What Actually Happened at the Beginning of the Universe
Genesis 1:3-5
Feb 9, 2025
Pastor Craig Ledbetter
Bible Baptist Church of Ballincollig
I. Introduction (Exodus 20:9,11)
A. We are learning about THE Very Beginning of Everything
B. It is called Creation
C. And it all happened in just Six Days
1. Not 13.5 billion years!
2. Exodus 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
3. Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
D. And as Bible believing Christians, we just believe it
1. Not blindly
2. Not arrogantly – we don’t believe all scientists are stupid and wrong about everything
3. But we believe the Bible because we are careful, patiently studying, and learning, and thinking outside of boxes and letting evidences become clear
4. Never throwing away the Bible, but giving this Book the benefit of the doubt
5. And finding out that the Bible is right, again and again, from the very first verse!
E. Faith is NOT stupid – even Creation Faith (believing God meant what He said in the first verse)
1. We wouldn’t know how everything came to exist without God revealing it to us – the Revelation of Genesis!
2. Long before telescopes, microscopes, particle accelarators… mankind had a Book that told us how everything was created…
3. Hebrews 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
4. Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. [NOT BY THE WORDS OF SCIENCE]
F. And Creation-Faith gives us a right worldview
1. The ability to look at rocks, animals, people, planets and see everything as intelligently designed and for a purpose
2. Instead of only seeing a serious of very fortunate accidents, with no other purpose than reproduction!
3. One view sees people as created in the image of God, and of infinite value
4. The other sees a collection of cells and molecules that is using up earth’s natural resources
II. Message
A. Revelation of the Trinity in Creation (Genesis 1:1-3)
1. So, if you are a Bible believer, we start with an empty universe, and an empty planet called earth, and God rolls up His sleeves (so-to-speak) and gets to work finishing everything He starts!
2. Notice who is working…
a. God the Father (verse 1) In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
b. God the Spirit (verse 2) And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
c. And then in verse THREE we discover one more Person…
d. The Third Person of the Trinity – the Word!
e. God shows us HIMSELF in the very first three verses!
3. And God SAID (1:3) And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
a. Do you notice a pattern?
b. Genesis 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
c. Genesis 1:9 And God said...
d. Genesis 1:11 And God said...
e. Genesis 1:14 And God said...
f. Genesis 1:20 And God said....
g. Genesis 1:24 And God said...
h. Genesis 1:26 And God said...
i. Genesis 1:29 And God said...
j. Let’s turn to Psalm 33:6 By the word of the LORD [not bangs or explosions or gravity or radiation] were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.
k. The entire universe was created… by the spoken word of God!
4. The word of God is not just a SOUND… it is a PERSON
a. God the Word, became FLESH, and dwelt amongst us, 2,000 years ago at Christmas…
1) 1John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.
2) John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
3) John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
4) Colossians 1:15-17 [HE] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
5) THAT is our Lord and Saviour! Jesus, the Nazarene!
6) John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
7) Walked and lived and ate and slept, and endured all the things WE put up with here in this life, and no one realised WHO Jesus was just by looking at Him!
8) But Jesus is the very WORD of God, living, breathing amongst us – Emmanuel!
a. The fact is, God created everything using WORDS
1) There is great SCIENCE here in the Bible
a) Words are vibrations of energy – frequencies – each sound you make is a specific frequency of sound
(i) In music, vibrations become “notes”
(ii) In the telephone, they become tones
(iii) In speaking, they become words!
b) God uses vibrating energy to create everything, and to put everything in motion
c) Nothing is standing still – everything is actually vibrating
d) All of creation at the atomic and molecular level vibrates
e) Where did that come from?
f) How is it that every atom in the universe is vibrating at this very moment?
g) Each one vibrating at a different frequency?
2) There is a thing is Physics called, “String Theory” and science is only just now starting to understand this – that the entire universe is actually tiny strings vibrating – each frequency or pattern produces different particles
3) Sounds crazy, but God inserted VIBRATIONS into our universe, and things appeared!
4) Stars, Planets, Galaxies, Light, Heat, Gravity, Motion
5) All are the result of God SPEAKING words!
6) And by-the-way… What do you hold in your hands? God’s WORDS!
7) Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
8) You had better hold onto that Book, and store it away in your heart!
B. God Starting with Nothing
1. God created everything starting with nothing
a. God called all things into existence that previously didn’t exist
b. That may not be so amazing to you, but YOU try and do something with nothing
c. Even evolution always has to start with something – a tiny little dot of a black hole that contained everything in a tiny little space, until it exploded
d. The Greeks and almost all religions throughout history believed things came from older things, and even from the gods themselves
e. Yet God started with nothing!
2. And made everything
a. Wonderful, marvellous, beautiful, complex and yet elegantly simple
b. And He did it in just 144 hours
c. And that was God taking His time, so that He could show us the pattern of a 6 day week to live and work in, and so that we all would take one day and rest, and worship God with!
3. What’s the point?
a. So, next time you are sad about the kind of empty life you are bringing to God when you start following Jesus, remember what God can do with nothing in His hand!
b. And that is why I love meditating on Jeremiah 32:17 Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.
c. Some of you believe that statement, but so many do not – and they are miserable!
C. Everything was Made in Six Days! Really? (Genesis 1:3-5)
1. What does it mean “in six days”?
a. Genesis chapter 1 describes God creating the heaven and the earth in six “days”.
1) Were these six 24 hour days?
2) If so, this would seem to conflict with contemporary science, which claims the earth is billions of years old. 4.54 billions years old to be more precise!
b. Could it mean Literal 24 hour days?
1) This is certainly the simplest and most straightforward reading of Genesis.
2) That is its greatest strength.
3) God started in Genesis 1 creating everything there is, and then time moves through generation after generation from Adam, to Abraham, to Jesus Christ, until now, and yuou get about 6,000 years!
4) But from a scientific perspective, the Earth looks much older than this. For example, light from distant stars takes millions of years to get here. Doesn't that mean the earth must be very old? Well, the answer is that God created the universe with apparent age.
5) When God made the earth, it did not look brand new – it looked old
6) When God made trees, they were already full grown, with fruit on them
7) When God made Adam, he was full grown, ready to be married and have children!
c. Maybe they are Really Long Days (Long Days Theory)
1) This theory says God was exercising his creative power over a long period of time. Some progressive creationists believe that each day of the Genesis account represents a geological age. This is called the day age theory. The six days of creation correspond roughly to how scientists believe the earth was formed.
2) For example, day one, light being formed might be the big bang as God ignites the universe into existence. On day two, waters cover the earth and the continents are gradually formed. On day three, plant life appears on these land masses. And on day four, seasons emerge with the cycles of the sun and the moon.
3) On day five, animal life appears in the oceans and in the skies. And on day six, land animals emerge. In this view, God is controlling the process, but it's a very long process.
4) But the words of Scripture are not written like that
5) And none of it makes sense to the reader that way
6) It becomes just a children’s story, but cannot be true!
d. And then there is the “Gap Theory”
1) People in the early 1800’s imagined a gap of billions of years between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, and that all the geological “ages” took place during this gap.
2) They had always believed the Bible was to be taken literally, 6,000 years since creation
3) That is until people started finding dinosaur bones, and fossils of a lot of extinct animals
4) So Genesis 1:1-3 reads:
a) In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
b) And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
c) And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
5) Those who hold to the gap theory would read Genesis 2 this way, they would read it,
a) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…
b) Let’s call this, the First World
c) [Gap]
(i) The universe—heaven and Earth—was originally ("in the beginning") created perfect, aeons and aeons ago – probably 4.5 billion years ago
(ii) Then over billions and billions of years, the earth was filled with life and dinosaurs and people, and cities, and nations, and wars and sin
(iii) All happening BEFORE Adam showed up
(iv) life flourished for millions or billions of years.
(v) But this world became evil, and God had to destroy it in a gigantic cataclysm.
(vi) Lucifer was judged, and sin judged by death, and the judgment of the first world with a cataclystmic flood that made the earth formless and void.
d) And then God had to start all over again…. In verse TWO!
e) Genesis 1:2, And the earth was ["became"] without form, and void;
f) The First World had been destroyed, and God had to start over again
g) Then a recreation of everything in Genesis 1:2 forward… and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light...
h) Let’s call this earth, the Pre-Flood World (even though the earth supposidly was flooded already once now, God will have to do it again)
i) Ugh! All in the blink of an eye to the reader
j) Sound complicated? It is!
k) That is what happens when you try and fit the Bible into your own understanding!
6) But is that what the Bible says?
2. Maybe the Bible will tell us what to believe…
a. Notice the passing of time… Evening and morning marking the start of a new day
b. Genesis 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
c. Genesis 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
d. Genesis 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
e. What is God describing?
1) The rotation of the earth, the passage of time, from evening, to morning, marking a full rotation back to the start!
2) A 24 hour day now past - now time could be measured in days
3) This is why the Jews start their day at 6:00 PM which is sunset because that's when God started his day
f. Genesis 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
g. Genesis 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
h. Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
3. What do YOU think?
a. Did God create everything in just six days?
b. Or maybe RE-create everything in six days?
c. Or maybe God is just telling us a nice bedtime story!
d. Exodus 31:16,17 Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath [THE SEVENTH DAY OF THE WEEK], to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between me and the children of Israel for ever: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.
4. Don’t think you are smarter than God
a. He did things this way to show us how much wiser HE is, and how foolish we are
b. 1Corinthians 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
c. If you have ever done any scientific reading and study about this universe (and you should) you would say, a six day creation is hard to fully grasp. And you would be right. But it is not unscientific. And it is not stupid to believe it!
1) Jesus believed it absolutely – and that is good enough for me
2) The Gospel depends upon it being true – that sin started in the garden of Eden, not in some pre-adamic world before this one (sounds almost Mormon)
3) Either the Bible is true from the beginning, or it is filled with “moral stories”
4) Psalm 119:160 Thy word is true from the beginning!
d. Yet MOST modern churches, pastors, Bible teachers refuse to believe Genesis chapter 1 means what it says and says what it means!
e. No wonder generation after generation believes the Bible can’t be trusted
f. No wonder men now preach MEN’S WORDS, instead of GOD’S words! And our world is more lost than ever!
g. SHAME!
III. So, Let’s Let God Tell us How He Created Everything… in Six days
A. We will only look at what God did on the First Day
B. On Day One… The Creation of Light (Genesis 1:3-5)
1. Genesis 1:3-5 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
2. What did God do on Day One?
a. People use this phrase, “From day one…” “On day one…” meaning, when something was started! Like when you were hired, or the day you got married
b. THIS is Day One!
3. God said “let there be light”
a. Those are four words in English, and only three words in Hebrew!
b. It is important to understand that the first thing God wanted to do was to replace the darkness and shine light upon this lonely, emopty, dark world
c. Notice that there was no creation of darkness - because darkness is not a thing. It is the absence of light
d. Cold is not a thing – it is the absence of heat
e. Stupidity is not a thing – it is the absence of common sense! (Joke)
4. “And there was LIGHT”
a. What a glorious statement!
b. Before the sun or stars or electricity, God created something called light
c. Light miraculously burst into this dark, empty universe!
d. The light itself must have been beautiful!
e. We all appreciate light, especially when it is dark
f. If you have ever been in a very dark room, when someone turned on a light, it made you smile I guarrantee you!
5. So, What is light?
a. Light is vibrations of energy at high frequencies – seriously!
b. There are different kinds of light – a spectrum of light [PRISM]
1) When God created light in this universe, He didn't just make the colour white or yellow, he made the full spectrum of what we call the electromagnetic spectrum which contains visual light, as well as all other forms of frequencies and vibrations throughout the universe!
2) Light to our eyes is only a small visible part of what light is
3) There is so much more that our eyes cannot see, yet it is there
a) Ultra-violet light
b) Infra-red light
c) Radio waves: Used for communication and broadcasting
d) Microwaves: Heat water molecules, used in cooking and telecommunications
e) X-rays: Very high energy, penetrates soft tissue, used in medical imaging
f) Gamma rays: Shortest wavelength, highest energy, produced by radioactive decay
g) That is a lot of LIGHT
c. And… There is a Light that is uncreated, that cannot be seen with mortal eyes
1) God is light (1John 1:5) This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
2) John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
3) You will never have life without THAT light IN you!
4) John 1:4,5 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
6. Did you notice how God created light?
a. By using “sound”
b. WORDS Spoken by God
c. Here we are again, at the power of the words of God!
d. Think about it! With “words” God shaped and formed and created everything
e. He put all the energy that is in this universe here by His words
f. And… You have a recording, a copy of those words, IN YOUR HANDS!
g. The power that is in that Book!
1) To humble grown men
2) To convert sinful men
3) To encourage broken men
4) To feed hungry men
5) To save entire nations
6) AND, to judge entire nations
h. Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
7. Light is Good
a. Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good
b. God saw that the light was good
c. God did not say that the darkness was good. If the darkness was good He never would have made the light
d. God Made Light to Dispel Darkness
1) They are not the same
2) Darkness is powerful, when there is no light
3) But Light overpowers all darkness!
4) God wants us to know the difference between night and day, darkness and light
5) Jesus said, Walk in the light – live in the light, not in darkness, ignorance, blindness
6) Genesis 1:4,5 … and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night…
7) Thankfully, one day, there will be no more night!
8. He ended the first day
a. Genesis 1:5 …And the evening and the morning were the first day.
b. Just turning on light doesn’t sound like a lot of work
c. But God did not just speak light into the darkness, He spoke all the energy this universe is running on, into existence!
d. And that was enough for the first day!
e. What a day!
f. Evening went and morning came
IV.That was Just the First Day!
A. Next Week
B. Genesis describes step by step, day by day, what else God created, focusing mainly on creating LIFE and living things
C. We will learn WHY God went through such details
D. And why they are so different than what evolutionists say happened
E. And are being proven to be true
V. Conclusion
A. Gods are made by people - All the gods of this world have to be made by people
B. But one God made everything - He made everything there is – including you!
C. And that was just the beginning
D. You are a miracle!
1. You being born was a miracle – not an accident
2. Every honest scientist knows it to be true
3. We are the only world in this entire universe with life on it
E. You have an eternal purpose, and have infinite value to God
F. But something has been broken – marred – because of sin
G. And only the One who made you, can repair and restore you
H. If you will let Him
I. His name is Jesus
J. You just need to believe it!
K. 1Corinthians 1:19-22 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.