confirmed everywhere else as being the truth. So on the first day of creation, God creates the heaven and the earth, but the earth is without form and void. Darkness covers the face of the deep. So God speaks light into existence. He says, let there be light and there was light. Now God has not created the sun at this point. He just creates light and darkness. And you say, well, how can there be light without the sun? Well, because God is light, that's why. And remember that in the new heaven and the new earth, they have no need of the sun because the lamb is the light thereof. So God is perfectly capable of creating light and darkness without needing the sun to be the source of that light. Now in verse six, we get to the second day of creation. So the first day God creates and separates the light from the darkness. In verse number six says, 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. Now, this is another thing that confuses people because they're saying, what is the firmament? And you have all this ridiculous disinformation out there that the firmament is some kind of a dome or an ice ball or some kind of a wall of ice in the sky or some stupid. Of course, there's no mention of ice in this passage or anywhere near this passage, but you have these crazy ideas. Part of it is because they're confused by the first four letters of the word firmament. But let me tell you, there's nothing firm about the firmament. And I can understand why people would be confused about this if it weren't for verse eight, because verse eight just clears up all the confusion by telling us exactly what the firmament is. It says, and God called the firmament heaven and the evening and the morning were the second day. Okay, the firmament is the sky. That's all it is. The firmament is the sky. And also you just read down a few more verses and the Bible talks about birds flying. Look at verse 20. God said, let the water spring bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and foul, foul is another word for birds, right? Foul that may fly above the earth, watch this, in the open firmament of heaven. Where are birds flying? They're flying in what? They're flying in the sky. They're flying in the heavens. They're flying in the firmament, okay? Now the firmament is dividing the waters which are above the firmament from the waters which are below the firmament. And here's all that is, okay? It's talking about the water that's on the surface of the earth versus the water that's in the sky. And this is not some weird thing where there's liquid water just, you know, stored up in giant reservoirs in the sky or something. It's simply water vapor. That's it. And people will try to claim that, oh, well, it's just, you know, this is different because before the flood, there was all this water up there and all this stuff. But here's the problem with that idea is that the Bible talks about the firmament even after the flood. In the book of Psalms, which is thousands of years after the flood, you know, the Psalmist is saying, praise him in the firmament of heaven. Are we praising him in something that went away a thousand years ago? No, because the firmament is simply the sky. The firmament is an expanse. It's just talking about the sky. And there is water that is held up in the sky. It's called clouds. It's water vapor. That's the water that's above the firmament, okay? And then you have birds flying below the clouds and they got water up above them in the firmament. And it really isn't that complicated. So don't get confused by this term firmament. It's an archaic word. It's a word that we don't use much, but the Bible barely uses this word. Instead, the Bible typically uses the word sky or heavens or something like that, something that we would be familiar with, okay? The heaven is the word that gets used over and over again. And again, right here, it says he called the firmament heaven and the evening and the morning were the second day. Look at verse number nine. We'll get into the third day. It says, God said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together under 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. Now notice that when God created the dry land, he basically causes the dry land to emerge from underneath the water. Of course, the dry land was always there. Well, it wasn't dry because it was wet because it was totally covered in water. Obviously the entire earth is terrestrial, but then it has water over it. And then basically God causes these continents or land masses to come up out of the water. And he says, the waters gathered together into one place so that the dry land can appear. Notice that it is not the dry land that is gathered together into one place, but rather it is the water that is gathered together into one place. And if we look at the globe, we will see that all of the waters of the oceans are all connected. So we can sit there and say, hey, we got the Atlantic ocean. We got the Pacific ocean. We got the Indian ocean. We've got the Arctic ocean, but those are just arbitrary names because really you just have one body of water that's all connected and whales are just crossing those borders and they don't care. And they swim around the entire world. It's amazing how whales will sometimes swim all over the world in one year's time. They're just cruising all over the world. It's incredible how much ground they cover. Why? Because the waters are all gathered together in one place. The earth is not all connected in one place and it never has been frankly. The earth has always been fractured and there are separate islands and different continents and it's never all been totally connected. That's kind of a theory that was out there in the past, the Pangea theory that has pretty much been abandoned by everyone as far as I know. And so it's not really a thing to be honest. And again, I don't wanna go into some big geology thing right now, cause it's not really the point. But the idea here is that he calls the gathering together of the water seas. Now this is the first kind of out of the ordinary words that we see, but we're gonna see other things that are kind of a strange choice of words coming up and I'm gonna explain to you why that is the way it is. Because why did he call the gathering together of the waters seas plural? Why didn't he just call it the sea? Wouldn't that have been a little more logical to just call it the sea? Well, I'm gonna explain to you why. After he makes the dry land appear, he causes the earth to bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth and it was so. The earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, 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. So notice that plants reproduce after their own kind and this is something that is mentioned over and over again that things reproduce after their own kind. Now, of course, all plants and animals on this earth are built to adapt, right? And we would call that adaptation evolution, right? As things change and adapt and fit their surroundings and fit their environment and it's pretty easy to see this happen really quickly when we're looking at something like a disease, like a virus or a bacteria, something that reproduces really quickly so it's just cranking through generations. You can see it actually adapt and change pretty fast because of the fact that one year the flu is one way and then you get the flu and your body's totally immune to it and then next year it's a different flu and then it's a different coronavirus and it's a different this and a different that. The diseases keep changing as the bacteria or the virus or whatever evolves, okay? And if you think about it, this is super important for plants and animals to be constantly adapting and evolving to their surroundings because if this didn't exist, what would happen is you'd get one species that would just be the strongest and dominate everything else and just kind of take over but what happens is when one species starts to kind of dominate and take over, then another species will kind of adapt defenses so that it can actually survive and stick around and give that other species a run for its money and so you have this constant tug of war and this back and forth between species so that one thing doesn't just take over and make everything else extinct. You have all these adaptations that are happening, okay? But here's the thing about that is that, you know, yeah, the virus changes from one year to the next but still a virus, you know, you've got cats adapting and changing, you've got dogs adapting and changing, you got cows adapting and changing but here's what you don't have. You don't have a lizard turning into a fish and you don't have a chicken, you know, turning into a dinosaur or a dinosaur turning into a chicken or something stupid like that, okay? Because animals beget after their own kind. So all of these legitimate examples of evolution that you see, you know, at the end of the day though, it's just a bird that's a little bit of a different bird but it's still a bird, okay? And so what happens is you have all this scientific evidence and all these things that we can observe every day of what you might call micro evolution that's happening in ecosystems constantly, you know, or even humans changing, you know, to the point where, you know, billions of humans on this earth have adapted to where we can actually digest milk and then there are billions of other people in this world that don't have that adaptation and they can't digest milk. You know, you look at a map of the world of where people can digest milk, there are like whole regions of the earth where people can't drink milk and I'm over here like milk does a body good, okay? Because people that are of European ancestry can typically drink milk but a lot of places in Asia and elsewhere, Africa, they can't necessarily digest milk and I'm talking about, obviously they can all digest their mother's milk as a baby but I'm talking about cow's milk as an adult. You know, I drink milk today, I drink milk all the time, I love milk, so, you know, I thank God that I am not as other men are unable to digest milk, okay? But the thing about that is that even though you have all these wonderful examples of these little adaptations and this push and pull between animals and plants, at the end of the day, a person is a person, an ape is an ape, a bird is a bird, you're not gonna cross the lines and just dramatically turn into something totally different. There's no proof for that, that is not scientific, that's a theory, that's an idea that's out there but it doesn't have any merit, it isn't real, okay? It's just, it's something that has been extrapolated and dreamed up from the data that we do have but that's what is science falsely so-called, this idea that everything comes from a single common ancestor, that humans evolved from apes, it's nonsense, it's garbage, everything brings forth after its own kind. God created the basic kinds of animals in the beginning. Those animals adapt and evolve and change and go through these processes but they're still the same basic kind of animal, okay? At the end of the day, they can only change so much. And by the way, if you take something and take it out of nature and stop this process of evolution and just start cloning the same thing, like for example, the bananas, you go to the grocery store, have you ever noticed that all the bananas look exactly the same? And you know, 30 years ago, if you ate a banana, it was exactly the same as the ones you're eating now? Okay, why is that? Well, we don't look exactly like the people who lived 30 years ago or something because everybody looks different, right? We're all different, we look around, this is not like a bunch of bananas here, you know? I mean, if I go to the store and get a bunch of bananas, it's not gonna have this kind of diversity here just in these first three rows, okay? Well, here's why, it's because the bananas at the grocery store are cloned, they're clones, okay? And so it's just that same banana that's kind of frozen in time. Somebody got some wild bananas and they cultivated them, cultivated them until they found that perfect banana and then they basically have just cloned that same banana over and over again to the point where it's no longer adapting. That's why there was a scare a few years back that basically all the bananas in the world were gonna be wiped out by this new pest that was coming through because the bananas are no longer evolving, but the pests are evolving and so the banana's kind of a sitting duck. Same thing with apples or other things that are just frozen in time. So eventually you'd have to go back to the wild apples that are out in nature and create a new apple by breeding and then once you find that good apple, then you could clone that sucker. And when I say cloning, I'm not talking about some kind of weird technology in a laboratory, I'm talking about grafting and basically just the idea of keeping a certain species going. That's why, by the way, certain fruits, if you take the seeds and plant them in the yard, whatever grows isn't the same thing exactly as what you had in the fruit there because you're not making a clone anymore. Now you're just planting the result of a sexual reproduction. I'm not trying to give a biology lecture up here, but the point is that we don't wanna just get this idea that there's no such thing as evolution or that there's no such thing as natural selection or survival of the fittest because there is. But these truths have been abused to teach a lie and of course the best lies all contain the truth mixed in. So they take something that's true and they're like, oh, there's so much evidence for evolution. And then they show you all this evidence for evolution, but it's evidence for microevolution. But then they move the goalpost and all of a sudden they're like, see, we came from apes. And then they show you a bunch of skulls and when you look at this big pile of skulls, you can pretty much put them in two piles. These are apes and these are humans. Here's a dude that looks a little bit like an ape, but he's still a dude. I've seen some dudes that look like apes, but they were totally dudes. But there's kind of a big jump between the weirdest looking dude skull and the weirdest looking ape skull. There's still the missing link, quote unquote, because it isn't there because they're two separate creations of God. And so everything brings forth after its own kind, amen. That's what the Bible says. It doesn't say that everything brings forth a clone of itself. So of course things can change over time and people can change and people can get taller or shorter, stronger, weak. Look at our skin color. I mean, you got some people that are really black and you got some people that are really white. You got some people that are, they almost need a veil over their face like Moses they're so white. Cause the face shown. But then you got some black people that are looking pretty shiny too, because of the fact that you could go all the way to either extreme and yet we're all humans and we all come from Noah, right? I mean, Noah is our ancestor, okay. And by the way, Noah's Ark was parked in Armenia. They kept reminding me of that when I was over there because of Mount Ararat. But the point is that humans can have this radical diversity of how they look from being really black to really white, Asians, other variations mixed in, but we're all humans and we're all people. And all of this variety that you see has all come about just in the last 5,000 some odd years since Noah's Ark. Okay. And so all of this has happened in a relatively short period of time because humans can adapt and change and you get a bunch of people and you stick them in a really cloudy, gray, rainy climate. And eventually they just get whiter and whiter. You put people in a really hot sunny place and they're gonna get darker and darker. And this of course, without technology. Nowadays, black people can do great up in Siberia or whatever, I don't know why they'd wanna go there. And then white, pasty white people could do great at the equator as long as they put on a lot of sunblock and turn on the air conditioning and whatever. But let's face it, there are adaptations and changes that take place, but yet it's still the same kind, we're still all humans. White people, black people, Asians, we're all human. We're not different creatures here, we're all related. We're all relatives. And by the way, if you take a black person, a white person, they get married and they produce a child that's half black, half white, just a couple of generations go by, you can make them all the way black or all the way white again. Because Obama's mom is as white as snow. Yet we're told that Obama is black. But then because Obama is married to a black woman, assuming that you believe that narrative, if Obama is married to a black woman and then the kids are black and then they marry black dudes, you're gonna forget that there was ever snow white in their genealogy. And it's the same thing. Abraham Lincoln had a child with a black woman and she, but she looks pretty light skinned. If she marries a white dude, you're gonna forget that there was ever a black ancestor. Do you see what I'm saying? Just takes a couple generations to just completely go back and forth between being white. This is why racism is so stupid because we're all related, we're all mixed, we've all got other people of other races in our ancestry. You go back a few generations and you're gonna find all different nationalities mixed in there. We're all of one blood, it doesn't really matter. But the point is that we don't want to get sucked into the lies of evolution but we also don't wanna throw out the baby with the bathwater and let them trick us into thinking that there's only one kind of evolution or one style of evolution in that sense. Okay, I gotta hurry up for sake of time but look what the Bible says in verse number 14. It says, 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 this is a very interesting verse. 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 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. Let me ask you this, what two words are conspicuously missing from this description of day four? What are the two words that you would expect to see that you don't see? Sun and moon. Where's the word sun? Where's the word moon? Why would God say, oh, God just made two great lights, a greater light and a lesser light. Why did he say God made the sun? God made the moon, right? Well, there's a reason why and obviously I don't have proof for this but I would say that it's pretty clear why this is when you look at a few things here. First of all, there's the use of the word sees that doesn't really make sense because you'd expect it to be singular see, that's the first thing. Number two, you'd expect to see the word sun and you don't, you just see the greater light. You'd expect to see the word moon and you don't, you just see the lesser light, right? And so you wonder like, why is it worded this way? Well, here's one theory and I personally think that this is true is that what the Bible's doing here is basically responding to or rebuking or correcting polytheistic pagan ideas about where the world came from. What do I mean by that? Is that basically all of your polytheistic religions of this world and if you think about the Old Testament, all the nations surrounding Israel, they're polytheistic, right? So they're worshiping pagan gods and goddesses and then in the New Testament, the Greeks are doing the same thing, right? They're worshiping the Zeus and all these different pagan gods and goddesses. Well, here's what's interesting, if you go back and read that ancient literature, whether it's from the Greeks or whether it's from these other pagans, Semitic pagans, whatever, if you read their creation stories, okay, in their creation stories, they're basically deifying things like the sun. So the sun is a god, the moon is a god, the sea is a god, the sky is a god, okay? So therefore, and by the way, we do have evidence of this in the Bible because we have evidence in the Bible of people worshiping the sun and worshiping the moon and worshiping the planets and things like that. So we do see those things. And so it makes sense if we have biblical evidence that people are worshiping the sun, moon, stars, the ocean, you know, this kind of idea that everything's a god, the tree's a god, this is a god, that's a god. And if you have these really famous creation stories and they seem to all have certain common elements of the sky being a god, the sea being a god, the sun being a god, the moon being a god or a goddess or something like that, well then it makes sense that basically the Bible here in Genesis 1 is purposely avoiding using those words so that we don't consider or think that we're talking about the name of a deity. Because, you know, for example, in Greek or something, the Greek word for the sun, helios, like where we get like heliocentric or heliocentricity, you know, that would also be like the name of a god, helios, the sun god, you know, same thing with the moon, same thing with the earth, you know, you've probably heard people talk about Gaia, who knows what I'm talking about, they talk about calling the earth Gaia, like the earth goddess, mother earth or, is that what it's called, mother earth, is that what they call it? Yeah, like there was a bumper sticker that said, love your mother, and you're like, oh, isn't that sweet, but then you see it's like a picture of the earth, it's not talking about mom, okay. But they'll talk about Gaia, you know, but what is Gaia, that's just, that's really just a Greek word for earth, but it's also the name of a deity, okay. And so you have the Hebrew word for the sun, the Hebrew word for the moon, the Hebrew word for the sea, the Hebrew word for these things actually is also the name of a deity in those languages. And so it's like the author of the Bible is purposely leaving out those words, basically explaining, it's not that God created some sun god called Shemesh or Helios or whatever, it's that he created the thing in the sky that's burning and giving you light, it's just a thing, it's not a person, that's why we're not gonna name it by name. That's also the reason for saying seas, plural, instead of sea singular, because the sea singular word sounds like the name of a false god, and so by putting it as a plural and calling it seas, you're emphasizing the fact that these are just things, not deities, there's only one god, right, this is monotheistic, in the beginning, god singular created the heaven and the earth. And when he created the sun, he's not creating some other deity here, he's just creating a light and another light. And guess what, the seas are just water. And this is probably why he's using a word like firmament, instead of talking about the sky, seas instead of sea, greater light instead of sun, lesser light instead of moon, because otherwise it'd be a little odd to be kind of purposely avoiding these words, but then it makes sense. There's kind of one more example of this as well, because God says in verse number 20, so we have, of course, the fourth day, God creates the sun, moon, and stars. The fifth day, it says in verse 20, 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 the fowls multiply in the earth, and the evening and the morning were the fifth day. So when the Bible talks about God creating the animals, he's kind of just talking about categories of animals, right, he talks about like birds in the sky, fish in the sea, and then on the dry land on day six, he's gonna talk about the cattle and the creeping thing and the beast of the earth, which are kind of just like basic classifications of animals the creeping things are the reptiles or insects and things like that, although sometimes the insects can be classified as fowl if they're flying, and then you've got things like cattle, which obviously we would, you know, think about a difference between something like cattle and like wild animals that are, you know, things like dogs and cats and stuff like that. But the bottom line is that he kind of brings up out of nowhere, whales, and you know, you kind of wonder where is this coming from? Like why single out the whales? It just says in verse number 21, and God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth upon the earth are kind. So he kind of just throws this out there that he created great whales. There's a couple possibilities here as to why he's bringing up the whales. Number one, it could just be because whales are just pretty amazing and impressive. And I think a lot of us don't really grasp the size of whales because we might've gone to Sea World and we saw Shamu, which is kind of just a glorified dolphin. If you think about it, it's kind of just a big dolphin. I mean, the whales that are out there in the ocean are of such an incredible size, it's kind of hard to wrap your mind around it, okay? But here, let's just, in fact, let's just illustrate real quick about how big giant whales are. Like the largest creature on this earth is the blue whale, okay? So I used to walk things off as an electrician all the time. And so like, I got to where if I take a certain size step, it's pretty much three feet, right? So if we wanna talk about a blue whale that's like 100 feet long, right? Let's say it's starting right here at this platform right here, right? And I'm just gonna walk off like 33 paces like this just to show you about how long this is, okay? So let's go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. And you can see what I'm saying here. We're talking about like practically the length of this building. I mean, that's Shamu is not even close to that size. Does everybody see what I'm saying? I mean, sometimes we hear a term like 100 feet and it doesn't really seem like a lot, but 100 feet is really long. I mean, can you imagine a beast that is like the length of this building or something? I mean, it's crazy, right? It's kind of just mind blowing to even think about a view. You know, like, how long is our van? I'm sure you know all the dimensions of it. I mean, you want to pull out the manual real quick or? It's like 15 feet. I mean, that's a pretty big vehicle. It's like 15 feet long or something, right? Okay, well, then line up like seven of them. 14, 15 feet long, line up seven of those things and you get the idea of the length of these great whales. So it could be possible that God is just bringing up the great whales because it's just kind of a magnificent creation that he created these giant whales. But another possibility, again, going off of the idea that I brought up a minute ago about how he's purposely avoiding words like sun, moon, sea, and sky because these are the names of false gods and he's sort of trying to show this is not a pagan mythological description of the creation of the world. This is the real story of how God created actual objects, not a bunch of mythological deities. Those pagan mythological stories often involve some kind of a mythological sea creature being destroyed. So over and over again, this is a motif that comes up over and over again where you have some sea monster, some kind of a great beast of the sea who is being destroyed as part of the creation account as far as these gods bringing order to the universe or whatever. And so again, it could be that this is a response to that by just saying, you know, God's not destroying some sea beasts. He's just creating big animals and they're swimming around and they're just part of the normal creation. And obviously you have the great mammals that we know as whales. You have another sea creature that's later described in the Bible as Leviathan. It's also a great giant sea beast or sea monster. You have whales called sea monsters also in a Lamentations chapter four verse three and so forth. And so anyway, that's another idea here of why the whales could be brought up here. And again, it could just be both. I mean, you know, obviously there's a lot going on in this chapter. And so God created the great whales. He created the sea creatures and then, you know, I'm out of time, but on day six, of course, God creates the land animals and then ultimately he creates man in his own image. It says in verse 26, God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and so forth. And you know, you have so many people out there constantly trying to tell you this has nothing to do with the Trinity. Well, guess what? It's the Trinity, stupid. Okay, it's the Trinity. Let us make man in our image after our likeness because Jesus Christ is the express image of God the Father's person. Okay? And you say, oh, the original author wasn't thinking about that. You know what? God is inspiring the original author and God knows the end from the beginning. And so God is already in the first chapter of the Bible planting seeds for all kinds of biblical doctrines that are gonna be developed later, including the doctrine of the Trinity. Right from the beginning, you have this singular God, but then he says, let us make man in our image. And then of course you go to chapter three and look at the end of chapter three, verse 22, it says, the Lord God said, that's singular. The Lord God singular said, behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil. And people come up with all these weird ideas that he's talking to some divine counsel or angels, they're just inserting things that aren't there. No, it's that God is a plural being because he is three in one because he is the Trinity. He is the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. And even, you know, and again, even the very names of God in the Old Testament are plural names, but yet used with a singular verb. You know, why? Because God is a three in one, right? The Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one. And so the Father can say to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, let us make man in our image after our likeness. And maybe the original readers of this, and I'm sure that the original readers of this did not understand the Trinity because that really hadn't been revealed in detail until the New Testament. In the Old Testament, this would have gone right over their head, but there are probably a lot of things going over their head in the Old Testament because they were not seeing things as clearly as we are in the New Testament. God has really revealed things and made, you know, the things that we know, many prophets and righteous men have desired to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them and to see the things that you've seen and have not seen them. You know, Jesus telling his disciples, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. And man, there were a lot of people in the Old Testament that would have loved to know this stuff. And I'm just laying it bare for you. And we, as New Testament readers, we get all the details from Genesis to Revelation. We can put it all together. We can understand it. And so, you know, unless you're just like, you know, actually, you know, it's like, hey, it's the Trinity. Let us make better eggs for me, you know. And you get some weird crusty academic trying to explain to you what's the original author. And it's like, dude, it's like, the Trinity is, you don't even recognize the Trinity when it's slapping you in the face. Like, it's like so clear. Of course, the Jews don't want to believe it's the Trinity because they don't believe in Jesus. So yeah, if you listen to the Jews and the Hebrew scholars from Israel, they're not going to like that interpretation. But, you know, and they'll say, well, it's a royal we. You know, let us make man in our image. Well, you know, I've never heard royalty say one of us. You know, I've heard the Queen of England say, we are not amused, but I didn't, I've never heard her say, hey, one of us is not amused. But yet, in Genesis 3.22, it says the man has become like one of us. So don't follow for this oneness, modalist, Trinity denying garbage. The Trinity is biblical all the way back to Genesis chapter one. I'm out of time, but I hope that this sermon just helped kind of show you some things from Genesis chapter one, just to show you how this is a very sophisticated passage that's packed with truth. And the fact that it is poetic shouldn't bother you or make you think that it isn't true. Everything in it rings true. Everything in it makes sense. Everything in it is reiterated and reinforced later in the Bible. And don't ever worry about science over disproving Genesis chapter one, because here's the thing, Genesis chapter one is outside the realm of science because it's a supernatural, miraculous creation. How do you scientifically measure that? God speaking the world into existence from nothing. You know, you can't scientifically prove that one way or the other, because it's not science. It's a miracle. It's supernatural. It's creation ex nihilo. Well, you know, how do I understand it then? How do I, you understand it by faith by believing the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. I believe it. Let's have our word of prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for this passage, Lord, the power of your word. Lord God, I pray that we would always go to your word and allow the Holy Spirit to teach us and not to allow the philosophies of this world and the science falsely so-called to somehow shake our faith in your word or twist our understanding of your word, Lord. Help us to compare scripture with scripture and let the Bible speak for itself. Thank you for giving us this magnificent book, Lord, filled with prose and poetry, filled with so many wonderful things. And we've all read Genesis chapter one so many times, and yet we can always seem to pull out something new from its words. And Lord God bless us as we go on our separate ways. And in Jesus' name, we pray, amen. Amen, let's turn to one more song, song number 203, The Windows of Heaven. Song 203. 203, we're gonna do this twice, two times. The windows of heaven are open, the blessings are calling tonight. There's joy, joy, joy in my heart since Jesus made everything right. I gave Him my old tattered garment, He gave me a robe of pure water, He gave me a robe of pure wine. I'm feasting on heaven from heaven, and that's why I'm happy to God. The windows of heaven are open, the blessings are calling tonight. There's joy, joy, joy in my heart since Jesus made everything right. I gave Him my old tattered garment, He gave me a robe of pure wine. I'm feasting on heaven from heaven, and that's why I'm happy to God. Amen, you're dismissed. Amen, you're dismissed.