Sermon on
In the Beginning God
By Brian Pepper
Every day the sun comes up exactly as indicated on the Sunset Calendar and it goes down below the horizon at the very minute it is supposed to.
Have you ever wondered how this is regulated? The planets circle the earth; the earth circles the sun; the sun goes in a circle with all the other heavenly bodies. Everything seems to be going around something else, and the whole mass appears to be rotating around one point. What power holds them there and keeps them from colliding?
This is something that man is unable to fathom, and when I say that
I am talking about the man of the world. But this is not the case for the Christian because the Bible tells us how it came about.
The World had a Beginning
I would like you to turn with me to
Genesis 1:1.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
This world had a beginning and what is more the Bible tells us that God created it. It did not come into being by chance. It was not the result of a big bang in the distant past. This Earth of ours was very carefully planned; there is no question about that. Everything has the stamp of a Master craftsman: the flowers with their colour and beauty; the green grass that covers hill and dale; the shrubs and trees; the forest covered hills; the infinite variety of creatures; the gases which make up the atmosphere. There is a perfect balance of gases to sustain life. They are in exactly the right proportions; the water which is so necessary for life; and the sunshine which is so vital for health and physical well being.
What kind of God made all these things?
Genesis 2:1 says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."
The magnitude of this statement is lost to most of us. It is only as the astronomical scientists tell us that within the range of our biggest telescopes there are at least one hundred million separate galaxies such as our own Milky Way. And the further you go out into space the thicker the galaxies become.
It is only as such a statement sinks into our limited understanding that we begin to wonder, what kind of God is it that made all these things?
God's Creative Power is Unlimited
There are many who believe that this world of ours was the final act of creation. True, it is the last recorded one that we have but we must recognize that in God creative power is unlimited. It is hard to imagine that God would go into retirement after creating this world or that His power would suddenly diminish. God is continually demonstrating His creative power is so many different ways.
God Perpetuates Life
God perpetuates life and every day we have evidence of this for babies are born into this world, and because we are so familiar with this we take it for granted. No one thinks that it is a miracle but it is! No one can explain how it comes about. It is a mystery that only God understands. With all the remarkable advance of science we are no closer today in understanding how life comes about. So few of us realize
that our beating hearts, the throbbing pulse, and every nerve and muscle is an evidence of God’s power. Our bodies are not controlled by some mechanism which once put into motion continues to operate like a clock.
The apostle Paul makes a very interesting statement in
Acts 17:28. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being…” And how true that is. This is being constantly demonstrated. However I have noticed that the Good News Bible makes this statement even clearer, “For in him we live and move and exist…’
Our Dependency upon God
I would like to quote just one statement which comes from the book Counsels on Diet and Foods (EG White), “Our lives and all our faculties belong to Him. He is caring for us every moment; He keeps the living machinery in action: if we were left to run it for one moment, we should die. We are absolutely dependent upon God."
God also Re-Creates
However God not only creates, but He also re-creates, and your life and my life is a testimony of this. The remarkable changes that have taken place in countless individuals lives cannot be accounted for in any other way.
In the Beginning God
Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
In the beginning God. In this statement there are no explanations. We are not told how that God got there in the first place or where did He come from. And God has not given us any information regarding these perplexing questions. But God has made known a lot of things about Himself that we do not recognize.
What we Know about God
I have heard some people say that we are not supposed to understand God. They use the text
Deuteronomy 29:29 where it says, “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law."
It is true that there are some things about God that are secret. They cannot be understood. Perhaps we may never really comprehend them. But there are many things about God that are very clearly revealed in the Holy Scriptures.
God is Love
The one that should give us the greatest comfort and assurance is that the Bible tells us that God is love.
I would like you to notice what it says in
1 John 4:8. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." Just three short words but what a wealth of meaning. You will notice that it does not say that God is loving or that God loves things. It distinctly says that "God is love." And that is love in the absolute: so loving that it would be impossible to be more loving.
God's Love in Sending His Son
1 John 4:10 says, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
We find it difficult to understand how that God could love you and how God could love me to such an extent that He allowed His Son to go through that dreadful experience of Calvary. It was bad enough for the Son to be humiliated the way He was, to be treated so cruelly: but think of the anguish that God suffered in not being able to intervene on His Son’s behalf. God could have said "Stop I have had enough". But He didn’t, why?
Despite the cruelty of man God realized that countless thousands of individuals would respond to that supreme sacrifice of Calvary and one day they would be standing around the throne up in the glory land praising God for His love and sacrifice.
God's Love for us similar to that of Mother and Child
We can understand the love a mother has for her children. How that she is prepared to give her own life for them. It is because she has been so close to them and they were part of her. But it is harder for us to understand how that God could do this. It is because we do not know God. God seems to us humans to be so remote, so far away, and yet that is not the case at all.
There is another text right here in
1 John 4 that helps us to realize that God is closer than you and I think.
1 John 4:16 says, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love: and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.”
So that you might get the message clearer I will read from 'Living Letters'
“We know how much God loves us because we have felt His love and because we believe Him when He tells us that He loves us dearly, God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in Him."
This makes it more real. The fact that God lives in (you) and in (me) is a relationship that is similar as that of mother and child, and you cannot get a closer relationship than that.
If I knew nothing else about God (than this) that God is love that would be sufficient because it means that I can trust Him. Anyone who loves a person as much as God does certainly inspires complete trust.
How to Understand God more
The more you know about a person the more you will understand that person. And that is exactly what Jesus wants us to do about His heavenly Father.
Listen to what He says in
John 14:9. "Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip. He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? "
Jesus is saying "When you saw Me walking through the villages healing the sick and opening the eyes of the blind, making lame men walk and feeding the people,
that is exactly what My Father would be doing if He were here on this earth in My place. When I said to the woman whose accusers dragged her into My presence “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." That is what My Father would say also, after all God is love, and love is able to forgive a multitude of sins.
God is Preparing a Home for us
However this is not all that the Holy Scriptures tell us about God. There is more to encourage us in
John 14:2.
“In My Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."
Because God loves us He is making special provision for our future. There (is a home) waiting up in heaven but even better than that, not only is there a home waiting for us there is something else that thrills my soul.
Notice what the LORD says in
Isaiah 65:17.
“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind."
Now that is certainly a wonderful promise one that should warm every heart.
Now let us look at
verse 21. “And they shall build houses, and inhabit them and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.”
They shall build houses because God loves. He provides and He does that on a very liberal scale: not only with material blessings such as two places to live in, a city residence and a country mansion; food in abundance but most precious of all life eternal.
How to Know and Understand God
A lot of folk reject God. That is because they cannot understand Him, but is that fair? For you will never understand a person unless you get to know them; and you will never understand God unless you get to know Him. And there is only one way to do this: by reading about Him in the Holy Scriptures; and by observing how that Jesus lived out the same principles that God reveals in His character such as love, kindness, mercy, justice and longsuffering.
God Feels the Hurt
Most of us do not realize that the suffering of God did not begin or end at the cross, it began when Adam and Eve rejected God’s way and decided to go their way.
Yes ever since man chose to go his own way God has felt hurt; and because He loves as never man loved He feels that hurt more deeply than we ever could.
Why doesn't God Intervene?
People often say, "If God is all powerful, why doesn’t He do something?
Why doesn’t He step in and take over? He will. He will step in. God knows as well as anyone that this world of ours has gone about as far in sin as it is possible to go. Child abuse - with even parents molesting their own children. Pornography in so many different forms – videos. The Homosexual gays and AIDS and all the rest. The brutal murders that seem to become more horrifying each time we hear of them on TV or radio. People are saying "When is God going to step in? When is He going to take over?"
That is the question.
I want to tell you that God is not blind. God is not deaf. God is not unfeeling. As a matter of fact God is getting angry, very angry. He has almost come to the end of His patience. Finally God is going to say “enough, enough”. This is all I can stand.
As much as I have tried to turn man from his wicked ways they have rejected all I have done for them. They have despised My offer of salvation. They have not heeded the warnings that I have sent them: the earthquakes, the disasters, the famines, even the plague of AIDS has not turned them from their lust and immorality.
God's Strange Act
So now I am going to do something that I do not like doing.
Isaiah 28:21 says, "For the LORD shall rise up as in mount Perazim, He shall be wroth (angry) as in the valley of Gibson, that He may do His work, His strange work; and bring to pass His act, His strange act."
It is a strange act for God who cares so much for the human race; who was willing to give His Son so that men might not perish. But one day soon God is going to step in and say "Enough". I cannot stand it any longer because man's inhumanity to man has gone too far.
God hears Prayers
However it is more than this that motivates God to say "Enough”. It is prayer, the prayer of God’s people praying earnestly for deliverance.
Isaiah 25:9 says, "And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
At long last the day and hour has arrived when God’s people will be on their way to their heavenly home. How they have longed for this time to come. John the Revelator was given a vision of this in
Revelation 19:1.
"And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven saying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the LORD our God."
How thrilling it is going to be for God’s people. What a marvellous experience; what rejoicing will come from every individual as they realize that their prayers have been answered; that all their hopes have been fulfilled. What a praise service there will be.
Isn’t it wonderful to know that God is a God of love, and this brings satisfaction and assurance to each one of us.
In closing I want to thank God for all that He has done for me and I am sure that you would want to thank God for what He has done for you.
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