Genesis 2: God Does Something He Has Never Done Before

(upbeat music) - Welcome to chapter by chapter, four year journey through the greatest book, the greatest gift given to the human race, the word of God, the Bible. And we get to go through a chapter by chapter, seven minutes a day, seven days a week. Join us each day and share it with others so they can join this journey that will change your life. We will stop at unexpected places on the journey and be challenged. Some verses will create awe and wonder. We will have chapters that will be instructive and in others, we're gonna find joy. We will occasionally be convicted and want to change, but all in all, the journey will be worth it. The best way to get the most from this podcast is read the chapter we're discussing before or after. It's his word that transforms and you will find more and see more than I could ever articulate. Welcome to chapter by chapter and today's chapter is Genesis 2. Let me just take you back to the beginning for one moment. When you read Genesis chapter one, creation has a cadence to it. It goes from day to day and carries a common rhythm. It usually starts with God said and then gives the specifics of what comes out of his mouth. And then it moves from God said to God called where God names what he called into existence. Then it says God saw as if he stood back and admired the greatness of his work. And finally it ends with the words it was good. God said God called God saw and it was good. This goes on for six days, but when God is done, God does something is never done before on any other day of creation. On the six day we start with the cadence. God said let us make man in our image according to our likeness. We must just stop and pause for a moment noticing these words, us, hour and hour, three words. It's the plurality of God. It's us hearing about a triune, the trinity from the beginning of creation. This is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then they break the cadence and something epic happens after the words God said. Two words come like an earthquake to heaven and earth. God said to them, them is Adam and Eve. Them is all of humanity. God speaks to creation. It's incredible. My jaw dropped when I read it immediately after creating man. He talks to man. Everything else for the preceding five days. He created and then he moved on from what he created. But not here. This was his masterpiece and he pauses to speak and to communicate. In Genesis 2, God continues to speak to the crown of his creation. He starts to be specific. He gives purpose. He gives boundaries. He gives instructions. He even sees deficiencies that man is alone and fixes it by the creation of Eve. Listen to God speak to the six day masterpiece. Genesis 2, 15 through 18. Then the Lord God took the man, put him into the garden of Eden, to cultivate it and keep it. Then the Lord God commanded the man, saying, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely. But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. Then the Lord God said, it's not good for a man to be alone. Now make him a helper, suitable for him. So here's the big question. Why did God talk to them? One reason, one big reason. Humanity needs to hear from God. Humanity needs the voice of God. Even though they were innocent and sin has not come into the garden yet, they knew they needed God to figure out life. They were created to be dependent upon him. God had to explain who they were and what they were to do with their lives. They did not need his voice because they were sinners. They needed his voice because they were human. Demart and Lloyd Jones in his book, studies in the Sermon on the Mount, says this about Adam and Eve. The terrible tragic fallacy of the last 100 years has been to think that all man's troubles are due to his environment. And to change the man, you have nothing to do but to change the environment. This is a tragic fallacy. It overlooks the fact that it was in paradise that man fell. It was in a perfect environment that he first went wrong. So to put man in a perfect environment cannot solve his problems. We need God's voice even in a perfect environment. We need God's word to live life fully and correctly. Without his voice, we live selfishly and we live for ourselves. We think we need help because we have problems. We would need him whether we are living in paradise or in the worst slums. We need his voice in the penthouse and a sea suite as well as in government housing or a hut in the Amazon. Genesis 2 confronts us with the fact that we needed him to talk to us. That our need for help preceded sin. We were created to be dependent. Don't miss this. Trying to live without God's help assigns me to subhuman living. You act like an animal when you don't have God's voice. Only the words of the Creator gives us framework for life. Jeremiah tells us why we need God's voice. Listen to these words. Jeremiah 1023, I know, O Lord, that a man's way is not in himself. Nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps. This is insightful. The living Bible says it like this. Know that it is not within the power of man to map his life and plan his course. What is happening in our country is the removal of God's voice. When we are told that we can't pray, that we can't put the Ten Commandments in a courtroom or in a school, when the Bible becomes a ban book, we're removing the voice of God and man is left with himself and to try to live without that voice is catastrophic. Because then you open up yourself to a million other voices and you're going to know about that in Genesis 3. When you remove the voice of God from culture, from government, from schools, from your home, you're left with other voices and the most destructive voice is your own voice. That inner voice that we are told can direct our life. God said from the beginning that He made them male and female. God said from the beginning that a man and a woman would be married. So when man decides what his gender is, it's not within them to do it. God already decided it. We have a society making decisions about its gender and sexual orientation when God already did. Rick Warren said, "Sinist thinking I know better than God." So I disobey and do it my way with money, time, sex and everything else. That's the simplest definition of sin choosing my voice over God's voice. One fails when man loses the voice of God. Society fails when society loses the voice of God. Man is trying to fix the environment, the border, politics, the economy, education. Here's a thought. Man should start a conversation with God again. I think all the other things just might start getting fixed. Thank you for joining chapter by chapter. Every chapter from the greatest book, The Bible, the Word of God. seven minutes a day, seven days a week. We'll see you tomorrow.