Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Genesis

  • What Marriage Is and Is Not

    What Marriage Is and Is Not

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Christians & Their Vows” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, March 4, 1990.

    About this sermon

    Christ’s risen body grounds the value of the human body, and Scripture speaks plainly about sexuality and marriage. It shows what marriage is, and just as clearly what it is not.

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    Sermon transcript

    This morning our scripture is taken from Genesis chapter 2. We begin reading at verse 4 and will read to the end of the chapter. Hear the word of God. 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 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, and there was not a man to till the ground. And there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden in the east. There He put the man whom He had formed. And the Lord God made to grow from the ground every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, including the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden.

    From there it was parted and became four streams. The name of the first is Pishon. This is the one that surrounds the whole land of Havilah, where there is good gold. And the gold of that land is good. There is bdellium and onyx stone. The name of the second river is Gihon. This is the one that surrounds the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel. This is the one that goes toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

    And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him.

    And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept.

    And He took one of his ribs and clothed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, 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 both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

    Recently, I was having a discussion with a friend of mine, and we were talking about possible sermon topics. And he suggested to me that I start a series on the Song of Solomon. And of course, we both laughed and realized, of course, that ordinarily sermons are not preached on the Song of Solomon. The Song of Solomon has been judged as private reading from the Bible, but not public. I realized our sensitivities and my intention this morning, you may be relieved to know, is not to preach from the Song of Solomon. But this word to you, and I trust a helpful word, we can in fact be overly sensitive about the physical. We can be overly sensitive and even prudish about sex. But the Bible is for the body.

    I do not know how many people I have spoken with during the membership instruction process at this church who have expressed uncertainty about what happened to the body of Jesus in the resurrection. So I asked them, “Where is the body of Jesus?” And they became confused and uncertain. They are confident that something happened. They even say, “Yes, the soul or the spirit went to heaven,” but they cannot give a clear answer about the body. So I asked again, “Where is the body of Jesus?” Through the struggle and the difficulties of their own reasoning, they are finally able to affirm that the body of Jesus is in glory.

    The body came out of the tomb and was resurrected, and the body is at the right hand of the Father. The body, yes—a transformed body, a resurrected body, but the body nonetheless. The body that went into the tomb came out of the tomb. And this doctrine of the bodily resurrection permanently confirms Scripture and Christian faith regarding the value of the body. Biblical faith, therefore, affirms the value of the body.

    Scripture does not condemn sex; it condemns sin. Scripture honors sex within the context of marriage, and the Bible is marriage-affirming. Therefore, blessing is attached to marriage in the word, while fornication and adultery are condemned.

    So, by way of introduction this morning, and possibly for the benefit of the young, understand the wholesomeness of those things pertaining to the body and to sexuality. Understand God’s intention that sexuality be directed toward marriage and the sanctity of that institution. We have been discussing the vows that we take in life and as part of the people of God. We have now come to the subject of marriage. But before we discuss the vows themselves, it is important for us to clarify our understanding of marriage. Marriage is honorable and truly exalted in the Word. God blesses it. Yet there is great confusion about it.

    What is marriage? What is marriage? First, let us consider what marriage is not. Marriage is not a sacrament. Some claim that it is. For example, the Roman Catholic Church holds that marriage is a sacrament. But we maintain that marriage is not a sacrament. This means that marriage is not an ordinance established by Christ’s special institution. It does not receive a specific command from Him in the Gospels, as do baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

    We regard the sacraments as ordinances that apply universally to the people of God. They are not left to personal choice. If one claims to be part of the people of God, one must be baptized. If one claims to be part of the people of God, one must obey the Lord’s command and celebrate the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of Him. These are obligations that bind all believers. But is marriage a universal obligation for the people of God? No. It is not. In this way, marriage lacks one of the distinctive characteristics of the sacraments. The sacraments are those obligations that bind all believers, to which all are obliged. But marriage is not an obligation that binds all, for some will not marry, and some do not marry.

    Furthermore, marriage is not a means of grace. It is not a way through which God communicates his continual and special grace to us by his Holy Spirit. Therefore, if we are not married, we are not missing out on any of God’s grace. Once more, he says, marriage is not a sacrament. It is a good thing, a blessing, but it is not a sacrament.

    Nor is marriage a sign and seal of the covenant of grace by which the work of Jesus Christ—his death and resurrection—is confirmed and validated for us. In all these respects, you see, marriage does not meet the criteria for a sacrament. Therefore, we take exception to the Roman Catholic doctrine that marriage is a sacrament. We do not believe this. But further, I know I am going to surprise some of you, and no, I am not returning to the Song of Solomon. Since marriage is not a sacrament, neither is it by its nature a church ceremony. What? Marriage is not by its nature a church ceremony. No one is more married because they were married by a clergyman in a church. And you are no less married because you have not been married in a church.

    Because we take a position that is quite different from what many people hold. They understand marriage to be a sacrament, and as a sacrament, it must be performed by a clergyman and in a church. But we say, no, our understanding is different. Marriage is not a sacrament, and it is not something that by its nature must be performed by a clergyman or in a church ceremony.

    Now, here is the revelation for you. You want to read all 66 books of the Bible? Consider them in relation to the matter of marriage. Can you find one passage in those 66 books in which a clergyman performs a marriage ceremony? You cannot. Can you find one church service that includes a marriage ceremony? You cannot. This is a startling realization for many people when they understand this fact.

    Reading through the Bible, there is no clergyman officiating at a wedding, and there are no weddings found within the context of a church service. The Bible, therefore, does not place the Church as a necessary part of marriage. The Bible nowhere places the Church under obligation to perform marriages or to offer its services for the sake of marriage to anyone.

    My first church was in South Jersey. It was a small country village where this church was located, and in many respects, the church that I served was the community church. I had people coming to my door regularly, from the community, not specifically connected to Jesus Christ in any way, not claiming him in any manner, and often assuming that I was obligated to marry them. They believed it was my duty to perform a ceremony for them, and that the church building was available for their use. And how dare I say, “No, I will not marry you,” or “No, you cannot have your wedding in my church.” Yes, it is true.

    Marriage is not by its nature a church ceremony. No one is more married because they have been married by a clergyman or in a church. But at the same time, the Bible nowhere places the Church under obligation to marry anyone. Since marriage is not a sacrament and is not a church ceremony, it is neither obligatory nor eternal. There are churches, both Catholic and Protestant, where failure to marry is considered a sin, and people are judged guilty if they do not choose to marry.

    I am now told within my own denomination that if a man, a single man, wishes to go to the mission field for missionary service, he will be rejected. Why? Because he is single. The Apostle Paul could not be a missionary in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You just cannot trust the flesh out there on the foreign field. You do not know what kind of trouble they might get into. But Paul was a man, too. There are some churches in which family is treated as an idol.

    You must marry in order to have children, and truly, children—this is the goal, is it not? Is this not the highest religious calling? Marriage is not obligatory, especially in this day. Read 1 Corinthians 7 if you do not believe me. Paul makes his case there for us. Marriage is not obligatory.

    Even more striking, marriage is not eternal. This truth helps us put everything into proper perspective. Although marriage is wonderful, useful, and helpful here on earth, it does not last into eternity. Jesus said as much to the Sadducees in Matthew 22. He says, “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.”

    I believe it would help many people in our society to understand that not only is marriage not eternal, but sex is not eternal either. This certainly puts things in proper perspective. It means, of course, that there are some things of greater importance—much greater importance. People often say that good marriages are made in heaven.

    But even the best marriages do not last in heaven. Because marriage is a temporal institution. What we have said so far concerns what marriage is not. What is marriage then? First of all, marriage is a creation ordinance. Marriage is something we read of in Genesis 1 and in Genesis 2. It is something that stands at the foundation of creation, society, and the human race. Therefore, marriage is not something reserved for a special few, nor is it something reserved only for those who have a right relationship with God.

    It is something binding upon all, in the sense that the sexual relationship is to be found within the bounds of marriage from the beginning of the world. It is something that belongs to the common lot of humanity. It is not something that belongs specifically to the province of the church. This is well.

    Not only is marriage a creation ordinance, it is, by nature, a civil ceremony. When I perform a wedding, I must say, by the power invested in me by the law of the state and by the church, I must mention the state in performing the ceremony. Marriage is, by its nature, a ceremony common to all humanity. It is a civil ceremony, first of all. It is right and honored whether blessed by the church or not. Some have been told that if they fail to marry in the church, they are committing adultery or that their marriage is invalid. This is not true.

    Marriage is a community matter, common to the lot of humanity. The law of the state and the authority of the state, as well as the authority of the community at large, are recognized by the church in the performance of marriage. So what of the church when it comes to performing marriages?

    We do so, we perform these ceremonies, as permitted by the state and by the community at large. We ourselves are a narrower community within the broader civil community. And we extend the privilege of Christ’s blessing and an environment in which that blessing is reinforced to those who wish and are entitled to Christ’s blessing upon their lives. While it is proper for the community at large to marry and to give in marriage, there are specific guidelines that pertain to the church as it considers marriage as an institution. For we are not the community at large; we are a community within the community.

    We are a community of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there are specific demands placed upon us in this regard. So we are told in the Word: “Marry only in the Lord.” “Marry only in the Lord.” This instruction is consistently taught from the Old Testament to the New. Where this instruction is not honored, it is judged. The Israelite was not to marry outside the tribes. He was not to marry outside the faith. In the New Testament, it is the same. You are not to marry outside the faith. Marry in the Lord.

    And so the Church, as an institution, as it enters into relationship with the community at large, in the matter of marriage, extends the privilege of marriage in the Church through a clergyman to those who wish and are entitled to the blessing of Christ upon their union, and to them only.

    I do not know where you stand. You may hear of a special case that arises even within this congregation, and you may have questions, and you may wonder, who do they think they are? I ask you to reconsider your position in light of the Word of God. The Church is not obliged to marry anyone, and those whom it chooses to marry are those who desire the blessing of Christ upon their union.

    Marriage, as it has been understood by the Church, truly according to the Word, has special significance for those who are part of the community of faith, for those who believe the gospel, who have embraced its Savior, and who know the Lord Jesus Christ. Because these people, and these only, see in the marriage relationship a reflection of the relationship that exists between God and His people, between Christ and His Church. And this becomes determinative. Marriage is derived from that greater relationship that exists between God and His own. The marriage relationship then reflects that bond that exists between the great Creator and Redeemer and His people.

    In this relationship, it is not surprising to hear the language of Paul as it is written in your bulletin this morning. The language from Ephesians, chapter 5, speaks about the wife in the role of the church, the husband in the role of the Lord Himself, the wife submitting to her husband as the church submits to Christ, and the husband loving the wife as Christ Himself loves the church. Consider also further aspects of this bond, which is exclusive.

    That is what makes adultery so terrible. So terrible. God does not break his bond with his people. He does not commit adultery. If that is your standard, then you, bound to him, cannot do that either. You cannot do it. It is an exclusive bond—the one God with his one people, the one man with his one wife. This bond is not meant to be simply severed. Just as terrible as adultery is divorce—the severing of that bond.

    Because behind the relationship between a man and a wife is the relationship between God and his people. Therefore, we who are part of the community of faith, within the broader community of humanity, view matters quite differently than the world does. In light of these truths—what marriage is not—and in light of what He would then prepare to examine more deeply the vows and oaths that belong to the ceremony and the institution of marriage itself.

    Help us, Lord, in our thinking and in our living. And as we know the truth and affirm the truth in our thoughts, may we also live the truth. May we realize that behind our actions stands the living God and the risen Christ. May we, for love of our God and in devotion to our Savior, conduct ourselves in a way that shows the glories of the gospel and the glories of our faith to all who are around us. O Lord, may we honor marriage as it ought to be honored, and may we bless your name for this great gift to us. And may, Lord, there be joy in our marriages as we understand the nature of the bond that exists in marriage. Cause us, Father, to be a faithful people, as you are a faithful God.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Sight, Marriage, and the Resurrection State

    Sight, Marriage, and the Resurrection State

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 26, 1978.

    About this sermon

    Closing the series, the theme of sight across Genesis 5-6 and John 3 connects to marriage: believers must marry other believers, though the church itself is not in the marrying business. Drawing on 1 Corinthians 7 and Matthew 22, singleness and marriage alike close things out, set against the resurrection state to come.

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    Sermon transcript

    I do have a concern that we should change over and over again to understand that it is your words that do the talking, probably without the pardoning of your son. We stand at the risk of a trifle, particularly Peter, to declare the truth of God, but we have the words of eternal life.

    So, Lord, you have asked this question as well, to whom shall we go? Certainly, Lord, there is no one who can know twice the life that You lead. In that life that You offer, there is a abundance of joy, there is a fulfillment, and there is delight immeasurable. Coming to You, Father, we are satisfied. We would ask, Father, that You would ever train us to be satisfied with what You do.

    We pray this in Your name. Amen. Now, we’re never going to work through this package in Genesis 5 and 6, as it comes to focus now on Chapter 6. We suggested that for the statement of this package of scriptures in Genesis, that there is a theme. And the theme seems to be strife. Theme. Last week, we discussed what Lenin saw, Lenin, the father of Noah.

    He, as a representative of the religious community of his day, what did he see in his father? Particularly, when his son was born to him, a symbol of his strength and power. He saw in his son the hope of the world. He saw in his son the realization of his own expectation and hope. He saw in his son the salvation that had been promised by God. Yet, though a man of faith, his faith was too focused upon this world. His faith was too much drawn to the works of the flesh. And in this land of faith, there was too much of a place for His own strength, His own power, and what was produced in that power, mainly, His own son.

    As you would notice, then, in verse 2 of chapter 6, it speaks about the sons of God. What are they to deal with the sons of God this morning? But you’ll notice there that it speaks of the sons of God in terms of what they thought. It says that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful or that they were good, and they took wives for themselves whenever they chose.

    So not only does the religious community see the origins as when it spoke, but also there is the community at large with which it sees, the community at large sees, and sees in terms of the things that are present in this world. We’ll be discussing that a little bit more later on. Does he see, also, that in verse five, not only does man see, not only does the religious community see, and of course it is the Pope, not only does man in general see, the sons of men or the sons of God, as they are spoken of here in this passage, but God sees.

    God sees, in verse five, the wickedness of men. So in time he will come to deal with how God sees. And finally, in verse 8, we notice that this passage speaks about, in spite of God, the eyes of the warriors. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the warriors. That’s the pattern of our consideration. How does the religion of community speak? How does man and devil speak? How does God see man and devil? How does God see those who are the objects of His grace?

    Now, there’s another dimension to this being we cite, to this being, to this passage, and that is the being that predominates this entire section of Genesis. You remember how we progressed through Genesis, taking Genesis 1.1 through Chapter 2, Verse 3, and suggesting that there we have a very definite Concentration on the theme of time, and then from Chapter 2, verse 4, through the end of the fourth chapter, verse 25, we said that the theme of that section is play, time and play.

    But now we enter into a new section, chapter 5, verse 1, and that’s going to carry us through the end of the ninth chapter generally. I would suggest to you this morning that the theme, the overriding theme of that section of Scripture is power. Power. Things that would relate to that through the scriptures would be kingdom, sovereignty, strength, might. And very interestingly, in this section, the theme of sight and seeing play a very important role.

    Maybe to suggest to you the direction that we might go in considering this theme and its relationship to sight, which we brought together for us in that quote famous of New Testament passages, John Chapter 3, where both sight and sovereignty are brought together in a rather remarkable way. Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, has some very wonderful things to say about Jesus, and Jesus puts him off with these words.

    Lest a man be born from a frog, he cannot seize the kingdom of God’s sovereignty. Sovereignty is science, not jealousy. And Jesus giving that orientation, which truly we need to hear, and need to hear today in proper portion. Unless a man is born from a thought, he cannot see the kingdom of God’s thought. That certainly gives us a lot to think about. doesn’t give us a lot of direction to consideration of this poisonous fiction.

    So, it’s more than what I want to do with you, as I suggested to invest in the picture, is engage in a bit of digression. And that digression is going to focus upon the use of this term, or this phrase in chapter 6, verse 2, the sons of God. The passage begins, Now it came about that men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful.

    And they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Again, it might be apparent to you that what is in view here is this combination of strife and sovereignty. The sovereignty that he’s been exercised to this day is something, I guess, made along the lines of, well, maybe the caricature of a caveman. Power exerted itself in such a way that these men of strength looked out on the world, they followed Him as they wanted, and they took that for themselves.

    Certainly fodder for the organization of women and women’s will today. Now, my digression this morning deals with the matter of marriage. You see, it is getting tough for many to interpret this passage, but what we have here is the first example of the intermarriage between those who belong to God and those who belong to God. Suggested here, they say, is the fact that the sons of God are indicative of those who belong to the line of promise, the line of faith, and that these were essentially covenantal people, men who belonged to the covenantal fellowship and assembly, men who were of the believing line.

    And they were looking out on the world, and they saw the beautiful women that had been born to the sons of men. And they went and they took them whomever they wished. And this was part of the reason for the downfall of even that last race, which left in its conclusion only one family who was perfect in its generation. I’m not suggesting that there isn’t a possibility for this interpretation. But I don’t believe, you see, that that’s what is being said here.

    If we were to check throughout our Old Testament, we would see that the title, Sons of God, really refers to a special class of people, not those that are essentially believers or of the believing line, but those who are recognized in the world as having the position of authority and rulership. These Sons of God are those who stride about the world as God. They were men who took with themselves the authority and the power that belonged to God alone, and who demanded that they should be treated as gods in the world. And they went out in the name of that power and authority, and they did pretty much what they wanted to do, including the taking of women. This passage, then, does not deal with the intermarriage between believers and unbelievers.

    But I want to take this opportunity to deal with that subject this morning, because I think it is vital. It is vital for us to be clear on this matter. It is vital for us to be instructing our children in this matter. And so, therefore, I think it is appropriate for us to spend some time this morning looking into this matter. Even if we are denied the use of this passage in our defense of the position that believers should not marry unbelievers, there is the overwhelming testimony of Scripture with regard to that matter.

    The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were all equally concerned about who their children would marry. We remember the story of Isaac and Rosetta, how much they were put out because of a little These analogies narrate those who were of the surrounding tribe, who were practicing the most horrifying customs in their religion. They did not want that faith to also lead Jacob, and they sent him north to their family so that he might find a wife from amongst their own tribe. We think of the stories in the times of the Exodus. How it was true that the Israelites, when they were wandering about, were seduced by We think about the commandments that were given in the law, how the Israelites were forbidden to enter Mary with the Canaanites and with the tribes that surrounded the land. We remember the tragedy of Solomon and how he took to himself poor and wise, and how those poor and wise, because of their devotions, their devotions to other gods led to the demise of the southern kingdoms. And we also think of how Israel, when it re-entered the land, came under the judgment of God, executed by Exodus 3, because they were intent upon marrying the unbeliever that surrounded them.

    You might say, well, that’s the Old Testament. The New Testament assumes the Old Testament. And we could nearly turn to some passages in the New Testament that suggest to us that, according to the apostolic word, Marriage in the Lord is the only marriage that is permitted for Christians. You could look, for instance, at 1 Corinthians 7, verse 39. A wife is bound as long as her husband lives, but if her husband is dead, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, but only in the Lord. And that phrase, in the Lord, is indicative of a believing relationship between whomever she marries and God.

    Some years ago, it’s true that the United Presbyterian Church, in its Book of Orders, dropped this provision. Its introduction to the Churches up to a few years ago was that marriages conducted in the Church are to be open to the Lord, believer with believer. That was the position. That position has been changed. And as we know, the United Presbyterian Church has progressed much further than that in recognizing what kind of relationship our maturity is working in.

    The pastor sits in a Sunday school class in which there are many families represented, but there are no married couples there together. There is no husband and wife scene, and he listens as the individual members of the family flat out about the guilty of marriage. His heart is broken because he knows that there isn’t one alone with an accident. And the reason why they’re unhappy is because in every day, twenty, fifteen, twelve years ago, they married unbelievers. It was a rule, in fact, which they rationalized at the time. Love conquers all. You know the propaganda. But now, the tragedy has set in.

    A youth leader, meeting with his group on a Sunday evening, is discussing with the youth of the Church the matter of marriage and trying to give them direction. He encourages them to search out the Scriptures with regard to the matter of whom they should seek at the navel. He tells them that they should seek out the Christian youth. One that will support them in their worship, in their attitudes, in their heart relationships with God. He’s a bold man, this day. Two weeks later, there is no reason. It’s a heartless fault, I know that, especially in our day of liberty and freedom, to guarantee the Constitution and human rights. I know this is hard language. This is heartless fault.

    But first of all, we have to recognize that the Church given him the ability to do this, In fact, we only marry because we’ve been granted that right by the state. And because the state grants the Church the right to marry, that we marry. Even in ancient Israel, marriages were not Church services. They were not Church weddings, they were civil ceremonies. But in our day and age, because of the development of the Church in Western and Eastern societies, we now have the privilege to be proud of a state, to offer marriage, but to whom?

    To anyone who comes knocking on our door? How many times did my first pastor, in a small community, I would get up from the dinner table to answer the phone or to answer a knock at the door, And there’d be a young man or a young woman standing there, or someone like that on the other end of the phone, walking me to perform a ceremony for me.

    Who were they? I didn’t know. Where did they come from? I didn’t know. Were they Christians? Well, yeah, they were Christians. And when I would question them more deeply on that matter, they could not dig in this patient’s face. They did not understand the grace of God in Jesus’ presence. It was evident that they were not Christians at all. And yet, they wanted a marriage through Church. They thought that they were deserving of the blessing of the Church in their youth, even though they did not recognize Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

    Now, this is the age of honesty, is it not? This is the age in which we’re all putting off our hypocrisy, is it not? Why should we, if we are not Christians, want a Church of prayer? Why should we stand in the Church and ask that we have Christ’s blessing pronounced upon us in our union if we have no love within this Church to begin with? It really doesn’t make much sense, does it?

    But I know the thoughts that go through our heads. Church weddings are so pretty. I love the sound of the organ. My sister had a church organ. I want you to know that it is your pastor that they should have conviction. And unless a couple can give me convincing testimony with regard to their relationship to Jesus Christ, I will not support them. We should be encouraging today our children to make professional faith in Jesus Christ, to come to a knowledge of the truth, So that in future years, when we’re faced with embarrassing circumstances, we’re not in the position of being outraged because we were denied what we felt was a legitimate service on the part of the Church as a Catholic Latter-day Saint.

    I think that there’s a public space, and so there are people trying to convey this to me. Hey, don’t worry about it. I think that there, in conclusion, I’d like to speak about another matter that is somewhat related. And this is a sermon in itself, but I just want to briefly mention it because I have been asked about it by a number of the people in this church. I read this section from 1 Corinthians 7 today, not simply because it’s the most confusing passage of the whole Bible, but because, as well, it sets priorities. And it not only sets priorities for people who are thinking about marriage, and for married couples, but it sets wonderfully priorities for people who are single.

    And that’s why I want to speak about this matter this morning in conclusion, as an extension of what I’ve already said in regards to them. I don’t think our modern society, nor our Church, especially the Protestant Church, understands what Paul is speaking about in 1 Corinthians 7. The reason they don’t is because they have an inadequate view of heaven. Paul encourages these three entities to take upon themselves, or to assume the condition that he himself is experiencing, to remain as he is.

    He is famous. He thinks that that’s the best state. And he does. Why? It’s not because if you’re single you can give all your time to the church. It’s because of what Jesus has said in Matthew 22. You might want to look at that. In Matthew 22, Jesus gives us an argument. Yes, Jesus argues. Jesus gets into an argument with the Sadducees, and the Sadducees in the letter call him to leave the resurrection. And they put him in this precocious situation.

    They say, Teacher, Moses said in verse 24, this is Matthew 22, verse 24, If a man dies having no children, his brother that makes his kin shall marry his wife, and raise up an offspring for his brother. Now, there were seven brothers in this, and the first married and died, and having no offspring, left his wife and his brothers.

    So also the second, third, and the seventh. And last of all, the woman died. Now, verse 48, this great conclusion. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven shall she be? For they all have it. But Jesus answered and said to them, you are mistaken, not understanding, or not seeing, not seeing the scriptures, or the power, sovereignty of God, themes of sovereignty and seeing, again brought together by Jesus. For in the resurrection, They neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are wife to angels and angels.”

    Do you understand the argument of Paul now? The single person among us is privileged, and that person is treated as privileged with the utmost respect. Why? Because that person, even today, is a picture of the final state in heaven. A picture of resurrection and heaven on earth. Don’t you any longer allow yourself to look down on a new person who is going to the same place. You give them a special place, and you see in them the sermon that eloquently comes forth from them, that they truly picture to us today of the eternal state. That’s why their condition is best among us.

    Our Father in Heaven, we ask you that you would teach us about this very difficult matter of marriage. That you might help us to understand, that you might demonstrate to us all the worth in our relationships with our husbands and our wives. And we pray, Father, that you could really Since we are in a state where we believe in Our Lady’s presence, we ask You to be gracious to us, and that You inspire the words of Your love to bring about a wonderful reconciliation in Christ. Amen. We pray, Father, that the position of the Church might become ever more clear to the settlers, and that in this church we might not become outraged when our pastor is constrained by the principles of the Word to do things which we disagree. We pray that the Lord that we might understand and begin to prepare our children for the days to come. so that they might make confession of same-self, and that they might begin to develop within them those attitudes and perspectives that will help and encourage them in choosing a mate. We pray, as well, that You might encourage our cleansing and our respect and our love for those who are sinless, and that we might see in them today a glimpse of eternity. and that we might rejoice in their ministry among us, and how they and their persons are help and servants to us of this very day. Do forgive us of our sins, keep us from evil, guard our way, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Barred from the Tree of Life

    Barred from the Tree of Life

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 22, 1978.

    About this sermon

    Genesis 3 sets Adam before and after his sin side by side, and its concrete geography grounds original sin and total depravity. God bars Adam and Eve from the Tree of Life, and he reverses that barring only because in the New Testament we stand, geographically speaking, in Christ himself.

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    Sermon transcript

    In all honesty, it’s a lonely, lonely place. In all honesty, it’s a desert in the heart. Although this is home, a place of illusion. In all honesty, even though you courageously hold that you were meant for the living, We were meant to drool, yet thinking that drooling to our hands would be how we went to sleep, still. Making something that is never meant to be. We have heard of the tales of cows, It was supposed to be that we, dwelling with God, would be a certain peace when a sanctuary is established by Him. Don’t you think that was hell?

    It started long before the Garden of Death started, because it was a sanctuary, and it’s a view of it that’s fine. The beginning of Genesis 2, verse 4, to the end of the fourth chapter is geography. This is great. This will not make it. The Lord has a kingdom in stone, and it has to be full. Here we are concerned with topography, biblical topography. of theology, of theology, and of grace.

    And we understand what goes on in the Buddhist religious chapters, and we must understand them in terms of themselves. In this place, man wants to live life. in harmony with the world which God has made and pronounced good. Then, having that great gravity of vision, so that we’re enabled by the Spirit to understand things from the inside and out, to be able to look from the animal that God has made, at the animal that God brought to him, at which they will intuitively understand them by the Spirit, to understand them in their essence, from the inside out, so that with mind and with eye, never stop with the flesh. To live them according to the Spirit. and seeing the woman’s naked form in particular, brought to him now by his father-in-law and understanding her and saving her, so that his eye never stops with the flesh, and nakedness is never the product, because he sees her from the inside out. from the perspective of the spirit, and from the perspective of those things which are eternal and relaxed.

    He sees that way too. Enter enters him. Him comes walking that vision, so that now, without the spirit, visions end with the flesh. He’s the first to go. He succumbs. And now you see Her Lord as standing before Her. He’s falling, Him not. He sees. He sees clearly what He is, and He sees Her from the inside out. He sees what he has become by virtue of her disobedience, and he is faced with a choice.

    Will he choose that which he sees all too clearly now? Will he choose that wickedness, that evil, that perversity that is now so evident to him, which he sees? Or will he persevere in the spirit and come to her? What would be for her herself? Can the sin be false? Can it be false? Because he would rather the life be the pleasures of sin and the peace of heaven than give up his life for her.

    That he will not do. This man will not die where he’s from. This thing, though you might be lost in between with what you consider it is, it is. This thing is monumental. It is a monumental act of selfishness, of self-denial. and their sins. What does the Bible teach us about sin, first of all? I hear that sin is a universal disease. Is that true? Is there anyone here this morning that can prove that it isn’t? Would you like to state? I’m sure we would all like to see.

    The Bible teaches us that sin is a universal disease. Paul, quoting from the Old Testament in Romans 3, speaks about the beautiful condition of men and women with regard to relationship. There is not relationship, no, not one. After roughing off the number of verses quoted in the Old Testament, Paul has this biting conclusion, for we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. That is our condition. We are all sinners. We’ve been born into it. It is our condition since the fall. We come to call this. Maybe there’s no right or wrong. We come to call it original sin, something that might be different today. Well, an original sin is not the kind that causes us to comment, why? What is an original sin? That’s why.

    Original sin is that sin which we have inherited from our father, and We are not innocent. We are not innocent even in our birth. You might want to note, Psalm 51, verse 5, David says this, Before I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. And even if I am a covenant child, even if I am born of believing parents, born into the Church, a child of the Church, I am not innocent.

    My nature is sinful. And the guilt complex for which I suffer is not something that I’ve acquired. I was born with it. And this guilt complex is not some sort of psychological or sociological hangover from the age of the Puritan. I have a guilt complex because I am guilty. You feel guilty because you are guilty before God. The law has been broken on this regard.

    I think it seems like a good story that the psychiatrist was trying to handle a young man who didn’t have a lot of self-confidence. to the man, and he says, I think I’m suffering from an inferiority complex. And the psychiatrist responds, you’re not suffering from an inferiority complex, you are inferior. So I’ve said, no original, no weird, boring, easily did something that was always a choice as well.

    We think of these rather disturbing passages concerning the nature of our heart in each direction, particularly Jeremiah 17, verse 5. A verse that possibly some of you have memorized, though hard, is more deceitful than all else, and is definitely sick. Please understand the depths of that verse. It is a statement on the depth.

    The year in which our actual sins the actual sins on top of the sin with which we are born, these sins which are a matter of choice, so that I’m a sinner not just simply because I was born into it, I’m a sinner because I’ve chosen that direction. I continue to choose.

    This introduces us into the doctrine of what theologians have called total brutality. But what does this mean for us to say that we are totally betrayed? Does it mean that we’re as bad as we can be? It means that every aspect of our being has been affected by sins, and it will be the end.

    It’s not that I confide in myself now, thinking that there are certain compartments of my being that have gone the direction of hell, but yet there’s that one part of me that’s still acclaiming God. In contemporary theologians, even among those who are conservative, there is the claim that my mind has been dispersed, so that in making appeals, proper appeals can be made to me by my mind. And we do it. We are totally affected by action, and totally unable to let go. The consequences are well known to you.

    In a verse that you know by heart, Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is what? Death. and trying to bring together what the Bible teaches about sin. It’s original, it’s actual, it’s consequent in death. But what does this passage teach us about sin? Remember the theme. The theme is geography. The theme is topography. the theology of the slave, so that that being now will begin to discover for us exactly what Moses was and was not by the Spirit, the existence of the Spirit.

    Sin, in terms of place, in terms of geography, means separation. Separation. It is a separation that occurs socially between people, here, husbands, and the wife, who now know one another only after the fact, and not before the experience. One is now multiplying in their experience, is the substituent. Doubt with regard to one another’s intentions. Pride, disappointment, and shame, rebel, cowardice, tragedy. false barriers must be pulled to it.

    The barriers that now are necessary because of sin must protect ourselves, we have to. So it’s not just merely a separation from one another, it’s a separation, you see, as well from God. God is here walking in the gardens at the cool of the day, and man is in the manifestation of God, an actual theophany. Man is hiding himself from God.

    A separation from self, a separation that happens inside of ourselves, in that now what is true Of us is that we are liars at heart. At one time, we were those who were fashioned after the image of God, but now the arch-liar has appeared on the scene, and we have begun to be fashioned after him and in his image. He’s the liar and the deceiver, and now we find ourselves to be lying, and that lie is something that divides us internally. And the other side of the lie now is that we begin to justify ourselves by root of the lie. Self-justification as why we begin to take on the characteristics of Satan rather than God. Division socially, division from God, division internally. and separation with Jesus from the paradise of God in this world.

    The question that God asks, calling out to the human faculty is, where are you? I’ve known everything except God didn’t know where they were. He wasn’t asking for latitude and longitude. He was asking, consider your situation. Consider where you are and where you have placed yourself. Because others can.

    This is the place now that can no longer be called home, in which that relationship that first existed between Adam and God no longer exists. It’s no longer, you see, a relationship between the father God and his son Adam. It can no longer be called that kind of a mode. It’s no longer a domain in which Adam is placed as a prince to rule under the sovereignty of his God. It’s no longer a place in which Adam can walk as a priest living in a consecrated fashion under his God in their sanctuary.

    Rather, it is now become a place of judgment, a judgment upon yours and upon them, a place of misery and pain and futility, a place of death. This place is no longer a place of blessing. It’s a graveyard in which everybody wastes their time. It is a place in which there is no longer human life. There is death and living, pain, evil, and despair. Just in doing good for the rest of my life. Supermarket music. Wonderful little romantic tables, and I can only tell there’s water in the movies. This is the place in which to do it. That’s God. Not the law.

    The magic finger is what it is. their sins abound with much more. What we’ve been trying to say all this time is, see, this is how the creation is living from the perspective of redemption. These Moses with the children on the other side of the Red Sea, they are the ones who are now recounting their origins. and declaring himself to be one who has always been, not just simply a god of judgment that Not just a God who judges with a thunderful cry out, but a God of mercy and loving-kindness.

    This is what He’s always been, as He creates Himself in the Testimony Village, for there He has subjected Himself to the purpose of creation. Why do we have what David fell here in the first chapter of Genesis? What is its purpose? What is it that it teaches? It teaches us that God Himself has made Himself subjective and subjecting Himself to the currents of His creation. You live in the seventh day, He’s subjecting Himself to the seventh day. The world that you experience, He experiences. And experiences before you experience. And he did it because he loved Him. He loved His creation. That’s why. Why is it that we get the idea that the God of the Old Testament is only a God that comes in from finance and shows His grace and mercy?

    It is about time that we as Christians, even in the quickest of missions and moments, are able to look back upon the even beginnings of the story of His people and redemption history, and see there that our God is a God of mercy and a God of love. God subjected Himself to the terms of creation by walking in the God-given tools of creation, God comes as the pastor, the first pastor. Is there needed now a model for pastors? Why don’t people start talking to God instead of Billy Grayson? There is a model. God comes speaking. Come to the Father, and have mercy on me. He is the Father, and he speaks. And those threatening and guiding humans promise.

    And he gives promise to that first sinful thing. And yet, he’s weak on both ends. for he knows that the coverings with which they have clothed themselves are not worth anything. And when Adam then expressed his thanks, his thanks by calling T, Eve, named her name, that it’s still proposed that she is to be the mother of all things, then, in response to that thanks, God clothes them. As he did, ultimately, in Jesus’ Christ, for those who trust in Him. He percepts that another God is as well. Notice the end of the third chapter of Genesis.

    One of the amazing pictures it is, here is God’s picture with His hosts in heaven, speaking then to them about the condition of Adam and Eve, and split off in the middle of the sentence, because the situation is so urgent. There’s twice this. Why? You’ve come to think about the bars and the layers of the divine component, an indication of God’s severity and judgment. It’s more than that. It’s an indication that it’s love and mercy. Why? Don’t you see why?

    If Adam and Eve now understand the age of the tree of life and live forever, then we live forever too. And if the age of the tree of life, even those that are produced by Adam and Eve, will not die. How else is possible then to be saved from the dark? Must the will to see the light require the ability to see the light? Because there is no light.

    This place, this place in which you live, is a cursed place. That’s true. It’s a place filled with sin and ugliness and wickedness and diversity. Don’t shut your eyes to it. Don’t turn to a fact that it’s pretending it doesn’t exist, and it’s not there. It does exist. It is there.

    But know for certain that even though this is a first place, a sinful world, that it is well-placed for the God who is seen and heard. A place where God’s great love is observed and present through Jesus Christ. And if we trust God, we have a new place to live in. Where are you? The resounding answer of the New Testament in response to this question in regard is simply, in Christ. That’s where I am.

    For we know that wherever the law stands, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed. All the world is not accountable to God, because by the words of the law, no flesh shall be justified in this judgment, for through the law comes the knowledge of the Spirit. Now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God can manifest its meaning within the style of law and suffering, because the righteousness of God is based in Christ Jesus, for all those who believe. So there is no division. For all that sin and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift of His grace, truly energetic, and she is in Christ as He is.

    I’m going to read it. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

    He was seen clearly now by His Spirit. The masses of them seemingly ran from Him and unified out into the perspective of His Son. This only because of the mercy that Jesus Christ now awarded Him. By Your mighty power, You have praised us in His name.

    You have given up the right to speak. You know rightfully. We knew completely and done because of our sins. We, who were addressed by the question, where are you, had to answer in all sincerity, we don’t know. But now we do. There’s only no right to it. My whole father believed in paramaritality. All of the resources that you provide is currently in his hands.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Magnitude of Adam’s Sin

    The Magnitude of Adam’s Sin

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 15, 1978.

    About this sermon

    Scripture resists any easy division between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ sins, and God never authors temptation, as Christ’s own temptation in Matthew 4:5-7 shows. Adam’s sin is far graver than we tend to admit, and that is why Christ’s success on our behalf matters so much.

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    Sermon transcript

    There is a faculty of all kinds, including science theory and education, through a high school of theory, to administration, and yes, to his birthright. because it seems that he had no power against sexual temptation. Not only was there confusion in the temptation, but there was confusion in his prayer. And in his dilemma, that very unbelieving belief that God was closely with him, He said, how unmercifully God is willing to do that, and how the Father God is yet in temptation, and yet in grief.

    How He should do for us to come to Him by a back-bone voice. There are these debilitating sins—not of ritual intelligence, but those kinds of sins that creep up on us, not the kinds we seek out, not the kinds we look for. The time that creeps up on us, that takes us unaware, is time. God is grandmother, a will, who devotes herself in good work, thanks to prayer, and who, after a particularly wonderful time in prayer, finds herself in conversation with her neighbor, and in the midst of a character assassination with her own son. Find yourself there before even realizing what is taking place.

    The unimportant things, the things that are unimportant in our eyes, because they’re so small, and certainly God can’t be so small as to be concerned with them. What does it matter to Him that I put Him on my debt account and owe Him a loan, simply so that I can raise money from the bank? What does it matter to Him that I am helping to support my family? In my spare time, I’m wheeling and wheeling in the neighborhood. There’s no record of my encounters, no keeping track of it.

    You can’t be a priest if you’ve got at least $1,000 worth of unreported tears in your eye. You’ve got to have faith and confidence to be a priest, to be able to be a priest. five feet above our skin in the precipices of time to begin. Then there are our drastic reactions to sin.

    Ah, very good. No response in this division. You’re the one that made me die at the coming of this world. Really, Mary, this is setting none other than wonder. Powerful and solid, and obviously, you’re the most responsible for this being in this existence. If there’s anything chivalrous, offensive in the service of beauty, it’s not to take the pain of death.

    I’m trying to give a certificate of power, but because we are convinced that we didn’t have the ability to extend, we start praying to ourselves, well, let me just, anyway, I’ll extend again tomorrow, and I’ll probably do the same thing, but I just won’t. There’s nothing more there than self-care. This is self-care.

    Knowing God’s holy writings and calculating the facts and tactics and how a person can get out of those things, that’s how a man is made human. We take Luther’s advice to be true. Luther told us to be bold with it. Then he would try to be bold with it, and that’s great. That’s how I read it. And then Luther, he doesn’t preach on it, but I will continue to preach about it soon. You think that a blind man is a virgin. Yes, but he may just be at a cross, but he can still be a Christian if he’s a virgin and he’s right.

    Necessary, I think, for us to get a little bit excited in that, regardless of his natural instinct and temptation, And it might be well worth a look at a few passages. Let’s look at his name, Jasper Morgan. But they tell us that we always have to have a campaign, and that makes a lot of sense to all of us, that the author is not the author of the campaign speech, and that we should at least have that go internally fixed in our minds. For as well, the lesson is that if a man perseveres under strife, notice the use of strife in the fact of his work. For once he has been approved, will the future sound wise towards those who love him?

    Let no one say with his tempted eye that he is tempted by God. God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself cannot tempt anyone. of each one, and tension can be carried away when the body holds up. And when one has continued to disperse the skin, and when the skin accomplishes its aim for death, do not be confused by the other. That’s it. But here are two things that are strange.

    God is not the author of temptation. We are not tempted by Him, and He does not put the blame in that temptation, nor our humbling unto Him. It shows no benefit for a sentient being. In temptation, God is not working against us, but in His mercy He’s working for us.

    For notice, He always says in the verse 13, no temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man, and God is faithful. who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but in your temptation will provide a way for you also that you may be able to endure it.

    Thus, sovereignty and mercy is displayed itself kindly even in the temptation, if we by the Spirit can discern them. It is God who is powerful, and who is powerful in that temptation, living in his power. So that being my thought, he’s always on the mind. A great blessing is this, for it is Joseph, the Lord’s captain. And there we find that Satan, in his temptation of Joseph, He is not limited with his power as he was with you, but he is limited with my power. By God’s power, he can change that. That’s his power.

    A third thing that we need is grace. In addition to the fact that God is not an office of creation, in addition to the fact that God, even in that case, is the exercising power of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the first thing to do is that you must always maintain that attention as God.

    Temptation is something that arises from Satan, and it is something that is furthered by our own lust, but quietly, quietly something is done. In fact, the Scripture teaches us that it is God’s right to choose that path. And in the midst of that trial, the evidence of progress and the evidence of endurance is the lack of complaint against God for putting you there in the first place.

    That’s one of the great lessons given in the words of the Pentecost of Matthew 4. The specialty of the Second Catechism is something that might include us. If we aren’t sensitive to what is going on, we only take the text Christ as its cause, verse 5.

    Then the devil proclaimed to the holy city, and to you on the table of the temple, and said to you, if you are with the Son of God, throw yourself down before His presence, He will be the name of Christ and serve you. And on your hands, there was a very large, I think it was a striking point, there was a stone, Jesus said to them, on the other hand, he said to them, you shall not put forward your God to the temple. What’s the point? What’s the fulcrum?

    The fulcrum of Satan’s power in temptation. Jesus is the son of God who finds himself in the division, there in the wilderness of trial. Jesus is being tried by His Father, and He’s been driven out of the world in a fiery spirit. What Satan is suggesting is, He is a trial. He’s a demon. He’s a trial. You shouldn’t be out here in the place of trial. You shouldn’t be on trial. The damnation, then, you see, for Satan is to reverse the whole situation, so that it is no longer the problem of nonviolence at all.

    We see the principle of Solomon for the trouble he was faced with, I believe, and even has been received by the youth of Christianity. His life, you see, is for the sons. His life is for the sons, to be on God. And in the midst of that place of trial, our response as sons is not to be the weight against God who has placed us there. to begin to question God’s right to keep a court on the throne, but to question that right is to put God at risk. What right have you, God, to put me at risk? in the world.

    Before this son, spoken of here and back before, there was another son. The son was a Christian, whom God had called to serve salvation. He was in the wilderness. And there, at the point of time, there is a book of God, and a living God, and a returning God. We must learn to change the experiences of our lives in the God who tries us, in the heat of hell. Think about it for a second. How many times do you notice that the factors are not the ones you need? Go into the details of the factors. You know that.

    If I could analyze the gifts, first of all, theologically, and secondly, psychologically, I think you can allow things to align out of the text. That would be a great help to us in this effort. And you’re thinking, what’s the issue with theological freedom in the present? That’s no mystery. I suppose what many of you know is that in 2001, it fell to you right away that the issue is that you want to say something that’s capitalized immediately, capitalized upon immediately by Satan. It’s a mystery.

    Theologically, the issue is the word God, and for that matter, that issue does not change. for the trial in the wilderness of the children Israel, and neither does it change with regard to the trial of the Son in the wilderness of Judea, later, after God has received his redemption. Theologically, the issue is the word of God. Will man live by the word of God alone or not? Is the word of God enough for you?” is that man must live by every service that proceeds out of the life of God. And that is a prohibition. It wasn’t something that was originally intended. He was merely prohibited from doing it. And what should have sustained him in the beginning of his life?

    God’s word is law, and what is law means that it establishes the situation under which we live. It makes demands, and demands upon us that our finding for our present situation, bound by which, beyond which we cannot go, God’s law is His word, and His word is law.

    His word is His law. That’s the value of it. That’s the value. So he’s noting that. God’s word and law is also sanctioned. Word and stipulation is sanctioned, and you declare to us with certainty what will surely come to pass if we violate that law. that God’s Word sets the values of your life, and that God’s Word tells you that there is a result that surely comes to pass. I give you my blessing.

    For me, as a Catholic, I have been working philosophically for years in this life, more or less some hundred years. I have been inspected by the Catholic reptile community. For a contemporary Canadian man, for a vicious world to perform its part. They call you a doer with a guilty heart. That’s all I have. That’s all I have. There’s a progression. And I think that progression is really what I’m doing, talking about the conception of what?

    Can the person see it that way? Who? First, Those who may not be conscious of it, there is this question. And how cleverly things say they are to begin this assault with the question. First, there is question. There is fighting with regard to the standards that have been set, the words, the law. Is it right? Is it wrong? Is it enough? Will it take care of me? Is it certain?” of God.

    Having disrupted, we disregard God’s Word, and God’s Word is forgotten. How many times do we find ourselves in the remorse of our sins, if having already saying to us, well, why didn’t I think of that scripture? Why didn’t I think of that verse? God is thrust there, comes down as His regard for the Word, and then they, though we may not be fully conscious of it completely, there is developed within us a false sense of independence. in which we, in our words, become a law unto ourselves. we begin to think that we can handle whatever situation that might come. And from that, from that false sense of independence comes a false sense of power in which we believe that we, in some sense, have become divine, that we can touch this evil thing and not be touched by it.

    We can play with it and not deserve it. Living just spells out evil. If you have been blocked to sleep by the power and the evil that are all the day, I have become powerful to it. To the extent that you have even become a Christian, you become a Christian.

    I don’t think there is anything In this world, the price now that illustrates this final point, as well as the prices of material things, can happen or not. So leave here amongst the pictures of the world. Those men have given about the girls, those yes-betters, and I don’t see this way with each of them. Among the college students who are, you know, wide-eyed, who want the world and to offer it. Why not? This is an educational experience. The men who have set up private mail boxes to give to the minister so that their wives don’t know about it, haven’t sent in their business addresses so they don’t, aren’t discovered in their families. For those who are rather open about it, finally, in their families, they wish to notice all of them who are making visits to their neighborhoods. Their shit lies on the coffee table. You see, the tragedy is that people actually believe now that they can oppose themselves to this sort of thing and not fight. We will meet at that place one day. That’s all. And this is not the end. But that’s only when we meet one day. There’s one more thing I have to say to you, and that is that today you are reading a story that warms your heart. It should be part of your afterlife.

    I know that many of us are enthusiastic users of this name, of the writing of Karl Marx. So even then you wouldn’t find it, though. Now, you probably have to ask yourself this question, because oftentimes the rest of the human race, and half of it at least, half over the human race, is kind of placed down, so to speak. Though we think the consequences are great, we think it’s a rather small contribution.

    Now, I want to be very clear about the fact that I am a Christian. And I want you to take the right decision in terms of both of these things. So that I can see the beginning of fear with the light of the truth. And this has to be a theory, a God theory. First of all, the man knows God. And it’s a theory. He knows Him as a theory. Secondly, this man has been given dominion in the earth, power, worship over all of the Distinguishable from the individual is suggesting that he or she is in a relationship. But this is the research effort who is now suggesting that he or she is in a relationship with God.

    You have to find a way for it to be explained to you. And if you are obsessed at betrayal of unity, much more could you be obsessed with betrayal of unity. It goes to say, little suggests that there is even a greater reason for the justly-punishable character of the state. We don’t often take into consideration the time span, the time length between what happened to the woman and what happened to the man. He fell. He was still upright.

    And in His uprightness, as I have tried to suggest to you, He has the perception of seeing through her and seeing now what she is in her essence. And He sees her now as He has become because of her compliance with Satan and her transgression. He sees that clearly. But that’s not all he sees. He also sees his things because of his perspective, because of the great gratitude, because of what he is in his own life, and to remedy for his situation.

    And he must choose between that remedy for him or killing what he’s not. And what he sees in her now is evil, and intimate knowledge is evil, and he wants that for himself. And faced with the decision of whether to become her danger or her compatriot, if he chooses to become her compatriot in sin, he could obtain her cross.

    He was innocent and was outstanding. And this intercession could have saved him. But it didn’t do it. Because it was the end of humanity. This path with so conscious, holy consciousness, holy consciousness, holy consciousness. I have completed my service to God through you, Lord. Praise to you, God. It’s hard to talk about that feeling, but I do have that feeling. You know you can’t hold on. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it.

    You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it.

    You can’t do it. You can’t do it. You can’t do it. We have to consistently and always be aware of it. This is what happens. We do not do it. This is what we are. This is what we are. All of us, great people in the universe, we occupy human and biological space. Our selfishness, our greed, our pride, how wonderful it is to die. What is love? It is my pleasure and desire to die. And while we were meditating, we died. Don’t worry about your religion. Believe in Him, and you will receive sustenance to the end. You must believe Him, and He has made His life possible. We pray this to you.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Marriage as Covenant

    Marriage as Covenant

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 8, 1978.

    About this sermon

    The creation of man and woman is read as fundamentally covenantal, working closely through the nakedness and no shame of Genesis 2:25. Drawing on Matthew 19’s picture of Christ and his bride, marriage carries an eternal intention, with the church itself as the most basic family unit.

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    Sermon transcript

    We have learned that our God has created time and space, but not in such a way as to not be limited. And we have also seen that our God is the one who has entered for the world. has established a place for dwelling, a place for living. And our God is so interested in theocracy that He has made our religion His own.

    In this place that God makes for Himself to dwell in there, Instead, it is not good for man to be alone. Now, it’s important that we understand what God means when He speaks of man being alone. As the Bible indicates, He is the female sex. It wasn’t that God had in mind that all of us were blessed with abundance, happiness, loneliness. It was that God reconsidered this abundance, being, aloneness, and a solitary figure on earth. Instead of that, In reflecting upon this situation, man being solitary in the earth, that he would make for man that which would stand over against man and reflect man. and with whom man then could in this place have infinite knowledge, covenantal knowledge, if you will.

    It is God Himself, you see, who has in man such a counterpart for himself. For over against God stands man, God’s image, God’s origin, with whom God has intimate fellowship and communion. This, then, is the meaning of what God is speaking of when he says that he will make a helper suitable for Adam. for the man. He will make for the man a helper that corresponds to man, that is like man, that reflects man, that is man’s image. The relationship, then, that God bears to man is reflective of the relationship that man bears to woman. As the man is the glory of God, the woman is the glory of man. Now, you might not want to buy that, but it’s not I who says it. In fact, the apostles said it in 3rd Corinthians, Chapter 11, verses 7 to 9. Where is it written? Where is that?

    Woman is the image of man, and man is the image of God. And God, then, is not solitary in this way. that has over against him his image, with whom he has intimate fellowship and communion. So now in this place man has the one who stands over against him. activity in whom he has this covenantal relationship and bondage.

    But before a woman appears, we have God busy with the dust of the earth. not that we’re to understand this biologically. But now you see, God is pictured as the one who is forming the animals and the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky. And God is seen as bringing these creations unto man. And there’s a sidelight to this that we must not hide that. For the beauty of our God in this is so wonderful. You see, it’s God who’s in the Lord in all of this business and displaying His sovereignty even in the forming of the animal.

    And man is viewed as God’s servant. But yet, marvelously, in this activity, the roles are reversed. Is it only in Jesus Christ that God reveals Himself as servant unto man in creation, and in effect makes man Lord? It is not, for even here, this beautiful truth that is so wonderfully displayed in the New Testament and in the person of Jesus Christ, is being seen. It is God who, even here, is making Himself servant to man, to answer the thought that man stands alone in falsehood. His God who acts as shepherd, as herdsman, as servant, bringing the animals to man, as if man was king. And such is the existence of God. So that God even here is thanking himself for his service. So beautiful is our God. And so wonderful. So it’s not out of keeping. When we finally arrive at the new Testament revelation, Then our God should be such a God as to make Himself uncertain. And yet, He does.

    And Adam has the image of God for whom the Godhead functions as a board in the earth. He names the animals, and in this you see Adam even displays a godlike knowledge, for he understands these creatures in their essence, and he names them according to what they are in their essence. He perceives them. As to what they are at their heart, he even has the ability to perceive what they are. He sees the creatures at their heart and in their essence. And in that conceit, he displays the ability to perceive that which his heart is. And he perceives it, and he aims it, and he captures it.

    But in all His activities, He is realized and declared in the Word that the man does not find among these creatures one who requests Him, who is His image, who corresponds to Him, and is His Lord. He does not find here among these animals one with whom he can enter into transcendental knowledge. He does not then lower his disposal, able to make up something The one who knows that work is found in the world, fashions the world. They discern again, to answer, and to celebrate the vision.

    Adam was praying for these three men from whom he had taken a wrist. I’ve always liked Matthew Henley’s discourse on the wrist. God didn’t take a bone from Adam’s skull to suggest that the woman should pour over the man. Nor did he make a moan from the man’s foot to suggest that the woman was someone he trampled underfoot. But he took a rib of the size of Adam to stand with him. And then, so that he then could refrain from it.

    And you know, when Adam awakes, it’s the White Resurrection time. He’s been through the long process of naming these atoms and understanding that there is not one there with whom he can have covenantal knowledge. And he sees awakening now before him the woman. And he says, Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, and he immediately recognizes her for flesh. This is the answer to my solitary condition. This is the one that the West gave as a gift to my Lord. It is woman taken from man. And he’s saying, or he recites a poem.

    And how fitting it is that poetry and song should accompany the lovemaking of man’s heart in every area. It’s not something not something about which men in the full stature of the New Adam should be embarrassed by. It might be a good exercise for some of you men to try and write some poetry celebrating your mother. and not to hide away from the air. Such is his duty.

    He considers himself the first human being. Adamant in having trouble breathing. inner, he finds his health as far as the image and glory, but even now he can have confidential knowledge, so that the act of the confirmation of that covenant is always concerned by knowing, and having new meaning. that she can see. And now you see the text reflects upon the exclusiveness and the intimacy It says, for this cause, for this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall leave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

    This is a unique relationship. It is an exclusive relationship, meant for one man and one woman. It is not something that is to be interrupted by ties from the home that we used to find ourselves in. It is not to be damaged or threatened by those who would come and tempt us to leave to someone else.

    And it is something that is to be characterized by a continual A perpetual abiding in that oneness of the flesh, a oneness that is not to be interrupted, I know that there’s probably been a lot of work done on the last verse of this practice, but let me try to explain it this way. upon what it was that took place when Adam was involved with the animals, and he saw what they were at their essence.

    He perceived in them which was invisible, that which was in them which was invisible to the naked eye. He understood invisible realities that related to them because he saw what they were at their heart and in their essence. And in the name of them He gave testimony to this, and the same thing is taking place with regard to the woman. He names her, and He names her according to what she is in her essence. It is impossible for Adam to stop at the flesh. He sees through it.

    And therefore, patientness is not a problem, for we understand the body in terms of that which is behind it, and that is God, and He is life. The invisible is first, and in terms of the invisible, they understand what they see. So that they can exist is not a problem, because it is impossible for them to start with the flesh and end. They see so much more, and they wiser what they see than anything. They see each other from the perspective of God and His Spirit, and there is no disappointment in what they see. They work. There is no shame.

    How things change. Sin is going away now. to thank God for Jesus Christ who comes establishing, re-establishing the original spirit. That is to say, in Mary, I know that two of the big problems in the Old Testament, as they relate to Mary’s history, are the issues of polygamy and divorce. But you check out and see, Matthew 19, in Jesus’ comment, with regard to divorce, you get a handle on what, in fact, did Jesus Christ say is taking place now that He is alive. His arrival means the reestablishment of the original state with regard to man and woman. No more divorce! None! Because it was never intended to be like that.

    Jesus Christ comes reinstituting the garden back into our experience, and God’s original intention. Jesus Christ comes bringing to an end the days of the living, the holy. As it was in the beginning, so it is now. You can read in discourse, to those who have questions for him on this matter, in Matthew 19, verses 3 through 9. The significance of Jesus Christ is that He comes reinstituting that which was. And that’s the way things are, according to him. Jesus also comes as the new Adam, and he stands like Adam did, as the solitary figure. And Jesus Christ has prepared for him his Lord, his enemy, his body, that which is his counterpart, namely his church.

    And in His Church there is to be no spiritual adultery. And it is individuals who make up this Church, His body, answering Him as if we are the oriented image. We are not to allow ourselves the luxury of licentiousness, whereby we join our body in covenantal unfaithfulness to that which is brought to us by the Lord and everything we do. See, such acts are not a task upon merely an earthly covenantal relationship that we might have with our husband or wife. They are a task upon the covenantal unity between us and Jesus Christ. And if you need proof for that, all you need do is read 1 Corinthians 6. practical matters that are on the mind of all. Matters of men and women’s relationships.

    Jesus Christ comes re-establishing the old order and making it new. And the creation itself is being re-established by what Jesus Christ has done. And this, you see, then, is the ground upon which Paul, then, reflects concerning the relationship between men and women in the Church. Paul is convinced that the Church is the focal point of the recreation of God. And it is this which undergirds him in his approach to the Church.

    What should never be done in the new creation of Jesus Christ, which focuses upon the Church, is that the discourse that interrupted the first one be introduced intermittently. We stand against women teaching in the church, why? Because Jesus only had men disciples? No. We stand against it because we believe that to countermand that is an attack just on isolated passages in Paul’s epistle, but an attack upon our very creation of God. That is the order that is coming to expression in the Church, and that is why Paul forbids the women to speak in the Church, because what happened in the first creation is not to happen in this.

    What more is the practical extent of his inclusion? He was involved in what I feel is lost, a contemporary Christian parricide. And that parricide is And the challenge is the basic social experience and preaching. Peace! That is the challenge. The social music of his faith is of the relationship between God and man. That we see at the church in Perth. The relationship, you see, between God and man is not patterned after the relationship between man and woman, or father and son. It’s just the reverse.

    So that in order to learn how to be a father or a husband, you learn, first of all, God. and he learned it in the assembly of his people, and he takes that home with him, and he studies it with children, and he comforts his parents and loved ones. Stardew.

    So I need you to be thoughtful in the way that you’re going to address the problem. There will be opportunity for discussion this evening. And it is very good if you ask questions about that. Father, we ask you that you might give us instruction as to how to use customs, how to drive, The following phrase might begin where we all begin, this relationship between ourselves and you. May we realize, Lord, that that is our first priority. May we start there and truly learn how to be a father, a mother, a parent, a husband or wife, We pray, our God, that You will give us direction and give Your Spirit to rescue us, that Your Word might be properly spoken, and Your people properly rescued. Christ be all glory. Amen.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Adam the Son, and the Garden of Paradise

    Adam the Son, and the Garden of Paradise

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 1, 1978.

    About this sermon

    God rules over time, and he calls us to use it well. Adam is more than a creature. He is a son, and the garden God gives him anticipates, with real likenesses and differences, the paradise of Revelation 22.

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    Sermon transcript

    Father, you don’t have a right to speak except by your word. You would ask Father to say according to the word, and that you judge our word. Truly, Lord, if we speak not according to your word, we ask that that word might not have blessing. But we ask as well, Father, to speak according to your word. that that word might have its place in our hearts, in our minds, that we might not forget to do the same.

    In his first novel, Look Forward, Angel, A stone, a leaf, an unfound door, a stone, a leaf, a door, and all the forgotten faces. Naked and alone, he came into exile. In her dark womb, we did not know our mother’s face. from the prison of her flesh, having come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth. Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father’s heart? Which of us has not remained forever prisoned then? he is not a stranger and alone. O waste of loss! In the hot mazes lost, among bright stars in this most weary, unbright cinder, lost, remembering speechlessly we speak the great forgotten language, The lost ringed end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an untownful word. Where? Where?”

    Now, it’s not what he said, possibly. And if we had said something similar, it certainly wouldn’t have said it in such a melodramatic way. But nonetheless, it sort of conveys what we’ve all felt at one time or another. And you have to realize something about what was written here. This didn’t come from Anthony Hemingway, drinking and eating with a bureaucrat’s generation. It came from the head of a man living in and writing about America. It was written in 1929.

    And America in 29, it seems, was very depressing to Thomas Wolfe for more than just economic reasons. Wolfe seems to be talking about a lost existence, a lost hope. Only faith is recollected here from the prison of his birth. this most weary, unbright cinder, as he called it. It seems that Woolf was preoccupied with place, location. And to him, something had happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave. But interestingly enough, Genesis 2 verse 4 and following is about place, location. Make you remember what we’ve already said about the opening chapter of Genesis.

    We said it was about time. That’s where the stress was. You know how it started out in the beginning, a phrase speaking about time. Time is emphasized, or if you’re sophisticated, you might call it history. And the more I study the opening chapters of Genesis, the more I am amused by those who tell us that Genesis 1 is poetry and not history. Well, if it is poetry, it’s poetry about history. Time is emphasized. History, if you will. The emphasis continues through the succession of the day. One, two, three, through seven. It all counts. That is meaning.

    And if the theme is time, The grand weapon in Genesis 1 is God’s relationship to time. Now, you should know that the God that you worship is sovereign over time. He is the Lord of the ages. Time does not rule God. Exactly is this God, sovereign over time, that can take the three, four, and ten years of fallen sinful death and turn that into eternity.

    Amen. But you should know also that God is sovereign in you. You see, our God is such that He did not create from a thought, but from within the same time known to you and me. Me. The great God. The great, awesome, and powerful God subjected Himself to the very days of the week that you experience.

    And in that week He teaches you by His grace which is even evident here in the first chapter of Genesis, how to spend your time? Forming, filling, resting. If you’re concerned about the wasting of your time, or the waste state of your life? The answer is not a seminar course. The answer isn’t a book recently published on time efficiency. The answer is God, as revealed in prayer. What did God do to us? And what can I do?

    Another remarkable fact about this opening chapter’s Genesis is that you must realize that before you were called upon for one moment’s time to forge and to build the rest, God had already done it and shown you how in the doing of what we say. Man, then, doesn’t appear on the scene of the world without instruction as to how to live. His model is God. For how has God, in subjecting Himself to the conditions of this world, lived? So should we. Not only does He know our brain, as Paul, one of the great philosophers, But infinitely, this God knows the frame and substance of the reality, the minutiae of the life that we experience.

    And the New Testament tells us that now in Jesus Christ, this God, even those out of sin will believe. Why God doesn’t He compel us in His love, having loved us so first? My love for him is even stranger. Don’t you love him too? Now let’s move on to chapter two.

    You’ve already said that Genesis 2, in all of these thousand places, locations, is a shift of emphasis. And you should understand that this shift is not a contradiction, as many of us believe. For we have been told that, really, Genesis has two amounts of predation. Both arising from separate traditions, each contradictory to the other. That’s not true.

    The perspective is nearly the same. In Genesis 1, it’s as if we were looking through the small end of a telescope, and the vastness of creation was opening up before us, bounded by history and time. What did Genesis do? It’s as if we turn the telescope around and we’re looking to the war again, and everything becomes concentrated now. Very compact. The detail begins to arise. The boundary here is not time but place.

    Well, again, we’re interested more in geography now than history. We are looking at a garden, four feet deep, in a province called Eden. In the garden’s midst are two trees, a tree of life, a tree of knowledge. A river flows from Eden through the garden, yet divides into four tributaries. Phaishon about Babylon, Geom around Uri, Tigris east of Assyria and Ukraine. And then there’s the mention of the valuable natural resources beyond the boundaries of the garden itself.

    This environment is no product of chance any more than man. It certainly is no product of chance either. This environment is the result of God’s active love and neutrality and common expression today. He was not just there, He was here. First, the earth as a whole, and then particularly the sky.

    And this place here was not a position, a location of exile for God. God did not find Himself or discover Himself despairingly a stranger or an alien being here. Neither was this a hostile environment for Him. The world was not at war with its Maker.

    The God of all power displayed in Genesis 1 is revealed now to be the covenant God is with, of His people, in innocent fellowship with His creation. He is the Lord God, not merely Elohim but Yahweh. who overcomes the great distance between Creator and creation by a voluntary condescension on his part, which he envisages to express by way of a covenant. The Lord appears in the world. You heard me. In the creation, the Lord appeared.

    He walks the earth in the cool of the day. He stoops. He gathers the dust. He forms it. He forms it according to the most that arises out of the visible originality, and then when he embraces the form that is made as if breathing it with the holy fist and breathes out life’s breath, man A living soul awakes through the embrace of his God. A child, no, a son. A son in the strong, comforting grasp of his Father. Here in Adam is a beloved son resting upon the breast of his father God.

    And from that position, from that place, he now observes and watches his father God plant a garden, no more than a garden. Watching him build a home. the Father and the Son, a habitation, a place to dwell, a place to dwell here, heaven, after an eternal dwelling of God in heaven. Place here on earth makes sense only in relationship to that. And all places here, if they are places, reflect that place. If they have any existence, That place in heaven is the location to which the Father shall bring His Son, and His Son comes again. Notice the parallel between the places.

    Notice it in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 1 through 3. There’s a tree of life in heaven, and it has its counterparts in the Garden of Eden. There’s a river, a river whose waters are the waters of life in heaven, the waters of which make glad the city of our God. And that river is answered by the river that flows from Eden.

    This place, then, the garden home of the Father from Heaven, and this son of the Father in earth, points beyond itself to a whole yet to come. The earth we house even here, the beginning of the creation, is not a final destination for man. He is on his way somewhere else. But the Lord God is a King, and the heavens are His throne, and the earth is His footstool. And here we have revealed to us the dominion in this place, in the garden.

    It’s a kingdom that’s brought about in which father and son meet. It’s a kingdom in which the king rules, in which he establishes his prince to stand in his stead, a prince to keep and to cultivate the garden. And that prince from that dominion must look out beyond the boundaries of the garden itself and see the riches of the earth, and utilize his God-given talents to bring those gifts to expression and to bring glory to God.

    This prince here in the garden is no flaw unto himself. He is the vassal of the great king and is subjected to every command of the king. And that king is expressing his command in this way, thou shalt not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat of it, you will die. more than a house, more than a kingdom.

    This garden is a sanctuary in which God meets man, and man, face to face with his God, speaks directly to him of his God’s greatness. gives him praise, and moralizes him, and consults him, offering this a consecration to him, a joyful adoration. And as is true of the Bodhi, the cave and the sanctuary point none to the self. So if you see the threat of God when he says that they are prohibited in their disobedience, it speaks of a severing from more than merely a term of pleasantness somewhere beneath. It speaks of a severing from the eternal delights and joys of heaven.

    Maybe today we can hear a lot about getting ourselves back to the garden. In some way, you see, there is a fallacious faith abroad in America that all we need is our better clothes and garments. But don’t you see these are no answer? Even if we could get ourselves back to the garden as a paradise, what good would it do us if we were only to lose it again? We don’t need another paradise here.

    What we need is a home that will be impossible to lose and for which we can never be lost. What we need is the fatherly grace that will not end, that will always be there for his children. And what we need is a kingdom whose light and righteousness shine forth forever, a righteousness that will not fade, a righteousness that will not even be disgraced by our freedom. We need a sanctuary, a sanctuary wherein we again can come face-to-face with God through the living way of Jesus Christ, and there, in Christ, with Him, stand in the presence of our God and declare with all sincerity just what we think of our God.

    Such things we will never see unless we are in Jesus Christ. Do you know that where Jesus Christ is trusted, where Jesus Christ is obeyed, in that place, even now, Those eternal things already begin to appear. So many more than just merely possible have not seen such things. The serpent’s touch in the garden now becomes the serpent’s bite. His venom is bitterness against tolerance and the God he is. His venom is blindness, not just in imperative sin, But sin, which I keep telling you, is the cause of blindness because of sin, or the cause of blindness.

    In the Father’s house, there is healing. And marvelously, the father has sent out an elder brother into the foreign country to look for the lost child and the lost son. He has laid the skin of the lost son upon the elder brother. And by the way of the older brother, Sons and daughters of the Lord. What you look up and see and understand, what you come to know.

    Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Your Name. the Bible of your compassion to the complete Lord living in the place where we live. And, Father, it is by Your power that that place shall be stirred and even transformed. And, dear Father, in the place where we live, You are calling to us and pointing to us for the eventual destination of all those who are called by Him. The life at the end of the journey will look like our final destination, our home, in the presence of Him in this day. Living for those things which are eternal. We pray this in Jesus’ name.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • God Submits Himself to Time

    God Submits Himself to Time

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 3, 1977.

    About this sermon

    Some modern seminaries treat the Bible as too complex for ordinary believers, but Genesis 1 and 2 speak plainly about time and space. God rules over time and still submits to it, and that exposes our own idolatry of time and points toward an eternal sabbath.

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    Sermon transcript

    how a father is certain to understand that if there is a word in the world that gives life, it is your word. A father is the one who gives up his money, it is your word, and they show that it is situated and incarnate. So, Father, in raising Your Word to the understanding of the ways in which Jesus Christ can be respected, and as we would obey our Savior Christ, may we listen attentively and obey Your Word. We pray this for Jesus’ sake. Amen. Now, it’s true that at the turn of the century, biblical interpretations and those who were engaged in it turned into a secret flow.

    So secretly, the kind of things that you learned in the seminary, the kind of things that you were taught in the schools of religion, you couldn’t tell your congregation. And one of the reasons why, not the whole reason, but one of the reasons why you couldn’t tell them was because they were just too ignorant to understand. I’m not going to treat you as if you’re ignorant. And I’m not going to allow you to tell yourself, sure, that you can finish. that somehow your mind has always worked best in those years.

    Now, I’m not afraid to tell you the things that were said about your Bible. And when I tell you the things that were said about your Bible, I really believe that you can comprehend it and understand it and that you will be all the better for it, period. And that you will know more adequately than ever before why you believe what you believe. Why your Bible is entrusted. You know what they were saying?

    They were saying that as Genesis opens up, we have two accounts of creation. Not accounts that were then complementary. Not accounts that were viewing the same event from a different aspect or perspective. to two entirely different towns of our world today. Placed side by side in this picture, representative of various traditions that have been nurtured through the centuries. eventually came to their final form and were recorded, as you have them, in your mind. And therefore, as we start reading in Genesis 2 verse 4, about the generations of the heavens and earth, You can understand that as a different description of how the world started.

    This time, man was created before vegetation and before animal life. And that certainly contradicts what we learned from Genesis 1. For Genesis 1, the vegetation came in, was created on the third day. The animal kingdoms later on, but prior to the creation of man on the sixth day.

    Now, I am not suggesting to you that this is an easy question or an easy problem, but I am going to assert to you that the Bible does not contradict itself. and that these people who are responsible for this world are not such people, and think that one story, way behind five others, could not in time come to the truth of both of these discussions, and that they will even begin to judge whether or not words are trusted in a text. My task this morning for you is to describe a little more deeply the intention of Genesis 1. The Lord has set the stage for Genesis 2. You might notice as you read through Genesis 1 that there are certain things that are pretty clear.

    And it appears, at least to me, that a predominant theme, if not the predominant theme, is time. Time plays the major role in Genesis 1, and very conveniently, Genesis 1 begins by expressing itself in time with the words, in the beginning, over against time, which plays the dominant major role, is place, location, space, which plays the minor role.

    And I might suggest to you that that is going to be reversed when we come to Chapter Two. And that will give you a feel, in a sense, of the direction that I’m going. This account of Genesis 1 is specific with regard to time, and that requires an emphasis on the sequence of the days. Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc., up to the seventh day. But it is general with regard to geography, location, and space. The theme is time, if you will. The theme is history. That’s the theme. Time and history in relationship to God. Yes, God. And then. And if you want to be strictly homiletical about it and practical, If you want to talk about things in a very, very practical fashion, you might say that this chapter is a lesson in the use of time and the use of history.

    And it’s a lesson taught by God Himself. And God, in teaching this lesson about history and time, is not teaching it as if He was an ivory-powered professor, but as one who is involved in the midst of time. For our God teaches us surely by His Word, but He teaches us also by His example.

    In order to teach us about Christ’s youth and history, God has brought Himself within the confines and the dimensions of history. He plays out His role in the days which He Himself is responsible for. And by his consubstantiation, he is naming himself in addition to being ruled by them.

    What does this suggest about the relationship between time, history, youth, and God? First of all, it teaches us that God is sovereign over time, for time and history are creatures of God and owe their existence to Him. He is responsible for time. Time does not create God. God is sovereign over time, not only in creating it by indirecting it. God is sovereign over history.

    And in looking at this, what we should glean from it is great respect for God’s power. For in speaking of God’s poverty over time, something that we don’t have, our attention is called to God’s power. He makes us fear. He is powerful. This is something very hard to fear, even in the first chapter of the Bible.

    With regard to your God, to you He does. This God who is sovereign over time, and apart from time in His essence, is that well sovereign in time, in history? And here being spoke of, you see, is not just merely God’s power, but at the very foundation of the earth, God’s law. For God has brought himself at the very beginning within the dimensions of that which He has created.

    And this, even at this point, is speaking of God’s condescension and His covenantal emptying and love of the path of His birth. Genesis 1 can be a message and a lesson on God’s love, as well as His power. It’s great to give this talk to you. It has been great.

    But you see, God has in His love submitted Himself to time, to the days for which He is responsible, and to the turning of His creation. This love, already at work in creation, will, in the fullness of time, display itself supremely in Jesus Christ, and God demonstrates that love in the world so much. And it is that we see this bond of love between creation and salvation that enables New Testament writers to see at the very heart of creation the person of Jesus Christ, for it is by a similar act of condescension on God’s part that He Himself becomes incarnate flesh, dwells among us, and performs His mighty work of redemption. And then, from the perspective of redemption, those New Testament saints reflect upon creation itself, and they can see in creation that, yes, Jesus Christ is the one who is at work in God’s creation, and Jesus Christ is the one for whom all things were made.

    We and our sins now are given in respect of our creation, not redemption. There’s no difference, no longer a curse left for us. There’s on the other side of the Red Sea that Moses writes about creation. There’s on the other side of your Red Sea that you understand the things that you do. to invite Jesus Christ to be with himself for a moment of time, and offer this to him. But what about time and man, who spoke of coming of God, But what about time and man? We should not allow ourselves to ever think that time, history, is itself as a feature, as something that was created and made by God. We should never allow ourselves to think that time is God. and who serve time as if they were a deity of some sort.

    You know, the Egyptians worshipped and served time. They noticed that the Nile River overflows banks every year, so they started worshipping the Nile. The Greeks worshipped time. They observed the seasons, and they thought then that time itself was endless, eternal, if you would. And they began to serve time as if it were a being in their religion, and they deified the aspects of nature and time in a cyclical movement.

    We can serve time as if it were an object. We can even take an aspect of time, or one period of time in our life, and glorify it completely out of perspective, and treat it as if we had a life all of its own, and as if we, at all times, actually fall down in front of it.

    Do you know what time-line is? the pulse of a movie. You should learn that time is not God. And we should also learn that if this being made of time history, the time is not imminent. Sometimes we think it is, don’t we? Time is running out. We Americans are famous. for viewing time as an enemy and visibly go to extreme lengths to stage time and become incredibly ambitious. What characterizes American life in terms of time is that there is not enough of it. There’s too little time. There’s not enough to get done what I need to get done, and it produces a state of frenzy.

    And if he had been God, he would have made the day with four hours in, and a week with at least another day. You know, I think of that poem by Stephen Hinton, the mayor of the Western Tribes. And it’s a story of a soldier, a soldier born, and his family travels across the plains, moving west. And a little child dies in the middle of the desert.

    The ground is frozen. And the mayor’s line is, There is no time to grieve now. There is no time. There is only time to waver in the cold winter. I have an ultimate description of American life. And some of us think that there’s too much time. I mean, there’s too much time between here and then. And you develop that, or I would say overdevelop that wonderful characterism that plays with all indications. That day and time is viewed as an enemy, something that is calculated to stand against us.

    But positively, out of this chapter, we should learn that time is something that is God-filled, and because it is God-filled, it’s going somewhere. It has direction and a destination within belief itself, as recorded in Genesis 1, creation moves toward its crown towards man, who is God’s image, who in time will come to act with a similar sovereignty like unto God in time. But that action of sovereignty in time by man who gives God’s image will also be tempered by that other aspect, so that that sovereignty will never be unchecked power, but rather it will be something that demonstrates that not only is God a God of power, but a God of law. So that in order for me to be a preacher in God’s image, I must labor with that sovereignty laid upon me by God, but that sovereignty and power must as well be checked by law in my relationship to everything there is.” Because time is not filled, it is moving towards fulfillment. History is moving to culmination and fulfillment. It does happen. It’s a steady thing.

    What a beautiful day it is. the day in which all the tongues of the Lord and all the hosts cried to Him, the day in which even the rocks, those rocks that were along the road that went to Jerusalem, that Jesus passed, On Holy Sunday, the rocks and stones dry out, the trees may peel, and even the seeds lift up their leaves in acclamation of the greatness of our God. Celebration of God in the midst of His Holy and All-Holy Moses, praising Him, and God Himself leading the choir.

    But because I am God, then it points beyond himself to God himself and to a day that has no end. For you will notice, as I have pointed out to you often, that the Sabbath day, according to you, Chapter 2 of Genesis, is the only day in which that customary conclusion is not offering an evening and morning worth the seventh day of the season. The seventh day is only the beginning. So that time itself falls beyond itself, the state in which you come everlastingly to enjoy the presence of God. That enjoyment will become interrupted.

    Time, you, the fact that it is God’s will, you cannot be meaningless, and we cannot allow time, then, to become three to four. We cannot commit ourselves to everything that we are justified to not have to do. It is not a difference. It is not a refusal to do things that God has told us to do. And I’ll allow myself, if you even are present physically, to simply stare at you. Time and your time, the days of your life, are God-given. And you are not living to know them.

    But when we use the verse itself and how it was used at the time, it was not fully indicated to me that that was part of the idea. The idea, I thought, was that no less by his action, in use of time. If you want to learn how to live and spend your time, go back to creation and there you will be filled with the things that will build you up in freedom.

    And in the Old Testament, wisdom is always associated with the discernment of the creation and the discernment of what is most rare. Psalm 90 says, “…O teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” God Himself, before us, has already numbered His days. The lesson is there, not just in hearing about it, but in observing the God who is at work in time to teach you.

    He is providing you an example already of what to do. It’s not as if you appear on the scene of the earth and you sit around on your hands and you say to yourself, I don’t know what to do with my time. I don’t know what to do with my time.” Get a hold of yourself. Look at your God. By His example, He is already taught you what to do. I’m not quite out of that. Sid has to introduce me to the story, into history, and into time. And you see, that’s the problem with songwriting.

    Because of sin, death is now a reality, and in our own personal history, because of death, we can be cut short in our lives, at least we can think that, and we can fall short of what we think is fulfillment. Listen to the depressing note of Psalm 90 in this regard. “‘As for the days of our years, they are three, four, and ten, or, if by reason of slain force, we’re getting their strength, labor, and sorrow. For we soon cut off and we fly away,’ and listen to this from the King James, “‘for all our days are passed away in thy lap. We spend our years as the tale is told.

    But be assured, doesn’t it come home to you, because God Himself has been at work in that creation from the beginning, and has condescended to the conditions of that creation, that even sin and death is not going to defeat Christ’s fulfillment according to God’s plan? It’s impossible. It can’t happen. God will not abandon His creation, and He certainly will not abandon you.

    So that even in this world now, the hope begins to be expressed, O satisfying in the morning, satisfying early with Thy mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. And then the message comes in the New Testament, Jesus is walking on the road, and He speaks out, the time is fulfilled. And Paul comments that the fullness of time that comes after the law does not remove those who are under the curse of the law. And so now I’m saying, this purpose that is fulfilled and is not destroyed by either sin or death, but Jesus Christ and his identification with the conditions of this world and his people in that world have defeated that sin and overcome that death.

    And you are worth it. The labor of your hands is thereby established and in time. Look at it, and prayer is offered at the conclusion of some time. It may appear at the time that Time itself has a history of going wild, and I don’t like it when it’s rendered in a fractious, powerless way.

    We all make a decision, and in this time, we are schooled in darkness, and in this time, God is working to bring us to this eternal sacrifice, which we shall do with the ferocity of our hearts. Won’t you be meaning to talk? and to begin with new time and new history and life in Jesus Christ, to offer our thanks to the Lord. Now, Father, can we ask you that finally, hopefully, as we rise, that we might be convinced, convinced again, that your love is worth conserving, and that in that work you have given a splendid example. You have looked to do, my father, in understanding our faith, in understanding what we ought to do. Though man is cowardly and arduous, rather than love, warmth, attitude, temper, and expression of his very nature, our God, we would suffer, of course, at last. There have been reviews that the ravages of sin and death have not been able to defeat the plans of God whose purposes it is. They stand firm. Lord, we ask Thee, We ask you, then, in the names of this, that we would learn to number our days and that we would apply our hearts unto wisdom. In the meantime, what do you say?

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • God Rests, and Sets the Pattern

    God Rests, and Sets the Pattern

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 30, 1977.

    About this sermon

    A better translation of Genesis 2:2 opens up its meaning. God rests on the seventh day and preaches, as it were, from his own temple. That day carries eternal qualities, and it sets the pattern for our own rest.

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    Sermon transcript

    About a month ago, I met you at New Day in the middle of the seventh day. We only got halfway through our messages on the seventh day, and we’re going to try this morning to conclude our journey to New Day. But since it was a month ago, I have to subject you to a little review. And I know that many of you knew that was coming.

    The beginning of the second chapter, the first three verses, is a conclusion. A conclusion is who you are. of what began at the outset of our Bible in the first chapter. You recall in the first chapter, the first verse, that verse which you all know by memory, we have a summary, a summary telling us that everything that has been made has been made by God. God has made everything. Then from verse two, we get the divination of how God made what was made, progressing through the sixth day and coming to finality then in the seventh day. Now, if you’re thinking, If you’re keeping score and you’re interested in taking part in a scripture in a literary fashion, you should hold this section as a unit and try to understand it in terms of itself, then of course relating it to the progression of the development of the unfolding of God’s marvelous acts as they continue in their account throughout the entire book of Genesis, and for that matter, throughout the entire first five books of the Old Testament, that section of scripture which we call the Pentateuch.

    This means, then, that verse four begins a new section. And we will consider that verse when we come through that section in time. We see then that this opening of the second chapter is a conclusion. And you might recall that what we find in the middle of the second verse of the second chapter is grandly illiberal.

    Now, that’s difficult, as you can tell by the regulation of the New American Standard Version, for it says, and by the seventh day God completed his work. I believe that the proper translation of that verse is, and on the seventh day God completed his work. You might recall then the problem that we had with this verse. If I was to say to you that I finished mowing the lawn today, you would think from that statement that I at least did some mowing today and finished up the time. It seems then, from the way the verse reads, that God did some work on the seventh day and then stopped. It can read that reading is correct, and on the seventh day God completed his work.

    Now, this was such a problem, as I pointed out to you formerly, for those who were translating the Hebrew Bible into the Greek, that they actually amended the text. They changed the reading from the seventh day to the sixth day because it was incomprehensible for them to think of God working at all on the seventh day. And so writers of what was called the Septuagint read their texts, and on the sixth day God completed His work. God’s reading has surfaced again in our own day, because if you have a New English Bible, you would see that that’s how that translation renders the text. And on the sixth day, God completed His work.

    But what is Moses saying? It isn’t, you see, that Moses wants us to get the idea that God did some work on the seventh day and then stopped. But rather, you see, Moses wants us, by inspiration, to understand that Completion and the seventh day are completely different. He wants us to understand that a creation in six days without the seventh day is incomplete, and it stops short of its goal. That’s what he wants us to understand.

    So that throughout the history of redemption, the idea of God’s rest and completion and the seventh day will be inseparably joined together in those whose minds have been tuned to the tone of Scripture. creation without the seventh day is incomplete. And this concept then of completion is something that is part and parcel of the message throughout the entire Bible. So that we have, in the later books of the New Testament, writings that call to our attention that that completion, that idea of completion, is yet to be realized even amongst the people of God and for creation itself, if you will. And we are approaching the eternal Sabbath of God and the end point, the goal. of all of God’s creative works. Completion and the seventh day. Completion and God’s rest, then, inseparably joined together, speaking volumes to us that work right into the fabric of our being. There is a testimony that we are going somewhere. And that there is purpose. Even the structure of the workday tells us, and the workweek speaks to us of the fact that there is purpose and direction in life. We are mortal some way. And without, you see, the seventh day, the creation is incomplete. And without the eternal rest of God on the other side of this creation, the creation itself is incomplete.

    Those of you who are under heavy trial in your faith should always keep the structure that God has ordained in mind. For that very structure is a testimony to you of God’s eternal purpose. Are you weighted down with the fear that possibly things shall not come to their appointed end? I’m suspicious that maybe God has taken a break and is now unconcerned with his creation, and especially you. As surely as there is a creation, as surely as there are seven days in a week, as surely as there is a God who has given himself a name for which he has described the whole process by calling himself the beginning and the end. So certainly shall you arrive if you endure by more faith as your appointed man. As impossible as it is for you this morning to deny the reality of creation, As impossible as it is for you to deny the reality of time, as impossible as it is for God to deny His own name, so impossible is it for the creation to fall short of its completed end. And you have God’s name to assure you of that. One question. Why do we become so afraid? Why do we give up so easily? Don’t you know that God, who made heaven and earth, loves you? And will send you to heaven. But there’s more.

    The late, great professor of Old Testament at Westminster Seminary, Dr. E.J. Young, has said that there is a connection of this passage that oftentimes slips by us, and we not knowing our Hebrew would be at a disadvantage. But he says that the verse in this statement, in verse 2, we can all pick out verbs, can’t we?

    And on the seventh day, God completed that verse for completeness. And often times, he renders with a declaration, so that this verse might be read this way. And on the seventh day, God began completing His work. At this point, I want your minds to go absolutely blind. Don’t you see the same This Dr. Young’s interpretation of this is proper. In the end, there is a declaratory aspect to what is taking place here in verse two. It means, then, that something very significant is taking place on this, the first of the seven days, the first of the days of the rest of God. The congregation is gathered in verse one. Do you see it?

    And it is God Himself who is standing in the midst of His sanctuary, surrounded by all of His hosts. And it is God on that day who is the preacher in that congregation, and He is declaring to all who are present and to all the hosts in the sanctuary of the universe that His works are completed, and it is a joyous celebration. of all of creation in the completion of God’s words. As He Himself, the Preacher, becoming the Preacher, and I believe becoming the Preacher in visible form in the midst of that poor congregation, to declare the finality of His works. Even here, Jesus Christ is being seen as declaring the completion of God’s works as in visible form. The invisible God is made manifest and is declaring the end of His works.

    What a picture! Not a God removed from His works, but in the midst of His works, and a God who is setting a pattern for the keeping of His day, as His word shall be declared on that day. And the method to save is still the same. And the state of innocency was diminished. But now we see, after a day in which there has been a wrenching of the creation, and a twisting and a perversion of the same, when God became visible again and was humming about his portals. Frankly, in the voice that was spoken that day, you hear the whisper of the celebration of joy that the new creation has begun and is complete in Jesus Christ.

    Jesus himself preaches from the cross. It is finished. Not this time, the works of creation, but the work of redemption for the purpose of reclaiming everything that he and his Father and the Spirit have made. The first prophet, the first preacher, is God. Preaching in the congregation on the Sabbath day, in the new days of completion, on the Holy of Holies. The book of Revelation tells us that we shall hear those words again when Jesus returns.

    This is the Open Entrance Day, I suppose that some of you have already recognized that. It’s the day after which there’s no repetition of that phrase at evening and morning, or such and such a day. And because of that, you see, it’s a day that partakes both of time and eternity, God subjecting Himself to the conditions of the day in this world, but exalting the day, hallowing it, and blessing it, and sending it apart with the substance of eternal life. And those blessings, you see, My question is that I have given it to you in the beginning of the day. Why is that?

    Today, hateful man and God, taking upon Himself, may be even the appearance as of man, become subject to the day. But he who becomes white unto the man is the son of man and is born of the Father, and he is the one determined, even in his preaching, how that day shall be kept. where we as the covenant people of God have opportunity and have the freedom. We are without excuse, and you are without excuse, if you can claim Christ to be the Lord and not recognize Him to be the Lord of the Sabbath, the Sabbath which you are constrained even now, while there remains a Sabbath meeting for the people of God. how proper it is for our confession to tell us that the whole thing is to be taken up in activities of worship and praise, private and public, of our God. Such deeds are necessarily necessary to promote His glory and declare His worship among us.

    These are parallel passages. parallel to the end of God’s work is His rest. And as this being is picked up in the commandments in the Book of Exodus, it is God Himself who provides the pattern for our obedience in relationship to this very event. He’s setting the tone. He ends His work, and He rests. and you are being asked to do the same. There is one thing individual for the covenant people of God. If you see Your covenant God wants you to pray the purpose of the day to His Lord in that day and over you in that day.

    But since the finished work of Christ, we are pleased to celebrate not only the completion of creation, but the completion of redemption. So that our day is not something that ends our week, but instead undergirds our week. It is on the week’s first day that Jesus is resurrected and enters into His rest, having completed His work. And this is the triumphant message of grace to you, that you aren’t striving for something that is yet unaccomplished, but the accomplishment of it is undergirding your entire life, the very week that you are in right now. that this day we need to learn how to celebrate God’s goodness in creation and in redemption in our worship and in our prayers so that this day is not a burden so that it isn’t troublesome to get yourself out of bed to worship to get the children ready to constrain them by all kinds of means to go with you. It was good when he said to me that it was going to pass you by.

    Our Father in Heaven, we ask You that in Your mercies You will be kind to us, for, Lord, we have not even begun to see all of the vocation of the second day. That we pray to You, Father, that we might hear even the whisper of that original creation sound. in the words of our Lord as He finishes His work of redemption on the cross, and may we come to the full celebration of the works of creation and redemption by Him. And now, Father, through Him, may we understand that our work has been completed. and that we, by faith, can now live, and we can strive according to the words of the writings of the Book of Hebrews, to enter into the rest, that we get to be honest in the Day of Resurrection. We pray until such a day as that comes, a day which will be eternal Sabbath of our lives, that we, with humility of heart, might keep this day, because of it, Jesus Christ was raised, and that we might sanctify it as our God has sanctified it. and that it might become truly the lesson He wants in our lives. We pray this in Jesus’ name.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Genesis Is Not Myth

    Genesis Is Not Myth

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, September 4, 1977.

    About this sermon

    Genesis is neither myth nor philosophy nor abstract theology, opening the question of what role systematic theology can rightly play alongside it. Walking through the creation account shows a God who involves himself directly in what he has made, and asks what it means for us to be proper lords over it.

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    Sermon transcript

    I would like simply to reiterate a bit of what he said last week and expand on it a little bit, in order that we might maintain perspective on Genesis 1, especially in our days. What is this anyway, this story that we have here at the opening of our Bible?

    I think it’s important for us as Bible-believing Christians, and taking our stand on passages such as 2 Timothy 3.16, the verse I believe known by most of you, But even Paul said, all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God, or all Scripture is God-given. And discerning that and taking our stand apart, we resist every effort today to recap the story in Genesis 1 in terms of myth. What we have here is not myth.

    Now, I know that it has become the habit of many to become very sophisticated in their definition of myth, not in the old-fashioned sense of something that is essentially fabricated and invented, and therefore untrue, but in the sophisticated modern sense of that word. which teaches and preaches that there is something truly beneficial in this, in that a community is giving expression of its identity at its deepest level.

    Genesis chapter one, we have there, according to some, The testimony of Israel, the beginning of that testimony, with regard to its identity at its deepest level. And, of course, last week we went on to the New Testament to suggest that not only do we have the Old Testament community in the Scriptures, but we also have the New Testament But we also have a New Testament community in the Scriptures, and if myth characterizes the Old Testament community, why should we forbid the New Testament community from doing the same thing? And that’s precisely the direction you see that modernism has gone. The mist from the Old Testament has flowed into the New Testament, so that now there are those who are saying that what we have in the New Testament is the confession of the New Testament community concerning its identity at its deepest level.

    And we are not to understand the New Testament historically. We are not to understand the Virgin’s birth literally, nor are we to understand the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day from the dead in a literal fashion. The major task of the modern Church, according to some then, is the course outlined in a process called demythologizing, in order that we might glean something significant from all of these fantastic stories that are recorded in our Bible.

    Genesis 1 is not myth, but we need to say more, especially for the philosophy majors in our midst this morning. Genesis 1 is not philosophy. It is not speculation. And in this account, you do not have a consideration of God in a personal and detached manner. Philosophy majors, it seems, in trying to analyze whatever there might be of the divine. and turns the divine into something that is generally impersonal. In philosophy, we have become accustomed to speaking of the prime mover, the first, the prime mover, or even more than that, I suppose, the first cause. one who is responsible for every effect.

    But Genesis 1 is not philosophic. Now, I have something more to say at this point. For all the theologians in our midst, well, this might sound shocking to you. first light that holds on to be willed. Genesis 1 is not theology. Genesis 1 is not theology at least in the traditional sense of theology.

    Now, this might cause some real alarm, but some of you are familiar with theology, and some of you have read things like Westminster Dispatch and Faith, and you know that they’re themes that run through the Bible. are talked about in a comprehensive fashion, sort of picking out from the scriptures all of the important data with regard to a particular topic. And the organization, theologically at least, as we have come to understand theology, is something that is considered essentially to be logical. Now, this raises the question, is traditional theology proper? Is it proper for us to write a confession of faith, for instance? Is it proper for us to organize the materials of I and I under certain heads? Is that legitimate? Is that a legitimate fact?

    And the answer, of course, for those of us who are confessional Christians is, yes, certainly it is, but we must understand the place of that traditional theology in our lives in the Church. We can no longer consider things to mean that kind of theology as a logical mastery of God and His relationship to the world. If we allow theology to proceed on that basis, theology itself in the Church and in its life becomes arrogant and a loveless anaphora in which we are out to prove that we are right, and to demonstrate that we have an ironclad case for our own position. But I believe that there is a way in which we can do this kind of theology if we recognize the basis for it. Theology is ministry both to the Church and to those who are outside the Church, and it is a legitimate act, and it is only carried out properly if it is done with love. The only motivation of theology is love, love for the Church, that the believer might be able soon to grasp a hold of the salient points and things of the Scripture, and he might feast on them.

    And by reflection upon them, we might ask, what does the Bible tell us about God? What does the Bible tell us about the doctrine of election? What does the Bible tell us about the covenant? What does the Bible tell us about matters that are very important to us? Marriage. Divorce. Our relationship to the Savior. What does the Bible say about these very, very important subjects?

    The reason we engage in what seems to some a ridiculous activity must be our love. Why do I pour over a volume of Lewis Birkhoff’s systematic theology? Because I love you. It’s not because while I’m reading good old Lewis that he turns me on, because he doesn’t. Why does a theological student painstakingly go through Charles Bodge’s systematic theology? Because it’s so exciting? No! The only thing that will motivate him in going through all that material is his love for the Church and his love for the unbelievers, so that in the day when he is called to account for his faith before the world, he can give an answer.

    Why do these women, Thursday after Thursday, get together and go through the shorter catechism? It’s not easy. It’s not always exciting. Sometimes it’s very difficult, and sometimes, yes, it’s true, my wife, she’s not here at this point, I can say this, comes home and says, it was very boring.

    We went about talking of the concession of faith. No, see, we said, now I’m going to be really religious this year. Now I’m going to go through what I committed to. I’m going to read through the entire concession of faith. We get to the middle of the second chapter and we say, oh my.

    Theology, it must be admitted in the traditional sense, is a scientific activity. Many of us have little patience for science. But the proper motivation for theology as science, and I might say to all of you who are engaged in other pursuits other than theology, the basis of any science, in God’s creation is love.

    That is what constrains you to organize and work. That’s what constrains you to apply yourself to it. So that in an orderly fashion you might have something to give to people who need bread and not stones. Now, each of you have a theological path to one degree or another. That helps you to bring it to work. But realize that beneath it, there’s a mystery of what? I acquaint myself with so that I have something to give to those who are needy, whether they are in the church or outside.

    Genesis 1 is Theology, but not in the traditional sense, because Genesis 1 is, first of all, history. And theology in the biblical sense is always historically traditional. Notice the evidences throughout Genesis 1 that this is indeed history, not myth, not philosophy. Thus, theology in the traditional sense, it is history, and we have a progression of six days, December 45th, 6 and 1. We have the announcement at the very beginning, the first one, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

    But even more than this, so that you might realize that this isn’t laying the foundations for more philosophical speculations about God in abstraction from His creation, far away from us, detached from His world, something that you contemplate in and of Himself.

    No, the God who is spoken of here is one who is placing Himself right within the conditions of His creation. It is only after He is declared to walk in His Word that history has begun that He mentions His own name, in the beginning, God. So that the God that you are contemplating here is a God close at hand, who is at work in His world. And who in the midst of that creative act is forming the things about him.

    And it is that principle, you see, that is ultimately going to triumph in the person of Jesus Christ. For once more it will be evident to us that God indeed loves his creation so much that even sin will not keep him from redeeming himself. How beautiful this comes out in a number of passages.

    I think that we make a great mistake when we read the book of Revelation, for oftentimes we forget that the book of Revelation has the entire counterpart in the Old Testament. As the Revelation is the end, Genesis was the beginning. The wonderer of wonders, the God who describes himself in that book of Revelation, describes himself in terms of the creation process.

    He describes himself in terms of history. He says that He is the beginning and the end. He says that He is the Alpha and the Omega. He is the One who was and is and is to come. His very name is bound up in the created process so that you might know That is as impossible as it is for God to deny His own name. So impossible is it for Him to forsake what He’s made. It’s impossible for God to deny His own name. If you are trusting in Jesus Christ this morning, will you forsake me? Looking at the structure of Genesis 1, I’ll just call your attention to a few things.

    Genesis 1.1 is a summary statement. God makes everything. Things which are visible, things which are invisible.

    Beginning at Genesis 1.2, we have a delineation of God’s creation. And the theme struck in the phrase that the earth was formless and void, and now in answer to that formlessness and that void, God forms and fills.

    And that’s the structure of the six days. In the first three days you have God forming. Creation’s kingdoms, spheres, domain. Day one, you have in creating day and night. Day two, the heavens and the seas. Day three, the earth. Creation’s kingdoms, but then you see, entering those first three days, you have the second three days in which now God fills those kingdoms.

    With creation’s change, the lights of the heavens govern the day and the night. And those that fill the sea govern those domains. But then on the sixth day, in filling the earth, God creates man, and man is given a special task to have dominion over all the works of God’s hand. That which fills rules. filled when God, as it were, rules the earth as God himself.

    This is at the heart of what the image of God is. The theme of the image is sovereignty. The theme of the image is fortune. In the New Testament, where it talks about our being renewed in the image, it speaks about how we have been renewed in knowledge and righteousness and holiness. And that’s the equipment, you see, we need for proper rule, for proper lordship, for proper sovereignty.

    But the image of God, you see, is something that has become perverted and corrupted by sin, so that it is now necessary for God, in His great love for His creation, to work afresh anew. And He set in the midst of a new world a new man who perfectly displayed His image. fulfilled the original mandate that was laid upon man.

    It’s as if, before the coming of Christ, there is, because of sin and the ravages of sin, a new formlessness, a new void, a new emptiness. Possibly, the writer of the book is speaking about that, reflecting upon the emptiness of life because of the condition of creation now. but is a wonderful work of Jesus Christ. Humanity can die again, but the kingdom of God, the domain of God is being filled by Him, and He rules over it. We need to reflect upon that for a minute. We need to think of how it is not merely true that God is establishing his kingdom in Christ, but how through Christ he is filling his people with his very fullness. What is the fullness of God in you? The fullness of God in you is God’s Lordship, His Son, His Master.

    It’s not ecstasy. It’s not being out of control. It is a demonstration of God’s control and His mastery, which is evident in you by your mastery and control. You, through Christ, become abhorrent in the creation, becoming a man as you were meant to be, or a woman as you were created. And fulfilling your task in creation by filling it full of the mastery that comes only through the proper use of knowledge, righteousness and holiness. It’s men and women standing on their feet, and with the wisdom of God, able to discern the times and act properly.

    It’s not Christian people sitting beneath a cross as if they were continually oppressed all the time. It’s people active for the king and standing up with steel in their backbone and resisting, standing up, speaking out against the tyranny and oppression that characterizes them. It’s not a mindless flight to another world that exists somewhere in your head. How we meet here is men and women becoming responsible, and they are filled with holy spirit. And no one can push the bounds of life, but rather those who are in control, to avoid God. You are out of control. They pushed it out.

    Are you getting a little talent? Stand up in the renewed image of Christ. and be filled with the fullness of God, and begin now to take on the characteristics of what will do in that age, in which the dominion of God becomes apparent in you for His glory. Our Father in Heaven, we ask you now, your praise might be exalted in our lives, which Before I even see him, it would be four minutes before he comes. Again, I need to talk to him. I don’t know what he’s doing.

    Father, give us then strength to stir up the most fierce of tribes. Help us to stand on our feet, not pushed about by sin, not pushed about by our fear of death, not pushed about by the various forces of evil in this world. Rather, our Father, as those who reflect the glorious image of our God in Christ, may we with wisdom discern the times and understand what it means to act righteously amidst the misdiverse generation. And that, Father, may you receive glory for yourself. And may the mastery and the Lordship of Jesus Christ wonderfully demonstrate itself in us.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.