Genesis 1:5 – And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Hello readers, new blog today from Genesis 1! It ended up being quite a lengthy blog, but hopefully you can read it, and it be worth it for you at the end of it! Foundational chapter in a foundational book in the Bible, and it has infinite value today, not just historically, not just for information, not just as a cool story, but as applicable to our life and walk today. Genesis means genesis (mindblowing thought I know!), but think about the word “genesis”… genesis means beginnings, origins … and in this book we see origins, the genesis of the creation, the genesis of mankind. By looking at the genesis of things, you see their purpose, meaning, design among many other things, knowing Genesis gives us a reference point and framework for developing our understanding. Without knowing where you’ve come from, how it all started, you have no idea where you are going. Genesis gives us direction in the Bible, it answers a whole lot of whos, whats, wheres, hows and whys. It is important to realize that in the Genesis… God already was. God is not bound by time, he’s not created… that’s why Jesus said to the Jews… before Abraham was… I AM. He has no Genesis, as he was there at the Genesis. A key old testament prophecy of Jesus Christ, which also testifies of him as God… is found in Micah 5:2 – But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. What a verse to both show Jesus Christ is God, and that he was the Creator, he was already there at the start, from everlasting! That means no starting point.

To understand things, it is always important to look at the genesis of them. For example, if you want to understand marriage, look at marriage’s genesis, which is in Genesis, and the Bible tells us God created marriage, and that marriage is between one man and one woman. The gospel is in Genesis many times over, did you know that? One of the crucial themes of Genesis is division, God dividing between stuff. God divided the light from the darkness in Genesis. In the Bible we read that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. So many people today, progressive and compromised in their thinking, plead for no absolutes, no definites, yet God is definite and absolute, and so is his word. And so should we be. Wisdom itself is based on division. Being able to divide between what is right and what is wrong, what to do and what not to do. Indeed, understanding the Bible itself relies on division, on us being able to rightfully divide scripture… which refers to the fact that to understand scripture one must compare spiritual things (the Bible is spiritual) with spiritual… in other words compare Bible with Bible! That is the way to understand scripture. If you want to develop a well based and firmly grounded understanding of the Bible… use the full Bible.

Without the full Bible, the Old and the New, you cannot understand scripture. You cannot understand grace without the law. You can’t understand Jesus Christ without the Old Testament, you can’t understand his purpose or his work, or why he even died. Just like Genesis, how could we know where we are heading if we don’t know how we started, where we come from? How do you know you need Jesus Christ, until you firstly know you need to be saved from your sin? Matthew 13:52 – Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. What does this mean? It mean’s anyone who teaches God’s word must be able to bring both Old and New forth together to give a full and true understanding about what the Bible teaches about everything. Failure to do so is one reason why so many churches, denominations, and people are in error and twist things like grace and judgement, because they only have part of the truth, they haven’t balanced scripture with scripture. Remember of scripture… none shall want her mate – Isaiah 34:16. Each verse has it’s mate, if you wanted a balanced, sound understanding of what the Bible teaches, get in the word of God, and see all of what God has to say.

So the thought today is the evening and the morning were the first day. Through Genesis, at the conclusion of each of God’s creative work, we read that the evening and morning were the first day, second day, third day and so on. During creation, there were days that passed… days each consisting of an evening and a morning. Our modern categorization of a day (ie. when a day starts) is slightly different to a Biblical day, but nonetheless, it is a 24 hour span, consisting of and evening and a morning. And this is literally true, God created the world in six days of work. And just as true as he created the heaven and the earth and all in it in six days, so God is at work today, and doing a creative work today. That’s what being born again is… a creative work. Salvation is a new creation, Jesus said you must be born again… but why? Because we are a fallen, lost, sinful creature, but if we repent of our sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ … he will make you a new creature. God reaches out in his love and mercy to sinners today, and today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your heart the Bible says.

God could’ve just created everything in an instant, but he did it in order, and worked over a period of six days. God gives us many days for our work, for our life here on earth. God works and Jesus works, Jesus himself said. So our day after day here on earth here is an important part of our existence as living creatures. God gives us day after day, and in that day you have light. God gives light to everyone. You need to stop worrying about others in some sense and put your own house in order first before worrying about others. People get so hung up in God’s perceived fairness or lack thereof, but hey, God knows how to reach others, maybe sort your life out first before worrying about how he will provide a fair chance and witness of himself to someone else in a far land. The Bible says God has lighted every man that has come into the world. Everyone is part of God’s creation, Jesus Christ was at the starting point of everyone’s life, because he is the Creator. He didn’t create us incapable of knowing who created us. There’s noone on earth that was born without light. In the book of Job, Job himself said of his own birth during his sorrow and pain after having been smitten and afflicted with sore boils… he said that let that day (the day he was born) be darkness. He asked… why was I given light? We have all been given light. Many people regret that fact for a multitude of reasons. Because once you’ve been given light, there is a responsibility that comes with it. In the same way, if you didn’t know you were sinning you couldn’t be guilty, but if you know you are doing wrong, you are responsible. You can try running from the light God put in you, the knowledge of God in you, you can be a fugitive from God and a vagabond in this earth just as Cain did if you want. He did not run because God was bad or unfair, but because he loved his evil deeds… as do we all… and that’s why we really have a problem with God. Job’s complaint was, why was I given light… and unsaved people today wish they never had it, because if you didn’t have it, you would have an excuse… BUT YOU DON’T.

As sure as the evening and morning, days of your life, roll around, and go and are replaced by another one, so you have chance after chance. This is God’s work, just as in the creation work. Just as sure as that first creation was good, so God wants good for your life. He’s not against you, though just as with Adam and Eve, Satan would have us believe the contrary. We stuffed up, but God works that you might be saved. And in fact to provide for our salvation, God did all the work, God himself came to earth as a man, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for our sin, to take our judgement upon himself. He is God, and he did what only God could do, just like at the start. God loves us, but we have responsibility, he created us initially in his image, and with that came a whole host of implications. While there is light, there is darkness, there is choice. Why did God take Adam to a garden where there was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Because God wants to prove man, to give man an opportunity to choose to love and obey him or not, not just force him.

Man is different from any other creature, man has a spirit in him, man is a unique creation, man cares about justice, morality, man has consciousness… which no beast has. God gave us the opportunity to exercise that freewill, to exercise that image of God that God gave us. God wants a relationship and fellowship with his creation, and that is only true and deep and real when it has endured the test, when it has been proven through life. That relationship and fellowship and image relies on us obeying God and being connected to him, since he is the life source. But we lost our image of God in many ways because it became corrupted by sin. When a child is born today, he is born in the image of Adam, a fallen image. That’s why we all sin, because sin has been passed down, noone taught you to sin, it was in your blood. Man went rogue, man went rebellious, just like Satan before man. Man lost that goodness he was made with, just like Satan who was created perfect at the start but lost all his goodness… because all that goodness was lost as disobedience and rebellion toward God came in. But seeing as God is the only good, that God is the only (true) light, the result was catastrophic.

However, despite us, God has done a great work to bring us back to himself and God has made it as simple as, will we believe his word? Will we simply take him at his word? That’s what faith is, taking God at his word. God’s word is perfectly simultaneous with who he is, in fact his word is so true, and his character and identity so perfect, that his word IS him. You see with humanity, it used to be said a man’s word was is his bond, he’s a man of his word… if you are a man of your word, that’s a great witness. But we are double tongued, our word can be all over the place, full of guile. But our word reflects who we are, but in God’s case, he is the perfect example, because there is no darkness in him, his word IS who he is. It blows our feeble minds. It was a good garden that God took Adam too, and we have a pretty good garden in which to make our choices. Look at your life, and I know we all have problems in our life arising from the consequence of the first choice ever made ie. man’s fault… but odds are to those reading this… you have been given a lot of grace from God, grace you didn’t deserve or earn, God has been patient, long suffering, and merciful to you. We are quick to blame God, but really, if you look at your personal problems, would it be fair to say you have caused them? Aren’t they a result really of man being such a crummy fallen being, us included?

God created us good, but we didn’t stay good. We stuffed it up. We chose pride, we chose lust, we chose evil, we chose sin, we chose to disobey God. And that brought the whole thing crashing down, because God is good, holy, pure, but everything that arises from sin, from disobedience, pride, lust… is horrible. God’s doing a work on earth here, a work concerning man. This earth, this world is a battle ground for men’s souls. Why did Satan want man to sin? Because he wanted to corrupt the perfection, violate the holiness, ruin the fellowship. He knows God is just, pure, holy, God is good. Satan is a perverter, and in perverting the right ways of God, he got man to fall. Man was murdered, and it is now a creation that stinks of death. But nevertheless God still causes the sun to rise each morning, and in your own heart, in your own life, the sun has risen upon you many times. Jesus the Bible says, is the Sun of righteousness, arising with healing in his wings. But will you love the light, receive the light, believe the light? Or choose darkness? Choose sin? Choose your own way? You have day after day. You work, God works, Satan works, time ticks along, the future being decided, eternity at state…the sun comes up, and you enjoy the light of the world. You also enjoy the darkness. God gives you the ability to get saved, to seek him. And life goes on and on, we become lost in the monotony of it, we expect it to be the same, we know how predictable it is… so predictable that in 2 Peter 3, the scoffers at God’s promise of his coming scoff and scorn away, because as they say “all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation”.

However they are ignorant of one thing. God judges. There is a finish date, an endpoint, where things change, God intervenes. The news is that there is a finish date. Enoch preached that, God is coming, and they laughed at him. Six days God worked, but he rested on the seventh and it was finished. Judgement is coming people. At the end of six days, and throughout in fact, God looked at his creation and evaluated it, and in his case, he saw that it was good, because he made everything good. What will he see in your life when he looks at your finished body of work from this life? Judgement is coming. It came in Noah’s day, they’d never seen it before, and thus they didn’t think it could happen. They were so used to evening morning, evening morning, evening morning… and on and on. God’s grace in giving them day after day after day, however they instead interpreted that as hey, this is all a joke, I can sin and get by… and the state of Noah’s flood is a path we are retreading today. No new thing under the sun. Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and that’s what preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ is… it is always warning… as Paul said in Colossians 1:28 – Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus… and consider these verses found in Acts 17:30,31 – And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

On the seventh day God rested. The work was complete. Where will you be when time is up? There is a finish date. Will you be part of that rest? Because those that believe in Jesus Christ have already entered into his rest. We know the day of rest is coming, the day of blessedness, the day when our fiery trials and tribulations will be worth it. Those who believe already know that rest, and look forward to the eternal rest with our God, the Lord who created the heaven, the earth, the sea and all that in them is. But Jesus in the book of John also said that the night cometh, when no man can work. Because if you are unsaved when time is up, well then it’s going to be too late. It’s why the Bible is so full of warning, pleading with mankind to prepare himself to meet his Maker, to be ready against the day of judgement. That’s why TODAY is the day of salvation and NOW is the accepted time. He will only hear you in a time accepted! God is going to sort it all out, rest assured. But what did you do with the light God gave you? There will be no excuses in hell, there will be no victims, there will be no pointing the finger at anyone else in the light of God’s perfect judgement in the person of Jesus Christ.

We have chance after chance. Back in the Old Testament there is a story of when a man of God told wicked king Ahab a parable. 1 Kings 20:39,40 – And as the king passed by, he cried unto the king: and he said, Thy servant went out into the midst of the battle; and, behold, a man turned aside, and brought a man unto me, and said, Keep this man: if by any means he be missing, then shall thy life be for his life, or else thou shalt pay a talent of silver. And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone. And the king of Israel said unto him, So shall thy judgment be; thyself hast decided it. Ok, so that’s quite a story, and it was ironic what the king replied with, because the man of the story was referring to him (he didn’t realize this). But the point is, in the middle of the battle a man was charged with keeping another man, and charged with making sure he kept him, because if he lost him, then he’d lose his life in his place. And in the story, the man didn’t keep him, because he got BUSY! He busied himself here and there, with other things, and at the end of it… the man that he was charged with keeping was gone! How applicable in the context of this! There’s nothing more important in life than getting saved, getting right with God, while you can. Because your life is at stake. We busy ourselves in all the days God gives us, immersing ourselves in all kinds of things, but at the end of it, we end with having never believed on Jesus Christ, with having let slip what God has given us. Imagine that, all the light he gave you, all the blessings you could’ve had, a man who would’ve taken your judgement that you rightfully deserve upon himself. But instead you’ll wake up too late to realize, he’s gone, you’re too late, you were so busy, so caught up, so distracted, so occupied, and you missed all of what mattered… when it mattered.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the light of the world. In the days of our lives, as sure as the sun appears, so God lights mankind with the knowledge and witness of himself. There is no excuse. And there is a day coming where things will change forever. Days merge into days into months into years, we are busy, we live life, but we don’t have the perspective, and wisdom, to realize that there is a conclusion to all of this. Six days God worked and created the world… but the seventh day he rested, and the creation was complete. He evaluated his creation, and he found that it was very good. But what will happen when he evaluates your completed life here on earth? God’s work will be done one day soon, but what will you have done with all those days God gave you. All that light God gave you? He’s provided his word, he’s witnessed to your heart and yet so many reject him, so many are too busy here and there, so many care about what others think, so many oppose their own salvation, they judge themselves unworthy of the gift of God. On the seventh day God rested… will you be part of that rest, or when times up, and the rest day comes… will you be done? Will the game be up for you? The evening and the morning were the first day. And then the evening and the morning were the second day. And then the third day. God started the clock, it started ticking, and it ticks today. You’ve been given a lot of light, but what will you do with it?

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