Genesis chapter 1 verse number 6 and God said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters and God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament and it was so and God called the firmament heaven and the evening and morning the morning were the second day and God said let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let the dry land appear and it was so and God called the dry land earth and the gathering together of the waters called he seas and God saw that it was good and God said let the earth bring forth grass the herb yield the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself upon the earth and it was so and the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind and the tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind and God saw that it was good and the evening and the morning were the third day and God said let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and it was so and God made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night the Sun and the moon he made the stars also and God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness and God saw that it was good and the evening and the morning were the fourth day and God said let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and foul that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven and God created great whales and every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind and every wing fowl after his kind and God saw that it was good the division of the waters is a historical and scientifically validated fact the earth as the Spirit of God began to move upon it in its fallen state and recreate it was in an icy watery condition the Pleistocene age the ice age in all probability now the ices and the waters obviously would give off a vaporous gas -like misty substance this substance would be clinging upon the earth around the north and the south poles it is very easy to see the in and visible to see in great distances the vaporous misty like substance that rises from the vast expanses of the ice wastes wastes now the Bible says that God commanded that these watery vaporous substances would separate from the water beneath and he caused the firmament the air to come between them and to separate them the upper layer of atmosphere the upper waters still exists and scientists validate the fact today that if it were ever to rain all of the moisture from all of the atmosphere beyond the firmament above the heavens at one time and if ever at one time at that same time all of the ice in all of the the the places in the world where there are icebergs was to melt at once that once again there is still enough water in different forms in liquid in vaporous in solid forms above the earth earth and in great ice cakes on the earth to again cover the earth the matter has not changed it is still existent now there are two bodies of water surrounded separated by the firmament the atmosphere around the earth there is then the water covering the earth and the water above the earth is it any wonder that the old testament writers spoke of the floor of heaven of God thundering across the floor of heaven and opening the windows of heaven there is a reality beyond our sky a a substance that covers the earth an atmosphere around the earth that is vaporous it is of such intensity and consistency that a man coming back from space must be dead certain that they find that exact channel at the exact speed at the exact angle that a man can enter through this tremendous crust of power and intensity that is above the earth or if he hits it at the wrong angle he will skip off into eternity it was for this that we were praying for the return of our astronauts in safety now there are some very very gray great similarities in these two bodies of water the waters above the earth beyond the firmament the air and the waters of the earth they are of course both filled with great pressures one goes up into the heavens into the clouds and the farther they go the more the pressure changes one can hardly go eight or ten thousand feet until he must be in a pressurized cabin in the very same way when you go down into the water you must be in a pressurized ship a pressurized submarine or the pressure can destroy you the fishes that live on the top of the water cannot go into the bottom of the water those that live in the bottom cannot come to the top of the water or they shall explode and die in the very same way in the waters that surround the world the changing pressures make it important that one be pressurized I find a very beautiful lesson here there are a lot of people in this world who can live in under certain kinds of pressure they can live on the top but when life brings them down into those experiences where they must be a go into the pressure of the earth where they must go into the pressure of living in the pressure of the water so to speak they blow up they cannot stand it but I find that the Christian in the Holy Spirit has been pressurized and we can take the valleys as well as the mountain tops we can take death as well as life and treat those two imposters both the same the Holy Spirit of God is the pressurizing agent in our lives now there are some more similarities in the body of waters above and upon the earth separated now by our God with the firmament the air surrounding the earth as there are currents in the sea as one can get on the Japanese current and sail against the wind from California all the way to Japan so are there currents in the air how many times have you and I I've been flying along at great heights and for no reason you could not see the wind you could not tell once it came or whether it went but there was a bump there was a motion up there there was a force there was a change it was the current of the wind the eagle puts his breast into the wind and rides those currents and uses them a man can play the currents in a plane without a motor and can glide great distances and can even rise and as well as to fall in his plane now there are different kinds of animals there's another kind of a fowl that doesn't do that my parents used to raise chickens you know I don't think there's an animal in the world dumber than a chicken did you know did you know that you can hypnotize a chicken did you know that you can take a chicken's head and put it under its wing and pull it under there and twirl it around three or four times and just lay down the ground and walk off and that chicken will stay there it dies did you know that you can take a chicken and lay its head down and you can put your finger right on the end of that thing's beak in the dust and you can draw a line from its nose about two feet right out in the dust and that chicken will stay there for three or four hours just look at that line you can hypnotize a chicken sure you can do it a chicken is the dumbest animal in all the world and do you know that before the water even gets up so much as hardly to its to its feet let alone up its legs that a chicken will stand out there and look straight up at that's at that rain coming down and drown did you know a stupid chicken will stand brother if you raise chickens now that's the truth y 'all city folks don't believe me that's the truth that stupid chicken will stand there and look at that rain until it drowns a lot of chicken Christians in this world oh my listen the currents of life ought not to drown us ought not to defeat us ought not to make fools of us they ought to be used by the Christian and that philosophy I like so well one of my favorite scriptures that says if life gives you a lemon make lemonade a little humor there oh very little the eagle will put his breast into the currents will take advantage of the adversities of life and will soar where the very same pressures will bring death to some now these scriptures tell us another wonderful truth I want you to look with me if you will please over in the 20th verse verse number 20 and God said let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and foul that may fly above the earth in the open firmament now there is a very aggressive denomination that believes there are three heavens and there are and that only certain people will go to certain heavens there are degrees of reward for faithfulness to Christ in heaven their concept is erroneous the open heavens look the fowls fly in the open heavens the atmosphere the air you breathe where the birds fly that's the first heaven right around this earth now it's not called the open heaven the open firmament just the firmament verse 14 and God said let there be lights in the firmament this light this heaven this comes from the second heaven this is where the stars are this is where the moon is this is where the sun is then the bible speaks of a third heaven the apostle Paul said I was caught up into the third heaven now men have gone into the first heaven I've gone into the first heaven when I was a kid just climbing up a tree I've gone into the second heaven so have you we've sailed yonder no I guess you wouldn't call that same heaven either 36 000 feet that would still have to be the first heaven but I'll tell you one thing when Jesus comes we're going to take a ride on the gospel rocket ship and we're going up to the third heaven now those astronauts from Russia went around the earth and came back and said we didn't see any God well they didn't go high enough or they hadn't gotten down low enough but he the spiritual heaven is in the third heaven now the the key word that I want you to remember is the word division by the division God introduces a new way of creating life the division of the waters produces life the division of the firmaments perpetuates that life the division of the waters produce life now there were waters over all the earth the waters then began to separate above and beneath so that life could begin to exist it was the light the warmth that made the world an uninhabitable place a habitable place but God was not through he continued to divide now he divided the waters on the earth and dry land began to appear three -fourths of the water of the world is covered by water these seas that were produced were produced by dividing so God produced life the fishes the animals that fly and the animals that swim the Bible says God produced from the waters but by the dividing of the waters from the waters and the gathering of the waters he produced another kind of life he made possible that land would appear and there was earth and it was to be from the earth that man would find life that we were created says the word of God from the very dust of the earth and so the division has produced life in much the same way we find spiritual life by our division from our sins we owe something to the dividing of the waters our very life our very existence from the earth from which God created us because of the the division of the waters i wonder if there will be people that will say in eternity i owe my spiritual life my salvation to the division in your life of yourself from your sins the Bible says when God saves us he separates our sins as far as the east is from the west i have a question how far is that i want a mathematician to give me an equation for that i want a physicist to work out a formula for that tell me how far is the east from the west that's where our sins are when divided from them when separated from them we have eternal life but if by the division of the waters God produced life the Bible says that it is by the division in the firmament that God perpetuates his life for therein he created the stars, the moon, the sun, and without them life could not consist, it could not have been perpetuated on this earth. The animals, mankind, lives. There would have been blindness as birds that live in caves that never see half, as animals who have never seen the light are in total blindness. So you and I, who were given life, could not have perpetuated life except by the division which produced the sun, the moon, and the stars. The division, he says, verse 14 and 15, let there be light in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs, for seasons, and for days, and for years. Now, look with me in verse number 16, and God made two great lights, the greater light, the sun, to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, the moon. He made the stars also. Now, there's a tremendous spiritual lesson here. The sun always represents Jesus Christ, the sun of righteousness with healing in his wings, the light of the world, the way, the truth, and the life, the means by which men find their place in life, their purpose in life, their direction in life. All are symbolic of the incarnate word, Jesus Christ, and so it is by the word that life and light come into our lives. So the word, Logos, Jesus Christ, the light of the world, is always typified by the sun, S -U -N, the sun. The sun is the only source of light in the universe. It is from the sun that we have the light that lights the world. Now, ladies and gentlemen, the moon, which he created to rule the darkness of night, has no innate power to create light. It only reflects light that it absorbs and gets from the sun. Now, here are some good lessons for us. I want the moon to be representative of the church in this world. Let the sun be Jesus Christ and you and I the world. There is no possible way that you and I can generate any goodness in this world. That's why Jesus said that your righteousness is as so many filthy rags in his sight. Now, it's wonderful. It is wonderful to do all of these things that we can through organizations, through institutions, through education, through drives and learning, through all of these things to try to pass laws to make the world a better place. But the problem is that man has nothing good in him to initiate, to produce, to exude the only kind of light that gives real light, that gives real direction, not just knowledge, direction, not just information, wisdom, not just garnering of facts, sense. And there is such a tremendous difference. And so we, apart from the work of Christ and the indwelling work of Christ, only give out a false light, a failing light, a faint and flickering light. We must get our light from the sun. Now, he adds, almost as an insignificant afterthought, and the stars also. Now, why is it? While there are billions of stars, many of them many times bigger than our sun, Betelgeuse, for example, which is 27 and a half million times bigger than our sun, is hardly mentioned. Why does he just as an afterthought say, and the stars also? Because on the darkest night, without the moon, without the church reflecting the glory of the sun, into a dark world, all of the stars do little or no good. You see, as logs join together, bring about a beautiful fire which blazes and burns, separately, they do little, if any good. I think when God directed Moses to say, almost as an afterthought, and the stars also, he was saying to us that no matter how brightly we burn, no matter how much good we do, that man was never intended as a Christian to be separated from his fellow Christians. All of the Christians in this world cannot do one one -hundredth of the good separately than they can collectively. The little bitty moon gives off much more light than all of the billions of stars put together. Why? Because they're scattered out. And God did not intend that Christians be scattered out. That's why he said, Forsake not the assembly of yourselves together. The church, the body of Christ on earth, is to be in unity, in oneness together. Oh, I wonder what God could do as this young man so beautifully sang with what he did through the stars in the universe, what he could do through us. I'd like to see one church today, like Pentecost, together in one accord, in one place, burning and blazing for Christ. I guarantee you that the reflectant power of the church, the moon, lighting up the dark night of sin in this world, can do much more than ten thousand times that many Christians scattered out all over the world. That's why we have public, organized services. That's why he said, Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. People say, Oh, I'm a Christian. I just don't go to church. I don't buy that kind of religion. I don't believe God buys it. The Bible doesn't buy it. You say, Oh, I love Jesus. I just don't like to go to church. I love Jesus. I just don't love the church. You might as well say, I love swimming, but not the water. I love flying, but not the airplane. I love eating, but not the food. I love baseball, but not the bat and the diamond. I love Jesus, but not the church. The stars scattered, billions of them, do little if any good to light. Ah, but when there is concentrated light, God lights a darkened night. I'd like to see what could happen when I look back at what has happened in these little few weeks in our church, what could have happened, and oh, I pray, God, what will happen if we ever get all we have going together in one direction. When 20 % of our membership gives 90 % of the money, and it takes all of us together, working all year, to hardly win 200 or 300 people of Christ. Oh, I thank dear God what could happen if every staff member and preacher and deacon and teacher and member of us would get together and give all we are and put all we have together, our money, our prayer power, our witnessing power. I thank God we have 140 visiting on Monday nights. That's probably about as much as any church in the country, but it is less, it is less than 3 % of our people. Oh, what we could do if we'd ever all get together. You know, when we built this church, we didn't build it with enough faith. You know that if at any given time half of our membership came at once, they couldn't get in. I don't think we expected them to come. Now think about that for a minute. Chew on that for a couple of minutes. Oh, listen, the stars apart don't do much good. The moon, much smaller, does much more good because it's in one place, in one accord, at one time. Now the last thing is this. Sometimes there is an eclipse. What happens when there's an eclipse? When darkness covers the world? It is because the world has come between the moon and the sun. And when the world comes between the church and the sun, Jesus Christ, brother, the light begins to flicker. And that's where America is today. That's where the church is today. You say, oh, preacher, I'm not like that. You know what they think of Baptists when we talk about worldliness? I don't cuss. I don't smoke. I don't go to dirty shows. I don't dance. I don't drink. I don't spit in the sink. I don't jaywalk. That's about it. I don't know what the Bible's talking about. Listen. To be not conformed to the world means to be not in union and unity of mind and purpose and intent and direction with this present world system, which is set in opposition to Christ. It means that there are tendencies, that the world is self -aggrandizing. The world seeks its own. The world is jealous. The world is prejudiced. The world seeks not the things of Christ. There are so many other areas besides those little ridiculous lists of don'ts with which Baptists have so come identified through the years that it hardly behooves any of us to be condemning and judging anybody else. When the world, the world's faithlessness, the world's invertedness, the world's materialism, the world's approaches, the world's defeatism, without a spirit of conquest and vision, when the world's attitudes get in the church between the moon and the sun, there's an eclipse. And I want you to know that there's one other kind of eclipse that rarely takes place, but it happens too. Once in a while, the moon will come between the sun and the world. The church, the church can get in the way of people seeing Jesus Christ. You know what people say to me sometimes that I consider to be my favorite compliment, frankly? You're the only preacher I ever felt like I could come sit down and talk to. You know what they're saying to me? They're saying that there is a game that preachers play. There's a game that choirs play. There's a game that churches play. There's a facade. There is a veneer. There is an image that we give that we are not genuine, that we're not real, that we don't put on our britches one leg at a time. We're not regular human beings. There's a fancified formal facade in the Life magazine called Sunday morning recently the most wasted hour of the week. And I say to you honestly that most of the churches I've been in, I agree. It is the most wasted hour of the week. I didn't understand a thing they were saying. I've got a fairly good comprehension of religious jargon. Listen, we must come together as a church and not let our churchiness and our very religion be so stuffy that the world can't get through to what we're saying. This world's gravest period of spiritual darkness in the dark ages was at the time when the church and all of its churchiness was at the height and the zenith of its very existence. And sometimes 90 % of our formality and our facade and our sameness is so stiff and so starchy that the unsaved person in the world leaves and takes a breath. That's over. I can get back to being a human being again. It is possible for the moon to eclipse the sun. Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill, a light set on a hill is not to be hidden. It is to shine before the world. And I pray that a warmth and a vision and aggressiveness, a zeal, a camaraderie, a koinonia, a fellowship shall always permeate this church. People come together, they don't know what it is. And I'll tell you what, you know what it isn't. You know, when it's not there. May it always be that there's a warmth, a personality, a rapport, a genuineness about ourselves that communicates our message, the light of the world through us to people. That they don't get scared off and turned off by all of the fuzzy facade of our ecclesiasticism before they have a chance to get through and look at the light of the world. An organ grinder had a little monkey. He loved him. He had almost been his living through the years. One night in a snowstorm, the little thing got loose and got lost. Went from house to house looking in. Finally came upon a little house that had a warm glow in the fireplace. Somehow he found his way in. Put his little paws up on the glass outside of that fireplace. And stood there to warm himself, nearly frozen to death. From the cold of that night. The next morning, just after 9 .30, when the storm was blowing away, and the first rays of the sun were visible as the storm left, they found him and went in to pick him up and rescue him. But he was frozen in stiffness, frozen to death, with his little hands in front of a fire in a fireplace that was artificial. The world is freezing to death. It's looking for the real article, real love, real power, real warmth. Oh, don't let them come to First Baptist Church and sit by my stiffness, my prejudices, my pettiness, my littleness, my high churchiosity, my hurry to get across the street and get home, and freeze to death in front of an artificial fireplace. Let's be warm and friendly.