Understanding Creation: The Creator's Power and Purpose

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Life on our planet demands the existence of the sun. Without the sun, we're done. Now I'm writing my own poems, not as good admittedly but short, despite in my research discovering a few folks who believe that we can actually survive on planet Earth without the sun. I don't want to go into it, but you can find them. I hope you're not one of them, but they believe that we'll be able to live in some cave very close to the Earth's essence, and so we'll be okay. [00:01:03]

The psalmist here says that the sun as it moves across the sky is a picture of the life-giving power of the works of God. This is why incidentally in that little hymn where we sing that heaven above is softer blue and earth around is sweeter green and something lives in every hue that Christless eyes have never seen, and birds with gladder songs or flow and earth with deeper beauty shine since I know as now I know that I am his and he is mine. [00:02:32]

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, the inevitable response of holiness to sinfulness, because in their unrighteousness they notice suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. If we had had the opportunity to say what are you thinking about here, Paul, what do you have in mind, I think he would have said, Psalm 19. [00:04:48]

His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, how in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse. It is so clearly there, he says, the power of God, his invisible attributes, but in their unrighteousness they've suppressed the truth. They've exchanged the glory of God for that which is simply idolatry. [00:05:41]

The suppression of the truth of the majesty of God's work in creation, to suppress that truth has implications that are far beyond the intellectual dimensions of metaphysical thought. They actually impinge upon the way in which a culture finally crumbles because now that there is no creator to whom a man or a woman is accountable, then there is no reason to believe that man has been created in a certain way for a certain purpose. [00:06:35]

Contemporary spiritualities, which are an expression of confusion, radical environmentalism, self-made new age notions, all of which share this, that they are pantheistic, all of which are saying somehow or another that creation is confused with God and therefore that we may make contact with God if we look in on ourselves since we are part of creation. [00:09:33]

The Bible makes it clear that there was no creation before the beginning. There was no creation before the beginning. In the beginning God created, and until he created, there was no creation. So we teach our grandchildren before there was time, before there was anything, there was God, and God made. God spoke and it was. That's Genesis 1. [00:10:20]

The universe was made by him. It is providentially sustained by him, and it is utterly dependent upon him. Okay, this is biblical theology. It was created by him, it is providentially sustained by him, and it is utterly dependent upon him. God is not in any way dependent on his created universe. God is not in any way to be confused with that which he has created. [00:11:38]

God's majesty in creation, God's revelation in creation is sufficient to leave us without excuse when we suppress the truth, but God's revelation in creation is insufficient in bringing us to an understanding of his saving purposes in the person of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that takes his word. [00:16:11]

We must make a great difference between God's word and the word of man. A man's word is a little sound which flyeth into the air and soon vanishes, but the word of God is greater than heaven and earth, yea it is greater than death and hell, for it is the power of God and remains so everlastingly. [00:17:37]

It takes God's revelation in his word, brought home by the Spirit, to the heart of a man or a woman to then look at God's revelation in his works and to declare, as the psalmist declares, this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Don't be afraid of the pushback in our culture. God's word is true. [00:18:25]

God's word accomplishes its purposes. In fact, just as I say that now, I think of the lawyer who wrote the book, Darwin's Black Box, I think. I think it was him, but he tells the story of how he went to, he had an argument with his wife about who was going to the vacation Bible school evening program for the parents, and she said, well, I'm not going. [00:19:21]

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