Okay. Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to The Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Knotts, thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today's message is part three of a three-part series on Genesis: the recreation of heaven and earth. The newly refinished, beautified earth was ready for inhabitants the birds and the bees, the animals and the beasts of the field, and in his final master stroke, the crown jewel of God's creation, made in his image and likeness.
In part three of the Genesis series, days five through seven.
So God created man in his image and his likeness. Amen. His image and likeness, and I looked at these words. in many different places trying to, you know, to really get the truth of what they mean. And folks, everywhere that I studied, they mean the outward form and the outward appearance.
That's what they mean. The outward form and the outward appearance.
So that means that God, whatever material, spiritual material, celestial material God's body is made of. It looks like ours. We are made in the likeness, the similitude, the same outward image of God. Amen. Made in his image and in his likeness.
Now let's go to chapter 2, verse 7, and learn how he did it. Chapter 2 and verse 7. 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 soul. This is one of my favorite verses in this whole account. The word formed.
It's Yatsar. In Hebrew, it means to form, to fashion as a potter does clay, or like a sculptor would. It means to mold, to squeeze, to shake with your hands. This means that God got down in the dirt. And sculpted Adam into a perfect Human Male body.
In the likeness and image But Adam was inanimate. He was lifeless. You can go to Europe, and you can go to some of the famous places in Rome and such, and you can see the beautiful sculptures that Michelangelo sculpted. Famous one is the one of David. It's beautiful, the one of David.
You can see the shape of the arms and the muscles and everything, and admire its beauty and the artistry of the artist. But as beautiful as it is. It's lifeless. You can admire it. But it's lifeless.
And when God leaned over this beautiful sculpture. Of This creature that he made in his own image and his own likeness. We read that he put his mouth On the nostrils. God got down and put his mouth on his nostrils and breathed into him the breath of life. But in the Hebrew, the word life is kaim.
And it's a plural word. He breathed into him the breath of lives. Man is the only one of God's creatures. That received this double life. Both physical And spiritual.
Because man has a soul and a spirit. All other animals have souls. They have the capacity for emotions. They have the capacity for intelligence. I saw something the other day on Facebook.
I forgot what kind of dog it was because you only saw the back of the dog. But he was watching television. And they were playing that movie. I've never seen the movie, but The Lion King. And there comes a scene when, what's it, Mufasa the lion.
And the dog is watching this movie. And when that lion is killed, the dog gets so upset. The dog gets upset. It's like he's crying. And you think that he understood what happened.
And he had empathy. Animals have souls. They have emotions. Your animal will love you and be loyal to you and show you affection. Amen.
Some of them are very intelligent, aka they use them for police dogs. They use them to help people that have handicaps and things. They can help them navigate through life. Turn on switches and go get them, you know, their medicine, and they're very intelligent. But you see, what they don't have is a spiritual relationship.
With God. Amen. Amen. We have a spiritual relationship with God because when God breathed into us, He breathed into us a part of Himself. Amen.
So, I have a balloon here. I'm going to blow up some.
Now, this balloon contains my breath. I'm pretty sure I can say this, and it be true. It probably already has some of my spit in it, too. Amen. How many know when you have to do a couple breaths, especially, you got to stop and blow and stop and blow.
Some of your spittle. goes in that balloon as well. And do you know that they can extract DNA from spit? When God created us He put some of his spit in us. Amen.
Some of his spit, some of his DNA went into Adam when he breathed into him. Amen. So, you understand that we are the crown jewel of God's creation. Job 12:10 says, In whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. Did you catch that?
Soul of every living thing, that means every animal, and the breath of all mankind.
Now, let me break it down for you.
So is Nephesh. in Hebrew, and it simply means that which breathes. That which is a living creature breathing. But where it says breath is Ruach. And Ruach sometimes is breath, sometimes it's wind, and sometimes it's spirit.
Because the Holy Spirit is the Ruach Ha Kodesh. And here we must get the meaning of it when we put it in context. He gave every living thing a soul, but he gave man a spirit. He gave us a spirit because we're made in his image, and the animals are not.
Now, what I'm getting ready to say, don't get mad at me. You'll get over it. Ecclesiastes 3:20 and 21 says, All, meaning animals, go under one place. All are of the dust. And all turn to dust again.
Now that includes animals and humans. The body goes to dust. Remember, God told Adam in Genesis 3:19 after they sinned, He said, From dust you are. And to dust you shall return.
So, what the wise man is saying here all Mankind and all animals all turn to dust. Verse 21: Who knows the spirit of man that goes upward? And the spirit or the breath. Of The beast That goes downward. to the earth.
Do you understand that?
So when the animal dies, that's it. They're dead. They don't have a spirit. To go to heaven.
So I'm sorry, but all dogs don't go to heaven. Amen. Animals' souls die with their bodies. But human spirits are eternal. Are eternal.
The saved. What happens? We know 2 Corinthians 5.8 to be absent from the body. is to be present with the Lord. At the moment that the Spirit leaves the body of a born-again child of God, instantaneously, they are in the presence of the Lord.
Some people say, well, don't they hover for a while, hovering a while? Not if they're dead. If they're dead, they go to be with the Lord.
Now, we know there are people that have near-death experiences. I had one sort of similar to a near-death experience many years ago when I was pregnant with Todd. And they were going to do an amniocentesis on me. And they take this needle, a big needle, they want to go in the amniotic fluid, which is the water that surrounds the baby. And they want to go in there and extract some of the fluid.
And they're able to tell by that if the baby's lungs are mature enough for the baby to be delivered, because I had to have a C-section. And I was a couple days before my due date. It's supposed to be just like this. It'll be over within five minutes. We go in there, extract a little fluid, and that's it.
Well, that's not how it went down with me. Instead of going into the amniotic fluid, they kept going into the placenta. And when they realize what they have done, they did it again. They stuck me five times. And you know what?
My spirit left my body.
Now I was in the ceiling. Looking down. And they were smacking my face. Sharon, Sharon. And they were saying her blood pressures dropped, you know, it's dropped, dropped, dropped, whatever they were saying.
And I was watching them and I was thinking, why don't you just leave me alone? I was like, just leave me alone. But you see it was not my time to go.
So I didn't die dead. It was not my time to go.
So, even though I had that experience where my spirit came out and was looking down, I wasn't in the presence of the Lord because I wasn't dead yet. And the next thing I know, they smacked me real hard, and I came too. And so, what I'm trying to say to you, but the child of God. whose spirit has left their body. Amen.
They are immediately in the presence of the Lord. And unfortunately, those who do not know the Lord Their spirit goes to hell. Waiting for the great white throne judgment when they'll come before the judge And then they'll be sentenced to the lake of fire.
Now, here's a part I really want you to see that's really interesting.
So, we just read in 2:7. that God formed man out of the dirt. And we read in 2:19 that God formed the animals and the birds out of the dirt. And I want to tell you, in both places, it's the same Hebrew word, yatzar. But there is a qualification that is very important.
Where it says in two nineteen that God fashioned the birds and the animals, Yatzar is spelled Y A T. F A R. But when we go to two seven Where God formed man out of the dirt. The word Yatzar is spelled Why, why? A T S A R.
It's spelled with two Ys. Which is the Hebrew letter Yud. The Hebrew letter Yud spelled YU D.
So why the two whys? You know, the rabbis believe that not only is the Word of God inspired, they believe every letter. of the Hebrew language is inspired.
So an extra Y calls for Understanding. Amen. If it's inspired, then Why? Because I tell you, there is no grammatical or linguistic reason to spell Yatzar with two Ys. But There is a very important theological distinction being made.
The letter Yud. A K A Y in English is a shortened Form For God's name Yehovah. which we say Jehovah in English. A shortened form.
So that extra you're, that extra why stands for Yehovah So, when Jehovah breathed into Adam the breath of lives, he breathed into him. A part of himself. How many know that my father has always gone by the name R. G. Hardy?
Do you know what RG stands for? Robert George. But we don't call him Brother Robert George Hardy. We say brother R. G.
Hardy. But we know that RG stands for Robert George. And see, they knew that the Y stood for Jehovah. They knew that it stood for God. And putting that extra Y in there was saying this is God's signature.
On His handiwork. This is God's signature on Adam, on man, on human beings that God has put a part of Himself. In his DNA. He's breathed into him a living spirit that can have communication and fellowship with the Creator God. Amen.
It's like his designer label. And only man, only man has this distinction. And it's why we can speak, why we can talk, why we have language, and animals don't. We read over and over again the last three weeks, and God said. And God said, and God called, and God called.
Speech. Speech is the power to be able to declare one's thoughts. And one's will. And it's in this we are like God. And the animals aren't.
We have the ability to communicate with language what our thoughts are. And we have the ability to communicate with language what our will is. What our desire is. Amen. When we say, I will do this, it is the strongest declaration you can make in the English language.
I will or I will not do that. That's the strongest there is. And God Gave us the ability to speak and to communicate. Amen. And this is seen in the fact that we just read that God allowed Adam to name all the animals.
Amen. He not only had great intelligence. Which we don't possess the intelligence that he had. Because of the fall and because of sin, we see spectacular brilliance every now and then pop up. was somewhere like an Einstein.
But For the most part, we do not use all of our brain. Amen. Oh, what it's going to be like when we get our glorified body. Yeah, I know what we're thinking. At least I'm thinking.
I want the glorified body that doesn't hurt anymore, doesn't have achy joints and pain and things like that. But every once in a while, I think about wow, what is our mind gonna be like? When it's restored. To what it was for Adam. Amen.
No wonder he was going to reign and rule with Christ. You got to be pretty smart to do that, folks. You gotta be pretty smart to reign and rule with King of kings and lord of lords. And God's going to restore our brains. Amen.
So, you know, as you get older, you start. Slipping up here and there. I mean, the proverbial go in the room and don't know why you went in there. It happens. It really does happen.
And you have to scan. There's going to be something that's going to Joke my memory and tell me why I came in here. Is sometimes I ask for help. I say, Lord, please help me remember what it was I'm supposed to be doing right now. Amen.
But all of that's going to be restored, and more. Because instead of using only a percentage, we're going to have 100%. Let's take it one step higher. For born again, children of God, we not only have the ability that all humans have to speak. But we have the authority to speak God's word.
We have the authority to speak God's word, and God's word is alive. God's word creates, like we've seen in this whole study of Genesis. Amen? Things happen when we speak God's word.
So now we've read how God created on day six, He created all the animals. And now he is created man. And we learned they both came from the dirt. But we've got to find out how God created Eve.
So we got to go to chapter 2 and verse 21. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the LORD God had taken from man made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said that This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed. Because they were sinless.
So God put Adam to sleep. Opened up his side and took out his rib, closed him up, and from that he fashioned a woman. Because where it says, and the rib which God had taken from man made, He a woman? The word maid in Hebrew is bana. And 354 times that it is used in the scripture in the Old Testament, it's Translated Built.
He built a woman. I remember when I was young and a teenager and a young woman, They used to say when a woman had a nice figure, they'd say, She's really built. How many have ever heard that? She's built.
Well, it's biblical. It's biblical. Because God built Eve. Amen. When God created man, he created him.
And gave him an occupation. He's created to do work. Men are created to work. It says in chapter 2, verse 5. and every plant of the field before it was In the earth and every herb of the field before it grew, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth.
Why, there was no man to till the ground Amen. Look at verse 15. And the Lord God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it. Man was created to work. Woman was created For relationship.
Look at 2:18. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make for him a helpmeet for him.
So When you put the two together, They reflect God's nature. God acted, He created man. What was his purpose? Fellowship. That's why he created us in his image and his likeness.
And we know if we were to go on in chapter 3, we are told that God would come down. In the garden. In the cool of the day. And he would spend time in fellowship with Adam and Eve. Amen.
So when we take man that's got a drive in him to work. And we take woman, she's wired for relationship. Amen. And you put the two together, then you have the very nature of God. You have the nature of God.
God's a worker. He worked six days. And he created beautiful things. And he said, And it is good, and it is good, and it is good. Amen.
But God did it for a reason. He wanted fellowship. Apparently Different fellowship than he had with the angels. Amen. He wanted fellowship with us.
That's why he made us in his likeness, in his image, and gave us the ability. To have deep call unto deep. Spirit under spirit. Amen. So we read in verse 24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh.
Now think about this. Adam had no mother or father.
So, what does this mean? It's setting down for all of time the divine. Design for marriage. The divine design for marriage and this verse, twenty-four, was cited by Jesus in Matthew nineteen and by Paul in Ephesians five. The word cleave means to be glued to.
That's the best, in my opinion, definition: to be glued to something. And if you have ever taken super glue and you have glued two things together and then thought, oh, I didn't want to glue that together, let me take it apart and try again. What happens? You damage both parts. Amen.
And that's what happens when there's divorce. It damages both parts.
So be a cleaver. Not a lever. Hello Amen. And I'm not preaching on marriage today, so I won't go all the way down that road.
Okay, let's look at verse 28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. We talked about that on day one. 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 moves 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 which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat.
And that word there means food, because obviously trees don't produce meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creeps upon the earth, wherein there is life. I have given every green herb for food. And it was so. And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
and the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
So we see here in verses 29 through 31. that God gave Man and all the animals. A vegetarian diet. The birds were vegetarians. All the beasts were vegetarians.
Leo the Lion was a vegetarian. That's what it says. Isn't that what it said? And all of the beasts and everything that creeps on the earth, I've given you the herb-yielding seed for your food. See, this is one reason, folks, why when God told Noah to take two of every animal and put them in the ark, and they were going to be in there for a long time And they didn't eat each other.
And they didn't eat Noah. Because they weren't meat eaters. They were vegetarians. Amen. It was after the flood when Noah and all his family and animals came out of the ark.
Then God said, Now you can eat meat. Because God knew that the earth the ground, the soil, had lost much of its nutrients. Because of the flood. And they were not going to get enough of what they needed just eating plants. And such, because the soil was cursed.
When Adam sinned, it was cursed. When Cain sinned, it was cursed. And now we got the third time it's cursed.
So it did not have the nutrients that it should have. And that's why God said. You can now eat meat. And another thing that God said after he brought Noah and the animals out of. The ark.
He said in Genesis 9, 2, The fear of dread of men will now be on every beast and bird.
So that's a second reason why. He was able to get all those animals in the ark without a problem. Number one, they weren't meat eaters, and number two, they weren't afraid. They weren't afraid of men. When they would call them, they just came.
Amen. Now, animals have the dread of man on them. They want to be away from men. Unless they've been domesticated, like cattle and sheep and dogs and cats, et cetera, they want to be away from men. Amen.
But if a man comes in their territory and they're hungry, They're gonna eat 'em. Amen. So, those people that say, I don't believe Noah's ark story because all them animals would have eaten each other, well, they don't know the Bible. They don't know the Bible. They say that, and it's foolish because they don't know the whole story.
They don't know what God said. They weren't meat eaters. And they weren't afraid. Until afterwards.
So God blessed them. He told them to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea. the fowl of the air, and over every living thing. And this was both of them. This was Adam And ease.
That he gave dominion and told them to have dominion and to subject all of creation under them. And God saw not only that it was good, But then it was Very good. It was very good. Amen? Hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amen. If you've been following us in this comprehensive study of the Genesis series, the recreation of heaven and earth, we have come to days five through seven, when God created wonderful inhabitants to dwell on the newly restored, beautified earth. God formed the birds and the beasts of the field. Then, his final masterpiece, the crown jewel of his creation, God created humans in his own image and likeness.
Now all were formed from the dust of the earth, but only man received the breath of God into his nostrils, creating him not only a soul, but also a spirit. Only humans have the ability to communicate spirit to spirit with God. Find out the exciting way God put his signature on Adam that can only be seen in the spelling of the Hebrew word for formed, and why it begins with two To hear this complete teaching, order the three C D set of Genesis, the Recreation of Heaven and Earth. You will receive Part 1, The Recreation of Heaven and Earth, Part 2, Recreation Days 2 through 4, and Part 3, Recreation Days 5 through 7. Send your minimum love gift of $20 to Sound of Faith, PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203.
Request offer SK seven seven seven. Or go to our e-store at soundoffaith.org, where MP3s are also available. But to order the Genesis series, the complete 3 C D teaching, by mail, send your love gift of $20 or more to PO Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Request SK777. Till next time, this is Sharonott saying Maranatha.
