Join Sharon Knotts in the final installment of the Genesis series as she delves into the profound insights from the last three days of creation. Explore God’s divine design for marital unity and the original diet for His newly crafted creatures. Sharon unravels the meaning behind the divine command to be fruitful, and explains the foundational principles set for mankind’s dominion over the earth.
00:00:05 Introduction to Part Three: Genesis Series
Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to The Sound of Faith. I’m Sharon Knotts, thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Today’s message is part three of a three-part series on Genesis, the recreation of heaven and earth. The newly refinished, beautified earth was ready for inhabitants, the birds and the bees, the animals and the beasts of the field. And in his final master stroke, the crown jewel of God’s creation made in his image and likeness. In part three of the Genesis series, days five through seven. So we read in verse 24, therefore, shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh. Now think about this. Adam had no mother or father. So what does this mean? It’s setting down for all of time the divine design for marriage. The divine design for marriage. And this verse 24 was cited by Jesus in Matthew 19 and by Paul in Ephesians 5. The word cleave means to be glued to. That’s the best, in my opinion, definition. To be glued to something. And if you have ever taken super glue and you have glued two things together and then thought, oh, I didn’t want to glue that together. Let me take it apart and try again. What happens? You damage both parts. Amen. And that’s what happens when there’s divorce. damages both parts so be a cleaver not a lever amen and I’m not preaching on marriage today so I won’t go all the way down that road okay let’s look at verse 28 chapter 1 and God blessed them and God said unto them be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth we talked about that on day one and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth and And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in the, which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed to you. It shall be for meat. And that word there means food because obviously trees don’t produce meat. And to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air and to everything that creeps upon the earth wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. So we see here in verses 29 through 31 that God gave man and all the animals a vegetarian diet. The birds were vegetarians. All the beasts were vegetarians. Leo the lion was a vegetarian. That’s what it says. Isn’t that what it said? And all of the beast and everything that creeps on the earth, I’ve given you the herb yielding seed for your food. See, this is one reason, folks, why when God told Noah to take two of every animal and put them in the ark and they were going to be in there for a long time and they didn’t eat each other and they didn’t eat Noah. Because they weren’t meat eaters. They were vegetarians. Amen. It was after the flood when Noah and all his family and animals came out of the ark. Then God said, now you can eat meat. Because God knew that the earth, the ground, the soil had lost much of its nutrients because of the flood. And they were not going to get enough of what they needed just eating plants and such because the soil was cursed. When Adam sinned, it was cursed. When Cain sinned, it was cursed. And now we got the third time it’s cursed. So it did not have the nutrients that it should have. And that’s why God said, you can now eat meat. And another thing that God said after he brought Noah and the animals out of the ark, he said in Genesis 9, 2, the fear of dread of men will now be on every beast and bird. So that’s a second reason why he was able to get all those animals in the ark without a problem. Number one, they weren’t meat eaters. And number two, they weren’t afraid. They weren’t afraid of men. When they were called, they just came. Amen. Now animals have the dread of man on them. They want to be away from men. Unless they’ve been domesticated like cattle and sheep and dogs and cats, etc. They want to be away from men. Amen. But if a man comes in their territory and they’re hungry, they’re going to eat them. Amen. So those people that say, I don’t believe Noah’s Ark story because all them animals would have eaten each other. Well, they don’t know the Bible. They don’t know the Bible. They say that and it’s foolish because they don’t know the whole story. They don’t know what God said. They weren’t meat eaters and they weren’t afraid until afterwards. So God blessed them. He told them to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air and over every living thing. And this was both of them. This was Adam and Eve that he gave dominion and told them to have dominion and to subject all of creation under them. And God saw not only that it was good, But that it was very good. It was very good. Amen. So this brings us to what I call the six pillars of man’s creation. And I will go through these quickly. I cannot take the time to minister them the way I would like to, but I do have a CD called The Six Pillars of Man’s Creation where I go into great detail on each of these. But let’s look at the first one. The first blessing that God put on mankind was be fruitful and multiply. So the first blessing was fertility. God said, start a family. And it wasn’t a suggestion. It was a command. Amen? But sadly, they did not obey that command until after they fell. And therefore, all of their children and all progeny and every human is now born in sin. They shouldn’t have been hanging around that tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They should have been busy. Making babies. Amen. If they had been busy making babies, they wouldn’t have been at that tree. They wouldn’t have cared about that tree. If they would have started off doing what God said. Amen. And they would have been very fertile. And not only that, the woman wouldn’t be under the curse that in sorrow and pain and travail she’d give birth. Amen. So she wouldn’t mind making babies and having babies. But see, they did not obey that commandment. The first one, fertility. Second commandment, subdue the earth and have dominion. The word subdue means to subject, to force, to keep under. Dominion, to dominate, to rule over. As I said in the last two weeks, God did not make man for the earth. He made the earth for man. And now we’ve come to a time when some are worshiping the earth. Amen? I believe we need to take care of the earth. We should not abuse the earth. We should not do things to bring harm to the earth. But we should not put the earth above humanity. Amen. They failed when they allowed Satan the serpent to take them into the eating. He talked them into the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He talked them into it. And when they fell for his line, you will be like God. They were already like God. They were already made in his image and likeness. You will be like God knowing good from evil. Now think about this. They already knew good. And even when Eve looked at the tree, the scripture says she looked at the tree and she saw that it was good for food and it was pleasant to the eyes. She already could recognize good. She already knew good when she saw it. What she wanted to know was evil. She already knew good, but what she wanted to know was evil. Amen? And a lot of times, even young people that were almost born on a pew in the church house, they got drugged to church Wednesday night, Friday night, Sunday, they made to come. But when they get of a certain age, they want to know evil. They’ve only known good. They’ve been raised in the house of God, but now they’ve got to try drugs. Amen? And now they’ve got to try alcohol. And now they’ve got to try sex and then the perversion and everything that goes with it. Amen? They’re like Eve wanting to know the evil. But see, Eve didn’t have any idea what the consequences were going to bring. Number three of the six pillars. God gave both the man and the woman dominion. He gave them equality. First pillar was fertility. The second pillar was dominion. And the third pillar is equality. Fourth pillar, he said, cleave to your wife and you’ll be one flesh. Monogamy. Monogamy. As I said, Jesus said it in Matthew 19, 5. Paul said in Ephesians 5, 31, a man will leave his mother and father. He will cleave unto his wife and they will be one flesh. Now when Jesus said it in Matthew 19, 5, he added a warning to it in verse 6. What God has put together, let no one put asunder. What God has joined together, let no one separate. Amen? One man and one woman is God’s design. And that brings us to pillar number 5. heterosexuality. Male and female made he them. God brought the woman to the man. Isn’t that romantic? And we see from that in the marriage ceremony that the father brings the bride to the groom. So God brought Eve to Adam. He brought the woman to the man, not to his significant other. He didn’t bring a man and a man together or a woman and a woman together. He didn’t even bring in a third party of the opposite sex. One man, one woman, male, female, husband, wife. God will never bring a man to a man or a woman to a woman because such a union can never produce a godly seed. Amen. Oh, I know we are in modern times and there’s such thing as in vitro fertilization. And they bring in a third party of the opposite sex so they can fertilize the egg of one of them or vice versa, whatever the case might be. But let me tell you something. A couple cannot pass down their unique sex. DNA, their unique genetic materials. And in that sense, they will never be equal to a heterosexual couple. Do you understand that? Yes. In other words, you’ve got two men and now they bring in a woman. Or you’ve got two women and they bring in a man so that they can have a child. But it’s only going to be one member of that homosexual couple that will pass on their DNA with another third party who has nothing to do with their relationship. So the other part of that union will not pass down their genetic material. And they can never be equal to what God said to a man and a woman, be fruitful and multiply. They cannot. In that sense, they’re never going to be equal. Amen? Leviticus 18.22 says, You shall not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is an abomination. That word is something to be abhorred. And I’m not going to read it all because it would take a while. But you say, well, that’s Old Testament. Well, let’s go to the New Testament. In Romans 1, he said they dishonor their own body between themselves. Doing that which is unclean. unclean means something that is vile, something that is to be abhorred, that is abominable. And here’s the part that always gets me. You know, you get into the sexual part, man with man, woman with woman, burning in their lust. But this is the part that always strikes my spirit, who changed the truth of God into a lie. That gets me even more than the actual sexual acts that they get involved in. Because that’s lust. But the fact that they changed the truth. The Creator made them male and female. The Creator made them husband and wife. They’re calling God a liar. They changed the truth of creation. And they go so far as to say, God made me this way. Amen. They’re calling God a liar. They changed the truth of God into a lie. Therefore, God gave them over. God gave them over to vile affections. Women change their natural use to that which is against nature. Let me put another word in there. Against creation. Amen. That which is against God’s creation. Also the men leaving the natural or created use of the woman burned in their lust one toward another. Men with men working that which is unseemly. You want to know what that word means? Or that which is unseemly in one place, inconvenient in another? It means that which is morally deformed. Morally deformed. Deformed. Amen. So that was number five. Amen. So God saw everything that he had made and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. You’re saying, well, you left one out. You said you were going to give us six. Well, I already touched on it a moment ago when I said God created man to work. He made them to have an occupation. He made humans to work. And we’ll look at that a little bit more. Let’s go to chapter 2 and look at verse 1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed them and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work, which God created and made. God didn’t rest because he was tired. Day seven, if you notice, does not have, and the evening and the morning were the seventh day. Did you notice that wasn’t there? So God rested not because he was tired, but because his work was done. it was done and the reason why it doesn’t say and the evening and the morning where the seventh day is because we who know god god is our rest he is our rest we enter into rest by faith not labor i don’t have time to read the scriptures but that’s what hebrews 3 19 4, 6, and 11 tell us we enter into the rest of God by faith. He went on to say that Israel did not enter into the rest of God because of their unbelief. So he’s not talking about physical rest. He’s talking about God is our rest. No matter what goes on in our lives, and our lives are up and down, and our lives have good times and bad and happy and sad times, but even in the worst of times, God is our rest. Amen? But God found it necessary to institute a law and make it a commandment to remember the Sabbath as we read earlier. He commanded them to keep one day for rest. But I want you to understand this. Not only did he command them to keep one day for rest, but if you remember how it read, he commanded them to work six days. Because if God did not command them to work, some would not work. Today we see the pendulum’s going the other way. God was telling them, don’t work yourself to death seven days a week. Now it’s going the other way. We’ve got people that don’t want to work. Amen? They don’t want to work. Oh, they want to be fruitful and multiply. But they want the government and the taxpayers to take care of. Them. And their children. Can the church say amen? Or ouch? Isn’t it true? I’m not talking about people that are genuinely disabled. I’m talking about people that could be out there working. But they want the government to take care of them and all their kids and so on. The fathers have done flew the coop. He doesn’t care about them. Leaving all that burden on the mother. So she has to go and get help from the government. That’s not the way God’s design is. Amen? And Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 3.10, We command you that if any would not work, neither should he eat. The pantry should be for people that are truly in a hard place, in a hard time. That’s what the pantry’s for, not for people that just don’t want to work. There was a time that I had to go and get food stamps, and I had to get the free lunches for my children, my two boys, because their father flew the coop and didn’t give me one red cent. It was over five years I never got a dime from him. And so I didn’t have much choice. But when Benny and I got married, I was delighted to write a letter to the principal and said, my boys no longer need free lunch. But when I needed it, I went for it and I didn’t feel ashamed. I worked for the church. I didn’t make a lot of money. I had to go get help to pay my gas electric bill. I had to do what I had to do. But once I was no longer in that dire strait, I didn’t do that anymore. Amen? 1 Thessalonians 4, 11 and 12. Do your own business and work with your own hands as we have commanded you that you may walk honestly and may lack nothing. Amen. Amen. And with this new socialism that all of these running for president want to put in, they want to give everything to everybody, free everything. But we all know there’s no free lunch. Someone’s paying for it. Somebody’s paying for it. It’s not biblical. Socialism is anti-biblical. It’s not biblical. God said, take care of the widows. Take care of the orphans. This is true religion and undefiled. Make sure they can glean your fields and they can have something. Take care of them. First, he commanded the family. Family, take care of your widowed mothers. But if there is no family, then let others come and help and take care of them. Don’t let them suffer. God is all for taking care of those who are in genuine need. But socialism is against the Bible. Amen? All right. I’m going to end on a good note because you’re all mad at me now. I told you you would be. I warned you. So I’m going to end with Job 38 and 7. This is where God was sort of reprimanding Job a little bit. And he said, Job, where were you when I created the earth? Where were you when I laid the foundations? Where were you when I spread out the heavens like a tent? And God goes on and on and talks all about what he did. But I love this verse 7. Where were you, Job, when the morning stars sang together… And the sons of God shouted for joy. You’ve got to get this image in your mind, saints. When God had finished his work and his creation, and he said it was very good, I want you to know there was an explosion in heaven. There was a celebration. The angels of God, where it says sons of God, that means the angels of God. The morning stars, I looked it up to see if it was metaphorical. It means what it says. The stars started singing. The stars were singing. Takes us back to Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God. The morning stars were singing and the angels of God shouted for joy. They said, look at this creation. Look what God has done. Look at this beautiful earth. Look at all the beautiful birds. Look at the animals. And look at this creature he made in his own image and in his own likeness. Look at this man and woman, Adam and Eve. Aren’t they gorgeous? Yes. Aren’t they exquisite? They’re marvelous. And even fallen man were all born in sin and shape and iniquity, David said. Even so, David said, I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am marvelously made. Even the fallen sinners that were born were still fearfully and wonderfully made. And those babies are in the image of God. Whether they’re a couple weeks old, a couple months old. When they rip those babies out of the mother’s womb, they’re ripping out some child that’s created in the image of God. God’s creation is so marvelous. Amen. Can we stand and rejoice? Can we stand and rejoice and celebrate? Amen. If you’ve been following us in this comprehensive study of the Genesis series, the recreation of heaven and earth, we have come to days five through seven when God created wonderful inhabitants to dwell on the newly restored, beautified earth. God formed the birds and the beast of the field. Then his final masterpiece, the crown jewel of his creation, God created humans in his own image and likeness. Now all were formed from the dust of the earth, but only man received the breath of God into his nostrils, creating him not only a soul, but also a spirit. Only humans have the ability to communicate spirit to spirit with God. Find out the exciting way God put his signature on Adam that can only be seen in the spelling of the Hebrew word for formed and why it begins with two Y’s. To hear this complete teaching, order the three CD set of Genesis, the recreation of heaven and earth. You will receive part one. The Recreation of Heaven and Earth, Part 2, Recreation Days 2-4, and Part 3, Recreation Days 5-7. Send your minimum love gift of $20 to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Request offer SK777. or go to our e-store at soundoffaith.org, where MP3s are also available. But to order the Genesis series, the complete three-CD teaching, by mail, send your love gift of $20 or more to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Request SK777. Till next time, this is Sharon Knott saying, Maranatha.
