We return today to our study in the book of Genesis, and we’re in the second chapter and we begin today at the fourth verse.  And in this particular section we are coming up now to these two verses, three verses.  We have the summary in sum total of the first five days of restoration, partial creation, of course.  Now let me read this particular section here, beginning at 2:4.  It says:

                    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.

          It says these are the generations.  Actually, this word “generations” means families.  This is the book—we said at the beginning, the book of Genesis is the book not only of beginnings, but the book of the families.  These are the families 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. 

(Genesis 2:5)

Then will you notice verse 2:6. 

                    “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face                       of the ground.”

You see this was here long before man was here upon the earth.  And I think that we now begin to see, to discover the purpose of God in Chapter 1.  What was God doing in Chapter 1?  Well, he was preparing a home for the man that he had made.  And now God is getting ready to move this man into a place here that he has prepared for him.  I think that’s one of the remarkable things about this particular section.

          You see, we come now actually again to the method of man’s creation beginning here in verse 7.  We have seen in chapter 1 that there was nothing to inorganic matter.  Nothing…and then the inorganic came into existence.  That’s in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  And then from the inorganic to the organic, that is to life, and we saw that in Chapter 1:21 where it says God created great whales and then from then on all plant life and animal life.  But He created animal life.  Somebody says, “Well, didn’t he create plant life?”  Apparently, the plant life had not been destroyed.  The seeds were apparently already in the earth.  I would not want to be dogmatic about that, but that would seem to be the implication here.  As we said, God’s told us very little.  And then, now we have from the organic to man.  And there is no natural transition, and evolution cannot bridge the gap that brings us to the appearance of homo sapiens upon the earth.

          Now, the earth was prepared for the coming of man. 

MAN’S CREATION

Verse 2:7 – “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

          Now this is the method of the creation of man.  And, again, we’re limited in what God has told.  Physically, God took man out of the ground.  It’s quite interesting that our bodies are made up of about 15 or 16 chemical elements.  Those same chemical elements are in the ground.  Man was taken out of the dust of the ground physically.  And if they would take you or me and boil us down and separate us into the separate chemical elements that we are, there was a time that it was worth $2.98.  I’m told now we are worth about $3.38.  You see we’re going up all the time!  Now that’s what you are worth, because we were taken physically out of the dust of the ground. 

          But you see man is more than dust.  Physically, dust he is and to the dust he will return, but his spirit’s going to God.  Why?  Because God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.  Now what did God breath into him?  Well, the breath of life.  God gave man at this time life that is physical; that’s psychological, by the way.  And then He gave him life that is spiritual.  And, in other words, man now is brought into a marvelous relationship with his Creator.  He has the capacity for God.  He has that in his being.  And, by the way, that’s separates him from all other creatures that you find in God’s universe as far as we know.  Now, of course, there are the angels and believe me we know very little about them. 

          Now we find as we move along in this section that this man now that God has created, that these theistic evolutionists—you know, they say it was evolution up to here and then God took this product of evolution, and the creation crowd also take that position.  But may I say to you, any form of evolution cannot account for human speech.  It cannot account for human conscience, and it cannot account from human individuality.  These are three things that evolution just has a little difficulty with.  It’s mighty easy to take the bones of a man and compare them to the bones of some anthropoid, probably an ape—or to a horse—and there’s striking similarity, I’m sure; and yet there’s wide divergence there I’m told.  But, nevertheless, I would expect a certain similarity because these creatures are to move in the same environment that we move in as human beings.  And, naturally, the chassis would have to be the same. 

          Now there is a very striking similarity between the chassis of a Ford automobile and a Chevrolet automobile.  May I say there is a definite similarity, but you better not tell that to your local automobile dealer and certainly not to the Ford Motor Car Company or General Motors.  They’re going to tell you that there’s a wide difference between the two.  But there is a very striking similarity when you see the chassis.  You got to have something fixed where you can have four wheels and put one at each corner; it has to be square to a certain extent.  And that is the thing, why?  Because the Ford and the Chevrolet are both going to get stuck on the freeway at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and they have to be able to balance and have a motor in them, and so you’d have a similarity.  But that doesn’t mean they came out of the same factory. 

          I feel today that there’s been such an exaggeration made.  Man is a different creature.  God breathed into his breathing places the breath of life.  Man became a living soul.  Man is fearfully and wonderfully made, by the way, and that is something that we need to keep in mind.  Now—

“And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.”  (Genesis 2:8)

I can’t tell you where the Garden of Eden is.  I’m sure it’s somewhere in the Tigris Euphrates Valley.  In fact, it may be the entire valley.  That valley originally was a very fertile place—still is for that matter.  It is part of that green crescent—Fertile Crescent.  And at one time they didn’t even plant grain there; they just harvested it.  It grew itself.  Probably that area will become the very center of the earth again. 

          Now verse 2:9.

“And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

Now these are unusual trees that are mentioned specifically.  You have the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  I can’t tell you much about them because, frankly, they are not around today.  They’ve been removed from the scene.  But there was every tree.  And the trees, you’ll notice, were pleasant to look at, and they were also good for food.  There was the beauty of them and then the practical side of it; both of these that were combined.  In other words, it’s like going into a furniture store today and having a salesman there say, “Well, this article of furniture if very beautiful, but it’s also very functional.”  Well, that was the important thing in the Garden of Eden.  They had some beautiful trees, but they were functional.  The fact of the matter is very practical; they were good for food.  This earth on which we live, you still see something of the beauty in spite of the curse of the fall upon the earth—the fall of man.  There is still the fact that it brings forth today the thorn and the thistle, and there is still a beauty here. 

          In a recent trip out to the Hawaiian Islands, we were on the Island of Maui, and I’d never been to the place called Hanna.  I’d heard so much about it.  And it’s difficult to get to.  We drove down that road.  I have never been in such fabulous, fantastic, and wonderful foliage in my life.  It is beyond description.  And we made a certain turn, and there were many turns to make.  Well, we came up on a very scenic spot, and you could look down that coast and the little peninsula was stuck out there.  There were the coconut trees, the papaya trees, the hibiscus, and the bananas and the bamboo, and a little church among those coconut trees—a church the missionaries started—and you just couldn’t help but be startled as you stood there.  In fact, so much so that I asked that the group pause and bow their heads in prayer.  And we asked a member of our party to lead us in prayer that we were just privileged to see that spot.  My but the garden of Eden must have been a beautiful place.

          Now I read on.  Verse 2:10-14. 

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.  The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.  And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

And I think the one in Ethiopia would be the Nile and the Hiddekel would be the Tigris River.  Verse 2:15.

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Now this man, remember, had dominion.  And the forces of nature came at his beck and call. 

The LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden though mayest freely eat:  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.   (Genesis 2:16-17)

          Now it wasn’t God’s original intention for man to die.  But man now is put on probation.  You see, man has a free will, but privilege always creates responsibility.  That’s an axiomatic statement today that is true.  And this man who is now given a free will, he must be given a test whether he will obey God or not.  We’re not going to have a question of whether the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was poison.  I think it was the best fruit in the garden.  And the day he’d do it, he’d die.  Now he’d die—remember he’s a trinity, and he’d have to die in a threefold way.  He didn’t die physically until over 900 years after this, but God says in the day you shall die.  Well, death means separation.  He was separated from God’s spiritually the day he ate, you may be sure of that.

          Now we read: 

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.  (Genesis 2:18)

          Now there was a purpose in God putting man there for a period of time alone—to show him that he had a need; that he needed someone to be with him.  And now we’re told that:

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.  (Genesis 2:19)

Believe me, that man had to be a smart man to name all of the animals.  And some wag has said that when God brought an elephant to him and said to him, “What shall we call this one?” that Adam says, “Well, he looks more like an elephant than anything else.”  And I guess he did. 

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.  (Genesis 2:20)

The Word “meet” should not be here; “A help for him.”  That is, one agreeing and answering to him.  In other words, a helper as his counterpart.  The other half of him.  And a man is but half a man until he’s married, and that I think is very important to see.  I’m not here to promote marriage, and yet I would say that that is God’s intention for both man and woman.  And she’s the answer to him.  And notice what God did. 

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof…. (Genesis 2:21)

Now she’s taken from Adam; from the side of Adam.  And as Dr. Matthew Henry said years ago, God didn’t take her from the head to be his superior or from his foot to be his inferior, but took her from his side to be equal with him; to be along with him.  And that is exactly the purpose as she is to be the other half of man.  And that’s exactly what God meant when He said, “Wives, obey your husbands.”  It means respond; it means answer to.  You’re the other part of him; the other half of him.  He’s only half a man. 

And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. (Genesis 2:22)

And believe me, she was beautiful!  Any woman today that you see that’s beautiful, she inherited it originally from Mother Eve because there is no beauty that she didn’t have.  She was a doll, let me tell you.  Now she’s the other half of Adam.

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. (Genesis 2:23)

          And actually the word for “woman’ in the Hebrew is very similar to of “man” or ish (man) and ishshah (woman).  Very similar; just the other part of man.  She’s to answer to man.  And that’s the reason that God intended the man to take the lead; He created him first.  But He created the woman to just follow.  And the man is the aggressor, and God even made him that way physically.  He’s the aggressor.  And woman is the responder.  And don’t tell me that a wife has to love her husband.  God doesn’t say that.  God says that she is to respond to him.  Now if he says to her, “I love you,” then you know what, she’s going to say right back to him, “I love you.”  She’s to respond to him. 

          When a man tells me today, and every now and then one does, “You know my wife is very cold,” that’s a dead give-away that he’s not really the kind of husband he should be.  Because if he’s the right kind of husband, she’ll respond–because he is the one to take the lead. 

“Therefore, shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh.”  (Genesis 2:24). 

In other words, he’s now subject to his wife in the sense that he is responsible for her, and he’s not longer under control of father and mother.

 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.  (Genesis 2:25)

          I think they were covered with some sort of glory-light.  And, may I say, I think this is the loveliest and the precious account of the creation of woman and of man.  Here is a couple that God really joined together. 

          Now there are certain things that I think God’s given to His people that they should obey, but God has given to the human race marriage.  And that’s one of the things men are trying to throw off today:  Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us” (Psalm 2:3).  What is man trying to do?  Well, he’s trying to get rid of God, Friends, because God is the One who established marriage.

          Now you have in this chapter something quite wonderful.  You have the creation of man.  You have where he is placed, what his occupation is, the condition that he is there with a responsibility.  He had a need for a companion and then God created woman.  There is to be an identity between the husband and the wife, and God says to the husbands, “Husband, love your wife.”  This is the creation story. 

          The man who was the chaplain at the Nuremberg Prison tells about the last days that he had with those men.  One was Herman Goering, and he tells about that.  He  says the last evening: “That last evening, around 8:30 I had a long session with Goering—during which he made sport of the story of creation, ridiculed divine inspiration of the Scriptures, and made outright denial of certain Christian fundamentals.”  Less than two hours later, he committed suicide. 

          May I say one of the ways to get rid of this alarming suicide rate is to let men and women know they are a creature of God and that they’re responsible to their Creator.  How important that is.  See you next time.