Welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We're glad you've joined us for today's program. If you do, you'll also receive Skip's weekly devotional email to inspire you with God's Word each week. So sign up today at connectwithskip.com.
That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. As chapter one discusses Elohim, chapter two will give God a different title because of this. Thus, chapter two, verse one, the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. And on the seventh day, God ended his work which he had done. And he rested on the seventh day from all of his work which he had done. And then God blessed the seventh day and he sanctified it because he rested from all of his work which God had created and made. Now, don't get the idea that six days of work made God really tired and he needed a rest. He's just fatigued and God comes home and goes, wow, that was hard.
I need a break. It simply means God rested because there was no more things to do, nothing else to make. Everything was completed. In fact, the word seventh and it appears three times in these verses for emphasis. The word seventh comes from the Hebrew root that means to be full or to be completed. On the seventh day, everything was done. God's purposes in creation were fulfilled.
He had nothing left to do as far as creation was concerned. So it was the seventh day, it was full, it was completed, so God rested. Now, I mentioned the word seventh is mentioned three times in these verses. I don't know if I mentioned last week, I think I did it in passing, but some people have read Genesis, the creation story in the first few chapters and mistakenly confused it with some of the Babylonian narratives of creation called the Babylonian cosmogeny. And they've said, well, there's a lot of similarities between Genesis and the Babylonian record of creation. Therefore, you know, these things all must be myth or perhaps Genesis borrowed it from the Babylonians.
I couldn't disagree more. The fact of the matter is the imprint of God's creation was so fresh upon all of the cultures at that time, it would naturally show up in a number of sources, and it does. And so there would be similarities, you would anticipate that. But the further that these cultures got from the original, from the truth, from the moment of creation especially, and things were added and made up, they weren't preserved like the truth of scripture, you would also expect to see some differences. And though there are similarities between Babylonian as well as other narratives and the Genesis account, there's a lot of differences as well, huge differences. The sun and the stars were worshiped by the Babylonians and the Egyptians. They thought that the stars and the moon, the planets, ruled the life and determined life upon the earth. Hence the zodiac and astrology was developed. But Genesis says that the universe was created around man, by God, around God's crowning creation, man.
Something else. In the Babylonian account, the seventh day of the week is considered unlucky. Day seven of the month, day 14, day 19, day 21, and day 28 are all considered unlucky days according to the Babylonians, but the seventh day especially.
But according to Genesis, that superstition is absent. God blessed it, God made it holy, it's a day of refreshment, not this superstitious fear like, uh-oh, it's the seventh day, sort of like Friday the 13th. It's the seventh day set apart and blessed by God. And he sanctified it, verse three, because in it he rested from all his work which God created and made.
Now I want you to notice something. It will be important later on when we go through the Jewish Sabbath. God gives Adam no command to keep the seventh day here. He will give it later on to the children of Israel.
It'll be part of the law of Moses as part of the covenant, the external sign of the covenant God has with the Jewish people. But he gives Adam no command to keep the seventh day. Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man. Man was not made for the Sabbath.
However, God did create a day and it seems to be, in fact not seems, it is a biblical pattern to enjoy a full day of rest. Now the pattern in Judaism, and I actually love it, is you work six days and you're off one day. Now in America, it's a five-day work week and then you're off supposedly two days, Saturday and Sunday. In Europe, it's you work four days, you're off three days.
But I think six and one is a better pattern because I rarely have met people who legitimately take two full days off. I know what it's like. It's hard for me to slow down. Sundays when I come home after three messages, I start working in the yard. It's how I'm built. I can't just lay down and take a nap. But if you could just spend one day in cruise mode, doing nothing, no responsibilities, you'd be happier, I believe.
I think you'd live longer, you'd be healthier. And so since we're in the image of God, it makes sense that part of the likeness bearing the image of God is that when we finish our work week, we rest for one day. Now I'm preaching to myself even as I say this, but this would be good and this is a biblical pattern. Verse 4, This is the history of the heavens and the earth, when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth, before any herb of the field had grown, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth and there was no man to till the ground, but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. Now I promised you that in chapter 2, there would be a new name for God that would appear and it does.
Notice in verse 4, it says, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. The term Lord is the Hebrew tetragrammaton. How many have heard of the tetragrammaton?
Okay, I'm going to explain it because most haven't. The tetragrammaton, typically pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah in some older bibles, comes from four Hebrew letters, hence tetragrammaton, four letters. We would say they're Y-H-V-H or W-H and we typically pronounce it Yahweh. We don't know how it was pronounced because we only have those consonants and we've lost the pronunciation.
I'll explain why. But the Hebrew tetragrammaton is in Hebrew Yod-He-Vav-He and it would be pronounced Yah-Vay or Yahweh or Yah-Ho-Vay. We don't exactly know. We've lost the pronunciation. But that is the Hebrew word here for the word Lord. Anytime you see in your Bible, in your Old Testament, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D like you see in that verse, it is that tetragrammaton, the word, and let's just call it Yahweh, okay?
Now here's why it's used here. Elohim is God's name for his transcendence and power over creation. In relationship to being the creator, he is Elohim, the mighty God. In his relationship to history, especially history of his people, the covenant people, he uses the covenant name, Yahweh.
It's very important. When Moses was commissioned by God to go to the children of Israel, you remember the story? And Moses said, well, who am I going to say sent me? They're going to ask, what's God's name if God told you to be sent? If God told you to be here, what's his name? Exodus chapter 3, God says, I am that I am.
Tell them that I am has sent you to them, for this is my name forever and a memorial to all generations. Now, the little tetragrammaton or Yahweh is the first person form of the Hebrew word hayah, which means to be. And I am that I am or I am simply means God is the self-existent one. He doesn't depend on anybody else for life. He's the self-existent one. He is the only non-contingent being in the universe. Everything else is dependent, contingent upon God, but God is non-contingent, non-dependent. He is the self-existent one. He's the uncaused cause. Also, the term Yahweh speaks of God's eternal nature.
Not I was that I was, but I am. He's always faithful. He's always available. All of the characteristics that embody him are part of his eternal nature. So, you have Elohim, God's relationship to his creation. You have Yahweh, God's relationship in history, especially his covenant name to his people.
Now, remember how I said we don't know how it's pronounced? It's unusual because even though Hebrew is made up of consonants and vowels are simply put there by little marks above and below it, so we know how to pronounce the vowels, we've lost the pronunciation of the name of God because according to Jewish tradition, God's name is so holy it should never be uttered by human lips. So, they have substituted the tetragrammaton and the pronunciation Yahweh for a different term. They put in a different term that's not even there in the Hebrew text, the term Adonai.
You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, misunderstandings about Jesus abound. Some see him as a prophet, others as a moral teacher, and still others as just a myth or mere historian. But the Bible tells a different story about who Jesus is. We want to help you know the real Jesus of the Bible by sending you Skip Heitzig's nine-message CD series, Who Is This Jesus? In this eye-opening series, Pastor Skip addresses common misconceptions about Jesus, clarifying both Jesus' humanity and his divinity to equip you to confidently answer questions about who Jesus really is.
We'll send you a link in the description below. Now, let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. And so the Jewish people, when they come to this, will either say Adonai, or they will say Hashem, which means the name. And if they write God, they won't write God. They'll put G-D, if they're writing it in English, because they feel God's name is holy. It's ineffable. It's unpronounceable.
We shouldn't tarnish it, but we do have the tetragrammaton, and we'll refer to it as Yahweh as we go through. Make sense? Okay, so in the day that the Lord God made the heavens and the earth, before any plant of the field in the earth, and before any herb of the field had grown, for the Lord had not caused it to rain on the ground. There was no man to till the ground, get this, but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. God had his own automated watering system, his own sprinkler system over the earth to keep it lush. It's hard to know exactly what this means.
I can only take a stab at it. There are some creationists, evangelical Christians, who come from the scientific community, who believe that this was a canopy, as I mentioned last week, that covered the whole earth. Molecules of water vapor suspended in the edge of the atmosphere, that produced a greenhouse effect, a hothouse effect, keeping everything around the world an even temperature, restricting mass air movements, creating a lush environment worldwide. There were no barren deserts, there were no polar ice caps, and that was the environment that was the most important. And that was the environment, no rain at all, just this mist that went up and this very wet environment.
And so some believe that the rain didn't come till the judgment of God upon the earth, and God used the waters in that canopy above the earth, as well as the waters in the earth, to cause the water on the earth to accumulate rapidly. So God broke up the canopy, brought it down in the form of rain, the canopy has now since vanished, but what some of these scientists will tell you is that this was one of the contributing factors for people living so long on the earth, is that canopy. Because what the canopy did is restrict ultraviolet radiation, which causes sunburn. Remember I told you a little bit last week about the electromagnetic spectrum, visible and invisible photon radiation, and in the visible light spectrum, you've got some of the shorter high energy wavelength that are violet, some of the lower energy wavelength, that's the red hues, but then there's invisible energy, invisible radiation.
And part of that in the electromagnetic spectrum, the UV, the ultraviolet, you can't see it, but it's high energy, it's very short wavelength, it penetrates unless it's attenuated or stopped by something. And so it is thought by these scientists that the canopy attenuated that intense ultraviolet radiation that causes skin damage and promotes aging, and that is one of the factors that contributed to man living 700, 800, 900 years, people say, you gotta be kidding. But you do notice that as soon as the flood happens on the earth, that man's age drops dramatically from that point on. You read about it even in the scripture.
Now, not everybody agrees with that. Some believe the canopy theory is fraught with difficulties, there's more problems posed by it than problems that solved, and this is just a vapor of moisture in the air, it's still present today, and God used it for a special purpose at that time, and et cetera, et cetera. I can't debate either way, both are plausible. I'm not a scientist, as you know, I'm just a pastor. So a mist went up from the earth, God had a cool watering system on the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. What a scene, God created mankind, now the author is focusing in on this special crowning creation of God, humanity, this inanimate corpse, and then God breathing breath into the nostrils. Now, I do want you to notice the word formed. Yassar is the Hebrew word. It means to mold or to shape, but it means to mold or to shape carefully. It's a word often used in ancient times in this language to speak of an artist making something beautiful in expression.
Here's what you need to know. The earth is not only a designer planet, it's a disposable planet. I know I'm preaching in an era when that is not popular. It is a disposable planet. God created it and God will uncreate it. God will destroy it, the Bible says that.
It was created by God to fulfill His purposes in redemption. In the history of man, the genealogies of man, the plan of man announced through the scriptures, the coming of Christ, and then eventually He'll rule and reign over those who are devoted to Christ. He'll destroy this earth and the heavens and create a new heavens and a new earth. It's a disposable planet.
I can prove that. Before you go to bed tonight, read the book of Revelation. If you think we've destroyed the planet, why do you see what God does with it? Of course, now He has the right to do it. We're to be caretakers over it. To subdue it and have dominion over it doesn't mean to trash it, we're to be caretakers of it. We're to mine it, but not to be careless about it. I do believe we have a stewardship over it. But do understand, this is a disposable planet.
A disposable planet for God's redemptive purpose. God fashioned man creatively and carefully and out of love like an artist would make an expression. And he breathed into his nostrils the breath. The term breath, the term wind, and the term spirit, you discover in Hebrew have the same Hebrew word, ruach, ruach. Wind, spirit, breath, same word. In the New Testament, same thing.
Wind, breath, spirit, in the Greek is pneuma. So God breathed, God invigorated man with His spirit and man became a living being. The Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden and there He put the man whom He had formed. Now I'm often asked, where was the Garden of Eden? Well, we're dealing here and you'll see some names in a minute. And so you're naturally going to say, well, where would that be?
Where's that name? But we're dealing with pre-flood geography, antediluvian geography. Antediluvian geography and that has changed. The earth looks different. There were no barren deserts at that time. There sure are now. Just go west a little while. There were no polar ice caps then.
There are now. And names change or I should say names are borrowed. What is called a pishon back then may be called pishon elsewhere. Or you'll read about Gihon. There's a Gihon spring in Jerusalem. But it probably wasn't Jerusalem because it mentions the Tigris and Euphrates River. It was probably somewhere in the Mesopotamian River Delta.
That's the best guess I can give you as to where it is. But I remember when somebody told me when I first moved to New Mexico and they said, I'm going to Cuba for the weekend. And I remember my reaction. I said, you can't go to Cuba for the weekend. It's a restricted country. They said, no, Cuba, New Mexico. I said, well, I didn't know there was one. Or when a couple said to me, hey, we're going to Las Vegas for the weekend. I said, oh man, I don't know if you should. I should probably stay away from that place. So I got family there and it's only a couple hours.
I said, boy, you must be, oh, you're flying. They said, no, Las Vegas, New Mexico. Well, we renamed things after other names. And so names after the flood were no doubt borrowed by Noah and Shem and the others for post-Diluvian geography.
Okay, just keep that in mind. Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man that he formed. Out of the ground, the Lord God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the site and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden.
And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, every now and then, I run into a well-meaning humanist who wants to tell me that man is just a product of his environment. And if man was placed in a perfect environment, he would be a good person.
There is some truth to that. We are certainly the sum in part of the sum of how we were raised in our lives. Of how we were raised in our environment.
We think based upon how we were treated, et cetera. But this was the perfect environment. This Eden, this paradise that we read about, and yet man rebelled because man had choice. Now, later on, toward the end of time, we'll read about it in the book of Revelation. For a thousand years, Satan will be bound.
So there won't be the devil. But after the thousand years is up, he is released. And there's a huge rebellion that takes place. After the millennium, after a perfect environment, after a thousand years of a perfect environment, there'll be a huge rebellion. So all those people that said, well, man, it's just a product of his environment. If he's in a perfect environment, wait a minute. It's gonna be another Eden for a thousand years that'll be like the Garden of Eden.
It'll be a perfect paradise. But mankind then will sin because there's depravity, there's evil within the heart of man. It's not the environment, it's the heart. Well, why are there wars and why are there tragedies, et cetera, murders? Is it the environment?
Sometimes. But the Bible tells us that every person is born with a bent toward evil because of what Adam did. Born with a bent toward evil because of what Adam did in chapter three. A constitutional change happened at the moment even Adam surrendered to the suggestion of Satan in chapter three.
We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Pastor Skip's series, Who Is This Jesus? And his booklet Life Change to help you better understand both who Jesus is and why you can trust what the Bible says and who you are as a believer in Christ. To request your copy of these resources, call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer. For more from Skip, be sure to check out the many resources available at connectwithskip.com slash store. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.
