Genesis: Retracing Our Spiritual Roots | Dr. Robert Jeffress | April 19, 2026

Scorecard

Summary

A 41-minute opening sermon introducing a Genesis series. Jeffress spends the bulk of his time (1) defending Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch against the documentary hypothesis, (2) framing higher criticism as the gateway to loss of faith and deconstruction, (3) presenting a literal/"normal" hermeneutic — historical Adam, six-day creation, global flood — as the only defensible reading, and (4) closing with a traditional evangelical gospel invitation. The rhetorical core argues a forced-choice trilemma: Moses wrote Genesis because Jesus said so, and denying this makes Jesus "mistaken" or "a deceiver." Secondary moves include dismissing evolution as "absolute idiocy," asserting "the secular world absolutely hates God," and recounting approvingly a talk-radio caller who framed Princess Diana's death as "the consequences of a sinful life." The sermon ends with a faithful, Christ-centered altar call grounded in grace through faith.

Timeline

Each marker = a flagged finding. Click to jump to the finding; hover for the title. Color indicates severity.

Findings (6)

Whole-Bible Engagement (3)

For each major framing in the sermon, the pastor's claim is placed side-by-side with what Jesus said in the Gospels and what the wider Bible says (OT + NT non-Gospel). Surfaces cherry-picking, omitted counter-voices, and places where the canon itself contains tension the pastor did not acknowledge.

Factual Claims & Evidence Check (6)

Empirical claims the pastor made during the sermon, with a verdict on whether independent evidence supports them. Verdict scale: Supported · Partially supported · Contested · Misleading · Unsupported · False. “Evidence the pastor cited” records whether any source was named in the sermon itself.

Tenets affirmed

• Scripture-centered pulpit: sermon repeatedly opens the text, reads verses aloud in context, and expects hearers to follow along in their own Bibles.
• Christ-centered gospel invitation at close: 'not in my good works, but in what Jesus did for me to save me from my sins' — grace-through-faith articulated clearly and without admixture of works-righteousness or prosperity promises.
• John 3:16 quoted directly and applied pastorally: 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life.'
• Affirms the Jesus–Genesis linkage on marriage (Matt 19:4–6): that God's design is 'one man with one woman for life' — faithful to Jesus's own citation of Gen 1:27 and Gen 2:24.

Counter-signals

• No endorsement of a named political candidate or party in this sermon.
• No flag, pledge, or civil-religion imagery.
• No anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish, anti-LGBTQ, or anti-immigrant content in this sermon (Jewish Torah reverence is affirmed positively).
• Traditional gospel altar call — call to personal faith in Christ, not to political action, cultural war, or consumer discipleship.
• Models the practice of disagreeing with a professor in public on substance rather than on identity ('I beg to disagree, sir').

Christian Nationalism marker rubric (Whitehead/Perry, Du Mez, Alberta)

Other Axis-2 sub-rubrics

• Anti-Muslim framing: Not present in this sermon
• Anti-LGBTQ framing: Not present — Brief deacon-qualification example mentions divorce/polygamy without attack on LGBTQ persons.
• Misogynistic framing: Low — See Finding 2.3 — Princess Diana anecdote uses a specific deceased woman's alleged sexual behavior as moral exhibit; single instance, not structural.
• Anti-Jewish framing: Not present — Jewish Second-Temple practice and Torah reverence are affirmed; 'the Jews saw these five books as one' is descriptive and respectful.
• Anti-intellectual / anti-science framing: Present — 'Absolute idiocy of evolution'; framing of college and 'even Christian college' as faith threats; deconstruction panic.

Full transcript

Highlighted paragraphs contain flagged content (color = severity). Click any timestamp to jump to that moment on YouTube.

[00:00:00]In the mid 1970s, a black author wrote a book that shook the foundation of our country's conscience. It was a book that later became a minisseries on television, the most watched minisseries in television history. Alex Haley's book Roots was the story of his own family's search to discover its past in Africa and link that to its time

[00:00:30]in the old south caught in slavery. People have speculated about why so many people were attracted to this story. Why did 130 million Americans tune in for seven nights to watch Roots? Author James Boyce says that many people thought the popularity was due to the fact that the series tackled the difficult issue of race. But the author Alex Haley disagreed with that. He said the popularity of Roots was that it

[00:01:00]helped a family find meaning in its past and therefore direction for its future. Understanding your past is the key to understanding your purpose in the present and your direction for the future. You know, we have a word secular. We talk about secular a lot. The word secular is a word that means literally to live within the bounds of

[00:01:30]this age. A person who is secular is someone who can only see the present. He doesn't care about the past. He doesn't have a clue about the future. He only le lives in the present. Which explains why so many people have a lack of purpose or meaning in their life. What is true physically and emotionally is true spiritually. Ladies and gentlemen, you will never understand who you are, God's purpose

[00:02:00]for you, God's future for you until you understand your past. And that's why today we're beginning a study of the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis in a series I've entitled Retracing Your Spiritual Roots. If you have your Bibles, I want you to open to Genesis chapter 1, beginning with verse one. Now, in this first message today, I want to do just three things. We have a few minutes to do three things. First of all, I'm going to give you some overview

[00:02:30]material about the book of Genesis. We're going to discover secondly the outline of the book of Genesis, the topics it covers, and then finally, I want to share with you three reasons you ought to care about the book of Genesis. Let's first of all talk about the title of the book. In the Hebrew Old Testament, in Hebrew, the title of a book in Hebrew would be the first word of that book. And so in the beginning, the first words in the book, in the

[00:03:00]beginning is what the Hebrew Bible is titled this book of Genesis. Our word Genesis is a translation of a Greek word that's found in chapter 2:4 that means origin. Genesis means the beginning or the origin. Secondly, let's talk about the author. The author of this book, it was believed at least for 18800 years or longer, was Moses. Moses was the supposed author of the book of Genesis. We'll discover how

[00:03:30]all of that changed beginning in the 1800s. But let me say the reason I'm going to take a few minutes to talk about this is to give you trust and faith in the Bible that you have. Because you may say, "Well, I don't care who wrote the book, Moses or Schmoses. It don't matter to me." Well, it needs to matter to you because the attempt to deny the Mosaic authorship of Genesis is the beginning of denying the truthfulness of the Bible. What evidence is there that Moses was the one who

[00:04:00]wrote not just Genesis but the first five books of the Old Testament we call the Pentatuk? Penta means five. Tucas means scrolls. The five scrolls the Jews saw these five books as one. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And the Bible itself declares that Moses is the author of the pentetuk. We won't go through all these verses, but Exodus 17:14, that's one example. Then the Lord says to Moses,

[00:04:30]"Write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua." Or look in Numbers 33, the fourth book in the Bible. These are the journeys of the sons of Israel by which they came out of the land of Egypt by their armies under the leadership of Moses and Aaron. And Moses recorded their starting places. One more passage of many Deuteronomy 31:9. So Moses wrote this law and gave it to the

[00:05:00]priest. There are other verses, but you get the point. Uh the book of the law, the law itself, these first five books claim Mosaic authorship. So did other Old Testament books. They looked to Moses as the author. Uh for example, Joshua 1 7-8. We read just a moment ago. God said to Joshua, "Only be strong and be very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you." One final one. 2

[00:05:30]Kings 14:6. But the sons of the slayers did not put to death according to what is written in the law of Moses. The pentetuk itself claims Mosaic authorship. Other Old Testament books claim it. The greatest theologian in the world, Jesus Christ also believed in the Mosaic authorship of these first five books. Let me give you a couple examples of that. In Matthew 19, the Pharisees were trying to trick Jesus, get him involved in a common controversy of the

[00:06:00]day over the subject of divorce and remarage. And so they try to get Jesus to take a stand and alienate half of the Jewish audience by doing so. So they say, Jesus, is it right for a person to divorce his mate for any reason at all? And Jesus goes back to the beginning to show God's plan has always been one man with one woman for life. That was his plan. And he uses the literal Adam and Eve as a basis for that. And then he

[00:06:30]says in verses five and six, for this reason, because God created them male and female, one man with one woman for life. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh. What did the Pharisees do? They said, "Well, what about?" They got into what aboutism. They said, "What about verse eight, Moses and what he said? If God said no divorce, why did Moses say under circumstances you can divorce?" And

[00:07:00]notice what verse 8 says. Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives." He's talking about a quotation from Deuteronomy 4. And thus said it was Moses that wrote that. But from the beginning, that was God's plan. Not God's plan. God's plan never originally included divorce and remarage. God's word allowed it because of the hardness of people's hearts. And so he linked what happened in the

[00:07:30]beginning to what Moses said both in the creation account and in this exception clause. You say, "Well, that's pretty flimsy evidence. Is there anything else Jesus had to say?" Yes, there is. Glad you asked. Remember in Luke 24 27 we have the story of the two disciples of Jesus on the road to Emmas. They had just heard about the resurrection that Sunday morning. They were going back home from Jerusalem to Emmas. And as they were walking along, a third man appeared. They didn't recognize it was

[00:08:00]Jesus at first, but the Bible says Jesus began to explain to them all the things of the Old Testament. And Luke 24:27 says, "Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, Jesus explained to them the things concerning himself in the scriptures." Two things to note from that. Moses is the author of the law. You see, the Jews divided the Old Testament into law, prophets, and the writings. They say uh Jesus said it

[00:08:30]began with Moses. He explained to all the things concerning himself in the scriptures. Moses was the author of the law. And secondly, Jesus equated the writings of Moses with scripture. Scripture, the writings of Moses. One more. Luke 24:44. Then Jesus said to them, "These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things that were written about me in the law of

[00:09:00]Moses." That's the penetuk. that's the Torah and the prophets and psalms might be fulfilled. This is not a small consideration. Jesus claimed Moses was the author of these first five books. Now, if Moses is not the author, then Jesus was mistaken. That's one option. He didn't have a clue about who wrote the first five books of the Old Testament. Do you believe that? If you don't believe that, then the only other consideration could be, well, he knew it→ Forced-choice trilemma about Mosaic authorship projects modern inerrancy onto Jesus

[00:09:30]wasn't true, but he said it anyway to accommodate the error of the people of his day. If he accommodated error by speaking falsehood, then he's sinful. He's a deceiver. He's either wrong or he's a deceiver. The only other option is he's telling the truth. He claimed Mosaic authorship because in fact it was written by Moses. Now I said for 1800 years and really longer than that when you go back to the time before Christ people accepted the Mosaic authorship→ Forced-choice trilemma about Mosaic authorship projects modern inerrancy onto Jesus

[00:10:00]but that began to change in the uh 1700s in the 1700s with a man named Julius Wellhousen. He lived in the 1700s in the 18th century. Julius Wellhousen. He is the founder of what we call higher criticism. Now, for the next few moments, some of you are going to think, "Pastor, this is something that should be taught in a seminary class, but it doesn't mean a

[00:10:30]rip to me. I don't care about higher criticism. Why should I care about higher criticism?" Because someday you may hear or read about this, and it may disturb you and cause you to doubt the Bible. But I'll guarantee you, your children and grandchildren, if they go to school, if they go to college, even a Christian college, they're going to hear this and it's going to blow some of them right out of their saddle when it comes to their Christian faith. They're going to start deconstructing and abandoning the Christian faith. So, you better→ Deconstruction panic framing higher education as a faith threat

[00:11:00]listen to what I'm about to say to you and understand this concept of higher criticism. Higher criticism is an attempt to try to understand what the Bible is really saying. It's an attempt to try to decipher what is really the Bible and the word of God from what is myth and legend. You see, the basic theory of higher criticism is that any piece of literature, including the Bible, if it's around long enough, will have certain things that corrupt its→ Deconstruction panic framing higher education as a faith threat

[00:11:30]meaning added to it. myth, tradition, folklore, and so it gains layer upon layer upon layer of falsehoods. And if you're going to get to the original meeting, you've got to peel away all the superolous stuff that's been added to it. Now, that sounds pretty good. We want to take away all of the things that aren't true. But who decides what's true and not true? You know, if you start peeling an onion, you can peel it and peel it and peel it until there's

[00:12:00]nothing left. The same thing is true about the Bible. The higher critic says you peel away anything that's supernatural. Anything that's supernatural cannot have happened. You see, super means above. Nature means nature, the world that we see. Supernatural is anything beyond nature. Anything that breaks the natural laws. And so anything that's

[00:12:30]supernatural cannot be a part of God's word. And this is how it translates. For example, Daniel could not have written the book of Daniel. The higher critic says. Why? Because Daniel lived hundreds of years before the prophecies that he made. How would he know the future? How could somebody know the future? That's impossible to know the future. Therefore, Daniel didn't write Daniel. It's somebody who lived much later. you can't see the future. Or they'll take

[00:13:00]the book of uh Exodus and the story of Israel crossing the Red Sea. They say that could not have happened. They would have drowned if they had tried to cross the Red Sea. No, the writer made an error. It should be the reed sea that is only a few inches deep, not the Red Sea. And when it comes to the book of Genesis, the higher critic says you can't accept the creation account.

[00:13:30]The idea of the world coming into being in six 24-hour periods of time, that is impossible. That is myth. Somebody just borrowed the story from the Babylonian creation and inserted it in Genesis. So they say Moses could not have written Genesis. And they say the things in Genesis are not to be believed. So who did write Genesis? The higher critic would say it wasn't written in 1500 BC when Moses lived. It was written more like in 450 BC where four unknown

[00:14:00]authors, we call them J, E, P, and D, that they wrote the book of Genesis and just meshed it together with Babylonian mythology, Jewish folklore, and who knows what else. And that's the book of Genesis that we have. By the way, that's what I was introduced uh to in my first religion class in the college I attended. I'll never forget the professor standing up and the first words out of his mouth were, "There is

[00:14:30]no intelligent scholar today who believes Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible." And I raised my hand and I said, "I beg to disagree, sir." I read into somebody at the airport just recently and they introduced themselves. They said, "Do you remember me?" And I said, "I'm sorry, I don't." He said, 'Well, I was in your religion class at such and such university with you, and I sure remember you because you were always arguing with

[00:15:00]the professor. When somebody says something stupid, I'm going to argue about it. And it's a stupid thing to say. No intelligent scholar believes in the Mosaic authorship of Genesis. There is plenty of evidence for the Mosaic authorship of Genesis. Let me just give you three pieces of external evidence. First of all, the history of writing. One of the objections to Moses writing the book of uh Genesis, people said in 1500 BC uh

[00:15:30]writing had not even been invented. 3,500 years ago when Moses lived, writing had not been developed. But archaeology has revealed from tablets found in Egypt and Mesopotamia that yes, writing was invented as early as 7,000 BC. Or take the uniqueness of the penetuk. Again, I said the critic says, well, this was just the Babylonian mythology that crept into the book of Genesis. But William Albbright, who is called the father of

[00:16:00]modern archaeology, who's certainly not an evangelical Christian, he disputed that and has written that it's difficult to see how this early mythological structure can be connected in any way with the biblical event. Do you know what the Babylonian explanation is for the beginning of the world? There were these two dragons, two dragons who gave birth to all the deities in the world. And then one dragon killed the other dragon. The

[00:16:30]female dragon was slain and she was cut in two and out of the top half of her body all the heavens emerged and the bottom half of her body all the earth came and that's how we got the world today. Does that sound like Genesis 1 to you? No. It was polytheistic. It was grounded in the belief of many gods. The creation account is unique in all literature of that time because it was monotheistic believing in one God.

[00:17:00]Thirdly, recent archaeological discoveries. Charles Ryrie was a member of our church, great theologian for so many years. He's in heaven today. But he noted in his writings that after World War I, there were an increasing number of archaeological discoveries that have dis that have revealed that there were practices in the second millennium BC when Moses lived 1500 BC. There were practices that had disappeared and were not known in the first millennium, 450

[00:17:30]BC, when these supposed unknown authors of Genesis emerged. talking about things like giving a double portion of an estate to the oldest son, the validity of oral wills, the sale of one's birthright. Those were common in the second millennium but BC but not in the first millennium BC. So if it was written by people in the first millennium BC, how would they have known

[00:18:00]about practices that were uh exclusive to the second millennium BC? Without belaboring the point, let me just say the scriptural evidence, the external evidence argues for the Mosaic authorship. And this is just one example of why you can trust the Bible. In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul wrote, "For all scripture, not just part of scripture, not just the part that seems reasonable. All scripture is inspired by God, and

[00:18:30]it's profitable for reprove, for teaching, for correction, for training in righteousness." That word inspired, you've heard us say many times, the Greek word theos, God, nustas, breathed. All scripture is God breathed. and you can trust it. But when it comes to the book of Genesis, inspiration is certainly an issue, but it doesn't answer all of our questions. You see, there's a difference between inspiration and interpretation.

[00:19:00]And so, the real question is not just can I trust these words, but what do these words mean? Let me give you an example of that. A few years ago, our church decided to revisit the issue of qualifications for deacons in our church. And we knew where to turn in the Bible to that. 1 Timothy chapter 3 lists the qualifications for a deacon and a pastor. One of those qualifications is he must be the husband of one wife. Now,

[00:19:30]we had a committee to study that. Nobody disagreed with that was God's word and instruction, the husband of one wife. But the question was, what do those words mean? For example, does husband of one wife mean you can't be single and be a deacon or a pastor? Does it mean you can't be a polygamist and have multiple wives? Does it mean you can't be divorced and remarage? What do those words mean? And the same thing comes to

[00:20:00]pass when we're looking at the book of Genesis. How are we to interpret the book of Genesis? There are three ways people go about interpreting the book of Genesis. One is a very popular method even among Christians. It's the allegorical interpretation. It basically says the people and events in Genesis aren't necessarily historically true, but they represent an important truth we need to understand. For example, God didn't literally create the world in six

[00:20:30]24-hour periods. You can't take Genesis 1 and 2 literally. They're a fable that uh illustrate God's hand in creation. There was no literal Adam and no literal Eve. They were simply a way to explain entrance of evil into the world. You can't take Genesis 6-9, the worldwide flood, Noah and the ark. None of that is literal. It is a fable about God's

[00:21:00]judgment of sin. That's the allegorical interpretation. These events aren't necessarily historically true, but they teach us a great truth. The problem, there are a lot of problems with that kind of interpretation, but one of the problems is it contradicts how the Bible treats these events. The Bible treats these events as historical realities. For example, turn to Psalm 136 beginning with verse 5. The writer is talking about the miracle of creation. To him

[00:21:30]who made the heavens with skills, for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his loving kindness is everlasting. To him who made the great lights, for his loving kindness is everlasting. That's a reference to creations. We'll see in a few weeks what God did on each day. People will say, "You can't take that literally. That's just symbolic." But notice when he gets to verse 10. To him who smoked the Egyptians in their firstborn, for his

[00:22:00]loving kindness is everlasting, and brought Israel out from their midst, for his loving kindness is everlasting. He's talking about the Exodus here. He's create he is equating the Exodus with creation. The Jews believe the Exodus was a real event, their deliverance from Egypt. And yet, if it's on par with the creation, that's a myth. Then you have to be fair and say, well then the Exodus must be a myth as well. The linking of a historical event with another event is a

[00:22:30]proof that both events are taken as historical. Let me give you one other example. 1 Corinthians 15 20-22. Paul's talking about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. But the fact is Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man death came, by a man came the resurrection of the dead. Who was the man by whom death came into

[00:23:00]the world? What was his name? Adam. Adam. Romans 5:12 says, "For through one man, Adam, death came into the world, and death spread to all men because all sinned." Death came into the world because of a real man named Adam. For since by a man Adam death came, by a man also the resurrection of death. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. Now, if Adam is just a myth, he's

[00:23:30]a madeup character. How certain does that make you that Christ was real and the resurrection actually happened? Let me change the word. For as in the Easter Bunny, all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. If the verse said that, how certain would you be that you're going to be raised from the dead one day if it's just as probable as the Easter Bunny? No. The Bible treats both of these accounts as historical accounts.

[00:24:00]Adam and the first sin and Christ and the first resurrection. I remember uh some years ago being with Bill O'Reilly, the television commentator, and there was this movie out about Noah, and Bill was opining about his belief about Noah and the ark. And he made the statement that he got a lot of trouble for that. He believed Noah was a myth, that the story of the ark was a myth to illustrate a great truth. But in

[00:24:30]fairness, he had me on to give the other side. And he said, 'Now, I believe in the New Testament. I believe it's historical, but I just don't believe the Old Testament and Genesis can be taken li literally. And I said, 'Well, Bill, that's too bad because Jesus took it literally. Remember, he said in Matthew 24:27, "As it was in the day of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes again." I said, "Bill, what if Jesus said, "As

[00:25:00]it was in the days of the Easter Bunny, so shall it be when the Son of Man comes again." Would that make you confident that Jesus was coming back again? No. Jesus placed the whole basis of his belief in the second coming. It rested on Noah being a historical character. Ladies and gentlemen, just think about this. The Bible links the resurrection to a character in Genesis, Adam. The Bible links the second coming of Christ

[00:25:30]to a historical figure named Noah. That's one reason we take these events and people as literal people. That's the allegorical interpretation. Everything is a symbol of something else. Secondly, there's a typological interpretation. Uh, a lot of conservative Christians engage in that something is a representation of something else. It may be true. It probably is true, but it represents something more important. For

[00:26:00]example, Noah's ark that happened, but it points to something more important. The fact that Jesus is our ark. He's the one through whom we find salvation. And just as there was one door in the ark, there is one way to Christ. We believe that's true, but that's typological. Or saying that Abraham offering Isaac as a sacrifice, that was a picture of God the father and God the son. Or we read the story of Joseph, as we studied a few years ago, that's a picture of Jesus→ A single interpretive tradition presented as THE biblical reading of Genesis

[00:26:30]Christ. The problem in only seeing things as a picture of something else is sometimes you forget the importance of the actual event that happened and the person who happened. So you've got to avoid the extremes there. And then the third way to interpret Genesis, and it's the way I think is most accurate, is the normal interpretation that sometimes people will try to trip you up. They do me sometimes and said, "Do you take the Bible literally?"→ A single interpretive tradition presented as THE biblical reading of Genesis

[00:27:00]Do you believe the Bible is God's literal word? I don't use the word literal. And here's why. When Jesus said in John 10:9, "I am the door," he wasn't saying he's a piece of plywood with metal hinges on himself. Obviously, you can't take that literally, but you understand what he was saying. The Bible uses the language of appearance. He'll say things are like, you find that a lot in the book of Revelation. And we understand when things are symbolic of

[00:27:30]something else. We understand simileies and metaphors. But here's a good rule of interpretation. When the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense. When the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense. And that leads to an outline of the book. There really two ways you can outline the book of Genesis. There's a literary outline. I put it on your outline. you don't have to uh we don't have to talk about it

[00:28:00]this morning but it's arranging the book of Genesis around the word origin or toadote in Hebrew. These are the generations of and you see the 10 events uh that that applies to in Genesis. But I think a simpler way to do it is the thematic outline of the book of Genesis. It's divided into two parts. Genesis 1-11, which we're studying, is about man's alienation from God. God created

[00:28:30]man perfect, and yet because of sin, he rebelled against God. And Genesis 1 to1 is the story of man moving further and further and further away from God until you get to the Tower of Babel. But then Genesis 12 begins God's reconciliation with man. Chapters 12- 50 are God's plan to redeem man in spite of his sin. And it all started with one man named Abraham. God said to Abraham, "I'm going

[00:29:00]to make you the father of a great nation, and through you all the nations of the world will be blessed." That's the story of the rest of Genesis and the rest of the Bible. Genesis 1-1, man's alienation from God. Genesis 12 through Revelation 22 is God's reconciliation with man. Now, why are we studying the book of Genesis? Let me close with three key reasons to study the book of

[00:29:30]Genesis. First of all, Genesis is the key to understanding the Bible. You know, we have a slogan for our church. We say built on the Bible. This church is not built on a denomination. We really don't care what the Southern Baptist Convention does because what they do or don't do has no impact on us. We're not built on a denomination. We're not built on tradition. We're not built on a political party. First Baptist Dallas is built on the Bible. The Bible

[00:30:00]never changes. And it's a great slogan, but we need to take it seriously. If we're going to be built on the Bible, we better understand the Bible. and know the Bible. And you can't know the Bible without knowing the book of Genesis. Did you know there are 200 illusions or quotations from Genesis in all of the New Testament? And 100 of those 200 quotations or illusions come from Genesis 1-1. So it's the key to

[00:30:30]understanding the Bible. By the way, you can't understand Bible prophecy without understanding Genesis. We always talk about the Old Testament book of Daniel. And Daniel is the Old Testament counterpart to Revelation. And Revelation quotes Daniel many times, but it quotes the book of Genesis even more than the book of Daniel. A second reason for understanding Genesis, it's the key to understanding our culture. It's the key to understanding our culture. Did you know the world, the secular world,

[00:31:00]absolutely hates God? and they hate the things of God. And that explains, by the way, the emphasis on pushing the absolute idiocy of evolution. We're going to talk about evolution in the days ahead. But, you know, people say, "Well, evolution is science and creationism is faith. You can't mix the two." Evolution doesn't have anything to→ 'Absolute idiocy' and 'the secular world absolutely hates God'; Jeremiad register: 'the secular world absolutely hates God'

[00:31:30]say about God. Yes, evolution actually has a lot to say about God, especially in role of creation. Evolution says God doesn't exist. And if he did exist, he had absolutely no role in creation. Everything we see in this world, every person, every tree, every animal, happened accidentally. It happened by chance. People don't buy that. Did you know a Gallup poll in 2024 showed that 71% of Americans believe God→ 'Absolute idiocy' and 'the secular world absolutely hates God'; Jeremiad register: 'the secular world absolutely hates God'

[00:32:00]played a role in creation? Many of those believe he was the only agent of creation. But 71% believe that God played a role in creation. Only 22% believe there is no God who had no role in creation. And yet go to a school, go to a college and you have evolution pushed down your throat that this world is by chance. Why are they so rabid in doing that? Because if there is a creator, if we are created, if we are here not by→ Jeremiad register: 'the secular world absolutely hates God'

[00:32:30]accident but by purpose, then it means we have unaccountability to our creator. And the unbeliever hates that. Genesis is the key to understanding our culture and why we are the way we are. And finally, Genesis is the key to understanding the purpose of God. You're going to find five great themes in the book of Genesis. First of all, the doctrine of God. The 10 most profound words in the universe are these. In the→ Jeremiad register: 'the secular world absolutely hates God'

[00:33:00]beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Those words take us back further in history than Carl Sean could. They take us back further than the most powerful radio telescope. Those words tell us that everything in this universe is here by purpose. God is the one who is the ultimate cause of everything in this world. And he's the ultimate cause of→ Jeremiad register: 'the secular world absolutely hates God'

[00:33:30]everything in your life right now. That's the doctrine of God. We find also the doctrine of man in the book of Genesis. Contrary to popular thinking, we did not emerge from being an amoeba to a tadpole to a fish to a bird to a gorilla. That's not how we came into being. The Bible tells us that we were created perfectly, instantaneously from the dust of the ground. We were created in the image of God. The Bible also

[00:34:00]tells us in Genesis 1-11, the doctrine of sin. Even though we were created in the image of God, sin entered the world and we rebelled against God to the point that we hated God. Genesis 6:5 gives this indictment about man. You know, we talk about the goodness of man. How everybody has a spark of divinity in them. There's some good in every person. That's not what God says. Here's Genesis 6:5, God's diagnosis of every human→ Genesis 6:5 as blanket human-nature doctrine without Genesis 1:27

[00:34:30]being. Every intent of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually. Every intention of the thoughts of our heart are only evil continually. So much for the basic goodness of mankind. Sin has corrupted all of us. And that leads to the fourth theme in the book of Genesis. The doctrine of judgment. the doctrine of God's→ Genesis 6:5 as blanket human-nature doctrine without Genesis 1:27

[00:35:00]judgment. People today don't want to hear that God is a God who judges. They hate that idea. I remember so well 30 years ago or so when Princess Diana died in that automobile accident and the world just became undone over it. And I remember listening to talk radio back then and people would call in trying to make Princess Diana into a version of Mother Teresa and the Virgin Mary. I mean, she was the godliest woman who had ever walked the face of the earth, you→ Named deceased woman used as moral exhibit for sexual-sin judgment

[00:35:30]would think. And then one person called in, I heard, called in and said, "Well, let me get this straight. Here's a woman in a relationship with a man not her husband, having sexual immorality, committing sexual immorality with him, choosing to get into the car with a drunk driver. I mean, could it just be that her situation is the result of her own choices? It's just the consequences of a sinful life. Man, people went nuts at→ Princess Diana's death framed as 'consequences of a sinful life'; Named deceased woman used as moral exhibit for sexual-sin judgment; Suffering-as-judgment theology preached without the canonical counter-voices

[00:36:00]that calling in, "How could you be so insensitive? How could you say such a thing?" People hate the idea that there's divine judgment when we disobey God. But that's the message of Genesis. God said, "In the day that you sin, you shall surely die." And because of our sin, we are facing a judgment much more fiery than an automobile crash. Because of our sin, our natural rebellion against God, we are sentenced to an→ Princess Diana's death framed as 'consequences of a sinful life'; Suffering-as-judgment theology preached without the canonical counter-voices

[00:36:30]eternity of separation and hell. But the story of Genesis doesn't end there. Because in the book of Genesis, we also find hope. And that's the doctrine of justification through faith. God has provided a way for us to escape his judgment. Remember in Genesis chapter 3, after Adam and Eve sinned, after they felt such shame and guilt, they made a covering of fig leaves to hide their

[00:37:00]guilt. God said, "That's not going to do it." And he slew an animal. The first death in the Bible was in sacrifice. And God took the skin of that animal and he placed it as a covering, an atonement for Adam and Eve. So that when he saw them, he no longer saw their sin. He saw the lamb, the land, the animal that had been killed. What a picture of what God does for us. We cannot save ourselves.

[00:37:30]But God has provided a lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be our sin covering. In Genesis chapter 15:6, we see that doctrine of justification through faith. The Bible says, "And Abraham believed God, and his faith was counted as righteousness, as a covering." And Paul picked up on that in Romans 4:5. He quoted that verse. He said, "But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith

[00:38:00]is counted as righteousness." We need the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And God has provided that righteousness through his death on the cross. Those are just five of the major themes we're going to see unveiled in Genesis 1-11. My friend Max Leo has written, "Every star is an announcement.

[00:38:30]Every leaf is a reminder. The glaciers are a megaphone. The clouds are a banner. All of nature is a song with many parts, but one theme and one verse. God is. God is. And may I add, the God who is is a God who loves you.

[00:39:00]John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life." That's the theme of the book of Genesis that we'll be looking at in the weeks ahead. Let's bow together in prayer. God is he exists. He's real. But most importantly, he loves you. He loves you

[00:39:30]so much. He wants to have a relationship with you. Well, there's only one way to have a relationship with him. It's through faith in his son and our savior Jesus Christ. It's no accident you're here today. God has you here for a reason. It's no accident you tuned in to this service. Today, God offers you the chance to have your sins taken away, to experience God's forgiveness, to become a child of God. Today, if you

[00:40:00]would like to place your faith in Jesus to be your savior, I want to encourage you to pray this prayer in your heart as I pray it out loud, knowing that God is listening to you right now. Would you pray this with me? Dear God, thank you for loving me. I know I have failed you in so many ways. And I'm truly sorry for the sins in my life, but I believe what I've heard today that you love me so much you sent your

[00:40:30]son Jesus to die on the cross for me. To take the punishment I deserve to take for my sins. And right now, I'm trusting in what Jesus did for me. not in my good works, but in what Jesus did for me to save me from my sins. Thank you for forgiving me and help me to live the rest of my life for you in Jesus name. Amen.